Kevin's Watch

I'm going to repost 3 of my past posts for this thread because I feel that all three are needed to show THOOLAH that they are mistaken.
And when I say "mistaken" I mean "dumb-asses".

Runes:

I did a full reread of Runes last week and I swear to god it was like someone rewrote it when I wasn't looking.
It wasn't disappointing at all.

Now, I know I had built it up in my head in the years before hearing about the Last Chronicles. I'm sure I was expecting lightning to strike me like it did Joan but I remember thinking that it kinda sucked.
In the years that followed I only skim read or went to the parts that interested me.
This time I read it from beginning to end and it was great!

There were no dead spots and it had a very fast pace.
I know it's probably because I was able to fill in many of the questions I had upon my first read through.

And.....
And..................
..................................................
.............................................................
Jesus Christ, I'll just say it.
Linden kicked some ass and did some serious shit.
She had absolutely no clue what was going on but still made some decisive decisions.
Linden: "I'm going to go 2000+ years backwards in time through a Ceasure (against the stream), find the Staff of Law (that no one else have been able to find in over a 1000+ years)and come back the same way.(oh and all within about 24 hours)"
That's like a f#cking Chuck Norris type of decision.

Her attitude in the Second Chronicles?
"Oh Nooooooo....."
"Help!"
"Cry......whine...be hopeless......"

In the Last?
Her attitude towards the Haruchai? F-U.
Her attitude towards the Elohim? F-U.
Her attitude towards Lord Foul? F-U, give me my son back or I will f#ck you up beyond imagining.

She's bad-ass.

I know, I've been immediately banned from THOOLAH and my expulsion will be taken up at the next meeting.
She still sucks in the 2nd Chronicles though.


Fatal Revenant

Her awesomeness continues without pause.

Linden comes back with the Staff and a few Demondim.
We learn that the Demonodim are total badasses that somehow link themselves to the Illearth Stone in the past.
The Demondim are so badass High Lord Kevin, the greatest Lord in the Lands history couldn't beat them.
But Linden reaches out with her health sense and Law and cut their connection to the Stone.
She probably would have then walked through Revelstones gates and killed them all before breakfast but TC and Jeremiah want her to go back in time.

They go back in time and meet Berek.
She's so awesome even Berek wants to bang her.

Then she meets the Viles.
The Viles are confused because they know that she's such a badass that there's no reason why she should be with TC and Jeremiah.

Then they go under Melenkurion Skyweir. She fights "TC and Jeremiah" and in the process splits the mountain and gets buried by it.
Ok, lets review that part again.
She fights "TC and Jeremiah" and in the process splits the mountain and gets buried by it.
The largest Mountain in the Land, and she god-damn split it in half.
Then the mountain collapses on her.
What does she do?
She grabs chunks of the falling mountain and God-damn REFORMS them around her in to a supporting cavern that will allow Damelon access in the future.

In the One Tree we were all thrilled when TC said "Nom","shattered the atmosphere" and blasted small falling stones into dust....wow, big whoop.

Then she gets swallowed up by a river, goes down an underground cavern and somehow comes up alive in Garroting Deep.
TC needed Bannor and a raft.
Apparently Linden just surrounded herself in a force field of awesomeness.

Linden and Mahdoubt light a fire in Garroting Deep. Which usually means instant death but Caerroil Wildwood comes out of the forest, looks at Linden and says "oh shit. I'm not fucking with you, never mind, let me give you a gift instead"
A gift.
Linden's got a Forestal giving her gifts!

Then she goes back to the present and gets her ass kicked by the Harrow.
I know what you're thinking "Oh she's so weak!"
Dude, read what she just did in like 2 days compared to whatever anyone else did in years.
You'd be tired too.

Now she's out of ideas, and wants TC.
The REAL TC.
Thank God for that because we all do by this point.
Everyone tells her no.
Except her friends.
To them she's like Spock in A Voyage Home.
They trust her guesses more than the Elohim's facts.

So she brings back TC and wakes the Worm.

Against All Things Ending

So in the beginning of my 3rd Chronicle THOOLAH life I raged against Linden's "love" for a child that has never even acknowledged her existence.

It made no sense to me that Linden was so willing to sacrifice everything that she knew, Giants, the Land and all the innocent people in it to rescue her oblivious son.

It was all....."my son" "my son" "my son!".........bleah!


And then.......
And then Thomas Covenant flips my THOOLAH world on me with this regarding Linden's rescue quest:

2nd chapter.........page 41 "Mhoram would approve".

That's right.....similar thing in tPtP when Mhoram correctly lets TC go to save the life of a little girl that TC didn't even know.
Which I praised Mhoram for.....
Damn-it!

THEN.....3rd chapter page 49 "None of the love you lavished on your son was wasted"......

God-damn-it!


The Harrow, also a member of THOOLAH, needed her help getting into the Viles kingdom.
Harrow had the Ring and the Staff......still needed Linden.

And then at the end of the book she's knocking Ceasures out of the air like flies.....
Think of where she was at the beginning of Runes as compared to the Ceasures.
Now they are mere annoyances.


*********************************



Now, my former THOOLAH compadres....... defend your THOOLAH membership!

What are you going to do when, based on her undeniably awesome actions in the 3rd Chronicles, Linden continues to kick some serious butt, saves the land and everything in it that we love, show the Giants how to make ice-cream and finally kick Foul's ass?

The Ranyhyn trust her.
THOOLAH doesn't.

The Giants trust her.
THOOLAH doesn't.

Roger hates her.
Roger is a member of THOOLAH.

Thomas Covenant loves her.
THOOLAH hates her.

Berek wants to bang her,
THOOLAH are all eunuchs.

The Haruchai don't trust her.
THOOLAH doesn't trust her either.

So what happens then THOOLAH?
What happens after Last Dark is done and when the Land-reality and our own reality praise Linden for her actions?

What hole are you going to crawl into and gnaw on the bones of your misplaced ignorant hate?

OH, and Jeremiah seems to be a good kid, "sorry about Galt" is one of the first things he says.
Yeah i guess Linden was wrong to love an empty headed vegetable like that huh THOOLAH?
You shallow feeling motherf#ckers!

How will THOOLAH redeem themselves?





And all you OPAL members, pick a God-damn side already!
You're as bad as Esmer.

I have no doubt that somehow Linden will save them all in the end, just as she did at the end of WGW. SRD is certainly going to write the story that way. However, none of that means that we in THOOLAH can't continue to hate her. When Covenant returned from the dead, the first thing she did was slap him. I can hate her for that.

Not convincing, dlb. First thing the doctor probably did when you were born was slap you. No hate for the doctor, nu?

I voted "Denial", of course. THOOLAH has been in denial ever since Linden cured the Sunbane and saved the Land. Which is to say, 1983.

But I don't put it past those sneaky bastards to try and get HLT banned.

I voted for gift certificates for wayfriend because that would be easy. What will be excruciating is the amount of 'told-you-so' that I'll have to endure from Vraith

Still, if SRD can make me like Linden in The Last Dark it'll be (almost) worth it!

u.

You don't have to like her...but respect is due.

ussusimiel wrote:I voted for gift certificates for wayfriend because that would be easy. What will be excruciating is the amount of 'told-you-so' that I'll have to endure from Vraith

Still, if SRD can make me like Linden in The Last Dark it'll be (almost) worth it!

u.

I would never say I told you so to you, u.
[Heh...well, yes I would! but not on this]
I don't think anyone who hates Linden will, at this point, reform except through their own self-reflective enlightenment.
It's been predictable for everyone, love or hate, that Linden will be an important and successful part of any positive resolution. [in her actual actions/decisions]

But that doesn't affect the opinion of character.

I mean, you know who I think sucks?
Every single freaking Hobbit. Talk about useless whiny pieces of crap that are somehow heroes!
Not to mention Tin Man, Scare Crow, Cowardly Lion, and Dorothy!
Nothing REALLY awful EVER happens/ed to any of them...and they didn't actually ever DO ANYTHING really hard.

THOOLAH doesn't even HAVE to redeem themselves...though think they're wrong and I wish they'd change their minds.

High Lord Tolkien wrote:And all you OPAL members, pick a God-damn side already!
You're as bad as Esmer.

Ooo...
I'm as bad as Esmer.
Awesome!

As conflicted as Esmer, yes, you are. Definitely.

Badness? You each are at an extreme of an axis of badness, but those vectors are entirely skew to each other.

Further, deponent sayeth naught.

You have to ask yourself, what would you rather be: a tool, a jewel, or a self indulgent shower song?

Sorry about the swears. It just seemed a more appropriate way to express my thoughts.

I think my hate has moved from Linden to OPAL.....

I voted total silence. I've been a proponent of Linden from the day I joined the watch and spent a fair amount of time defending her. One of my arguments has often been, you don't have to like her but she does merit respect even in the second chrons. Why? Her handicap is a deep rooted terror of emotional caring and love. She doesn't know what it is, she can't express it or allow herself to feel it. What does the second chrons teach her? That it's better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. How does it teach her this? Through TC. SHE KNOWS he's a dead man when they get back to our world. She knows it ain't gonna last. She FINALLY accepts it anyway and it CHANGES her forever. It gives her a new strength and a new purpose and a new way of looking at life forever. What is the final lesson she learns in the second chrons that shapes who she is in the final chrons? It's better to give than receive. That's how she's able to love Jeremiah. How does she learn this? TC willingly sacrifices himself for the good of others whether they like him/appreciate him or not. SO even if you don't like her, you have to respect someone who can go through life for decades believing/living one way and then essentially change so much that the change is rooted in the very core of their being. Think on that THOOLAH and be dismayed.

We have a running Bad Writing Contest where every wannabe SRD (yes, even the cultmembers) can rewrite Linden to appear more appealing to THOOLAH. There's already one hilarious entry with the anti-heroine as Lara Croft, so come and join!

My dislike of Linden doesn't really have anything to do with her actions/inactions as a character. I think she has done some really cool shit. Some of her decisions were good, some were bad. But, I believe that she made all of her decisions with good intentions and because she had no better options. I also totally get her love of Jeremiah. Being a mom of 2 boys, the mama bear in me relates to the mama bear in her. Plus, I really hate that the Haruchai are such dicks to her all of the time and they refuse to try to see things from her side.

My dislike comes from a writing standpoint. I despise the story being told from her POV. When the chapters are written from Covenant's POV I feel that the story flows better and is just way more enjoyable for me as a reader. Chapters written from Linden's POV are a chore for me to read. From her POV the story plods along and suffers from way too much repetition of her feelings, emotions, angst, etc.

Linden as a character is really no different from Covenant. I mean, he was kind of a douche in the first chrons. And he was selfish, rude and a bit of an ass at times. But I still loved the story and the flow of things. I just despise reading events from Linden's POV, and thus it makes me get annoyed with her.

Although, I fully despise the Linden from the 2nd chrons simply because she as a character annoyed the crap out of me, along with my hatred of her POV as well.

Queen Christine wrote:My dislike of Linden doesn't really have anything to do with her actions/inactions as a character. I think she has done some really cool shit. Some of her decisions were good, some were bad. But, I believe that she made all of her decisions with good intentions and because she had no better options. I also totally get her love of Jeremiah. Being a mom of 2 boys, the mama bear in me relates to the mama bear in her. Plus, I really hate that the Haruchai are such dicks to her all of the time and they refuse to try to see things from her side.

My dislike comes from a writing standpoint. I despise the story being told from her POV. When the chapters are written from Covenant's POV I feel that the story flows better and is just way more enjoyable for me as a reader. Chapters written from Linden's POV are a chore for me to read. From her POV the story plods along and suffers from way too much repetition of her feelings, emotions, angst, etc.

Linden as a character is really no different from Covenant. I mean, he was kind of a douche in the first chrons. And he was selfish, rude and a bit of an ass at times. But I still loved the story and the flow of things. I just despise reading events from Linden's POV, and thus it makes me get annoyed with her.

Although, I fully despise the Linden from the 2nd chrons simply because she as a character annoyed the crap out of me, along with my hatred of her POV as well.

Agree 100%. I have difficulty reading The One Tree because so much of that book is from Linden's POV.

Queen Christine wrote:I mean, he [Covenant] was kind of a douche in the first chrons. And he was selfish, rude and a bit of an ass at times.

Understatement of the century

But more than anything, I loved reading the summary above of each book - just brilliant!

I voted "Denial".

And I totally agree with:

High Lord Tolkien wrote:I think my hate has moved from Linden to OPAL.....

While I have moved off the fence in the past couple years, I implore you not to hate those who claim OPALescent beliefs. Someone very dear to me still clings to that...and when the time comes, I will assist in removing the fence splinters that cannot otherwise be reached.

Hei, HLT, I think you'll enjoy Deer's Bad (Good) Writing entry.

She can make Chuck Norris cry,
Anytime