THE WOUNDED LAND, Ch 6&7: The Graveler & Marid

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THE WOUNDED LAND, Ch 6&7: The Graveler & Marid

Post by Dragonlily »

Chapter 6 is called “The Graveler”. Notice it is not gravelingas as it was in the First Chronicles. A “graveler” in this version of the Land is unmagical by comparison. We know this right away, from the commonplace construction of the word.

As the chapter opens, Covenant and Linden are waking up in captivity. They have been attacked and anesthetized by a melon called mirkfruit. Mirkfruit is an example of how twisted the Land has become. It is still providing its people with things they can make clever, practical use of, but now it is providing weapons instead of the warmth of graveling or the healing of hurtloam.

Once they have discovered they aren’t injured, Covenant and Linden have nothing to say about their circumstances. What they want to talk about is Covenant’s confession of rape. Covenant doesn’t want to be on false terms with Linden. He says that not telling her would have been a betrayal. Linden takes the practical standpoint that he didn’t do it intentionally. It’s over, he has made up for it by saving the Land. What she needs to know is why he told her, so she can know who she is dealing with. She is disillusioned.
“You use guilt the same way you use leprosy. You want people to reject you, stay away from you – make a victim out of you. So you can recapture your innocence.”
Linden has pinpointed what may be Covenant’s main motivation of the trilogy: recovering his sense of innocence.

At a meeting of the people of Mithil Stonedown, they undergo the “test of silence”. The idea is that if the villagers say nothing, the accused will babble out their guilt. Covenant and Linden speak in their own defense, only to discover that most of what they say, based on ideals of friendship, is considered to be abomination. They are about to be condemned, when Linden, without knowing what she is seeing, shows Covenant that a stonedowner named Marid has a Raver in him. The Raver reveals himself with a sneer to be the murderer of the Unfettered One Nassic, and is condemned by the villagers. Covenant and Linden are returned to their prison.

Covenant explains to Linden what a Raver is, why her earthsense allows her to see it – and that she is the only one who can. Covenant and all the villagers no longer have the earthsight. The graveler comes to tell them they have been condemned to death in spite of the Raver’s exposure. He also tells them that Marid, though innocently possessed by the Raver, has been punished, abandoned to the unmercy of the Sunbane. After he leaves, Covenant tries to give Linden a sense of the battle they are entering by telling her the story of how the Land was created.

The returning graveler, Sunder, overhears him. Sunder is a tragedy of a name, the epitome of separation and loss. Sunder means part. As graveler of the village, he was forced to kill or “shed” his own wife and son for the blood that keeps the village alive. Sunder’s estranged father Nassic, who told Sunder the same forbidden Creation story he has just overheard from Covenant, has been murdered, and Sunder is now required to kill his fatally injured mother. When Covenant proves his power, by touching his white gold ring to Sunder’s fragment of orcrest and freeing himself, he and Linden persuade Sunder to take the final loss: abandoning his village, to act as guide to condemned strangers who may be able to save the Land.

There is a lot of explanation elegantly incorporated into Chapter 6. A deeply-felt piece of Donaldson’s philosophy is also included:
...[He] raged at the brutality which had taught people like Sunder to think of their own lives as punishment for a crime they could not have committed.
One may feel compelled to think of this in relation to the religions Donaldson was surrounded by as he grew up.

Chapter 7 is titled “Marid,” and describes the first stage of their escape from Mithil Stonedown. In this chapter the Sunbane makes its raw impact on Covenant and Linden.
The riverbed was as desiccated as a desert. Had the Law itself become meaningless?
This, of course, is exactly what has happened, but Covenant hasn’t begun to grasp it yet. Donaldson begins our intimate acquaintance with the new version of the Land as it begins to tighten its grip on Covenant. He does this by choosing words that best express his own visceral reaction to the Sunbane.
A moment passed before he regained himself enough to look outward, away from his dismay.
Here Covenant is suffering the kind of shock that leaves one floundering inwardly, unable to process input.

The following are examples of the incredible writing that it takes to express SRD's visceral reaction to the Sunbane. :)
Moonlight gave the night a crisp patina of old silver, as if the darkness itself were a work of fine-spun craft.
Then as Covenant becomes more aware:
The low moonlight gave them an appearance of ghostly sterility, as if they had been weathered barren by ages of implacable thirst.
As sunrise with its dangers approached:
Sunder ... made digressions from his path like spurts of fright...
Linden describes her perceptions of the desert:
“It’s wrong. ... It’s like a running sore. I keep expecting to see it bleed.”
Covenant sets off into the desert, hoping to find and save Marid:
The sun beat down as if onto an anvil, like a smith shaping futility. At times, he felt himself wandering over the colorless earth, through the haze, as if he were a fragment of the desolation.

Heat flushed back and forth across his skin – a vitiating fever which echoed the haze of the scorched earth. His eyes felt raw from the scraping of his eyelids.
(vitiate - make ineffective)

When they discover Marid has escaped, Covenant says:
“I had to try. He was innocent.”
and we see that Covenant protects innocence with the need of a shepherd protecting his sheep.

Covenant, Linden, and Sunder reach the limit of their endurance,. They happen to rest near an aliantha bush, and reach the turning point of Sunder’s life. Sunder has been taught that aliantha is deadly poison. Covenant proves, by eating an aliantha berry, that it is still the treasure of healing earthpower that it used to be, forcing Sunder to see that the teachings of his society are a lie.

There is one more trial in this chapter, which will shape the rest of Covenant’s life. Marid, distorted by the Sunbane, finds Covenant, and in a suicidal attack, gives him a venomous bite.

About Marid’s transformation:
Thick scale-clad bodies writhed from his shoulders; serpent-heads gaped where his hands had been, brandishing fangs as white a bone. His chest heaved for air, and the snakes hissed.
In the back of [Covenant’s] mind, a pulse of outrage beat like lifeblood.
Marid has been turned to Foul’s service by the mere fact that he was touching the earth at the time the baned sun rose.
The Land had become like Joan. Something broken.
This refers back to the quote from Covenant that made such an impression on all of us in Chapter 2:
There’s only one way to hurt a man who’s lost everything. Give him back something broken.
This is the kind of insight that makes me wonder what Donaldson had to suffer to know so much. Then I remember he was raised surrounded by people who had suffered so much, and by their doctor who probably suffered along with them. Did he know someone wise enough to tell him this, when he was a child? None of my business to ask, I know, but the question demands out. Where did he learn such knowledge of humanity? Was it taught, or realized?

The Sunbane is one of the most intelligent, thoroughly-realized magical systems I have ever read. In these two chapters we have not yet begun to understand the Sunbane’s logic, but we have begun to feel its horror.
Last edited by Dragonlily on Thu Nov 20, 2003 4:03 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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Post by dlbpharmd »

Great job, Joy!
They have been attacked and anesthetized by a melon called mirkfruit. Mirkfruit is an example of how twisted the Land has become. It is still providing its people with things they can make clever, practical use of, but now it is providing weapons instead of the warmth of graveling or the healing of hurtloam.
Excellent point, I never thought of it that way.
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Post by Fist and Faith »

Joy, that's an incredible Dissection!!! Your thoughts on things like the meanings of the word graveler, the name Sunder, and the role of mirkfruit are wonderful. I'd never considered them the way you describe, yet they now seem so obvious.

And you're certainly right about the Sunbane. We should all be absolutely awed by it! SRD came up with a truly horrifying thing, that is so well developed that it seems completely plausible.

Well done, Joy!!
All lies and jest
Still a man hears what he wants to hear
And disregards the rest
-Paul Simon
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Post by Furls Fire »

WOW!!! 8O 8O :faint:

Awesome Joy!!! :D :D :D

I mirrored Covenant's dismay as I was hit with the Sunbane, and the people, and how everything had been distorted and corrupted. The Land, as I knew it and Covenant knew it, was gone, wounded, tortured. I could actually hear it screaming when the sun came up.
"Listen to me!" he beseeched the Stonedownors. "I've been here before-long ago, during the great war against the Gray Slayer. I fought him. So the Land could be healed. And men and women from Mithil Stonedown helped me. Your ancestors. The Land was saved by the courage of Stonedownors and Woodhelvennin and Lords and Giants and Bloodguard and Ranyhyn.

"But something's happened. There's something wrong in the Land. That's why we're here." Remembering the old song of Kevin Landwaster, he said formally, "So that beauty and truth should not pass utterly from the Earth."
So that beauty and truth should not pass utterly from the Earth

Oh sigh :(
And I believe in you
altho you never asked me too
I will remember you
and what life put you thru.


~fly fly little wing, fly where only angels sing~

~this world was never meant for one as beautiful as you~

...for then I could fly away and be at rest. Sweet rest, Mom. We all love and miss you.

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Post by Dragonlily »

Furls wrote:
I mirrored Covenant's dismay
SRD is good at making you do that, isn't he?

To put it another way: If it was you getting inside the character's skin, you could get yourself out again when it got uncomfortable. But he puts the character inside your skin!
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Post by Furls Fire »

He sure does, Joy. It's one of the reasons he's at the top of my favorite author list. The way he can draw so much emotion from his reader is nothing short of extraordinary. I was literally devastated by this book. Cried thru most of it...and I was MAD at SRD for doing this to the Land.

"How COULD you!!" I said over and over again... :(
And I believe in you
altho you never asked me too
I will remember you
and what life put you thru.


~fly fly little wing, fly where only angels sing~

~this world was never meant for one as beautiful as you~

...for then I could fly away and be at rest. Sweet rest, Mom. We all love and miss you.

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Post by moleary »

Excellent dissection, Joy!! I've just begun to read the Chronicles again, so I haven't gotten to this book yet, but your words have brought back all the horror and grief of this revisitation to the Land. Even though I found this section of the Chronicles to be deeply depressing, I'm still looking forward to experiencing that trial by Sunfire with TC and Linden. The sophistication and sheer vividness of SRD's vision is too compelling to walk away from, even knowing that it will be emotionally rending.

Well done!
:D
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Post by srtrout »

Sorry but here's yet another of senor Trout's musings on the religious implications of this work. This is in reference to Joy's discussion about:

"Quote:
...[He] raged at the brutality which had taught people like Sunder to think of their own lives as punishment for a crime they could not have committed.

One may feel compelled to think of this in relation to the religions Donaldson was surrounded by as he grew up. "


I haven't read that Mr. Donaldson complained about the religious influence he got directly from his parents' Christianity, although he implies that he does not share their views. Both Christianity and Hinduism have themes of originial sin: Christians stating that all people sin, Hindus (I think) believing that sins make our "next life" to a worse fate. I realize this oversimplifies both.

The "religion" SRD portrays in both triologies is pretty awful - people who are fanatically worshipping Foul and mutilating themselves;
Spoiler
the awful healing service in a later book
Other than the portrayal of the people of the land worshipping earthpower, there's not really any positive description of organized religion per se.

On the other hand, there are definitely very deep spiritual dimensions to this book, especially if "the Creator" is anything like God, and if Foul is anything like Satan. One of the discussions in the TC area of this site has been about whether or not TC "had" to rape Lena; certainly he didn't have to, but if he hadn't he wouldn't have had any guilt to deal with and thus much less of a story to tell. His act was very analagous to "sin" , and even almost "original" sin in that I don't think he could really help himself at that point. Another example comes later in this book
Spoiler
when he is instilled with venom from the Raver; the venom actually becomes an alloy with the White Gold and makes him more powerful, an incredible metaphor for personalities beset by both good and bad tendancies.
So, I agree with Joy that there are religious influences, and probably some biases against organized religion. It is very logical to rale against a religion that makes life look like punishment. However, I still feel strongly that the religious, or at least spiritual , aspects of SRDs background and philosophy are what make this work stand above so many others.

Another thought on TWL: there is such dramatic contrast here between Covenant being horrified by what has changed in the land (the Sunbane, burning wood, etc) and by what he is overjoyed to see again (the people, aliantha, etc). It reminds me of returning to somewhere you once loved as a child; you love to see what is the same and hate to see what is lost.

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Post by Fist and Faith »

srtrout wrote:Both Christianity and Hinduism have themes of originial sin: Christians stating that all people sin, Hindus (I think) believing that sins make our "next life" to a worse fate.
Karma is not so much sin as a law of nature. Like gravity. Throw something up, and it falls back down. There's no sin, judgement, or anything like that. Karma is basically cause & effect. During life, any action you make starts a chain, even a web, of other actions.

As far as how karma works from one life to the next, this is from the Upanishads:
We live in accordance with our deep, driving desire. It is this desire at the time of death that determines what our next life is to be. We will come back to earth to work out the satisfaction of that desire.
And the translator, Eknath Easwaran, says this in the introduction to the Bhagavad Gita:
If personality consists of several sheaths, the body being only the outermost, there is no reason why personality should die when the body is shed. The sages of the Upanishads saw personality as a field of forces. Packets of karma to them are forces that have to work themselves out; if the process is interrupted by death, those forces remain until conditions allow them to work again in a new context.
And so, according to this belief, "we are not punished for our anger; we are punished by our anger."

When talking about Hinduism, we could, I suppose, use the word "sin" to mean an action that helps cause a rebirth. But since sin is, afaik, normally used in connection with the Christian idea of judgement and punishment, I just figured I'd explain my understanding of the Hindu thought.
All lies and jest
Still a man hears what he wants to hear
And disregards the rest
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Post by kastenessen »

Marvellous Joy! :D This is a great dissection. Good quotes to catch the mood of these two horrifying chapters! When the result of the sunbane finally hits you, the people and the effects of the sun...it's devastating, the Land twisted beyond anything I could imagine...and the way SRD writes. I cannot escape...

Joy wrote:
Sunder is a tragedy of a name, the epitome of separation and loss.
While reading this, it made me think of how when TC came to the Land the first time he sundered the family of Trell and Atiaran, and now in the second chrons he breaks another "family" apart. TC surely affects the Land with his prescence... And in one sence Sunder mirrors TC from the first chrons, hostile, stubborn, not willing to believe.

Joy wrote:
Linden has pinpointed what may be Covenant,s main motivation of the trilogy: recovering his sense of innocence.
Yes, might be true. He is now believing in the Land and don't want to make the same mistakes as ten years ago, want's to make some sort of retribution or amends I believe...

...another thing that pops to mind. Why has TC lost his Land-sense? Is it because he now believe in the Land, is it because the creator didn't spoke to him this time? Or is it something else...

Joy wrote:
If it was you getting inside the charachters skin, you could get yourself out again when it got uncomfortable. But he puts the characters inside your skin.
Well put. It's exactly like that. :) Creates a very strong identification with characters it's almost like rejection when you want to quit reading. That's why you never want to put the books down... :)
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Post by Dragonlily »

kastenessen wrote:Marvellous Joy! :D This is a great dissection.
Thank you to everyone who has commented. And thank you, Kasten. :) Your Chapter 4 is better.
kastenessen wrote: Joy wrote:
Linden has pinpointed what may be Covenant's main motivation of the trilogy: recovering his sense of innocence.
Yes, might be true. He is now believing in the Land and don't want to make the same mistakes as ten years ago, want's to make some sort of retribution or amends I believe...
I think Covenant subconsciously looks at leprosy as a crime in the way manslaughter is a crime. Quite accidentally, he causes fear and revulsion in others. The guilt is eternal because he never found the way to live it down.
kastenessen wrote:Why has TC lost his Land-sense? Is it because he now believe in the Land, is it because the creator didn't spoke to him this time? Or is it something else...
Is it because he has internalized his leprosy more thoroughly as he learned to live with it? And this is reflected in how the Land manifests itself to him?
kastenessen wrote:Joy wrote:
If it was you getting inside the character's skin, you could get yourself out again when it got uncomfortable. But he puts the characters inside your skin.
Well put. It's exactly like that. :) Creates a very strong identification with characters
I don't know what other people think, this is my own opinion: I think it is something SRD has in common with other writers, like Tolkien, who access a larger portion of the collective unconscious. It isn't something you can do on purpose, I don't think. SRD got lucky there.

However he got it, it gets its hooks into those same characteristics in its readers, and doesn't let go.
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Post by Fist and Faith »

Joy wrote:
kastenessen wrote:Why has TC lost his Land-sense? Is it because he now believe in the Land, is it because the creator didn't spoke to him this time? Or is it something else...
Is it because he has internalized his leprosy more thoroughly as he learned to live with it? And this is reflected in how the Land manifests itself to him?
I think the Land was simply incapable of healing him at this point. A normal-health person from Covenant's world develops the earthsense, but he had to be healed first.
Joy wrote:
kastenessen wrote:
Joy wrote:If it was you getting inside the character's skin, you could get yourself out again when it got uncomfortable. But he puts the characters inside your skin.
Well put. It's exactly like that. :) Creates a very strong identification with characters
I don't know what other people think, this is my own opinion: I think it is something SRD has in common with other writers, like Tolkien, who access a larger portion of the collective unconscious. It isn't something you can do on purpose, I don't think. SRD got lucky there.
I agree. Some things can't be taught. (And I sure hope someone quotes all that again! :) )
All lies and jest
Still a man hears what he wants to hear
And disregards the rest
-Paul Simon
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Post by Dragonlily »

LOL!!! Like this, Fist?
Fist and Faith wrote:
Joy wrote:
kastenessen wrote:Well put. It's exactly like that. :) Creates a very strong identification with characters
I don't know what other people think, this is my own opinion: I think it is something SRD has in common with other writers, like Tolkien, who access a larger portion of the collective unconscious. It isn't something you can do on purpose, I don't think. SRD got lucky there.
I agree. Some things can't be taught. (And I sure hope someone quotes all that again! :) )
LOL!!
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Post by Fist and Faith »

Joy wrote:LOL!!! Like this, Fist?
Fist and Faith wrote:
Joy wrote:I don't know what other people think, this is my own opinion: I think it is something SRD has in common with other writers, like Tolkien, who access a larger portion of the collective unconscious. It isn't something you can do on purpose, I don't think. SRD got lucky there.
I agree. Some things can't be taught. (And I sure hope someone quotes all that again! :) )
LOL!!
Yep! Thank you. :mrgreen:
All lies and jest
Still a man hears what he wants to hear
And disregards the rest
-Paul Simon
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Post by Dragonlily »

If we keep doing that we'll give the computers fits. Or fist, as the case may be. How would you like to be eaten by a dazed, vengeful computer, Fist? :S
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Post by Cloudberry »

I learn so much from the dissecting. There are so many things I had never thought about. Like that mirkfruit thing, bad things instead of good ones. Every time I read the chrons I notice new things. :D

I find that Sunder is both sad and strong. To learn that your way of life is wrong... And still go on and making the best of the situation.
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Post by kastenessen »

:D LOL! :D Don't know how to do that quote within quote thing but I laughed myself off the chair! :D :D :D
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Post by Dragonlily »

kastenessen wrote::D LOL! :D Don't know how to do that quote within quote thing but I laughed myself off the chair! :D :D :D
If you hit the Quote button on this post, Kasten, you'll see that it does itself.

One could get quite artistic with it. Needs a whole thread for cube artists. :)
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Post by kastenessen »

Joy wrote:
kastenessen wrote::D LOL! :D Don't know how to do that quote within quote thing but I laughed myself off the chair! :D :D :D
If you hit the Quote button on this post, Kasten, you'll see that it does itself.

One could get quite artistic with it. Needs a whole thread for cube artists. :)
:D ...I got it! :D
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Post by kastenessen »

I might be wrong, but in chapter six, for the first time in the chrons TC uses the white gold actively, with intention, and it's glorious...
"Touch my forehead."
Doubt pinched the corners of Sunders eyes.His shoulders hunched as he tightened his grip on the knife, the sunstone.
Do it.
The graveler's hand seemed to move without volition. The orcrest passed Covenant's face, came to rest cool and possible against his tense brow.
His attention dropped through him to his ring, seeking for the link between orcrest and white gold. He remembered standing in sunlight and desperation on the slopes of Mount Thunder; he saw Bannor take his hand, place his ring in contact with the Staff of Law. A trigger. He felt the detonation of power.
You are the white gold.
The silence in the room vibrated. His lips streched back from his teeth. He squeezed his eyes shut against the strain.
A trigger.
He did not want to die, did not want the Land to die. Lord Foul abhorred all life.
Fiercely, he brought the orcrest and the white gold together in his mind, chose power.
A burst of argent sprang from his forehead.
Linden let out a stricken gasp. Sunder snatched back the orcrest. A gust of fire blew out the lamp.
The Covenant's hands were free. Ignoring the sudden magma of renewed circulation, he raised his arms in front of him, opened his eyes.
His hands blazed the colour of the full moon. He could feel the passion of the fire, but it did him no harm.
The flames on his left swiftly faded, died. But his right hand grew brighter as the blaze focused on his ring, burning without a sound.
Linden stared at him whitely, wildly. Sunder's eyes echoed the argent fire like a revelation too acute to bear.
You are stubborn yet. Yes! Covenant panted. You don't begin to know how stubborn.
With a thought, he struck the bonds from Linden's wrists. Then he reached for the sunstone.
As he took it from Sunder's stunned fingers, a piercing white light exploded from the stone. It shone like a sun in the small room. Linden ducked her head. Sunder covered his eyes with his free arm, waved his poniard uncertainly.
"Wild magic," Covenant said. His voice felt like flame in his mouth. The return of blood to his arms raked his nerves like claws. "Your knife means nothing. I have the wild magic. I'm not threatening you. I don't wan't to hurt anybody." The night had become cold, yet sweat streamed down his face. "That's not why I'm here. But I won't let you kill us."
"Father!" Sunder cried in dismay. "Was it true? Was every word that you spoke a word of truth?"
Covenant sagged. He felt he had accomplished his purpose; and at once a wave of fatigue broke through him. "Here." His voice was hoarse with strain. "Take it."
"Take-?"
"The Sunstone. It's yours."
Torn by a vision of power as if the world ha had always known to chaos, Sunder stretched out his hand, touched the bright orcrest. When it's light did not burn him, he closed his fingers on it as if it where an anchor.
With a groan, Covenant released the wild magic. Instantly the fire went out as if he had severed it from his hand. The Sunstone was extinguished; the room plunged into midnight.
This is TC at the peak of his power, full of intent and capable, ready to serve the Land and sacrifice himself if must be...It's a glorious moment...

What phrasing...
...Ignoring the sudden magma of renewed circulation...
Some bloodflow...It must have hurt quite a bit... :)
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