If the General Interview was still open....

Book 4 of the Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant

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OhYeah
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Post by OhYeah »

peter wrote:I'd ask if it was fear of the critical response of TLD and being asked many, many difficult questions that prompted him to close the GI.
Very true. People can be really hard on Stephen Donaldson. But then, hey, he does want $27.99 hardcover.

I will always like The Last Dark. Thomas becomes a true stud, gets married, and bangs his wife with Giants, his step-son, and Haruchai, just over the hillock.

Pretty real, and the ultimate revocation for The Happy Couple to never once again wish there were back in Our Land. If one can have great sexual intercourse in The Land, why want to go back?

Now Jeri, the next book needs to find him a wife or something, to get his mind off of all of the travails that he has gone through.
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Post by peter »

Strange that most people go *into* a room to get their rocks off, but TC and LInden locked everybody else in a room and then just did it on the ground outside. Yeah - that works for me; get the **** inside every body - I'm a'feelin jiggy!
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Post by hurtloam »

Help a newbie out. What is THOOLAH? I get that the last three letters stand for "Linden Avery Haters." I don't get the hate, myself. I didn't like her that much myself until the very end of WGW, but isn't that the point? Characters developing and transcending themselves? Heck, I liked TC even less in the beginning. He raped someone, for Chrissakes! I almost put LFB right down and forgot about it after reading that.

You guys are reminding me about some of the niggling problems I have with the whole Last Chronicles. Especially the killing off of characters we've come to know and sympathize with. Liand, especially, and in such a feckless and useless way. "Hey, Linden, I've got an idea how to get the croyel off your son! Oops, now I'm dead, and my idea wouldn't have helped him enough anyway."

And then there's Anele, "I was the hope of the Land;" but now I've conveniently transferred that hope to someone else, because my writer got tired of my sniveling self and didn't see hope for me beyond that. Weak. I really was hoping for a more pivotal role for Anele, coming in the climax of the whole series.

Then there's Pahni suddenly accepting fellow Cord Bhapa as her Manethrall, and following his every word slavishly. Where did that come from? After she almost had to drag him to Revelstone in the first place?

The last peeve I'll mention here is the device of making the Ardent's powers somehow a "wan mimicry of wild magic" and thus ineffective in Esmer's presence. First, it's enough of a stretch to say that Esmer's presence blocks wild magic, though it's somewhat explicable in that Esmer is a paradox as is white gold. But to say that the Ardent's powers, gained by long study, are anything like the inherent power of white gold in that world, that's a bridge, or a Hazard, too far. But I can't question the necessity of it. Without the company being forced into a desperate scramble to escape the Bane, Linden would be exposed to its malice and woe, would not be thrown into her crisis, and would not have the impetus to transcend that in TLD. We also wouldn't have the heartpounding tale of that flight, or Covenant's attempt to talk to the Bane, IMO one of the best written sequences of the series. And we wouldn't have the convoluted yet somehow workable explanation of why the ur-Viles didn't manacle Esmer anywhere along the way out of the Lost Deep.
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Post by Vraith »

Hey newbie hurtloam, the first letters mean "The Holy Order Of"...
[[only people in serious error could call anything "Hate" related "Holy"...but that's the least of their problems.]]


I'll avoid the rest of your questions and such, cuz it's way off topic...and while I'm actually a FAN of off topic, there are just too many of them to keep even kinda short.
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hurtloam
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Post by hurtloam »

Come to think of it, Covenant's discovery of how to use the krill and white gold to jump across distances could be a backwards explanation of the device of the Ardent's power being a wan mimicry of wild magic. Also, that could explain how Covenant figures it out then when he hadn't, say while he, Linden, and the Search were crossing hundreds of leagues of frozen waste on their way to Revelstone in WGW.
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Post by Zarathustra »

I don't get the Linden hate, either, except that she steals "screen time" from Covenant. The Ardent's magic being like white gold does bother me, because it makes white gold less of an enigma if you can simply use lore or study to get close to it. I think this was probably inserted into the book for the very reason hurtloam points out: backwards justification for TC's new trick, which otherwise would have seemed to appear out of nowhere. Now something that wouldn't have made sense suddenly seems to have a built-in justification, and then retroactively justifies the very thing that was problematic to begin with, namely, that Ardent's magic was anything at all like wild magic. Two birds, one stone (or is that two stones?). Anyway, a neat author's trick.
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Vraith
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Post by Vraith »

I kinda liked that the Inseq. would attempt to model/imitate wild magic/white gold. [I think I'd have HATED it if it was a GOOD imitation, had anything like the power of the real thing]
It made sense to me considering their relationship with the Elohim...
And because it was a known power source that no one else had mastered/utilized.

[[I keep thinking that ALL the Insequent lore/power was centered around the "pale imitation"...I think that's what Esmer called it...BUT I also keep meaning to check the text about it to see if I have any reason to think that. I think I'd think it slightly less interesting, and more like a "trick" if only that particular use was WG-ish]]
[spoiler]Sig-man, Libtard, Stupid piece of shit. change your text color to brown. Mr. Reliable, bullshit-slinging liarFucker-user.[/spoiler]
the difference between evidence and sources: whether they come from the horse's mouth or a horse's ass.
"Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation."
the hyperbole is a beauty...for we are then allowed to say a little more than the truth...and language is more efficient when it goes beyond reality than when it stops short of it.
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hurtloam
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Post by hurtloam »

Vraith wrote:Hey newbie hurtloam, the first letters mean "The Holy Order Of"...
[[only people in serious error could call anything "Hate" related "Holy"...but that's the least of their problems.]]


I'll avoid the rest of your questions and such, cuz it's way off topic...and while I'm actually a FAN of off topic, there are just too many of them to keep even kinda short.
Thanks for that clarification, yes, I wouldn't have imagined it being a "holy order."
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Post by Savor Dam »

I am not entirely certain of the history, but my impression is that THOOLAH is not the first of the holy orders of the Watch. Unless I am mistaken, it is predated by THOOOTP (the holy order of off-topic posters) which may have served as an inspiration for the name, wrong-headed though it may be to have a holy order devoted to any sort of hate.

In any case, THOOOTP is certainly the larger and more robust sub-group. Almost every Watcher who has ever been active can be credentialed, even if they do not overtly claim membership.
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Post by peter »

Savor Dam wrote:credentialed
Damn, thats a fine word!

[Edit; Misread it - thought it was credentiated; should it have been credentiated? ;)]
The truth is a Lion and does not need protection. Once free it will look after itself.

....and the glory of the world becomes less than it was....
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'Of course - you know you have.'
'Then let it end.'

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hmm

Post by mjb »

Well, let me start by saying I LIKED the Last Chronicles. Perhaps I'm a lazy reader, but for the most part I thought there were very cool things in there:

1. The Haruchai and Giants kicked butt as usual. They really are Donaldsons greatest and fully fleshed creations in the Land. I guess we learned more about the Ramen yes, and individually they were coolish. But they kind of remained wet blankets to me. Oh and Stave totally rocks and might finally push Bannor from my Haruchai pinup Calendar. Well, the one that would be hanging on my wall 'twere I not a boring straight male ;)

2. Time traveling was cool, led to some neat scenarios, and wasn't used too excessively. Mostly to solve one issue (the staff of law and things springing from it), IIRC.

3. So many villains made for some stressful and highly cinematic battles. I think TLD had very "movielike" qualities when various battles occurred. Loved the reveal (not that I didn't suspect something) under Skyweir in book 2. Note later I cite issues with too many villains - I think SRD had trouble juggling so many.

4. Linden Avery got less whiny and more interesting to me. Oh how I detested her in TSC. Here, yes, sure she's still a bit whiny. But I had no problem with the first of half of TLD being her as protagonist. And Jeremiah was a nice touch, and gave her excellent rational motivating force. The Thomas of My Heart stuff was a little Harlequin Romancy, but heck I always knew Linden was a softy under her neurotic parent hating exterior.

5. The Elohim have to eat shit twice in TLD. Given how much I wish to smash their fat self-satisfied fusion wielding asses, them eating crow was very personally fulfiling. I only wish TC had made Infelice go to a chalkboard and write I will Not Act Like A Superior Twit 5 million times.

6. Some clever twining of old story material in. Stuff like the Croyel, the adoption of the Ranyhn going through time, all that stuff was nice.

7. Maybe went on for a bit long but I enjoyed the Sarangrave as an intellient kind of Lawful Evil creature. Ironic that this creature is a crucial ally in the last two books. Who woulda thunk? I wouldna!

At same time I will concede that there were some things I wasn't completely satisfied with. I'll take iQuestor's list as a starter,quibbling with a few items, and adding a few items.



1. Why even bother with writing Roger into the LC??. He was a very one dimensional character who showed no growth at all during the story and his ending was a giant joke. He was whiney, pissy and even his dialog didnt fit with anything else in the story. He never felt real, Covenant never even felt anything for him even though he was his son, I could go on and on.

100% agreed. And it was part of taking on too many villains. I liked this, but it did get away from Donaldson (Esmer disappointing too). As you pointed out different things could have been developed if Roger was more developed. It's the contrast between Roger and Jeremiah and Linder-mother Thomas-father that would probably been the most effective. I dunno how I would have developed that, I'm not much of a writer, but I think that's where it should have gone.


2. SHMNBN was likewise a very thin thread with no satisfying explanation or ending. If she had ended up being Miassomer (sp=? but you know, Mrs. A Jeroth) it would have made some sense. The whole "Pink hand of God" sucker punch she gave Foul at the end didnt even make sense. He isnt even a corporeal being, and not even being stuck by the Krill will change that. Why all of the sudden can anything knock him flat?

She did seem added late, Yet Another Villain. And I found the action in AATE very slow once she showed up.

3. How is it that the Elohim didnt know how to put the worm back to sleep, and the, all of the sudden, they did?

This has been adequately handwaved I think. I throw in that in the ending, when the world is remade, perhaps that adds the "secret sauce" to return the worm to its slumber. Ya know, all starting from beginning and such?

I do think 2 pages of a recreation scene would have been nice, but maybe SRD didn't want to write The Last Battle again ;)

4. How is this ending in any sense "more enduring" that WGW? After WGW he needed millenia to come back. Currently, Foul sis a separate entitiy inside TC. If TC DIes, loses his mind, or succumbs to possession, then He is back. It wont take millenia for that to happen.

Ultimately Thomas accepts his dualism and that they are 2 sides of the same coin and embraces this. Now they are joined again. How stable is that? I dunno, could be pretty stable. Linden, Jeremeiah and he are like demi-gods at the end, so probably not much disappointment in the future. Mostly celestial couch surfing.

5. It was stated repeatedly that the Haruchai NEVER confronted Foul. Sure they did" Korik, Sill and Doar did so in TIW, under the influence of the Illearth Stone. (Note to self: Don't get stoned and try to confront Evil...)

Adequately addressed.

6. TC and Linden both entered ceasures, but how come every time they do it again, its a gigantic deal and theyll all almost surely die? It was done to death.

Adequately addressed.


Yeah so my biggest criticisms would be SWMNBN (tedious heavy handed symbolism introduced late, a bit of a rushed ending, and the usual complains about Land Population Zero ;) and of course I miss non ghost Mhoram.

BTW I assume remaking the world has healed the laws of life and death and such? So the Dead will no longer visit Covenant except on Halloween? :)
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Post by lurch »

Haaaa!!.. what a hoot..the self important idea that SRD closed the GI for his sake,,so he wouldn't have to listen to all the kevetching and criticism is laff out loud ego stroke. Try..he closed it for Your Sake..so he wouldn't have to put down the political correct facade of nice guy,,and unload wrath on the readers who have never ventured beyond plot. He said his ambition was to take Fantasy,,epic Fantasy beyond the comic book,,and make it literature, Art. To bad the self appointed egos didn't take the hint and bone up on what makes Literature, Art. Hey, you got the rest of your life. There is plenty of time.
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Post by dlbpharmd »

Lurch, where the Hell did you get any of that? It's well known that SRD stopped the GI so he could focus on writing TLC.
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Post by lurch »

the answer to ,,if the GI was re opened , what would you ask?, was , did you close it to avoid the difficult and tough questions?..and as well, many of the responses had to do with plot irregularities that jumped from 20 years ago to today..So,,with no mention of craft, no vocabulary of the Art..I can sure see why SRD decided he had better things to do with his time than validate peoples theories and pov. I agree...It was a wise decision and It Shows...

Also, he lets slip some of the nice guy facade during the audio interviews of late. Somewhere in his interviews of late I got that he strives to make Fantasy respected as Literature, as Art. He succeeded imho. The author turned the tables and made a remark about the readers not opening themselves to the story. I guess that would be a difficult and tough prejudice to overcome if I was a member of a anti Linden Avery clique.. So is he right?..Thoolah pretty much disqualifies themselves from any criticism since they have been closed to the story from the get go..yes?
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Post by dlbpharmd »

Thoolah pretty much disqualifies themselves from any criticism since they have been closed to the story from the get go..yes?
To that, I say a resounding NO. I bought the damn book, and I'll criticize it if I want to, THOOLAH or not. And, I'll treat others with courtesy and respect while I do so. I suggest you do the same.
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Post by wayfriend »

It's a well-known fact that the lost and deluded members of that depraved sect, Linden's Army (I shudder even to mention its name) carry out obscene rituals where, after munching on countless anchovies, they sit down in a ring and spend hours at a time doing precisely nothing except for examining their own navels, agonising over their self-worth, weeping and wringing their hands and contemplating the anchovy oil stains on their pants, in case there is some sort of mystic message contained therein (There actually is... it's "take a shower and get a life, you sad, fishy-smelling loser").
Yeah! Courtesy and Respect!

:)
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Post by peter »

A momentary lapse in an otherwise unblemished...........Oh forget it! [;)]
The truth is a Lion and does not need protection. Once free it will look after itself.

....and the glory of the world becomes less than it was....
'Have we not served you well'
'Of course - you know you have.'
'Then let it end.'

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Post by Icarus Unfallen »

The anchovy-laden tirade that Wayfriend quoted was the work of The Fallen. Here is a link to it.

Let us be clear. The views expressed by The Fallen do not represent those of Icarus Unfallen. Icarus disavows any responsibility for any opinions expressed by similarly-named Watchers.
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Post by Savor Dam »

Not to be piling on, but I found the following response from dlb rather ironic in light of his post about courtesy and respect:
dlbpharmd wrote:
TheFallen wrote:Linden - much like anchovies - is about as appealing as Satan's butthole. Thus only THOOLAH offers the true path to enlightenment.

It's a well-known fact that the lost and deluded members of that depraved sect, Linden's Army (I shudder even to mention its name) carry out obscene rituals where, after munching on countless anchovies, they sit down in a ring and spend hours at a time doing precisely nothing except for examining their own navels, agonising over their self-worth, weeping and wringing their hands and contemplating the anchovy oil stains on their pants, in case there is some sort of mystic message contained therein (There actually is... it's "take a shower and get a life, you sad, fishy-smelling loser"). All this to honour the name of their false idol, Linden Avery, the princess of procrastination, the imperatrix of inaction, the arch-duchess of annoyingness, the sovereign of self-obsession and the baroness of blubbing (to give her her full title).

'Nuff said.
Holy shit, what an awesome post! THOOLAH forever!
Irony, of course, is a topic addressed in The Fallen's signature...

~edit: I see Icarus has also dug deep to find the original post. Good on him!
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