Kevin's Watch

Donaldson has said that the world and characters of the Land are built from things inside the visiting characters Covenant and Linden.

In the first chronicles we had Mohram representing Covenant's compassion, Foamfollower his literary inspiration and friendship, the ramen representing his image of Joan and so forth.

How do the Haruchai Masters of the third chronicles express a facet of Linden? The Haruchai attitude in the Last chronicles is pretty annoying and nonsensical to most of us. They're not interested in protecting the beauties of the Land, they're interested in going through the motions of fighting for it. Their principles are more important to them than the objects around which those principles were built.

There is a striking parallel between these attitudes and Linden's concerning the patients at her clinic and her own adopted son. She takes care of them without believing that she will ever heal their mental illnesses. She feels guilty for not acting when they burned their hands in the flame and as penance keeps their bodies physically healthy as best she can.

She never attempts to treat them in supernatural ways even though that was the way they became ill in the first place. There are no priests called to pray over them or psychics. When a man comes into her clinic that shows such a supernatural ability to heal them mentally she doesn't want him anywhere near her patients. Instead of trying to bargain with him to get help from him she bars him out. Just like the Masters in regard to Anele, Linden insists she'll manage on her own and want to get rid of him.

The Haruchai represent trust in absolutes.

But did Roger ever seem like a chance for Joan's restitution? I didn't see it. He may have roused her from a coma, but he treated her like his posession when he did.

I always thought of the Haruchai as an embodiment of Covenant's strict service to himself -- that is, the unyielding routine that he had to daily carry out to survive (visual checks, leper proofing his house, etc.) and the iron will to carry on in the face of despair.

Icarus wrote:I always thought of the Haruchai as an embodiment of Covenant's strict service to himself -- that is, the unyielding routine that he had to daily carry out to survive (visual checks, leper proofing his house, etc.) and the iron will to carry on in the face of despair.

Each chronicle had a different version of the Haruchai. Your explanation work in the first chronicle (though I have a different interpretation of them) and maybe in the second chronicle which would have encompassed both Covenant's vision and Linden's but in the third chronicle Linden had been the only protagonist so far. So their current behavior must be explained through her.

Ah, but don't forget how much the Haruchai and Linden didn't really like eacother throughouut the second chronicles.

If the Haruchai from the Second Chronicles were on the Watch..they'd all be members of THOOLAH....they didn't like her, because she wasn't Thomas Covenant.

And Linden didn't return any love towards them...
she saw them as arrogant, and self absorbed.

Butnowadays..the Haruchai respect her...but they still don't really like her.
And perhaps that it what they represent to her now.
The (in the real world) she's no saint...but she still deserves respect, even from those who don't like her.

I talked about this last night with my wife...

In the 2nd Chronicles, the Haruchai were loyal towards TC and unforgiving towards LA. This works perfectly as reflections of the characters; TC was always loyal to his own ideals, and LA could never forgive herself.

If Donaldson continues with the idea that peoples of the Land are reflections of characters from the "real" world (and why wouldn't he?), then the attitude of the Haruchai in the third Chronicles is truly worrying, because of what it implies about Linden.

Spot on Rigel! Wait...are you inside my head...aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

the Masters are definitely a foil for Linden in the sense of embodyin the worst things about her -- mainly her self-reliance/arrogance.

I'm emphatically not a member of THOOLAH -- count me with LA.

But, there's this troubling aspect of ehr psyche where she shuts people out and tells them she knows better. It has to do with what being a doctor means, I think. She has perception, but sometimes skips form there to action without passing through understanding. Throughout the second and last chrons, we've seen countless examples where her use of power for healing is portrayed as fundamentally *invasive* and in the last chrons she's frequently tries to keep her firends out of her struggle and conceals thigns form them "for their own good."

The Masters are a caricature of the domineering, "doctor-knows-best" streak that occasionally comes out in her personality.