Hi Jenn. Hi everyone. Better late than never, right?
Right?!?!
I think it's apropos that Jenn got to do these two chapters back to back. The one and the other fit together inextricably.
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Preparing notes for this chapter, I reread the end of the previous one. And I noticed something important.
With the full force of the Power of Command, she demanded of her companions, "Show me the truth!"
She demanded of her companions. She didn't command the Earth itself, or Truth itself. She commanded her companions. And that is why the only Truth Linden is shown is the truth about Roger and Jeremiah. This has always bugged me, as I thought she should have gotten more for her One Swig. But now I see why she got what she got, no more, no less.
Equally unfortunately, she said "Show" and not "Tell". We can't be sure if anything Roger said is the truth or a lie. It's just the admission of someone caught out, and it's as likely to be covering up further falsehood to limit the damage as it is a caught-in-the-act sort of guilty confession.
(I wonder if this fact MIGHT bear somewhat on the appearance of Jeremiah's wounds. It may be that this is the way that Linden is "shown" that Jeremiah's wounds are still, literally, threatening his life somehow. Then again, if Truth includes Metaphor, then we'd have to interpret
everything Linden is shown as a potential metaphor. ... And I'll leave it to lurch to tell me if Truth encompasses Metaphor, or if Metaphor is antithetical to Truth.)
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Regarding the title of the Chapter:
dlbpharmd wrote:This chapter, entitled "Transformations" might have been more appropriately entitled "Revelation" as we learn so much that remained unanswered over the past book and a half. Roger!
Looking for the inevitable dual purpose to the chapter title, I cannot help but notice that (a) Roger and Jeremiah are visibly transformed as their illusion is dropped; (b) Melenkurion Skyweir is transformed by an earthquake that splits it from pinnacle to root; (c) The Staff of Law is transformed by the battle, it is blackened; (d) Kastenessen, the chapter says, "had turned Roger into an entirely new kind of halfhand," which is transformation.
And finally, (e) Linden has been transformed in this chapter.
They have done this to my son! Linden's transformation is described more fully in the next chapter, so I won't say more about it here.
Oh, and yes: Roger, you bastard!
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Someone now needs to compile a list of all the clues that it was Roger all along, clues that we couldn't really talk about earlier in the dissection. Some of them, looking back on them, were really good.
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Another mystery is closed.
Cameraman Jenn wrote:We find out that Thomas Covenant is not actually Thomas Covenant but instead he is Roger Covenant and he has become a mortifying new breed of "halfhand."
The answer is: Roger. Yes, Roger is the Halfhand that the
Elohim warned everyone about.
How could we have guessed? We had no clues. And a lesson on Donaldson is given to us: when he is faking to the left and faking to the right with ambiguity, leaving us to think we know the choices if not the answer, he surprises us with an attack from left field. Ambiguity as misdirection.
I call it the "Z Factor" - when Donaldson has you wondering if it's A or B, he hits you with Z. Of course I expect him to use it again.
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Regarding Jeremiah's "status":
Menolly wrote:I have always pictured Jeremiah as still being in "limbo." Not fully materialized either in The Land or in Linden's world. So, perhaps he is also outside of "time" in a different sense, and the wounds remain.
This chapter makes it clear that Jeremiah died in the real world.
He had died in his natural world. Like Linden: like Joan. He would never be
freed from the Land. Nothing less than the Power of Command has shown us this. He now exists in solely in the Land, but also he is free now to become something larger and more transcendental than he has ever been before.
Again, there is another possibility here for his mysterious leaking wounds. He's not really human any more. He's beyond human, or at least he could become beyond human at some point. Perhaps his leaking wounds are something like Joan's pounding ... an expression of something inside himself, perhaps something that he cannot communicate. His wounds may be a magical manifestation of internal dilemmas.
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There's a mention of the Runes horserite in this chapter.
In [u]The Runes of the Earth[/u] was wrote:And with that knowledge, they caused her to experience what was being done to her son. ... she saw Jeremiah's plight as Hyn and Hynyn wished her to see it: as if he were simultaneously herself occupied by a Raver and Thomas Covenant lost in the stasis imposed by the Elohim. ... she reached - or would reach - into him with her health-sense, seeking the place where his mind still lived. ... when she reached out to Covenant and Jeremiah, trying to restore them with herself, the Worm of the World's End squirmed from Covenant's mouth, and her son's dear face seemed to break open and become vile, bitter as Despite.
And now the vision in the horserite has come to pass.
Still her son was effectively possessed. The Ranyhyn had done what they could to forewarn her.
We are left gasping with the question, what will come to pass if Linden reaches into Jeremiah to free him?
A clue to this question is contained in one of Rogers assertions:
Foul has promised to take us with him. And he'll keep that promise. He needs your kid. Hell, he owns him. How else do you suppose the croyel got access to everything your kid knows, everything he can do? He's belonged to Foul for years.
Here we are introduced to the idea that Jeremiah may not be an innocent victim of Foul. That he may, in fact, have chosen Foul over Linden. If so, then he may not be willing to be freed from Foul. Linden may unleash who knows what danger if she tries to pry him from Foul's sway.
Donaldson reminds of this recently in the GI.
In the Gradual Interview was wrote:Why do you suppose Linden is so obsessed with whether or not Jeremiah has indeed been "claimed" by the Despiser? Where do his hidden loyalties actually lie? Is he the croyel's victim or the croyel's partner? This is crucial.
(10/11/2008)
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Andelain is discussed several times in this chapter.
Relayer wrote:What's the relevance or purpose of the croyel stabbing Linden in the hand? Simply to distract Linden's question about Andelain? It seems to be more than that.
Probably. Andelain is pretty important.
"For one thing, you brought this on yourself. All of it. If you hadn't gone to get that damn Staff - and if you hadn't told Esmer you wanted to visit Andelain - nothing that's happened since would have been necessary. You forced us to intervene. Once you had the Staff, we had to keep you out of Andelain."
This whole trip into the past was provoked because Linden and the Staff arriving in Andelain threatens Roger's and Foul's plans. Roger let's this slip, and then refuses to say anything more about Andelain. When Linden asks, again, "What was so important about keeping me away from Andelain?", Roger stabs her hand. When Linden recovers, Roger changes the subject.
I think I have a good guess what it is that they fear Linden will do.
What we discover at the end of the book that she did do.
At one point, someone wondered what her reason for going to Andelain was. This is the answer. If I was Linden, I'd want to go to Andelain real bad now. If for no other reason than the knowledge that Foul and Roger fear her doing so.
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One thing is pounded home in this chapter again and again. It is the
croyel that has the volition, not Jeremiah. Roger and the
croyel plot. Roger and the
croyel act. Not Jeremiah.
... Roger and the croyel had feared her health-sense.
... And then he had counterbalanced his aid by opposing the ur-viles when they had tried to prevent Roger and the croyel from snatching her out of her natural present.
... "I tried to talk you into it. The croyel thinks I should have tried harder.
But I knew you wouldn't do it. You love power too much."
... If she survived Roger's and the croyels intentions, any untainted application of Earthpower would heal her.
... "The croyel and I have other plans. Foul has promised to take us with him."
... Then she drew lightning as pure as charged sunlight from the upraised iron heel of the Staff and hurled it simultaneously at both Roger and the croyel.
... Swift as prescience, the croyel emitted a vehement wall which blocked and dispersed Linden's blow.
... Roger and the croyel did not strike at her now: they fought to preserve
themselves.
It's not just in the expository speach ... in Linden's thoughts, and indeed even in Donaldson's narrative, the
croyel does all the thinking and doing. Not Jeremiah.
He may be Foul's, he may not be. But he's certainly a passive passenger in this chapter. He's a body that the
croyel rides like a horse.
So we need to ask, then: whose power does the
croyel weild? Now, battling Linden ... and earlier, when Jeremiah built the "door".
The
croyel, it is noted, can "steal into her sons mind" for information. But can it also steal power? I think the answer lies in lore. Lore is knowledge, and can be stolen. And Jeremiah's power is surely not based in lore, any more than Linden's is. But what about an innate, uncommunicable power?
Can Jeremiah be a helpless bystander and while his possessor weilds power at the same time? Or is the simpler explanation that the
croyel has the power, and Jeremiah's power is all a lie? I think the question is a good one because the
croyel may not be as versatile at possession as Linden is, or as Ravers are.
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Anyone notice that Roger makes a classic evil overlord mistake? Instead of killing Linden, he pauses to explain himself to her. And then Linden escapes, and with the knowledge stupidly admitted (e.g. Andelain), uses it against Roger to defeat him.
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Aiming his fist at her, he unleashed a
scend of fire and lava.
scend, noun: the forward impulse imparted by the motion of a sea against a vessel. Related to the words ascend and descend.
Roger unleashed a wave of fire and lava.