The alternate Thomas Covenant

[shadowbinding shoe]

I got to talking with a friend about the Chronicles and Covenant and an interesting question was asked.

Covenant enters the Land for the first time at a pivotal point in his life. He is confronted with the fact that he is completely ostracized from society. His experiences in the Land divert the course of his life in a new and more enlightened direction. But what if the beggar hadn't chosen him and he never got to experience all he did in the Land?

Was the rape of Lena and the lewd hateful glances Covenant made at the girls in the store indicative of his thwarted future in our world? We know Foul saw something in Covenant that made him believe he could be his instrument. The Creator himself said there was no certainty Covenant would've chosen to do the right thing. So how would Covenant's life have turned out without the Land?

Would he become a rapist in real life? Try to burn out the town? Commit suicide or would he really just spend an empty life of inspecting his body in his farm?

[Hashi Lebwohl]

Without any visits to the Land, Covenant would have lived out the remainder of his life as a nearly-complete recluse from society. If anyone ever mentioned him at all it would have been the older residents of the town and even then it would have been the hushed whispers of gossip. He might still have tried to take care of Joan but eventually would have died alone and unremembered.

[wayfriend]

I think it would be a mistake to assume that the hateful glances at the girls in town is indicative of a propensity for rape. He resented those girls as a reminder of his impotence and everything he lost. A lot of other things went into his choice to rape Lena, including being in an impossible dreamlike situation, pressure to be a hero, and unexpected unforeseen health. This isn't a combination Covenant would be likely to encounter otherwise.

Covenant's dark side would probably have come out as a spiralling descent into despair, culminating in some form of suicide.

[peter]

In it's essentials I agree with Wayfriends post - exept I don't think TC would have comitted suicide. I believe he would have begun to neglect his VSE and general safety proceedures, and would have gone into a cycle of decline, amputation and finally institutionalisation where, at some point, he would have been displayed to a newly diagnosed Hansens Disease patient as the inevitable end point for those sufferers who fail in maintaining a 100% focused discipline on surviving.

[Alternatively - one day Covenant opens his door to find a repentant Joan, tearstained and disheveled, on his doorstep. Being TC, he gives his crooked smile, says "You look awfull" and takes her in his arms. With Joan's support and the presence of his proud and defiant son Roger, he forges a post-leprosy life for himself as a puliciser of his condition where even his local community are forced to accept his presence and accord him the respect his courage in the face of such adversity demands.] The Covenants [mother and son] also become horse trainers of repute with Joans tecniques of 'gentling' becoming the standard method adopted by the fraternity. Covenant however never looses his nervousness around horses and when not promoting his charity 'The Hansen Trust' on tv or radio, writes a series of sucessfull fantasy novels that have a loyal and longstanding following. They concern a man who, diagnosed with a terrible disease........]

[Vraith]

Heh...nice ending, peter.
I'll go a different way....

TC is respected-at-distance by the locals for saving a young girl from snake-bite. And pitied because he has to care for his poor wife, who returns to him slightly crazy.

Until, after a decade or so, the girl develops leprosy. The townfolk burn down his place...Joan is shot by someone fleeing the fire...most suspect the Sheriff, and are glad he did it.,.

TC is badly burned over much of his body, but survives for some time in intensive care. That is until a new doctor in town can no longer stand his dual suffering of excruciating burns and rampant leprosy..."accidentally" mis-programs the machine in control of his morphine drip, killing him.

The "missing" son, Roger, eventually comes to town...and, in separate cases, successfully sues the town, the Sheriff, the hospital, and Dr. Avery. He leaves town with his new wealth, most think he is gone for good...until it is discovered that is responsible for torturing and murdering friends and associates of Dr. Avery.

He is sentenced to die by lethal injection, but it goes horribly wrong, paralyzing him...also forcing the amputation of one hand because the injection site becomes infected by flesh-eating bacteria.
Eventually he dies because the amputation successfully saves him from the flesh-eating...but infects him with MRSA which resists all treatment.

[peter]

[shadowbinding shoe]

Good ones

[Kaos Arcanna]

Here's a related question.

There are and have been treatments for leprosy, including treatments that can cure it. (It doesn't regenerate nerves, but there are treatments that can kill the bacteria that cause leprosy and so prevent further damage.)

So assuming Covenant had stuck around and hadn't been one of the 0.1% who can't be cured ... what do you think he would have done once he no longer had leprosy?

(Which is kind of an interesting question of itself-- is it possible that Covenant REFUSED treatment to cure his leprosy since it had been so much a part of him and his first victory against Lord Foul?)

[Holsety]

Here's a related question.

There are and have been treatments for leprosy, including treatments that can cure it. (It doesn't regenerate nerves, but there are treatments that can kill the bacteria that cause leprosy and so prevent further damage.)

So assuming Covenant had stuck around and hadn't been one of the 0.1% who can't be cured ... what do you think he would have done once he no longer had leprosy?

(Which is kind of an interesting question of itself-- is it possible that Covenant REFUSED treatment to cure his leprosy since it had been so much a part of him and his first victory against Lord Foul?)

I personally don't think he would have refused treatment. To some extend, it goes along with his unwillingness to stay in the land after then end of TPTP. But that unwillingness seemed rooted in his continued feeling that the land wasn't HIS real home, or something like that. I think that as a cure that's rooted in something he firmly believes is from his own real world, he would have gone with a treatment from doctors in the same way that he took up the practice of VSE with rigor.

EDIT 1:
As for your main question regarding what he would have done after, however, I'm afraid I don't have any comments.

EDIT2: Now that I think about it, he might have actively sought a reunification with Joan.

[Savor Dam]

Medical science has advanced in the last thirty-five years. The present cures were experimental at best when SRD wrote the 1st Chrons and did not even exist when he had his formative experiences of leprosy when his father was a doctor and missionary in India.

[Ur Dead]

Savor D is correct in his statement. When the books were written MDT was just being tested.

But if TC was never chosen, he would have never fallen down in front of the car and most likely walked home.

Since he never was brought to the land he would have been able to talk to Joan that night.

He would have read about a little girl who died from a snake bite and probably felt sorry for the vacationing family.

In ten years, he would have taken the MDT treatments and been cured of his Hansen disease. Most likely he would have reunited with Joan and Roger would have been reintoduced making them a family again.

Since there wasn't a raver or Foul to cause him any problems. He would have tried to raised Roger as well as he could with his existing numbness and try to support Roger when the local kids would taunt him about his dad "being a freak".
But even then the stigma of the disease was fading.
There was a cure. People who have had it can now interact normally with others. It's only the real old people who have that ancient fear and they like us all are dying off. Attitudes change..

Roger would have went to college and who knows on how he would have trun out?
During the year if TC was with Joan he may have started to write again. A new storyteller with a differnt perspective.


SRD could have written the 1st Chroncles as a Struggle of battling a Stigma instead of a fantasy. But it would have been only 3 book at the max.

[Horrim Carabal]

A better question is...what would Foul have done without Covenant?