Story-Purpose of She Who Must Not Be Named?

[dlbpharmd]

I would like to change the name of SWMNBN to SWIWHNBI:

"She Who I Wish Had Not Been Included."

You can take "I create what I need for the story" too far.

This character/creature alone was almost a good reason to shake your head in wonder at the choice for its conclusion. I know that I pop in here from time to time lately and write stuff that makes me look like a constant downer, but it was choices like this that really blighted my enjoyment of the LCs. When you start personifying emotions to tell a story you run the risk of.... Well, it is hard to say where exactly that you wind up when you make these choices. I don't even have a phrase for it any better than to say that the end of the story waxed philosophic in the extreme. Yes SRD always had things to say of a philosophical nature, but I don't know how anyone realistically can say that SWMNBN was the best vehicle for accomplishing the conclusion of the story.

Guess I need to go back to the "Suggesting Changes..." thread.

She (AKA Mrs. Voldemort) was the reason that I didn't like AATE.

[Mighara Sovmadhi]

To be fair, the "Who Must Not Be Named" moniker has been appended to entities as far back as the origins of the Cthulhu mythos (I think, as per Azazoth maybe) or, more recently, The Wheel of Time series (Shai'tan(sp.?)). Further in SRD's defense, he might be the first author to make a feminine entity into such an unnameable foe.

[Zarathustra]

I had no problem whatsoever with the addition of SHE. To think that a monstrous bane slept in Mt Thunder all this time is both terrifying and tragic.

It was mentioned over and over in the first 2 Chrons that there were banes buried in Mt Thunder. It wasn't just the wightwarrens and refuse of the smaller inhabitants that caused the great poisoning of this mountain and its drainage. It had to be something truly horrific and vast. People are always wanting to get at the source of mysteries in the Chronicles ... well, here you go. There's the source. It even explains the breaking of the Land in the form of Landsdrop. The fact that it's worked into the character development of Linden is just more brilliance.

Now, I wish SHE had been used to greater effect, and had more impact on the plot (rather than merely the symbolism), but that's my only complaint regarding SHE.

[Mighara Sovmadhi]

Two other foreshadowings of Her in the 2nd Chronicles were, as SRD said somewhere in the GI, the attempt of the Cavewights to raise something from their bone ritual, and I think Findail's story of then-unnamed Emereau Vrai's fate near the end of TOT (IIRC), probably in the chapter about the Dancers of the Sea and the Haruchai.

[Akasri]

I think SWMNBN could have been left out... Kastenessen could have found some other source for Kevin's Dirt. However, I don't really have a problem with her inclusion in the story, except I don't understand what happened at the end.

Linden pulls entities out of SWMNBN and feeds them to the Ur-Viles and Waynhim. What purpose does this serve? It apparently worked some transformation on the demondim-spawn, but what did it actually do to them?

This part seems kind of glossed over... or maybe I skimmed it knowing I was nearing the end? Not sure...

[Mighara Sovmadhi]

I figure the Demondim-spawn must've had some lore for merging with other beings, hence Vain's capacity for a merger with an Elohim, mediated then as now by Linden's wild magic. But other than that, I've only come up with poetic-justice kinds of reasons for the outcome of Her victims' redemption.

[wayfriend]

Akasri, if you can figure out what could NOT have been accomplished without Her, then you have your answer.

[ike5]

"I cannot come up with a crucial reason why SWMNBN is in the Last Chron's at all. Any solid ideas?"

That's an easy one. Deus Ex Machina.

[Akasri]

Akasri, if you can figure out what could NOT have been accomplished without Her, then you have your answer.

Well, therein lies my problem. As far as I can tell, She was only useful for one thing. Without SWMNBN, there would be no Kevin's Dirt, but really I don't feel Kastenessen was all that much more effective with Kevin's Dirt in place. And I think Kevin's Dirt could have been accomplished by some other bane buried deep under Mt. Thunder (from a narrative standpoint), so I don't really feel She was necessary to the story.

What am I missing?

[lurch]

What am I missing?

Redemption for both or..a chance to Love again.

The waynhim end their self loathing of their physicality
and the failed females are given another chance to get Love right.

Linden goes maxim " distance" to get SHE to liberate all the tragic " spirits". In a way Linden is also redeemed of all her failing to Love by her act of sacrifice. By giving all a second chance, a redemption, being Reborn, Linden is also Reborn, absolved of her Failures, given another chance to Love. Thats the Power of LOVE.

And that sacrifice for LOVE..is essential to the Story about a person who has to find Hope in being a Leper.

[wayfriend]

Akasri, if you can figure out what could NOT have been accomplished without Her, then you have your answer.

Well, therein lies my problem. As far as I can tell, She was only useful for one thing. Without SWMNBN, there would be no Kevin's Dirt, but really I don't feel Kastenessen was all that much more effective with Kevin's Dirt in place. And I think Kevin's Dirt could have been accomplished by some other bane buried deep under Mt. Thunder (from a narrative standpoint), so I don't really feel She was necessary to the story.

What am I missing?

SWMNBN was NOT necessary for Kevin's Dirt. Not in a story-construction sense -- Donaldson could have had Kevin's Dirt arise from any kind of thing. We are looking for something that only SWMNBN could accomplish.

I don't know what the answer is ... but ...

It strikes me that SWMNBN would be necessary as a foil for Lord Foul. If that's what She is. As I described in an earlier post, the fact that She is released significantly bears on the matter of Lord Foul's not being.

SWMNBN would be necessary if you think that Linden needs her own Lord Foul for some reason -- but that's something I don't believe myself.

SWMNBN would be necessary if She was the only thing that could have prevented Foul from fleeing the Earth. Sure, Jeremiah had his forbidding, but Foul would take only a moment to rip Jeremiah apart. But I think Covenant, who bested Foul when he had the Illearth Stone, should have been able to best him without it.

Another clue is that Donaldson envisioned She in some form way back when writing the Second Chronicles.

I was simply leaving a hint for myself, and for my readers, that there remained SOMEthing rotten in Denmark, er, I mean the roots of Mount Thunder. The details I figured out later.

(03/22/2011)

So what was necessary wasn't that She was She, but that there was something buried under Mount Thunder.

Maybe She's best and truest purpose was exactly what She was - a danger to the Quest far below Mount Thunder, in the realm of the Viles. A danger that affected Linden in a certain way.

[Zarathustra]

This is a character-driven story. If it's not necessary to the protagonists' character arcs, then it's not necessary for the story. If a confrontation with SHE wasn't the culmination of Linden's personal journey--the counterpart to Covenant's confrontation with Foul--then it's odd that these confrontations happened almost simultaneously, at the climax of the entire saga, right when each protagonist was having their epiphanic moment. That's not accidental or serendipitous symmetry.

There's no way Donaldson created a counterpart to Lord Foul out of the blue and dropped Her into this story merely for one LF bitch-slap on Her way to freedom. That would be the biggest cop-out of his entire career. If Her bitch-slap was necessary to keep Foul in Mt Thunder long enough for Covenant to do his thing--i.e. if TC could not have succeeded without that slap--then that's the cheapest deus ex machina in the history of fantasy literature. There's not a single sentence in the entire Chronicles that would have foreshadowed this necessity.

Nor would SHE be necessary as a plot obstacle for the Quest under Mt Thunder, because any number of obstacles could have made that part of the story suspenseful and exciting ... and yet very few of those possibilities would have made sense to revisit at precisely the climax of the story. Doing so would have been merely redundant, instead of a culmination of a character arc.

Thus, given She's prominence at the climax, one that puts Her on nearly equal footing (storywise) with Foul himself, and that She was Linden's to confront, it only makes sense to view Her as the culmination of Linden's story. And in addition to this reasoning, Donaldson foreshadowed just such a conclusion in AATE, as I've documented elsewhere.

[wayfriend]

I don't think that the confrontation with She was the culmination of Linden's personal journey because nothing in that whole chapter discusses Linden resolving anything personal. Nor was Linden terribly involved with She's escape. (She was terribly involved in freeing She's victims, but that's not the same.) It's not that I don't see the point your making and it's not that I don't recognize the logic of your position. I just want to read it. And it's not there. I recently reread that entire chapter and there's nothing like that in it.

The only thing it says is that She is the thing Linden fears most. She confronts that fear, yes. But it's not the culmination of a journey -- it's evidence that the journey has already culminated, and that Linden is now strong. Because she doesn't change in the undertaking of this confrontation. She doesn't gain any of that strength.

In WGW, Linden's culmination was clearly written, down to the instant.

She wanted to shout aloud for simple joy. This was power and it was not evil if she were not. The hunger which had dogged her days was only dark because she had feared it, denied it. It had two names, and one of them was life.

I am not finding that here.

But look at the situation from a slightly different perspective. Have I *ever* been the kind of writer who would make something that important happen without nailing it down so that it could not be mistaken for anything else?

(05/15/2011)

[OhYeah]

I think that SHE exists as to something that Donaldson wants to speak to us in our own life. I mean, the guy is deep into his 9th book about The Land -- spanning all the way back to 1977 (the year of Star Wars!). That's a long time. So the question is, why introduce such major character like SHE, so 'late on the game'.

I believe that Stephen wants to teach US about OURselves -- and this is it -- don't cheat on your girlfriend or wife. He wants to communicate with the Reader about our own personal behavior. Then, after Thomas marries Linden, the married heroine is able to release all of these jilted lovers/women, and make them whole in the Last Dark. And the freed avatar is actually given the honor of delivering the striking blow against Foul.

Another thing, is that Donaldson is also trying to tell us not to give up on our kids over and over throughout the last 4 books. First Jeremiah, then even Roger, who wants to be free from Lord Foul under Mt Thunder.

Yes, Donaldson is definitely trying to speak to the reader about our own lives, I believe.

[Zarathustra]

I don't think that the confrontation with She was the culmination of Linden's personal journey because nothing in that whole chapter discusses Linden resolving anything personal.

The fact that She = Linden is pretty darn personal. In fact, it's entirely personal. Did you really think the Bane wasn't talking about Linden when Linden is literally inside Her, and She shouts "I am me"? It's about Linden accepting the fact that she is the Betrayer, that she damned the whole world because she couldn't face life alone (without Jeremiah), and needed her dead lover back so bad, she had to break what she loved (the Land) in order to get him. That's personal. It's guilt. It's inability to face yourself. This is what Linden feared the most: facing her "sin" and forgiving herself. Why else was she the "woman who doesn't forgive?" As Stave said (or implied), that was about forgiving herself. And letting her own Bane go--instead of embracing Her like TC/LF--was forgiving herself.

But look at the situation from a slightly different perspective. Have I *ever* been the kind of writer who would make something that important happen without nailing it down so that it could not be mistaken for anything else?

(05/15/2011)

Well, as you said to someone else recently in the other thread, perhaps this says more about you than Donaldson. I don't see how anyone can mistake the fact that She = Linden when SRD flat out said that Linden was going to become Diassomer Mininderain by the end of this story (in AATE), and Diassomer Mininderain is the symbol for She in the a-Jeroth myth. It seems absolutely nailed down to me.

[wayfriend]

I don't think that the confrontation with She was the culmination of Linden's personal journey because nothing in that whole chapter discusses Linden resolving anything personal.

The fact that She = Linden is pretty darn personal.

If that's what you believe. That's another thing that actually isn't in the text. In contrast to Covenant, who discusses his duality with Lord Foul quite substantially.

So my opinion on the matter remains.

Did you really think the Bane wasn't talking about Linden when Linden is literally inside Her, and She shouts "I am me"? It's about Linden accepting the fact that she is the Betrayer, that she damned the whole world because she couldn't face life alone (without Jeremiah), and needed her dead lover back so bad, she had to break what she loved (the Land) in order to get him. That's personal. It's guilt. It's inability to face yourself. This is what Linden feared the most: facing her "sin" and forgiving herself. Why else was she the "woman who doesn't forgive?" As Stave said (or implied), that was about forgiving herself. And letting her own Bane go--instead of embracing Her like TC/LF--was forgiving herself.

No, I didn't think any of those things at all.

It also makes no sense if Linden is the betrayer and She is the betrayed that Linden = She. It's a complimentary relationship, not a parallel one.

I cannot fault anyone for trying to rescue their child. As many various people of the Land, whom I have reason to have faith in, have also indicated. I think any premise based on that is faulty.

Linden clearly was talking about Foul when she said that she did not forgive, at which point Stave picked up the refrain. Which was in Fatal Revenant before the rousing of the Worm. Stave is consistently discussing her ambitions against Lord Foul each time it is uttered.

So my opinion on the matter remains.

I don't see how anyone can mistake the fact that She = Linden when SRD flat out said that Linden was going to become Diassomer Mininderain by the end of this story (in AATE)

SRD didn't "flat out" say that. So I guess I am mistaken. Yay. But the quote you posted could more readily be interpreted in other ways, and interpreting it this way feels a lot like trying to make the evidence fit a foregone conclusion.

My opinion on the matter remains, despite how many times I hear it is wrong.

[Zarathustra]

WF, if you don't think that She = Linden, you're free to have your own interpretation. However, I think your argument reduces to circular reasoning: "SHE isn't Linden's Lord Foul, because SHE isn't the culmination of Linden's character arc." And "SHE isn't the culmination of Linden's character arc, because SHE isn't Linden." You seem to be saying the same thing twice, as if one is the justification for the other. If you don't think any of this is in the text, you could just say that SHE isn't Linden's version of Foul because SRD didn't come right out and say that in the text. But I think he had an important reason for not spelling that out: Linden gives it up. She does the opposite of an identification. Instead of taking her guilt inside and identifying with her mistakes, she lets it go. So in a sense, you're right: SHE isn't literally Linden in the same way Foul is Covenant, but symbolically the difference diminishes to the point of not mattering. These are both archetypal symbols for our main characters. One collapses the figurative/literal divide and makes a powerful point, while the other maintains the figurative/literal divide and makes an equally powerful point.

The distinction between betrayer and the betrayed has already been blurred by Donaldson with Joan. Joan felt betrayed by Covenant, even though he's the one who was betrayed by her. You could also say the same about Elena ... she felt betrayed by the Dead and Linden for their failure to give her forgiveness, when Elena was the one who betrayed everyone by violating the Laws of the Land.

Both of these are tortured, damaged woman for whom She can stand as a universal symbol, much like Foul stands for the Despiser in all of us (but Covenant in particular). I think She is much the same: a universal symbol that plays out in the story as the "darkness" within one particular character. The fact that Linden does the opposite of Covenant's internalization, or indentification, doesn't diminish the personal significance to Linden in that confrontation.

It doesn't matter whether or not you can fault someone for trying to rescue her child. I'm not judging Linden, nor does my argument rest on you judging her. Linden judges herself, and faults herself for the things she has done. That's the point. That's where her guilt comes from, and why she's unable to forgive herself.

You say this stuff isn't in the text, but I've quoted some relevant portions to make my argument. From AATE:

She had been consumed by the reified outcome of her actions in Jeremiah's name, and in Covenant's. Her own name had become agony.
...
While the Arch endured, her name would always be agony
...
...she had betrayed herself. And her friends. And the Land.

And her son.
She brought her doom upon herself.

That's Linden speaking for Linden. Not me, not you. Linden. So if she thinks she is the betrayer/betrayed, and she thinks her name is agony, and she thinks she'll "become Diassomer Mininderain in the end and know the truth" (as the text says), then perhaps some of this stuff is in the text.

If you want to call it "complimentary relationship," fine. I prefer "figurative." SHE might stand for many women, but for the purposes of this story, SHE is most relevant to Linden's character arc. No other women were able to enter SHE and escape on their own.

[hurtloam]

I'm going to try to put in my $.02.

I'm coming down on the side of She Who Must Not Be Named being the feminine side of the Creator. Even his mate, if you will. As He is the Father of Creation, She is the Mother. Her betrayal of the Creator in favor of Foul is what frightens the Creator so much that he casts both down into his creation and seals them up within the Arch. Doing so, I suspect he loses the ability to create new worlds. When Linden frees Her, She escapes through the collapsing Arch after delivering the smackdown to the Despiser, and takes Her rightful place at the Creator's side. Remember, Covenant tells her, "He still loves you."

As a reflection of Linden's worst fears about herself? Yeah, I can see that. SWMNBN is both betrayer and betrayed. Linden is as well. Betrayed by her parents, but accused of betraying them, she goes on to perform an act that leads her to believe she has betrayed the whole world. Although it turns out to be just the right thing to do, she doesn't know that yet.

And yet this leads me to the question of Foul vis-a-vis Covenant. Is Foul a part of Covenant, as Covenant himself says over and over? Or is he the brother of the Creator's heart, as stated in LFB? The Creator certainly represents Foul to Covenant as the Creator's enemy at the end of TPTP, but he may be speaking to Covenant's level of understanding at the time.

Could both be true? Could it be that the Creator and the Despiser both spring from Covenant's own psyche? And then they participate in the creation of a whole world in another dimension? Could Foul be a necessary but unrecognized actor in the Creation, whose betrayal stems from his bitterness at his necessity not being recognized? I think Foul starts out as a kind of passion for the Creation that the Creator holds back because its intensity frightens him. Covenant himself says, "All that malice and contempt is just love and hope and eagerness gone rancid. He's the Creator's curdled shadow."

But then what explains SWMNBN's role? Seems to be the result of Linden's insertion of herself into Covenant's life in the Land. Yet that would imply backwards causality through time, i.e., predestination. She has to be there from the beginning so that She can, at the right time, be the reflection for Linden as Foul is for Covenant.

However I can't agree with Lurch that She is some kind of pathetic, doomed figure. She is not Joan. I think it's clear that She gains redemption at the end. Maybe Linden and the D-spawn have to free her, but She has to choose to accept this, just as Foul has to choose to live by accepting incorporation into Covenant (that's another interesting point. Foul could perform the ultimate act of Despite by denying Covenant here, causing his own extinction, Covenant's, and probably the whole world's, but he chooses life. Does that hold out the possibility of Foul's own redemption? Or is it just a survival ploy until he can find a way to keep trying to escape?).

Linden says, "I've seen She Who Must Not Be Named without all that agony and bitterness." It's clear that the souls of all the lost women are redeemed as well. The Demondim-spawn provide the bodies they need to complete their separation from SWMNBN. She can't take them with Her where She's going, and being part of the soul of a new Forestal is a heck of a lot better than being part of the soul of a goddess trapped in eternal agony and bitterness. [/i]

[TheFallen]

On this one, I'm foursquare with Z. As I've just said in the "Terribly Disappointed..." thread, symbolically SHE is the embodiment of self-loathing, bitterness and the assuming of victimhood - all three of which are the cause of SHE's imprisonment. Remember that, once having been freed of the shackles of these things, SHE's absolutely not imprisoned by the Arch of Time. Okay, it's crumbling, but SHE sails joyfully and unrestrictedly past it, while bitch-slapping LF in passing for good measure. As such, SHE absolutely does represent the personal demons that Linden needs to resolve, precisely and primarily in order that the latter can lose her tendency to inaction, undergo her own transfiguration and fulfil her role (whatever that might have been... grrr) in the repairing of all things.

And of course on the pure simplistic narrative level, as I've said earlier in this thread and as Hurtloam seems to agree with, at origin, SHE seems very much to be the feminine side of the Creator - and yes, yes I know we're explicitly told that SHE's not just Diassomer Mininderain but anyway. SHE is the Yin to the Creator's Yang. In the act of creation, SHE is Love to the Creator's Power. But as we know, sadly Love was corrupted by Despite and curdled into pointless bitterness, futile self-loathing and impotent self-pity.

This is a character-driven story. If it's not necessary to the protagonists' character arcs, then it's not necessary for the story. If a confrontation with SHE wasn't the culmination of Linden's personal journey--the counterpart to Covenant's confrontation with Foul--then it's odd that these confrontations happened almost simultaneously, at the climax of the entire saga, right when each protagonist was having their epiphanic moment. That's not accidental or serendipitous symmetry.

There's no way Donaldson created a counterpart to Lord Foul out of the blue and dropped Her into this story merely for one LF bitch-slap on Her way to freedom. That would be the biggest cop-out of his entire career. If Her bitch-slap was necessary to keep Foul in Mt Thunder long enough for Covenant to do his thing--i.e. if TC could not have succeeded without that slap--then that's the cheapest deus ex machina in the history of fantasy literature. There's not a single sentence in the entire Chronicles that would have foreshadowed this necessity.

Nor would SHE be necessary as a plot obstacle for the Quest under Mt Thunder, because any number of obstacles could have made that part of the story suspenseful and exciting ... and yet very few of those possibilities would have made sense to revisit at precisely the climax of the story. Doing so would have been merely redundant, instead of a culmination of a character arc.

Thus, given She's prominence at the climax, one that puts Her on nearly equal footing (storywise) with Foul himself, and that She was Linden's to confront, it only makes sense to view Her as the culmination of Linden's story. And in addition to this reasoning, Donaldson foreshadowed just such a conclusion in AATE, as I've documented elsewhere.

Yep. That about sums it up for me. The crux of SHE's presence in the LCs is as the means to Linden's personal apotheosis.

It strikes me that at the ending of TLD, we are shown three possible paths to redemption, pretty much mirroring the endings of the three Chrons. These are conquest, letting go and acceptance. Don't we get this again here with the three main protagonists? Jerry conquers moksha raver, resisting him and forcing him into submission - in this way, he wins his personal battle against locked-in syndrome. In contrast, in redeeming SHE (and thus herself), Linden lets go of her ingrained feelings of inadequacy and self-loathing - in this way, she wins her personal battle and is no longer a victim of her parents. In contrast again, TC subsumes LF as an integral part of himself (in more ways than one) - in this way, he achieves the only possible resolution available to him, an acceptance of the futility of fighting one's dark side, or indeed surrendering to it. Instead he acknowledges it and takes it into himself, so that he may watch against it.

[wayfriend]

However, I think your argument reduces to circular reasoning: "SHE isn't Linden's Lord Foul, because SHE isn't the culmination of Linden's character arc." And "SHE isn't the culmination of Linden's character arc, because SHE isn't Linden."

That's not what I said at all. And that's a pretty nasty sleight. And it's very unfair to say.

I said I don't believe She is Linden because it doesn't say so in the book.
I said I don't believe She is the culmination of Linden's character arc because it doesn't say so in the book.

Go look. That's what I said.

Instead of taking her guilt inside and identifying with her mistakes, she lets it go.

Yes, this "guilt" is another thing that's not in the text.

That's Linden speaking for Linden. Not me, not you. Linden. So if she thinks she is the betrayer/betrayed, and she thinks her name is agony, and she thinks she'll "become Diassomer Mininderain in the end and know the truth" (as the text says), then perhaps some of this stuff is in the text.

Like I said, if you force it to be there.

A reading with less agenda attached would have "Become Diassomer Mininderain" merely a metaphor/shorthand for succombing to the same fate, viz. swallowed by She. Donaldson uses such language everywhere. (It ALSO says Linden would be Emerau Vrai. And that she would be the Auriference.) And it fits the context the quote occurs in quite nicely. So I am not so eager to take this literally.

Similarly, one would note that how Linden feels when under the influence of She is not necessarilly the truth. I am not so eager to take it as truth.

As a reflection of Linden's worst fears about herself? Yeah, I can see that.

Absolutely. She incarnates Linden's worst fears, that's stated several times. If anything, She makes Linden feel like her parents made her feel. Her parents accused her of betrayal, as does She. The physical effects of She are like the black moods of her earlier self, only taken to another level.

And yet this leads me to the question of Foul vis-a-vis Covenant. Is Foul a part of Covenant, as Covenant himself says over and over? Or is he the brother of the Creator's heart, as stated in LFB?

As you say, I think both are true. However, there are all kinds of levels that these relationships play out on - literary, figurative, metaphoric, emotional, and spiritual - and, in the end, physical.

For example, Covenant first notices that he is "as bad as" Lord Foul. Then he believes that Lord Foul must represent some part of himself -- if he is in a dream. Later, he realizes that they are a 'brothers of fate' kind of thing - their fates are tied together. Finally, they become one in actuality. So, as I said, all different levels.

The Covenant/Creator relationship is far less explicit, but there. Consider that, as the dreamer, he created his dream. Consider that, by destroying the Staff, he "created" the world that later came into being with the Sunbane. And finally, he literally re-created the Arch and the Earth. Also, I think the fact that he assumed the Creator's position, in a way, when he spoke to Linden as she travelled back to her world (as the Creator had done earlier, with Covenant) symbolizes his inheriting a Creator role in some way.