Elena coming on to Thomas

[Barnetto]

Maybe to put more or less the same point slightly differently - I was certainly willing to buy the fact that he was far less culpable of rape given his circumstances and particularly his belief that it wasn't real than would otherwise have been the case (he wasn't despicable, as you say).

However, as the "dream" continued and became ever less dream-like and as TC's involvement with the people of the Land continued to grow (against his will), then a failure to take responsibility for what he had done to Lena, a failure to feel guilt at its effects and consequences at least and a failure to show a willingness to make some reparation, that would certainly have been culpable, unfeeling and, frankly, downright heinous

[Falconer Winterleaf]

Well! What philosophical discussions we have here!

So...perhaps there is a way to NOT talk about to two worst characters in the books?

Eh, I guess not. After all, they are called 'The Chronicles of THOMAS COVENANT", not Linden Avery or Lord Mhoram or whoever else.

*sigh* It should be though. TC is a stupid, whiny, asshole jerk face who can't even deal with the fact that something like magic might POSSIBLY exist...why anyone would choose him to wield white gold, I have no clue....
[/endTCrant]

[jonnyredleader]

That makes no sense, if you hate covenant why read 9 books about him? Both characters are two of the most interesting and influential personas in the series, thanks for your opinion but it really adds no value to the thread discussion
If you really feel this way about these characters you have missed the point of the entire story which is (sigh) sad

[Cambo]

I felt that way about Covenant during most of the first trilogy. It just made the fact that he went on to kick enormous amounts of ass, both literally and as a character, more awesome.

[peter]

Haven't had time to read all the previous postings so sorry if this point has already been made.
Lenas attraction to TC is entierly comprehensable without recourse to considering her a deviant or insane. She is completely in awe of a man 'from another place' who seems no less than a God to her, who is powerfull and mysterious beyond imagination, who she has been fed myths on from day one of her life and who is clearly atracted to her. Why would she not respond in the direct manner of people of the Land, by making her availability clear to TC. She after all has no more known him as a father than he has as a daughter. It all seems clear and consistant to me.

[Holsety]

Being ostracised can make anyone into a monster.

Or one can be a monster already.

Lena, however, does not live in our world. She lives in a world where nerves can be regrown by mud and where the earth itself will speak to you if you know how to listen to it. So why is it that she is so irreparably scarred by Covenants actions? And even more so, why does her daughter carry the mark of the same evil (if you accept that) when both her grandmother and her 'stepfather' both are paragons of virtue as seen in the land (They uphold the Oath of Peace)?

I think the key to Lena's scarring is that she thinks that the rape is a sign of real attachment of Covenant to her (though note that my recollection of the rape itself is that she was horrified by the act itself, so it's not like it blurs the line of consensuality). She's caught up in the myth around Covenant and wants to be a part of it rather than the alternative, which is to be discarded by him. She wants to take the ranyhyn visits as a sign of attachment rather than as a sign of atonement. Lena is wrong at the time, of course, because TC doesn't believe the world he's in is real and has no attachment to "non-real" people. I want to read the series again to look for how this comes to change, but I believe that his growing attachment to Elena is the key to the change in his outlook. Certainly by TPTP, even though he discards the land for a single girl from his world, I remember that he was loathe to abandon Mhoram for the girl but willing to do it - he saw it as an actual choice between two significant things.

And isn't what the Ravers do a spiritual form of that very act?

Maybe. But rape is about control bringing forth submission, ravers bring about necessary physical complicity to anything whatsoever, that's a little more than submission IMO. But I suppose that the effect is the same - I believe that rape victims have often turned to self-hatred or guilt following their rape, and the same might be true of someone who raves following their possession.

*sigh* It should be though. TC is a stupid, whiny, asshole jerk face who can't even deal with the fact that something like magic might POSSIBLY exist...why anyone would choose him to wield white gold, I have no clue....

I always got the feeling that he wasn't chosen to wield the white gold, that he simply wielded it. Or you might say that Joan and he chose each other to wield the white gold sometime before they knew the land existed, possibly before it did exist, and at that time TC might not have been a jerk anyway, as it was pre-leprosy.

[Vraith]

Haven't had time to read all the previous postings so sorry if this point has already been made.
Lenas attraction to TC is entierly comprehensable without recourse to considering her a deviant or insane. She is completely in awe of a man 'from another place' who seems no less than a God to her, who is powerfull and mysterious beyond imagination, who she has been fed myths on from day one of her life and who is clearly atracted to her. Why would she not respond in the direct manner of people of the Land, by making her availability clear to TC. She after all has no more known him as a father than he has as a daughter. It all seems clear and consistant to me.

I think that makes pretty good sense. I would add one thing to it though: part of what she knows about him is his struggle with belief/unbelief. It would make perfect sense to her that the more attached he becomes to her, the more he is attached to the Land, too...
It's very hard to put away the teddy bear you loved so much even if you no longer believe it's your best friend and talks to you...this is like that, only more so...the more he loves her, the less it matters if he believes she's real or not.

[jonnyredleader]

TC was definately chosen and the perfect man to carry the White gold, it does make me laugh when people still question this, it's been said on multiple threads and from Srd himself that anyone else would have gone charging around ending up serving despites plans, like Kevin, Elena, Linden and Troy to name a few and if this is all or partly in covenants head then how could it be anyone else. The same logic applies to Elenas influence, TC realised that imaginary or real Elena and the land were worth saving if he wanted to save himself. It all amounts to the same thing.

[Cambo]

TC is the white gold. It's an extension of himself. His tool. Of course, this brings problems later when the tool cannot exceed the limitations of the wielder.

[peter]

Haven't had time to read all the previous postings so sorry if this point has already been made.
Lenas attraction to TC is entierly comprehensable without recourse to considering her a deviant or insane. She is completely in awe of a man 'from another place' who seems no less than a God to her, who is powerfull and mysterious beyond imagination, who she has been fed myths on from day one of her life and who is clearly atracted to her. Why would she not respond in the direct manner of people of the Land, by making her availability clear to TC. She after all has no more known him as a father than he has as a daughter. It all seems clear and consistant to me.

I think that makes pretty good sense. I would add one thing to it though: part of what she knows about him is his struggle with belief/unbelief. It would make perfect sense to her that the more attached he becomes to her, the more he is attached to the Land, too...
It's very hard to put away the teddy bear you loved so much even if you no longer believe it's your best friend and talks to you...this is like that, only more so...the more he loves her, the less it matters if he believes she's real or not.

yes......and the more likely he is to save (rather than damn) the Land in it's hour of need, which after all was Elena's over-riding desire, to the point of her own destruction.

[shadowbinding shoe]

What's struck me about Elena was the reversal of roles in their story. Throughout, she was the mature one while he was the childish one. Elena was the one taking care of Covenant.

The time factor was part of the reason but the bigger part of it was that she was in many ways more emotionally mature and balanced at that point than him. Her mother wasn't the big influence in her life, it was Triok who taught her her morals and beliefs. Through him she learned to accept her stained heritage and forgive Covenant for what he did to her family. He was her father in truth. What she got from her mother was an obviously false bigger-than-life image of Thomas Covenant the heroic and valiant hero and I think she wanted to make him a little like that image to validate her mother in some sense and also herself of course.

[jonnyredleader]

It was one of the confusing things for me, more so than the father daughter thing.
She displayed such emotional balance in all other areas of her life but when it came to covenant and foul she had such emotional extremes. Then again he was the hope she had dreamed of, the only real way to defeat foul, she mentions that she believed foul wouldn't be defeated in war.
She does teach him to love through her love for him and ultimately achieves the victory she hoped for.

[wayfriend]

Reading Shoe's reply, I wonder ... is there anyone besides me who believes that Elena started with a plan to seduce Covanant in order to manipulate him, and then fell in love with him as the execution of this plan?

Elana was ambition.

It seems clear from events that she had intended to give herself to Covenant long before she met him. I don't think hero worship explains it. I think she was motivated to save the Land by swinging Covenant towards their side. As was said, any attachment Covenant had to her translated to him saving her Land. She decided that her love would be the best way to make that happen. And then she gave her love.

In essense, she gave her love as a matter of calculation. It was nonetheless real love. Does anyone want to argue that a woman can't do that? Didn't think so.

I think the fact that he was supposedly a hero helped. I think the fact that he was needy helped. But I think that the notion of being the woman who can tend the needy hero and enable him to save the Land is an enticement to an ambitious woman. To be "the woman behind the man" so to speak.

So was Elena "the mature one"? Yes, she wanted to nurture Covenant, to be what he needed. Because she loved him, but also because in her mind she was saving the Land thereby.

But to Elena, being the woman behind the man was the second best outcome. The best outcome to her was to save the Land herself. Her ambition demanded it.

This is why Covenant's bargain worked! If she had really loved and supported Covenant unreservedly as the Land's foredestined hero, then she would not have accepted the focus of the Land's rescue from him, she would have supported his being the focus. She told herself, told Covenant, that she was "preserving him" - after all, didn't Covenant aver time and again that he didn't want to save the Land, that the notion harmed his core being? But this was really a slim excuse for following her ambition to save the Land herself. After all, how can you fall in love with a mythical hero and yet not want him to be a mythical hero when the time comes?

[jonnyredleader]

It's a plausible observation, certainly one that does happen in the real world and I do think that Elena wanted covenants support and would be more direct and persuasive about that than mhoram or any of the other characters.
But there are some important things to remember, covenant wasn't just some hero to her, they have a direct connection and it would have been something she lived with her whole life, it would be easy for her to fantasise about this and already have the grounding of love there along with her hero worship. I didn't sense manipulation in her tender moments with him she seemed genuinely troubled when he was in pain and acted as her mother would. she didn't tell him to do anything, never required anything from him even when she was at her wits end. She offered herself to him but when he declined she didn't up the ante as someone with a manipulative plan would do,
Her stepping into take his place to me was out of love for him and her duty
to the land. Mhoram was a special man, able to put free will first even at the expense of his love for the land, Elena was less willing to leave it all up to fate but I don't think she planned to manipulate covenant, not in that way.

[shadowbinding shoe]

It was one of the confusing things for me, more so than the father daughter thing.
She displayed such emotional balance in all other areas of her life but when it came to covenant and foul she had such emotional extremes. Then again he was the hope she had dreamed of, the only real way to defeat foul, she mentions that she believed foul wouldn't be defeated in war.
She does teach him to love through her love for him and ultimately achieves the victory she hoped for.

What always intrigued me about her was her ambiguous otherworldly stare. What was that about? Knowing her end, maybe the answer is that there had always been a touch of insanity to her but Triok's parenting managed to cover it by imbuing the wisdom of the Land's people on her. But beneath the calm surface there was another outlook, one of absolutes.

Her love for Covenant stemmed from his imperfections, I think. There was a false image of him that he never lived up to and there was all the pain he caused her family. She knew that without Triok's fathering she would have been no better than Covenant. Probably much worse than him. She saw something of herself in him (unsurprisingly). she wanted to gift him with the insight she benefited from. She tries to show him various aspects of the Land's magic in the hopes that he would grasp these truths and in the end herself as well. Her own flaws muddy the waters of course but that's the root of it.

I don't think she was the deceptive type, Wayfriend. If she was really driven by ambition as you say, she wouldn't delegate the fight against Foul to Kevin, she would have tried to fight him herself.

Maybe if she understood Covenant's need to be a hero she would have forced him into the role but I don't think that would have worked too well.

[peter]

In essense, she gave her love as a matter of calculation. It was nonetheless real love. Does anyone want to argue that a woman can't do that? Didn't think so.

Thats a very interesting hypothesis Wayfriend, and one that would almost certainly require a re-reading in order to pull into focus. Is that how it struck you at once or has the idea revealed itself over sucessive readings? It would certainly cast Elena's behaviour toward Covenant in a new light if one takes it that her explicit aim was one of seduction from the outset - that love came afterward almost as an 'unintended consequence' of a pre-planned strategy.........

WOW! Where's my copy of TIW......

[wayfriend]

peter ... it's something I have come to believe over time. I think when you first read it, you don't question the why of things so much.

But upon reflection, I just can't accept the notion that Elena's romantic love for Covenant could happen "naturally".

For one thing, Covenant simply wasn't present; when he finally meets Elena, my impression is that she has already made her choice in the matter. There are subtle clues in how she "honors" Covenant, but in intimate not public ways, that tells me she is already on a course.

For another thing, Covenant's vast importance would naturally give rise to awe or fascination, but not romantic love. Just my opinion there.

And there are forces that would counter the natural rise of romantic love. Could Elena fall into romantic love with the same person her mother has fallen for?

Maybe I am missing something that would make this seem more possible.

Also, to me, Elena's other vision does not just represent hatred, but it also represents ambition. She doesn't just want Foul ended, she wants to be the one who ends him.

Still, in the GI, Donaldson says Elena's love arises from "attraction/hero worship", coupled with being "unbalanced". But, to me, that only creates a path to go down, but not a motivation for going down it.

Later, he says, "Almost EVerything that she's ever experienced has made him real to her AS A HERO, a figure of power, an enormously desirable source of redemption." When I read that, I think that Donaldson is saying that Elena sees a use for Covanant, one that fulfills her "desires". But is this desire a desire for Covenant or for ending Foul? I let the otherness of her stare answer that one.

As to her ambition, in the GI we find (in the very last post):

First, the character herself. I think it's fair to say that she was "reckless" (rushing to use a power which she had never studied, never learned to understand) and "arrogant" (trying to solve the whole problem at one stroke by herself, so eager to save the Land herself that she never looked closely at the nature of Kevin's flaw).

[jonnyredleader]

haha that was my question to SRD, trying to get some clarity on the sort of views some watchers have on Elena. From SRDs response he basically says the material supported my views of Elena, that the lords, covenant and especially the ranyhyn would not have been fooled by an ambitious, reckless, power hungry manipulator that some watchers views of Elena are. On the other hand she is not entirely whiter than white and did make some foolish mistakes, but ambition like that is a contextual thing.
All the lords would have been ambitious people to go through the process of lordship or else they would have remained content in stonedowns and woodhelvens. Lena was ambitious wanting more than the life of a cattle herd, Atiaran was ambitious. But ambition in the boardroom to gain power isnt the same as ambition like mother teresas or anyone wanting to do something good in the world.
Girls, women and men all fall in love with heros, long before they meet. Look at the movie/popstar celebrity culture we have. Covenant was a rockstar in the Land, he was more than that, he was all these things and a part of who she was. I can easily see how she would already be in awe and wonder of him, to actually meet a hero from another world who held the only power to save their beloved land, a hero her family had a direct link with, growing up and hearing her mother revere him.
People fall in love after seeing a photo of someone on the internet, is it such a leap?

[peter]

Had Elenor been a 'recless power hungry manipulator' it would - given the people of the Lands 'sight' - have been impossible for her to conceal it. While her status as TC's daughter may still have won her the position of High Lord even in the light of such a failing, it seems unlikely to me that Morham (at least) would have allowed her the freedom to hang herself as she most definatively managed to do by the calling forth of the spectre of Kevin. Morhams love (was it also slightly 'romantic'?) and respect for Elena would never have allowed this to happen if it had been broadcast in her nature, visible for all to see. For this reason at least, I think we have to give Elenor the credit that her motivations, however misguided, were at least pure, and I think this has to extend even to her 'coming on' to TC. This was a gift offered out of love - a means of saying 'there is nothing you can take from me that I will not give you freely, including that which was rent from my mother. This time take it freely as a gift and with love'.

[Vraith]

Really, I think it's simple in concept though dense in implications/complexity when it meets the world and people.
She is born and raised to love extravagantly...the Land, TC, all of it...everything that happens to her [from what she hears about TC, encounters with the Rhany, etc.] supports/enhances that. And with the talent for power to do something about it. But having/being that simply overwhelms her insight/understanding...blinds her to the flaw. She really loves TC...at first naively, Ideally...later personally/concretely. Just because there are good side-effects if TC loves her does not mean she doesn't also simply want him to return her love. And when she says in the situation quoted above that she offers freely what he took from her mother she isn't "manipulating" him in any normal sense, she is protecting him.
And she doesn't fail because she's ambitious, manipulative...but because she misunderstands.