Kevin's Watch

i like her better than i like TC, and i like Hile Troy better than both of them.

I simply don't understand it when people say things like this: The Land is just as "there" as ever. And the point is: everything everyone loved about it exists, but it is under attack, it's f'ing dying right before your eyes. The world itself is trapped in a concentration camp. The people aren't "working out issues," they're picking up sticks and pebbles to battle against Armored divisions and Carrier groups.

I respectfully disagree; this isn't how I see it.

In the First Chronicles, we are discovering the Land for the first time along with Covenant, and we see it (despite the threats to it) in all its glory. We see a lot of the daily life of the people of the Land, we spend plenty of time in Revelstone, we get the songs and the lore of the Lords, etc.

And we get significant parts of the story in Illearth War from Troy's perspective, and in Power that Preserves from Mhoram's - we get out of Covenant's head for significant portions of time.

In the Second Chronicles, we rediscover the Land under the Sunbane. We get some (although less) of the daily life of the Land, and we never ever leave Covenant or Linden's head.

In the Last Chronicles, we get a denatured Land, which we see basically none of the daily life of the people (compare the visits to Mithil Stonedown from the First Chronicles to the Last), and we are even more focused on the internal struggles of Linden (and occasionally Covenant in Against All Things Ending) than we ever were in the first two books.

The balance of what's going on in the Land vs. what's going on in the protagonist's head shifts dramatically from the First Chronicles to the Last. That seems really glaring to me.

There's nothing intrinsically wrong with that; that's the story SRD wants to write, and some readers enjoy it or appreciate it more than others.

I just find her very annoying. Why doesnt she get into her head that she cant touch TC or J.
But then I have always found her annoying from the first time she turned up.

I think my custom title says it all.....thank you. *bows*

That's awesome for the Army! But you know what happens to John Conner...

I don't know why but I was able to connect with the TC character far more than I could with Linden. I am completely unable to sympathize with her character in the Last Chronicles (so far, haven't finished) as opposed to a slight sympathy for the in the Second. I try to like her, but with every decision she makes I find my hatred growing

Long live THOOLAH!

This is similar to my experience, CerealKiller, although I quite liked her in the 2nd Chrons.*

I don't really think that the fault lies with Linden herself as much as it does with SRD for the positions that he puts her in. He engages in way too much 'telling' rather than 'showing' when it comes to Linden's relationship with Jeremiah. He simply fails to convince me of her love for her adopted son. This is a huge problem because of how important this relationship is in the story. (And I know that Linden can love because of her patent love of TC in the 2nd Chrons.)

We also spend an inordinate amount of time in Linden's head in ROTE. Most of the time this is unbelievably tedious, it adds nothing to the plot and has the effect of slowing the pace of the plot so that reading becomes a real grind. Again, IMO, the responsibility for this lies with the author rather than the character.

u.

* In spite of appearences, my THOOLAH affiliations are more related to the opportunities they provide me to humorously vent my dissatisfaction with the Last Chrons rather than any deep abiding dislike of Linden.

Really.. I just find her rather dull. For some reason I'd much rather spend time listening to covenant complain than linden. It's hard to justify it but it's true for me. Having two very similar downer characters was just too much I think.. Not to mention that Linden is nowhere near as cool as TC nor does she pull off any stunts as cool as the ones TC pulls off. The last chronicles of thomas covenant revolves around linden avery and that kinda pisses me off..

I voted that I was a male and I hated her, but that's not really the case. If there was a choice of her being annoying, I would have chosen that instead.

I guess my main issue is that I would have expected more from a doctor. Sure she has health sense, and sure she's seeing the corruption of life all around her, but for gods sake, she should be somewhat used to that. If I, as just a normal guy, had to cut open a body, I would puke. As a doctor, she has gone through years of training, cutting open people and cadavers, seeing diseased people, nasty wounds, all kinds of gross stuff that would make a normal person recoil. I would have expected her to get over her initial shock and absorb it a little better.

I'd hate to have had such a weak person as my doctor.

I also understand that she has some emotional baggage, but she was still doing her job in the 'real' world, so it must not have been to debilitating.

Anyway, maybe not full on THOOLAH, but quite possibly a camp follower. I could sharpen swords or shoe horses, and keep the camp ladies company while the battle rages.

Soarback Grayhare wrote: Anyway, maybe not full on THOOLAH, but quite possibly a camp follower. I could sharpen swords or shoe horses, and keep the camp ladies company while the battle rages.

We'll take it. Welcome to THOOLAH!

Soarback Grayhare wrote: Sure she has health sense, and sure she's seeing the corruption of life all around her, but for gods sake, she should be somewhat used to that.

Not that I expect to change your mind, but I think you have misunderstood the nature of her sense, or at least vastly underestimated its effect on her.
It's less like seeing meat rotting and crawling with maggots and more like being forced to eat it. Endlessly. No matter how you try to choke it down and turn away, there is always more of it flooding into your mouth.

I won't go on about weakness. I've done that already. THOOLAH-ites are always unpersuaded.

Absolutely, Vraith. Linden's health sense opened her soul to excoriation by the Sunbane and by evil. These things became intimate and personal assaults. They could not be treated impersonally or clinically by their very nature and by the author's express intent.

Vraith wrote:

Soarback Grayhare wrote: Sure she has health sense, and sure she's seeing the corruption of life all around her, but for gods sake, she should be somewhat used to that.

Not that I expect to change your mind, but I think you have misunderstood the nature of her sense, or at least vastly underestimated its effect on her.
It's less like seeing meat rotting and crawling with maggots and more like being forced to eat it. Endlessly. No matter how you try to choke it down and turn away, there is always more of it flooding into your mouth.

I won't go on about weakness. I've done that already. THOOLAH-ites are always unpersuaded.

I can buy that, and I can buy the authors intent with the character, but just going by my gut when I read the books, I found her a less than sympathetic character. For some reason I didn't have that negative reaction with TC in the first series. I felt sympathy for him and wished the people of the land would just try to make an attempt to understand when they would just fall back on "We can't see you, you are closed to us".

I don't know, maybe it's not Linden. Maybe I just hate women.
<ducks from wife looking over my shoulder. crap>

Soarback Grayhare wrote:

Vraith wrote:

Soarback Grayhare wrote: Sure she has health sense, and sure she's seeing the corruption of life all around her, but for gods sake, she should be somewhat used to that.

Not that I expect to change your mind, but I think you have misunderstood the nature of her sense, or at least vastly underestimated its effect on her.
It's less like seeing meat rotting and crawling with maggots and more like being forced to eat it. Endlessly. No matter how you try to choke it down and turn away, there is always more of it flooding into your mouth.

I won't go on about weakness. I've done that already. THOOLAH-ites are always unpersuaded.

I can buy that, and I can buy the authors intent with the character, but just going by my gut when I read the books, I found her a less than sympathetic character. For some reason I didn't have that negative reaction with TC in the first series. I felt sympathy for him and wished the people of the land would just try to make an attempt to understand when they would just fall back on "We can't see you, you are closed to us".

I don't know, maybe it's not Linden. Maybe I just hate women.
<ducks from wife looking over my shoulder. crap>

I much preferred TC as protagonist than LA (I quite liked her in 2C though, for the most part), but to say that the people of the Land didn't attempt to understand TC isn't fair imo.

Mhoram & Foamfollower in particular both had a lot of insight into TC's character.

In other ways I think TC's own attitude to the people of the Land gave them the impression that he just wanted to be left the hell alone - he wasn't exactly warm and welcoming to many of them - I'd say that fault mainly lay with TC due to his inability to connect with people in general in the wake of his leprosy (a fault which he overcame of course, his rehabilitation being probably the main theme of 1C I reckon).

As for LA, I think part of the problem with comparing her to TC is that the story was originally built to house TC, and as a result most of us felt more at home when he was front and centre.

As a character she lacked TC's scathing sarcasm, also he had a perverse sense of humour too - she rarely had the kind of passion that made TC so compelling, usually affecting a more depressed/indecisive/self-doubting mode.
Covenant also displayed these characteristics at times, but they were counter-balanced by the aforementioned biting humour/sarcasm, or a more complex self-loathing which resulted in some of his 'bargains' and his rejection of things he recognized to be beautiful.

I just felt overall he was a more honed, focused creation.

Also, I always felt like TC's 'real-world' stories in 1C gave us some interesting culture-clash moments which SRD didn't bother to repeat with LA, which I felt was a bit of a shame - maybe the closest thing we got to that was Linden telling people she was a 'healer' in her own world; whereas TC espoused all manner of dark tales about the 'real world' which really underlined his alien-nature to the Land's folk, and therefore made his translation to the Land all the more exotic-yet-grounded (no mean trick!).

With Linden, it was almost as though she could have been born of the Land from the get-go, the people rarely, if ever, commented on her 'otherness' apart from the great powers she wielded and her odd clothes.

Have to go with U.'s take of 8 months ago - Linden is more sinned against than sinning [in the manner of her presentation by SRD and 'the matereal' she is given to work with. Jeremiah is a deeply unlovable charachter even after he 'comes out of his shell' but we have to try to align with Lindens preparedness to sacrifice everything - everything - for this ... person. By the end of 2C Linden had developed a charachter that it *was* possible to empathise with, and I think she started well in TLT. But somehow, somewhere she got bogged down into this 'navel-gazing', and on subject matter that was not easy to sympathise with. She was never alowed to become a center-stage protagonist that you could cheer for [as was TC when he held the pov charachter] and in this I think SRD did her a disservice. It did not have to be this way. TC might have been a boor, but he was never a bore. Poor Linden was too weak to be the former and was cursed by circumstances not of her own making to be the latter.

I like her.
The ramen liked her.
The Ranyhyn bowed to her.
The Ur viles and their brethren supported her.
The Giants liked her.

The masters didn't trust her.
The elohim were afraid of her.
The ravers hated her.
Foul despised her.

So if you don't like her are you a master, elohim, raver or just plain
Foul.

Ur Dead wrote:I like her.
The ramen liked her.
The Ranyhyn bowed to her.
The Ur viles and their brethren supported her.
The Giants liked her.

The masters didn't trust her.
The elohim were afraid of her.
The ravers hated her.
Foul despised her.

So if you don't like her are you a master, elohim, raver or just plain
Foul.

Or a member of THOOLAH.

I always loved Linden, maybe more than Covenant, and I never felt she was as bad as some people suggested. Like, maybe I just understand where she was coming from, even if her personality is a bit different? For me, she was actually more accessible than Covenant -- sure, I understood him, but I really wanted him to get over himself and pull his head out of his ass, honestly (although that also made him a compelling character in some ways).

Sleepless One says above: "As a character she lacked TC's scathing sarcasm, also he had a perverse sense of humour too - she rarely had the kind of passion that made TC so compelling, usually affecting a more depressed/indecisive/self-doubting mode." Yeah, that last bit, along with the dark humor -- maybe it is just the part that made her more accessible to ME... because while in some ways she is not me (on the MBTI, she's typically considered an INFJ, while I'm an INTP/INxP), I totally identify about the depressed/indecisive/self-doubting part. My parents didn't do to me what Linden's parents did to her, in terms of the crazy severity, but they both inadvertently really did crush me and I have fought a lifetime to find strength and move past my indecision and self-doubt. It's still difficult sometimes.

And how Linden believed that possession was the worst possible evil -- that's one of the very formative ideas I came to when young. Linden breaking free of her own possession and then letting Covenant go at the end of WGW (and trusting his heart) as an act of sacrifice and love is something that was a big deal to me and that I can relate to, and it still continues to move me.

---

But that really wasn't my main point. The whole presence of a THOOLAH club is absolutely hilarious -- so please carry on lol. I was laughing hysterically looking at the memes for it when I stopped by briefly a few months ago. It never even crossed my mind that she would inspire such fierce response.