wayfriend wrote:
But my gut instinct has always been that she grew up being the daughter of the ur-Lord, and that had to instill in her a messiah complex.
I haven't thought about this in a long time, so I can't be as insightful as I could if I'd just read the book. But I think this is a very good point. Think about that: the daughter of Berek reborn. That's got to mess with any kid. Now, throw in the fact that this "Berek" figure raped her mother . . . that contradiction would only exacerbate the stress of being such a unique child. There's the pride of being the ur-Lord's child, combined with the shame of her conception. Throw in some anger for how her mother was treated, and the way Covenant turned her family into the most disfunctional family in the Land's history, and we're talking major f-ed up child.
Given this family status, she was already set up to misinterpret the Ranyhyn's gift. And that misinterpretation fueled her madness even further.
So when she finally meets Covenant, she meets him outside of the "proper" temporal flow of her time. Covenant isn't old enough to be her father. He's old enough to be her lover. Imagine going back in time and meeting your own mother . . . and she's hot! Ok, that's very weird; if you don't want to think of your own parent, think about Back to the Future. That kind of conflict. In addition, lots of very young kids have a thing for their mother or father. You know, Freud and all that. Oedipus. So Elena meets her father--the Land's savior--at a time when she is sexually mature, and carrying all the above baggage.
I think that she is so intent upon suppressing her rage at him (possibly without even knowing it), that she overcompensates like crazy. She is a walking, breathing child of paradox, and she tries to repress one half of that paradox. Thus, not only does this manifest itself in terms of
too much acceptance of Covenant (to put it mildly), but the cognitive dissonance unseats her sanity.
This is one of the most interesting relationships in the entire Chronicles. From Covenant's perspective, it's even more complicated. She is High Lord, his daughter, a beautiful woman (who might not be real . . . so why the hell not?
), and a way out of his own personal paradox of action/inaction. She represents a way for him to put off taking a stand.
This kind of temptation is downright insidious. Donaldson is the devil.
I suspect at the end we will all think our life was a little on the short side.
)
You've convinced me, Savor Dam! From now on, EarthBlood will no longer be a main ingredient in my Bloody Mary mix! 
(Unintended consequences, indeed!)