The Gap Into Conflict: The Real Story - Chpt 9

[Believer]

Angus needs to get money from somewhere to get repairs and supplies for his ship.

He chewed on that for a while, until the implications made him feel cornered and murderous -- more like his old self than he had felt for days.

Again having to feed on his rage, his way of hiding from the insecurities that plague him, his desire to be loved.

And he trains Morn to crew for Bright Beauty. Along the way he learns that Starmaster wasn't specifically after him, they were just poking the bushes and flushed him out incidentally. So they hadn't told anyone they were after him.

That left him an opening. He could bluff his way back to Com-Mine.

In the sickbay he studied her face, drilled her, dredged the information he needed out of her, and drove himself between her legs in spasms of fear and hope . Eagerly, avidly, he watched her for signs that she was falling in love -- that she was growing dependent on her helplessness.

You know, I think the whole, make him do repulsive, evil things while sowing the seed of sympathy thing is a little transparent here. Is it just me? I know it's important for the remaining story, but...

I'm also not thrilled about evil coming from insecurity. I grant that it's a common enough story, but the question of evil doesn't always have such easy answers.

[/quote]

[frankELF]

I agree. There are no excuses for Angus's evil actions. No matter what our past contains, we are still responsible for our actions.

I was raped as an 11-year-old boy by a priest I trusted and revered. But I turned out pretty good. Not perfect, of course. Donaldson, in this series, seems to suggest that fate or our past environment determines what our action are. Determinism, I think it's called. Even when characters change as the story unfolds, it's not by free will, it's by the existing characteristics of others, not by things they consciously do.
Feel free, anyone, to chime in on my damning of the culture of determinism I think prevails.

One aside. In his tragedies, Shakespeare (another determinist) made his protagonists have a negative fatal flaw bringing about their downfalls. Donaldson has his evil characters have a positive fatal "flaw" that brings them to doom here.

Whatcha think of that, folks?

Somewhat incoherently yours,
Frank

[Auleliel]

I don't think it's so much the past events determining what the characters do, but more the way the characters choose to deal with the events.

[frankELF]

I don't think it's so much the past events determining what the characters do, but more the way the characters choose to deal with the events.

I agree.
But the protagonists [plural] all have to deal with things that they don't know the truth about. During the "present," I mean, within the plot of the story.

Kind of like life. Hmm.

[Usivius]

Donaldson, in this series, seems to suggest that fate or our past environment determines what our action are. Determinism, I think it's called. Even when characters change as the story unfolds, it's not by free will, it's by the existing characteristics of others, not by things they consciously do.
Feel free, anyone, to chime in on my damning of the culture of determinism I think prevails.

I agree that it seems that way ... SRD seems to be using it as an excuse. But I think later on in the series, he gives hints that it's not so simple --- that Angus IS not a good guy or truly sympathetic one because he had a bad child hood. He actually MADE BAD CHOICES. And this is reflected in another 'major' character who we learn had a 'similar' bad upbringing, but made good choices in his life and became a great man.

SRD gives us the badness in Angus' past, not as a means to explain why he is bad, but to show us how weak a man he truly is not to rise above it as other characters do (and other real world people do -- thanks frankelf).

[Auleliel]

[frankELF]

Donaldson, in this series, seems to suggest that fate or our past environment determines what our action are. Determinism, I think it's called. Even when characters change as the story unfolds, it's not by free will, it's by the existing characteristics of others, not by things they consciously do.
Feel free, anyone, to chime in on my damning of the culture of determinism I think prevails.

I agree that it seems that way ... SRD seems to be using it as an excuse. But I think later on in the series, he gives hints that it's not so simple --- that Angus IS not a good guy or truly sympathetic one because he had a bad child hood. He actually MADE BAD CHOICES. And this is reflected in another 'major' character who we learn had a 'similar' bad upbringing, but made good choices in his life and became a great man.

SRD gives us the badness in Angus' past, not as a means to explain why he is bad, but to show us how weak a man he truly is not to rise above it as other characters do (and other real world people do -- thanks frankelf).

Right! Now I remember that other man who had a bad history but who turned out great. I've read the series before, too.

Graciasmercithanks. (Pretending I can actually speak other languages is one of my tragic flaws.)
Frank

[Auleliel]

Would the language in this case be Frankish?

[frankELF]

Would the language in this case be Frankish?

Yes, Auleliel!

hehe

And Thomas covenant could speak and be understood by people in SRD's world because he was so outLANDish himself, which is also the name of the language spoken there . . . OutLandish.

Self-groan.

Frank