What Made The Third Chrons Possible?

Book 3 of the Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant

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Post by wayfriend »

Zarathustra wrote:I'm not criticizing Donaldson for leaving it out. I'm saying that perhaps it was intentional ... to call attention to the fact.
Well, if you want to make that leap, then you will land in that conclusion. I don't credit that hypothesis enough to make that leap myself. I can't think of any times Donaldson called attention to something by not writing about it.

There's some chance, though, that the Roger/Thomas final confrontation will involve a lot of Roger/Thomas exposition, that may have been deferred until the last book. However, that doesn't seem too plausible either - groundwork would have been laid by now, I feel. Also, there's the issue of Thomas's memory at this point, which makes exposition (from Covenant's POV anyway) a difficult matter.

We do know, from the GI, that Roger is the way he is because he only had Joan.
Stephen R Donaldson, in the Gradual Interview wrote:But you might try thinking of Roger as his father's doppleganger. Roger has inherited his mother's legacy of fear (and self-abhorrence) rather than his father's (learned) legacy of courage. In that, Roger is rather like Linden--without the benefit of Covenant's intervention; without spending crucial time in the company of characters who are motivated by love rather than by fear. You could say that he just doesn't know any better. Fear, I think, is a natural and inevitable part of the human condition. But being ruled by fear is a choice. And it's unfortunately true that choices can be very hard to see or understand if people haven't been taught that those choices exist; if people lack role models for making those choices. I knew as soon as Joan decided to abandon Covenant that Roger would follow his mother's example. It's the only one he's had.

(03/05/2008)
But that's still not the same as saying that Covenant lacked all inclination of paternal responsibility. It only says that, for whatever the reason, the result was that he was not in Roger's life. And ... possibly ... you can consider that a reason as to why Donaldson wanted Roger isolated from his father - so that he would be who he is now.
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Post by Kaos Arcanna »

wayfriend wrote:
Zarathustra wrote:I'm not criticizing Donaldson for leaving it out. I'm saying that perhaps it was intentional ... to call attention to the fact.
Well, if you want to make that leap, then you will land in that conclusion. I don't credit that hypothesis enough to make that leap myself. I can't think of any times Donaldson called attention to something by not writing about it.

There's some chance, though, that the Roger/Thomas final confrontation will involve a lot of Roger/Thomas exposition, that may have been deferred until the last book. However, that doesn't seem too plausible either - groundwork would have been laid by now, I feel. Also, there's the issue of Thomas's memory at this point, which makes exposition (from Covenant's POV anyway) a difficult matter.

We do know, from the GI, that Roger is the way he is because he only had Joan.
Stephen R Donaldson, in the Gradual Interview wrote:But you might try thinking of Roger as his father's doppleganger. Roger has inherited his mother's legacy of fear (and self-abhorrence) rather than his father's (learned) legacy of courage. In that, Roger is rather like Linden--without the benefit of Covenant's intervention; without spending crucial time in the company of characters who are motivated by love rather than by fear. You could say that he just doesn't know any better. Fear, I think, is a natural and inevitable part of the human condition. But being ruled by fear is a choice. And it's unfortunately true that choices can be very hard to see or understand if people haven't been taught that those choices exist; if people lack role models for making those choices. I knew as soon as Joan decided to abandon Covenant that Roger would follow his mother's example. It's the only one he's had.

(03/05/2008)
But that's still not the same as saying that Covenant lacked all inclination of paternal responsibility. It only says that, for whatever the reason, the result was that he was not in Roger's life. And ... possibly ... you can consider that a reason as to why Donaldson wanted Roger isolated from his father - so that he would be who he is now.

Aside from picturing Roger singing "Daddy wasn't there" from the last Austin Powers movie ... :D ... I don't think we're going to get much of a Thomas/Roger meeting at all ... which is one of the reasons I'm disappointed with the Last Chronicles. We're hammered over the head with Linden's maternal duty to her boy but Covenant spares like three sentences for his own kid.


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Post by dlbpharmd »

We're hammered over the head with Linden's maternal duty to her boy but Covenant spares like three sentences for his own kid.
Good point.
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Post by Savor Dam »

Thomas and Roger do meet during the events of AATE.

What may occur in TLD is yet to be revealed.
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Post by Kaos Arcanna »

Savor Dam wrote:Thomas and Roger do meet during the events of AATE.

What may occur in TLD is yet to be revealed.
I'm guessing a nasty end for Roger myself. :D

Donaldson has been pretty much straightforward about there being no possibility of redemption for Roger throughout the Last Chronicles:


He would have given much to believe the same of Roger. But Roger was his mother's son, not his father's; and Joan had chosen the path of her doom long ago.

My friend of old, Mhoram said. It falls to me to speak of your own son. He lacks Esmer's unfahtomable powers, but also Esmer's self-torment. His is an unrelieved darkness, born of abandonment and nurtured by Despite. He will do much which Esmer would not.

And during their first meeting:

"Hell and blood, Roger!" Covenant shouted: a cry thick with excruciation. "You don't have to do this! There are better answers!"

"What makes you think I want your answers?" Roger retorted, fierce as scoria. "You're done being the hero, Dad!" He made "Dad" sound like a vile obscenity. "It's time somebody put you in your place! I'm just glad that somebody is going to be me!"
The question is, when Roger will die and if his father will even react to it. :D
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Post by Zarathustra »

wayfriend wrote:
Zarathustra wrote:I'm not criticizing Donaldson for leaving it out. I'm saying that perhaps it was intentional ... to call attention to the fact.
Well, if you want to make that leap, then you will land in that conclusion. I don't credit that hypothesis enough to make that leap myself. I can't think of any times Donaldson called attention to something by not writing about it.
Perhaps you're right about that one sentence, but I think my point extended beyond that. No, Donaldson doesn't call attention to things by not writing about them. But he does clearly leave things out that readers would naturally like to know, in order to make it an enigma. And not just Donaldson, but nearly every writer. Hinting at things, while simultaneously withholding others, urges the reader to ask, "Why?" If that's not a question that occurs to you in this instance or context, then it's a difference between readers, that's all.

Without a doubt, Donaldson left out a dramatic encounter between Tom and his son (for now, at least). He had a chance to do it, and chose not to do so. I think it's safe to assume that he has a good grasp on what his audience might expect regarding TC's son, since he spent so much effort "summoning the ghost of the father" through the son, from the very first page of the Last Chronicles, and then to much greater effect in Fatal Revenent. So he's conscious of his readers linking the two thematically, contrasting them in terms of character development. So the fact that he left out a dramatic encounter between them, or any mention of TC's feelings for Roger, was an intensional choice. Now whether or not he did this to urge us to ask that perpetual question, "Why?" is the only thing here that's speculative. But to me that's merely a question of whether or not he's an attentive, perceptive writer. I think he is perceptive enough to realize that we'd wonder about this question, given the theme of family in this Chronicles, and therefore his decision to leave us wondering was to save it for the final book.

I guess we'll have to wait and see.
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Post by wayfriend »

Zarathustra wrote:Hinting at things, while simultaneously withholding others, urges the reader to ask, "Why?"
Of course. And you can wonder about the answer. You can wonder if maybe Covenant was glad to abandon his son, too. I don't disagree with any of that.

But in my opinion you can't conclude Donaldson is implying Covenant is glad to abandon his son because he left this out of the narrative.
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Post by Zarathustra »

You're right, I can't read SRD's mind. And I don't think anyone is saying TC is glad to have abandoned his son. However, he isn't portrayed as having much feeling about him whatsoever. I think your point is correct for the 1st/2nd Chrons, in which it wasn't an error of omission, but rather a different narrative focus such that these questions go beyond the text. But for the Last Chronicles, either the author made a mistake of omission (if his goal was to portray a fully sympathetic, realistic character and a convincing plot), or he intensionally left out a crucial aspect of the protagonist regarding the creation of his antagonist--well, at least the one who is his son.

That's a mistake and/or omission on the scale of not making TC's feelings for Elena clear ... another child who didn't grow up with her father, only to meet him later in the Land. If TC was absolutely indifferent and apathetic to Elena, the Illearth War would be another book entirely. It wouldn't be the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, just the Chronicles of Some Events in the Land. Just as I can't imagine TC's reaction to his own daughter as being something beneath SRD's focus or narrative interests--something beyond the text--neither can I imagine the such a case for his son.

I suspect that we'll have some kind of "reckoning scene," like we did with Joan, in which Thomas will reveal some sense of responsibility in creating Roger, even if it was indirect and beyond his control.
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Post by wayfriend »

... which brings us back to
Wayfriend already wrote:Maybe someone can think he should have written about that, that the character seems incomplete without that aspect written, but that's a different comment than Covenant is a deficient father.
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Post by Zarathustra »

Well, if anyone was saying that Covenant was a deficient father, you'd have a point. I think he had a role in shaping Roger, indirectly, and he didn't spend any time concerned over Roger, nor even show much feeling when he actually met him. But he never got to be a father, so it's impossible to judge his parenting skills.

However, I think your point makes a false distinction between a character's portrayal and a character's ... well, for lack of a better word, character. Saying that a deficiency in his portrayal doesn't imply a deficiency in the character is itself an argument beyond the text, because it gives the benefit of the doubt to things that don't exist. The character isn't a real person, and doesn't have a reality beyond his portrayal. His portrayal is his entire reality. Therefore, if there is something missing from his portrayal, there is--unavoidably--something missing from the character. We don't have to give imaginary people the benefit of the doubt, because they are nothing more than what we are shown of them.

If readers want to use the evidence we've been given about TC's fatherly concern (which is zero), they are in a much better position to judge him for that lack of concern than those who would defend him on the basis of the benefit of the doubt, for which there isn't even a glaring omission to guide you toward this doubt. Sure, Covenant might have tried to reach out to Roger lots of times, or wanted to--which would invalidate our impression--but that kind of speculation is even farther from the text than our noting this absence of concern. And without that speculation, there's no basis for giving Covenant any concession on this point.
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Post by wayfriend »

Zarathustra wrote:Well, if anyone was saying that Covenant was a deficient father, you'd have a point.
See the Kaos Arcana post that started this. Dropping out - this is just an argument about who said what.
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Post by Kaos Arcanna »

wayfriend wrote:
Zarathustra wrote:Well, if anyone was saying that Covenant was a deficient father, you'd have a point.
See the Kaos Arcana post that started this. Dropping out - this is just an argument about who said what.
Well, since I was just mentioned, I'll come out and say that Covenant IS a deficient father. :D

Witness his "bargain" with Elena. He attempted to steer her into a direction where she could take his place in deciding the Land's fate.

(To be fair, Elena was chronologically older than Covenant so I really wouldn't expect him to think of her as his child.)

Mhoram states that Roger is a creation of abandonment and Despite. He says that Joan gave Roger nothing, but she will trust her fate to him.

I think in the entire Second Chronicles the only moment that Covenant mentions Roger at all is around the time that Sunder and Holian were discussing what to name their child.

To be honest, the whole reason this became an issue for me is because Jeremiah is such an issue for Linden. It's her entire reason for coming to the Land. When SRD does that ... when he makes Covenant's own son one of the bad guys of the piece then I expect a certain amount of synergy between the two situations ... Linden risking all for the sake of her son ... up to the fate of the Earth itself ... and Covenant fighting to redeem or reclaim a child who can't be saved. Or at least anguishing over his son's fate.

But that's not happening.

It's the sound of one hand clapping for me.

The Last Chronicles is Linden's story, not Covenant's. Everything else in the whole series is secondary to how it's impacting her. So things that should have a major impact for Covenant-- his ex-wife, his son-- are secondary not just to Linden, but to how Covenant reacts:

He's more concerned about Linden then what's happening to his children, Elena and Roger.

Of course, the whole purpose of the Last Chronicles seems to be for everyone to obsess over Linden. At this point, I expect the last book to end with Lord Foul himself fawning all over her. :D


So while I do think that Covenant is a bad father, the bigger issue for me is that SRD is not really making enough use of having Covenant's son be one of the major villains of the piece.


Don't introduce an obvious parallel-- two parents, two sons-- and then do nothing with it.
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Post by DrPaul »

Some thoughts about Covenant and Roger.

1. Covenant didn't abandon Roger. Joan abandoned Covenant and took Roger with her in the First Chronicles, never to return as far as Covenant knew at the time.

2. Covenant's experience of learning to survive with leprosy, as outlined in the First Chronicles, included learning to forgo hope of certain things and find a way to go on living without hope of those things. Under the circumstances the return of Joan with Roger would have been one of the most important of the things Covenant would have had to learn to live without.

3. Once Covenant had accepted the inevitability of his death in the Second Chronicles, and throughout the millennia he spent as Timewarden, there was no reason why he might have hoped or expected to see Roger again, and nothing that he experienced that might have given him reason for such a hope or expectation.
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Post by Zarathustra »

wayfriend wrote:
Zarathustra wrote:Well, if anyone was saying that Covenant was a deficient father, you'd have a point.
See the Kaos Arcana post that started this. Dropping out - this is just an argument about who said what.
Oh, the argument is obviously about much more than that. But no one is forcing you to participate. If that's all you see here, by focusing on single sentences, I can understand wanting to drop out.

Kaos, you're preaching to the choir, as far as I'm concerned. Excellent points. I hadn't even thought about how we have positive evidence (vs. glaring omissions) of TC's relationship w/his child in the form of Elena. I'd considered that relationship in terms of how unlikely it would be for Donaldson to consider such topics as beyond his interest/focus, but you're right. In terms of TC's relationship with children who haven't seen him for decades, he's pretty shitty to them. For instance, he makes bargains that place the responsibility of the Land upon them, in order to escape having to act himself. He even come close to having incestuous relationships with them. I agree, it's not stellar fatherly behavior.

DrPaul, you make some good points, but I'm not sure it matters in evaluating TC's behavior. Taking your points one-by-one:

1. TC didn't abandon Elena, either, but still used her and mistreated her. And Joan's misdeeds don't in any way excuse TC's.

2. Learning to survive with leprosy, to forego hope, wasn't one of the things TC had to learn ... rather it was one of the things TC had to unlearn. It was his resistance to hope and love, his resistance to the impossible seduction of the Land, that caused all of his heinous acts, like raping Lena. His final lesson was to learn to care again, to hope, to fight, to love. Living with the "Law of Leprosy," which turned him into nothing more than a survival machine, was his initial condition which he had to overcome. That was precisely his character's conflict.

3. I think it's the inevitability of death that causes us to look to our children as some fleeting form of "immortality." It causes us to look beyond ourselves and think about the future, about the planet we're leaving behind. There is nothing about the inevitability of death that would cause us to overlook our own effects upon the next generation ... except Despite.
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Post by shadowbinding shoe »

One way to think of children is as the product and fulfilment of the love between the parents. We know that Thomas Covenant doesn't love Joan any more. He doesn't even feel a sense of obligation towards her. He felt that he more than fulfilled it when he took care of her and then sacrificed his life for her at the beginning of the 2nd chrons.

Roger is just the leftovers from a failed marriage that Thomas Covenant denounced in favor of Linden.
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Post by Vraith »

shadowbinding shoe wrote:One way to think of children is as the product and fulfilment of the love between the parents. We know that Thomas Covenant doesn't love Joan any more. He doesn't even feel a sense of obligation towards her. He felt that he more than fulfilled it when he took care of her and then sacrificed his life for her at the beginning of the 2nd chrons.

Roger is just the leftovers from a failed marriage that Thomas Covenant denounced in favor of Linden.
Hmmm...he may not love her, definitely not "in love" with her...
But we do know, for a fact, he feels obligation and responsibility towards her...and through her, some towards Roger as well, though that isn't developed yet [maybe won't be...we'll see].
We know, in black and white, that he did NOT feel he'd "more than fulfilled" his obligations. [until the very end of AATE...that could be read as the final fulfillment towards her.]
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Post by Ur Dead »

What Made The Third Chrons Possible?

Aside from the side issues..

The answer is simple.. It's the same that allowed for the second Chrons.

You can't kill despite. (Foul)

Reading all the books we learn that Foul has tried all sorts of methods to
free himself from his prison. And like a smart fellow he has learned from each failure. He has suffered a punishment for each of those failures.
Over time he get gets more desperate.

Foul has a problem. It's his narcissistic ego that avalanched this last "all or nothing" scheme.

He should have cut TC loose after losing to him in the first encounter.
But no, his ego wouldn't allow him to be defeated by his definition of "a lame brain sick outsider". He had to get his revenge and he didn't care who he dragged along.

Only if he had waited for some other outsider who had a white gold ring he could have goten his purpose achieve. (but it messses up the Chrons)

Now with AATE coming ( I do believe it was originally titled "The Last Dark")
We may see a final solution to despite being controlled and The Land achieving it true purpose.

SRD leaves hints within his stories. They are placed as a after,before or
inbetween thought while telling a particular portion of the story.

And that is what makes his stories enjoyable to read.
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Post by Savor Dam »

Ahem. Excuse my OCD, but...

"Against All Things Ending" or AATE (originally was to be titled "Shall Pass Utterly") came out in Fall 2010. We are about two months from release of "The Last Dark."

SRD absolutely does leave hints lying about, but they don't always point where you think they will point, which makes his stories even more enjoyable to read...and re-read in a different light.
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Post by Ur Dead »

"Against All Things Ending" or AATE (originally was to be titled "Shall Pass Utterly") came out in Fall 2010. We are about two months from release of "The Last Dark."

OOPS.... :oops:

I stand corrected.. :)
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