- You got to let it all go
Let it all go
Let it all go
So it don't burn a hole in your heart.
-- John Hiatt
As the opening sequences play out, leading Linden to the Land, time and again we are reminded, Thomas Covenant is no longer with us. Linden’s has a vital life, but it has grown around the shape of the space where Covenant once was. She finds joy in caring for Jeremiah, whose life is also shaped by loss, the loss of his fingers, the loss of his mind. In the surgery, and then in her home, Linden works to diminish the extent of Jeremiah’s loss, and thereby diminishes the extent of her own. The result is a happiness created through filling each other’s empty spaces, like two halves of different broken bowls which can somehow join well enough to hold water.
When the adventure continues in the Land, we are confronted with loss and the imminence of loss at every turn. Linden has lost Jeremiah to Lord Foul, and she has probably lost her own life in her own world as well. The people of the Land have lost their health sense to Kevin’s Dirt, and they have lost their history to the Masters. Anele has lost his sight, his Staff, and his mind. The Ramen struggle to retain their identity despite losing the Plains of Ra seven thousand years earlier. Ur-viles and Waynhim face the final extinction of their respective species. And the Land itself is threatened with annihilation from many directions.
The Runes of the Earth, then, gets underway with a struggle to reverse the tide of loss: to find, to regain: to save. It begins with a quest to find the Staff of Law which Anele had lost. Covenant asks Linden to “find me”, and, when the book ends, Linden has perhaps succeeded. Larger, more ambitous quests - to find Jeremiah, and to save the Creator’s Earth – remain uncompleted.
In May, I was thinking about what role the Demondim were playing in Runes, and I recalled a line from a movie called “Jacob’s Ladder” (1990). I had seen this movie on cable long ago. It is a bizarre and frightening horror movie, and I admit I kept watching it through pure morbid fascination. And then … and then there was one of those movie moments where everything snaps into place, and you realize you are watching a profound movie instead of a merely fascinating one. One scene of dialog unlocked the meaning of the whole picture, delivered by Louis the friendly chiropractor (Danny Aiello) to the ailing Jacob (Tim Robbins):
Jacob had been living in a fantasy world, in a truly Donaldsonian sense – his nightmares were externalized as if they were real. He had been terrorized by demons that seemed to be out to rob him of the important things in his life. But they were only his fear of losing, of letting go. When Jacob comes to understand his situation and what is ultimately at stake, it changes how he perceives the demons. They become angels, who can now take care of Jacob without his opposition. These heavenly agents no longer appear to be demons, and Jacob finds peace. (I’m trying not to spoil too much; see the reviews, then see the movie.)Eckhart saw Hell too. You know what he said? He said: The only thing that burns in Hell is the part of you that won't let go of life, your memories, your attachments. They burn them all away. But they're not punishing you, he said. They're freeing your soul. So, the way he sees it, if you're frightened of dying and... and you're holding on, you'll see devils tearing your life away. But if you've made your peace, then the devils are really angels, freeing you from the earth. It's just a matter of how you look at it, that's all.
It’s just a matter of how you look at it. Those are words of power when you stand in the right place. When it comes to dealing with loss, how you look at it makes all the difference. You can fight it, or you can let it go. When you fight it, then those things that help you let it go can be perceived as taking it away. And things that seem to be helping you hang on are really working against you. Friend becomes foe, and foe friend: your angels and your demons get all mixed up.
After reading Runes a couple and a half times now, I have discovered that this idea about one’s attitude toward loss – fighting it or letting it go - seeing devils or seeing angels – is very apparent in Runes, and may lead us to understanding The Last Chronicles.
Letting go has been an aspect of the Chronicles since the first. Consider Covenant’s relationship with the Land as it changes from Lord Foul’s Bane to The Power that Preserves. At first, the Land is a devil – it torments him by threatening his sanity and eroding is self-preserving habits. His denial and resistance does only harm. Then there is a change in perception. Covenant comes to see the beauty of the Land not as a seducement but as a treasure, and his own role as being a defender rather than a victim. Before he leaves at last, the Land is an angel – it sustains him with earned self-esteem and a new knowledge of his capabilities. By changing his attitude about what he risked losing, Covenant triumphed.
Loss leads to grief. And, depending on how you look at it, grief can lead to the despair that serves despite, or it can lead to the catharsis that leads to strength. You can be Trell, or you can be Mhoram.
In The Second Chronicles, Covenant again faces loss, but it is more complex. Once he has been bitten by Marid, he has effectively lost his chance to save the Land. The Second Chronicles takes Covenant on a journey of acceptance of that loss. It begins with stubborn refusal, leads through painful recognition, and finally comes to strength: Covenant is able to give his burden to Linden, and triumph.
The Ur-viles and the waynhim are another case in point.
In [u]The Wounded Land[/u] was wrote:Each Waynhim and ur-vile beholds itself and sees that it need not have been what it is. It is the fruit of choices it did not make. From this fact both Waynhim and ur-viles draw their divergent spirits. It has inspired in the ur-viles a quenchless loathing for their own forms and an overweening lust for perfection, for the power to create what they are not. ... But the spirit of the Waynhim is different entirely. They foresaw clearly the price the ur-viles paid, and will ever pay, for self-loathing, and they turned in another way. To seek self-justification. ... In their loneness, they have chosen to serve the Law of which they do not partake.
Here again, we see loss and the attitude towards loss which shapes so much. Both ur-viles and Waynhim see the connection to the natural world that they never had, that they were born without. But their attitudes towards that lack makes all the difference. Where the ur-viles loathe the natural people of the land and fight them, the Waynhim respect and serve the people of the Land.
And there is hope that the ur-viles will learn to see angels where once they saw demons. In fact, The Last Chronicles may depend on it.
Reinterpret their Weird. It’s just a matter of how you look at it. What an intriguing clue. Whatever knowledge changed the ur-viles’ black hearts, I am sure that Covenant will need to learn it.In the Gradual Interview was wrote:It seems fairly obvious the the ur-viles had reinterpreted their Weird and decided to turn against Lord Foul. Why did they do so? Ah, therein lies a tale, without which "The Last Chronicles" might not be posssible.
(11/12/2004)
We know from Donaldson’s interviews that the Land will end when The Last Chronicles end.
But how can we imagine that Covenant’s story will end other than triumphantly?And I call it the Last Chronicles of Covenant and there would be no later sequels since the world would end.INTERVIEW: September 26, 1997
It is clear, then, that before The Final Dark ends, we, the reader, will be at peace with the loss of the Land. It’s just a matter of how you look at it. Somehow, someway, Donaldson’s job will be to show us how to understand the meaning of the end of the Land. So that we can acquire the strength to accept it.
Haven Farm, raized.
Kevin’s Watch, toppled.
As we go on this journey, we will continue to encounter the emblems of loss. I predict that Revelstone will also fall, and, by the end, Mount Thunder itself. (Why else would Jeremiah show us these things, if not to warn us?) We will be tempted into the grief that leads to despair.
And we will meet demons. Demons who appear fearsome because they seem to threaten the land. Skurj. Ceasures. Demondim. Esmer. But we need to watch out for the ones that are really angels, the ones who will help Covenant let go of the Land and triumph. And we will need to be on the lookout for demons posing as angels, helping us hang on too long. Haruchai. Elohim. The Mahdoubt.
When you understand that The Last Chronicles will be about letting it all go, many things make more sense.
Now we understand where the old beggar is in The Last Chronicles. It’s just a matter of how you look at it. We have gotten into the habit of the old beggar choosing someone to save the Land. But the Land will not be saved. So why would the old beggar choose anyone?
And it helps us understand Linden as well. If the Land will not be saved, and the old beggar chose no one, then her presence in the Land is not the Creator’s doing. She is not needed; she may in fact be a danger to the Land. Do her actions seem reckless? She’s still trying to save; she’s not letting go. So she is fighting the demons that she sees, and has not yet learned to cooperate with them instead. Foul’s attempt at breaking the Arch might depend solely on bringing Linden to the Land when she has not been Chosen.
And, finally, we can understand somewhat the dilemma that Covenant will face. In the first Chronicles, his struggle was to learn to save the Land. In the second, his struggle was to learn to let go, and let another save the Land. In The Last Chronicles, his struggle will be to learn to let it all go.
Let it all go, so it won’t burn a hole in his heart.
