Kevin's Watch

I haven't met evidence of a matriarchal system within the Giantish society (and I've perused the paragraphs featuring Coldspray & co a lot; the heck, I'm probably the only person who has ever even drawn these 3rd chrons Swordmainnir...), merely that they uphold a very functional gender equality among one another. Coldspray tells in FR that if Exalt were fully in possession of his wits and their current quest a Search, he would've been easily named The First due to his aptitude. It's not something reserved only for women. In the same chapter she explains about a difference in their tempers, which leads the Giantesses to pursue more fleeting goals like warcraft. Decision-making is left to Giantclaves, rarely to individuals.

shadowbinding shoe wrote:Thinking about it, was there any truly evil female character in the books so far? 'She' for example doesn't count. She's a victim that's not at fault supposedly.
So is Donaldson chauvinistic in his evil characters composition?

I'm theorizing that she's Diassomer Mininderain. That may seem like too obvious a feint, though.

I'm theorizing that she's Diassomer Mininderain. That may seem like too obvious a feint, though.

I think you're right (though I think she's also an apotheosized Joan). But DM wasn't evil, was she? She was a victim of sorts, I thought. Betrayed ... though her betrayal may not be clear cut. Damn, I can't remember the details anymore. Ah, the need to reread.

I was unclear about how being betrayed has to destroy a woman. Maybe I missed a specific reason She should lose herself to madness and cruelty over it, but why would she just not have some ice cream, watch a few movies and then go sleep with someone else? I guess it is because she should mirror joan for the story to retain the potential of a dream, but why is Joan destroyed, too? Was she mentally weak to begin with? I think joan was a prop to build TCs character early books and then got used as a new plot device later- that not much thought went into her initially. Certainly a lot of women destroyed by men in these books. Maybe you could say TC was destroyed by Joans betrayal, too, but we got to see him grow from it whereas the women remain static and broken till TC 'fixes' them with a knife like he fixed Joan. This assumes that She will be fixed later along with Elena.

Tefazipipo wrote:

shadowbinding shoe wrote:Thinking about it, was there any truly evil female character in the books so far? 'She' for example doesn't count. She's a victim that's not at fault supposedly.
So is Donaldson chauvinistic in his evil characters composition?

I'm theorizing that she's Diassomer Mininderain. That may seem like too obvious a feint, though.

DM is part of She, but is not She. I think Z is close - I wouldn't be surprised if we find out She is Joan Covenant.

From AATE: “But being trapped in Time is different for Love than it is for Despite.” Covenant frowned again. “This is all just words.” Then he resumed. “It outraged the Despiser, but it made Diassomer Mininderain insane. The Despiser tricked her. And the Creator can’t free her without dismantling what he created. She’s sort of like Joan, in a way. If words made any sense. If Joan weren’t so human and frail.”

“The Despiser has to cause as much pain as he can while he tries to get free. It helps him fight off his own despair. Diassomer Mininderain feeds off anything that’s still capable of love. She eats—But that’s not all she does. She still hates. She had as much to do with making the merewives as Kastenessen’s mortal lover did. And she’s involved in Kevin’s Dirt somehow.”

So, looks like Diassomer could be broken largely due to being imprisoned in Time.

As for Joan, it could be the combination of the shock from everything going wrong so terribly, the shame from leaving Covenant in such a situation and the Lord Foul's influence.

Ananda wrote:Maybe I missed a specific reason She should lose herself to madness and cruelty over it, but why would she just not have some ice cream, watch a few movies and then go sleep with someone else?

Silly, silly. They don't have movies in this world. Nor, presumably, ice cream!

Unlike LF, SWMNBN was imprisoned in the depths of a mountain and made to sleep. The tale of Diassomer Mininderain is based upon her. She can't go out and interact with the world, but it can interact with her. The Auriference is in her, came too close and absorbed. Emereau Vrai, Esmer said "dared to draw upon this ancient need for the creation of the merewives. Therefore she was consumed." So the woman doesn't have to physically go there.

And Covenant tried to reach her. "You've forgotten who trapped you here! It wasn't the Creator. He loved you then. He loves you now. .... It was the Despiser! ... You've forgotten that he made you like this. ... He's your worst enemy, but you serve him because you've forgotten!"

There's a bit of a habit to throw around concepts that belong to the Bad Writing/Illustrating Contests... If you see someone talking about The Guitar of Law, don't worry about it. Now I have an amusing mental image of SWMNBN nomming on liters and liters of chocolate ice cream and watching Twilight...

Yeah, see my current sig, it even has a link to the contest) The Bad Writing Game

And ice-cream should be not too hard to make, another thing is Twilight. I'd think such a thing is not too likely to be made in the Land, and that SWMNBN is not really likely to enjoy it. Though that could make a funny idea for those same contests, even if I'd rather not write about that even for parody purposes. Perhaps some other film, I already have some ideas

As for the serious reasons SWMNBN could go insane, see my post above, though maybe I should explain what I mean more specifically.

Whatever they may look like currently, Lord Foul and SWMNBN are not humans and being inside time is not their proper initial state, it lessened them, and they reacted differently, though badly in both cases. Like Covenant said "It outraged the Despiser, but it made Diassomer Mininderain insane."

For some reason, I could totally see She, or at least a part of Her, hogging on horrible schmaltz-novels and swooning over Edward Cullen. Perchance that's just me.

Frostheart wrote:For some reason, I could totally see She, or at least a part of Her, hogging on horrible schmaltz-novels and swooning over Edward Cullen. Perchance that's just me.

A part of Her - maybe, some of those She sucked in...

What??? No ice cream and cinema in the land???? This sounds less like Covenants dream and more like a nightmare. How can this be? Well, at least she can still go out to a dance club and go home with some guy (a raver, if it was a techno club).

heeheehee

Also no internet, no coffee, no rock music, no video games, no internet...