Covenant's solution was "too easy"

[thewormoftheworld'send]

I would like to address here "kamelda's" comment in the GI posted on 4/12/07:

--- I wanted to shout at Covenant at the end 'it's not that easy!' - I don't think you can escape the question of belief or unbelief, or somehow win where those who don't escape the question stumble, by the exercise of a contextless individual will? ---

The obvious escape or cop-out to this question is to say "but it's not over with yet, it's only the first Chrons!" Because at the time SRD had no plans for another Chrons, so it can be treated as a single story without sequels.

So kamelda is saying that TC escaped the question of belief versus unbelief and somehow won, even though others who did not escape the question (who did not take the conceptually easy way out) failed. And he won through a simple exertion of will or mere hardheadness: TC chose the easy way out basically by saying, "Because I want it" -

"How is it possible that you can loathe or love where you do not believe?"
"Nevertheless."
"How is it possible to disbelieve where you loathe or love?"
"Still."

It is possible to loathe or love where you do not believe by simply willing it (the "contextless will"), simply by being hardheaded or pigheaded enough to do it. But that solution is "too easy."

[jacob Raver, sinTempter]

I don't know...I'm rarely ever split on anything...pretty black and white, though I've learned as I get older that there's lots of grey out there...

Being a white guy, and therefore raised in a Christian based culture, I'd agree with you...the paradox thing works well throughout the story, but not as an ending...and then later,

Spoiler

continuing it with Esmer

just seems contrived and cheap, IMO.

[thewormoftheworld'send]

I don't know...I'm rarely ever split on anything...pretty black and white, though I've learned as I get older that there's lots of grey out there...

Being a white guy, and therefore raised in a Christian based culture, I'd agree with you...the paradox thing works well throughout the story, but not as an ending...and then later,

Spoiler

continuing it with Esmer

just seems contrived and cheap, IMO.

But the paradox was simply overcome in the ending by an effort of his will (the contextless will, as she said), and that was too easy because it evades the paradox. SRD has stated elsewhere that TC managed to negotiate the eye of the paradox - but kamelda is saying that he cheated!

TC didn't negotiate anything, he merely bullied his way out of the dilemma.

The question of the paradox - or the problem of ethics at the beginning of LFB - is not simply answerable through an effort of will but through an effort of reasoning. Exercising willpower as a solution is the muscular, pragmatic "solution" which has haunted western civilization throughout the 20th and now 21st centuries.

If you search the GI for more of SRD's answers to kamelda's comments, you will find that he never answered the question but danced around it. Kamelda pointed this out to him in a later post, but it did no good, he simply ended the conversation by pointing out that she had forced him into a polemical, polarized, or perhaps egotistical stance (if I may be so bold), whereas SRD would prefer to portray himself as aloof and non-egotistical, because he took her question at one point too personally. But I don't see where he ever understood it to begin with...

[thewormoftheworld'send]

I found a mistake in my interpretation of kamelda's point. She is not saying that the answer to the paradox is through reasoning, but through intuition.

---it seems I must leap at the most basic level of my experience into a sheer void of 'sight' to assume a correspondence between inner and outer reality.---

1/11/08

In other words, the very basis of Western reasoning is assumed, taken for granted, and intuited from within a void where there is no reasoning but that which lies beneath it and grounds it. I take the "sheer void" to be the simple fact of being conscious, and moreover, of being aware of being conscious. In Kantian terms, that is not the content of reasoning, but the bare possibility of content, which is the "void."

She then writes:

--- Whereas it seems -irreconcilable with reason, not just sight, to deny the difficulty; or to simply make it more important to exercise the will in the void of it unresolved: the very exercise of the will is an inescapable affirmation of necessary exclusivity; choosing to act in one way commits me to a rejection of other actions. ---

TC did not in the end of TPTP negotiate the eye of the paradox, he reaffirmed it, even strengthened its "necessary exclusivity," by merely exercising his will against it.

In terms of the Chrons, TC did not win any battle, his muscular solution only served Despite.

I realize that this isn't the real end of the story, but SRD did state that TC negotiated the eye of the paradox, when in fact he did no such thing: he simply cheated fate.

[wayfriend]

I think it would be massively unfair to claim that TC came to his position - that the reality of the Land didn't matter, what mattered is how he felt about it - easily. In fact, the whole of the Chronicles outlines the difficulties he had, as a leper and as a person of principled mistrust of power, to come to that conclusion. That he finally does is a distinguished triumph.

[thewormoftheworld'send]

I think it would be massively unfair to claim that TC came to his position - that the reality of the Land didn't matter, what mattered is how he felt about it - easily. In fact, the whole of the Chronicles outlines the difficulties he had, as a leper and as a person of principled mistrust of power, to come to that conclusion. That he finally does is a distinguished triumph.

TC went through hell and back - which is something SRD says people have to go through to achieve redemption - so of course it wasn't easy for him physically or psychologically.

Kamelda is aware of this fact too. So I'm trying to figure out what the heck then she means by "too easy." What is too easy?

Merely exercising the will - putting his foot down when confronted with the Despiser - was too easy an answer. It may not have been an easy idea to put into motion, I'm not saying that. Physically confronting the Despiser is obviously not an easy task. So let me put it this way -

Kamelda is criticizing SRD, not TC, for allowing his character a conceptual easy out; conceptual, that is, for the book he wrote. In other words, SRD put his character through hell, then resolved all terrible narrative conflicts, all the difficult conundrums, through a mere exercising of TC's will at the end.

This is the muscular solution I referred to, a muscular solution to an intellectual challenge, a paradox.

[rdhopeca]

I think it would be massively unfair to claim that TC came to his position - that the reality of the Land didn't matter, what mattered is how he felt about it - easily. In fact, the whole of the Chronicles outlines the difficulties he had, as a leper and as a person of principled mistrust of power, to come to that conclusion. That he finally does is a distinguished triumph.

TC went through hell and back - which is something SRD says people have to go through to achieve redemption - so of course it wasn't easy for him physically or psychologically.

Kamelda is aware of this fact too. So I'm trying to figure out what the heck then she means by "too easy." What is too easy?

Merely exercising the will - putting his foot down when confronted with the Despiser - was too easy an answer. It may not have been an easy idea to put into motion, I'm not saying that. Physically confronting the Despiser is obviously not an easy task. So let me put it this way -

Kamelda is criticizing SRD, not TC, for allowing his character a conceptual easy out; conceptual, that is, for the book he wrote. In other words, SRD put his character through hell, then resolved all terrible narrative conflicts, all the difficult conundrums, through a mere exercising of TC's will at the end.

This is the muscular solution I referred to, a muscular solution to an intellectual challenge, a paradox.

Isn't everything a mere exercising of will in one way or another? How does one person despair and die in the face of terrible injury, while another fights to survive? How does one person acquire the will to diet effectively while another continues to battle the bulge? Isn't overcoming a fear of heights by scaling a big ladder, or overcoming a fear of the water by swimming across a lake, aren't these all facing some mental hurdle and perservering by strength of will?

[spoonchicken]

The "moral lesson" I derive from the First Chrons; goes something like this.........It doesn't matter what is going on around you. No matter what, you should remain loyal & faithful to yourself, and the things that are important to you. If one can do that, then even if you fail, you hasn't "broken faith with yourself", therefore even failure would not automatically constititute losing. ("Be True")...

[thewormoftheworld'send]

Isn't everything a mere exercising of will in one way or another? How does one person despair and die in the face of terrible injury, while another fights to survive? How does one person acquire the will to diet effectively while another continues to battle the bulge? Isn't overcoming a fear of heights by scaling a big ladder, or overcoming a fear of the water by swimming across a lake, aren't these all facing some mental hurdle and perservering by strength of will?

Those are challenges, but not intellectual or conceptual ones. They don't involve literature.

I could put kamelda's criticism this way: if the Chrons is supposed to be literature, then what's up with the merely physical ending? What paradox, when TC can just stomp it out of existence?

[rdhopeca]

Isn't everything a mere exercising of will in one way or another? How does one person despair and die in the face of terrible injury, while another fights to survive? How does one person acquire the will to diet effectively while another continues to battle the bulge? Isn't overcoming a fear of heights by scaling a big ladder, or overcoming a fear of the water by swimming across a lake, aren't these all facing some mental hurdle and perservering by strength of will?

Those are challenges, but not intellectual or conceptual ones. They don't involve literature.

I could put kamelda's criticism this way: if the Chrons is supposed to be literature, then what's up with the merely physical ending? What paradox, when TC can just stomp it out of existence?

How is overcoming a fear of heights not an intellectual challenge?

[thewormoftheworld'send]

Isn't everything a mere exercising of will in one way or another? How does one person despair and die in the face of terrible injury, while another fights to survive? How does one person acquire the will to diet effectively while another continues to battle the bulge? Isn't overcoming a fear of heights by scaling a big ladder, or overcoming a fear of the water by swimming across a lake, aren't these all facing some mental hurdle and perservering by strength of will?

Those are challenges, but not intellectual or conceptual ones. They don't involve literature.

I could put kamelda's criticism this way: if the Chrons is supposed to be literature, then what's up with the merely physical ending? What paradox, when TC can just stomp it out of existence?

How is overcoming a fear of heights not an intellectual challenge?

It's not happening in a book. So let's just put your ladder-climber in a book and have him conquer his fear by burning down the ladder.

That's not the greatest analogy, but it'll do.

[rdhopeca]

Those are challenges, but not intellectual or conceptual ones. They don't involve literature.

I could put kamelda's criticism this way: if the Chrons is supposed to be literature, then what's up with the merely physical ending? What paradox, when TC can just stomp it out of existence?

How is overcoming a fear of heights not an intellectual challenge?

It's not happening in a book. So let's just put your ladder-climber in a book and have him conquer his fear by burning down the ladder.

That's not the greatest analogy, but it'll do.

Um...so let me get this straight. If I were to go on a diet and then write a book about how I did it, my diet challenge would then be intellectual, but until I write the book, it's not? What, specifically, then would you classify it as?

I am assuming based on your earlier post that you were classifying challenges as intellectual vs. physical.

[thewormoftheworld'send]

How is overcoming a fear of heights not an intellectual challenge?

It's not happening in a book. So let's just put your ladder-climber in a book and have him conquer his fear by burning down the ladder.

That's not the greatest analogy, but it'll do.

Um...so let me get this straight. If I were to go on a diet and then write a book about how I did it, my diet challenge would then be intellectual, but until I write the book, it's not? What, specifically, then would you classify it as?

I am assuming based on your earlier post that you were classifying challenges as intellectual vs. physical.

I was afraid that would happen when I wrote, "Those are challenges, but not intellectual or conceptual ones. They don't involve literature."

The key is in the last sentence, not the first, because the context is literature, it's intellectual.

TC's eventual triumph in TPTP was not an intellectual triumph over an intellectual paradox.

[thewormoftheworld'send]

Kamelda does not use concrete examples, at best she quotes poetry in order to explain her point. She explains literature using other literature.

I'm trying to understand her point, which she pursued on the GI for almost a year, and I think SRD could have understood it if he tried harder.

Here is what I have gathered so far, not only from reading the GI but from your helpful responses on this forum.

Kamelda seems to be criticizing TC, but that only leads to confusion. She is really criticizing SRD for giving TC a conceptual easy way out. Or let's put it this way: he gave the novel's main conflict, the paradox, a solution that was too easy, amounting to a mere assertion. In other words, SRD asserts his solution through TC finally exercising his will, and that in itself makes the solution "true," or as kamelda says, "valid."

Kamelda doesn't believe that asserting a solution automatically grants it validity.

[rdhopeca]

It's not happening in a book. So let's just put your ladder-climber in a book and have him conquer his fear by burning down the ladder.

That's not the greatest analogy, but it'll do.

Um...so let me get this straight. If I were to go on a diet and then write a book about how I did it, my diet challenge would then be intellectual, but until I write the book, it's not? What, specifically, then would you classify it as?

I am assuming based on your earlier post that you were classifying challenges as intellectual vs. physical.

I was afraid that would happen when I wrote, "Those are challenges, but not intellectual or conceptual ones. They don't involve literature."

The key is in the last sentence, not the first, because the context is literature, it's intellectual.

TC's eventual triumph in TPTP was not an intellectual triumph over an intellectual paradox.

I would contend it is an emotional triumph over an intellectual paradox. At the end of TPTP, he no longer cares whether the Land is real or not, only that he loves it and is willing to fight for it. The leper learns that it is ok to love something, even if it might not be grounded in reality, and that it is paramount that he fights for what he loves, regardless of the consequences.

[thewormoftheworld'send]

Ok Rob. But taking the emotional way out...

[jacob Raver, sinTempter]

I know what your saying Worm, it bothered me somewhat, without understanding what it was that bothered me about the resolution of the Chrons...I think you nailed it on the head...it wasn't a solid enough answer to all the philisophical questions, and while TC doing what Rob explained, which is great...well, it just left something missing for me...basically almost a Christian answer/ending to a different religions philosphy? i dunno...

[thewormoftheworld'send]

I know what your saying Worm, it bothered me somewhat, without understanding what it was that bothered me about the resolution of the Chrons...I think you nailed it on the head...it wasn't a solid enough answer to all the philisophical questions, and while TC doing what Rob explained, which is great...well, it just left something missing for me...basically almost a Christian answer/ending to a different religions philosphy? i dunno...

And yet there is this:

-- Only by affirming them both, accepting both poles of the contradiction, keeping them both whole, balanced, only by steering himself not between them but with them, could he preserve them both, preserve both the Land and himself, find the place where the parallel lines of his impossible dilemma met. The eye of the paradox. In that place lay the reason why the Land had happened to him. So he said nothing as he stared up at the blank shadow and the emerald aura and the incalculable might of the Despiser. But in himself, he gritted, No they don't, Foul. You're wrong. It's not that easy. If it were easy, I would have found it long ago. --

Wait a minute!

TC is telling Foul that it isn't that easy? And then -- kamelda -- complains to SRD -- that TC's answer isn't that easy either?

But isn't there an answer to this dilemma somewhere in between the lines?

[jacob Raver, sinTempter]

My head's starting to hurt...

[deer of the dawn]

I think it would be massively unfair to claim that TC came to his position - that the reality of the Land didn't matter, what mattered is how he felt about it - easily. In fact, the whole of the Chronicles outlines the difficulties he had, as a leper and as a person of principled mistrust of power, to come to that conclusion. That he finally does is a distinguished triumph.

Agreed. For TC, the question changed, or evolved. "Belief" in the Land's reality became overshadowed by love for the Land and its peoples.

And nothing came easily for TC. Especially having his dogmatism (which was a survival mechanism for him) overshadowed by his heart.