The Christian Comparison for the Whole Chronicles

[Frostheart Grueburn]

Why don't people read the dissections more? There's been discussion about relevant parallels as well and it feels silly to repeat the repetitive element of repetition...

[Vraith]

Why don't people read the dissections more? There's been discussion about relevant parallels as well and it feels silly to repeat the repetitive element of repetition...

the dissections have many many thousands of views...without bothering to do any math, I'd guess literally hundreds of thousands. Not all are full readings, or course. But they're read a lot [the LC's less so].

They do this thread cuz it pops up and cuz it is one, particular, focused topic [in theory].

But hey...you could have some fun here, even if you had to quote yourself from other threads, bursting peoples comparison bubbles...you certainly know enough about the OTHER things they have a helluva lot more in common with than the Christian tale.

[ussusimiel]

...What I mean is if we accept [as Ali points out, SRD has said] that 'The Creator' that appears to TC at the start of LFB is not 'our God' [or the 'our God' equivalent in TC's 'real world'] ie that there are/may be different Creators for different 'real worlds' [the Land and TC's real world being the two we are concerned with] - then what is the relationship between the two [The Creator and God]. Or indeed is this a place where the logic underpinning the whole structure would start to colapse if you begin 'unpicking the threads'....

I think the whole structure collapses at that point, peter. For a god to be God they need to be the Creator of the whole shebang. So, the Creator also needs to be the Creator of our world, he's able to save Covenant from the antivenin after all. (He doesn't seem to be too concerned about our world, but maybe he didn't saddle it with evil incarnate (he left that up to us to create all by our inventive lonesomes ).)

And yes U. [to refer to an earlier point]; It's a good possibility that with the wisdom of hindsight SRD would have dealt with 'The Creator' aspects of the first two series somewhat differently. It's one of the 'big questions' that remain for us to puzzle over - just where exactly did the Old Guy dissapear to and why?

Well, in some ways there's no room for him in the picture. Since none of the Trinity return to the 'real world' there is no place for him to be involved in the story.

That none of the central characters returns to our world is a serious weakness in the story from my perspective. At the end of the first two series Covenant and then Linden take wisdom back to their own world and so close the circle. In the LCs the circle is broken and the relevance of the world of the Land to our world can only be made at the meta-level, which at the level of storytelling is, for me, dissatisfying. (At the end of LOTR, Frodo passes out of Middle Earth. It's a one way trip and still it feels right and is deeply satisfying. Of course this my be my religious upbringing coming into play; nurture winning out over nature )

u.

[peter]

Absolutely agree on this point U. The failure to 'complete the circle' as you so aptly put it, was a serious problem for me since I can't begin to get any satisfaction at the 'meta' level you refer to. I always assumed that the series would end back in TC's real world somehow, which had to be the natural place for it to do so. SRD pulled many suprises out of the hat at the end of the Chrons and I still puzzle over what his real intentions were (and if he believes he achieved them). I know it's terrible to say, but [to me] it all had the feel of a writer who had lost interest - but I just can't believe that's true; there has to be more to it than that.

[Vraith]

I always assumed that the series would end back in TC's real world somehow, which had to be the natural place for it to do so.

I'm constantly getting these little jolts of taste divergence.
Two of my biggest "this better not"'s for the LC's from almost the beginning of them were that they better not pull a Dark Tower and end in a circle to the past, and they better not end back in the "real" world.

[aliantha]

I'm surprised, too. SRD made it abundantly clear from the start that nobody who had made it to the Land had survived in the real world. Whose PoV would an additional scene in the real world have come from?

[lurch]

Yes, TCoTC does complete on a " meta-level' and I find that completely satisfying. Thats probably due to my exposure to and taste for Surrealism since high school. Also , not being an adherent to any one organized religion and accompanying dogma , I find the freedom to perceive spiritual matters as I choose.

The bullet holes we are reminded of thru out LC,,give us a closed door, well, not even a door, back to the real world. Yet the story continues, so of course, its all " meta". ..an there the Universe literally stretches to infinite...The bullet holes become doors to infinite.

Yet, thats no closure on things Spiritual. As I think SRD succeeds at ,,is how a spirituality can open up infinite, with Love, Hope and Compassion. Meta?..no more meta than the message from a pulpit on a Sunday morning.

[aliantha]

Why don't people read the dissections more? There's been discussion about relevant parallels as well and it feels silly to repeat the repetitive element of repetition...

I've found that I can't do the dissections. Reading a book in bits and pieces is torture for me. Even on a re-read, I have to keep going 'til the end.

Sorry. It's a personal failing.

[lurch]

aliantha..I know what you are saying..Once you get it going with SRD you want to continue. One way I found to .." just read a chapter at a time"..is to force myself to write down notes and observations at even a paragraph at a time. By forcing myself to get into the minutia ,,things slow down real fast. As stated elsewhere, I allow my self the luxury of a thin read on first read. After that,,I start writing thoughts down which slows everything down.

Also , on the Creator character..real world or the Land..its still all fiction..therefore metaphor exists anywhere..What works for me on the " Creator" is...the character of the Creator..is ..status quo..or even " old school" or..the past..what it use to be..I think when you remember the physical state of The Creator..he wasn't in too good of shape..the established that no longer works or fits..Literally and figuratively..out of Time...He is not around in LC because the orientation is now..getting things right for the future,,and at end..On to Creating A Future..of which any of us can take pointers from.

[ussusimiel]

Absolutely agree on this point U. The failure to 'complete the circle' as you so aptly put it, was a serious problem for me since I can't begin to get any satisfaction at the 'meta' level you refer to. I always assumed that the series would end back in TC's real world somehow, which had to be the natural place for it to do so. SRD pulled many suprises out of the hat at the end of the Chrons and I still puzzle over what his real intentions were (and if he believes he achieved them)...

It creates a number of meta-level inconsistencies, that are going to feel a bit off to an ordinary reader. One of them is, where exactly are Covenant, Linden and Jeremiah? Their 'real' bodies are dead, so are they in 'heaven'? At the start of the LCs Covenant is also dead in the world of the Land, yet his spirit lives on. At then end in the remade Land, is everyone in 'heaven'/'spirit world'? Yet Covenant talks about his mortal body eventually dying, where will his 'spirit' go then? Will he become one of the Dead? Is that the ultimate 'spirit world'.

There is also the inconsistency created by the nature of the deaths/injury that Covenant has experienced previously in the 1st and 2nd Chrons. What about the bullet-riddled bodies of Linden and Jeremiah being repeated in the LCs? You can say that the arrival of the end of the World obviates all that. And, from a reader's point of view, it is another circuit that has been broken.

u.

[wayfriend]

It creates a number of meta-level inconsistencies, that are going to feel a bit off to an ordinary reader. One of them is, where exactly are Covenant, Linden and Jeremiah?

I think that this kind of question might arise when someone still trying to work out whether or not the Land is real or a dream. You know the counter-arguments to that, I will spare us. But I would also say: This is a fantasy! Mystical shit happens. Trying to work out the 'mundane' explanation for 'where is Covenant' is resisting the allowance that what happened to Covenant is mystical and fantastical. His real world isn't actually the real world: what happened to Covenant could not really happen. Covenant is "in the Land", and there is no rational explanation for where that is. Real or Dream are not the only two choices; they are just the only two explanations Covenant could devise when he insisted on rational explanations.

Clearly, though, Covenant has transcended. He went from a "smaller" place to a "bigger" one, in a Platonic sense. Mhoram, or Foamfollower, or Bannor, could not come to Covenant's real world. If Covenant becomes like them, if he "grows", he cannot come back either - that's consistency. If Covenant were to return to the real world at the very end, it would be as if he remained "small".

The Christian Comparison would be that he was in a Limbo, not really Heaven. There, his soul would continue to be tried, until it became clear that he was destined for Heaven or Hell. When he remade himself, as he remade the Land, he got to go to a heaven. Cue rainbow.

[lurch]

Whoa..meta-level inconsistencies,,,and,,," where exactly are Covenant Linden and Jeremiah?..uhh uss..As meta level characters ,,they are not beholden to any " Place"..except between your ears,,which has the ability to go to infinite...Question is nonsequitor. And thats the problem to overcome when dealing with a story that becomes.. the message is in the metaphor...Meta...As happens in the story the reader has to do also,This is the " intimacy" I keep referring to in the dissect and other threads.,As Space and Time become subjective and their Laws Broken ,,the reader is suggested to give it a try also.. The question ,,where exactly are TC, Linden and Jeremiah?..comes off as missing the whole Time and Space traveling ...Where are they.?.Rod Serling called it the Twilight Zone..Breton called it the Unexplored Imagination, just waiting there for you to discover...Here is my point..the answer to all the Meta questions,,are waiting to be discovered in your imagination..Not my imagination..Not Way's Imagination...and Not Even SRD's Imagination..He obviously left the End Wide Open..just for the reader to take everything thrown at him or her,,and Imagine Their Own continuance ,,including,,where exactly they are ...if even deemed necessary to know. And by that,,you will have gained an insight to Your Self...and if you don't like what you imagined..explore some more...meta.

And stop this..ordinary reader stuff.. We ALL are extra ordinary..in some shape manner or form. So..explore your imagination and you'll find your answers and by them,,you may discover what makes you more than ordinary.

Where?...we don't need no stinkin Where !

In the land Of Honalee

there is a place between sight and sound..

" I don't think we're in Kansas anymore.."

"I don't know where it is..but we gotta get back to the Island!"..

Boldy go, where no man has gone before!

If a man is defined by his Talent..then TCoTC is SRD.Where are TC et al at end?...in our heads waiting to show us our way to our Talent,,and thus answer,,who we are.

[Vraith]

Absolutely agree on this point U. The failure to 'complete the circle' as you so aptly put it, was a serious problem for me since I can't begin to get any satisfaction at the 'meta' level you refer to. I always assumed that the series would end back in TC's real world somehow, which had to be the natural place for it to do so. SRD pulled many suprises out of the hat at the end of the Chrons and I still puzzle over what his real intentions were (and if he believes he achieved them)...

It creates a number of meta-level inconsistencies, that are going to feel a bit off to an ordinary reader. One of them is, where exactly are Covenant, Linden and Jeremiah? Their 'real' bodies are dead, so are they in 'heaven'? At the start of the LCs Covenant is also dead in the world of the Land, yet his spirit lives on. At then end in the remade Land, is everyone in 'heaven'/'spirit world'? Yet Covenant talks about his mortal body eventually dying, where will his 'spirit' go then? Will he become one of the Dead? Is that the ultimate 'spirit world'.

There is also the inconsistency created by the nature of the deaths/injury that Covenant has experienced previously in the 1st and 2nd Chrons. What about the bullet-riddled bodies of Linden and Jeremiah being repeated in the LCs? You can say that the arrival of the end of the World obviates all that. And, from a reader's point of view, it is another circuit that has been broken.

u.

Yea...umm...wait...what?
First, the death inconsistency doesn't exist.
No dead Real people return. Even TC was only NEAR death...and saving him made him useless [thus necessitating Linden, or someone anyway.]
Second, peter "completing the circle" IS a meta level.
Those are minor/quibbles I suppose, to:

Circle? Why complete it? Isn't the whole point of a journey, a lesson, a life NOT to end up where you started?
I, for one, HATE circles. I think life, the universe, and everything hate circles.
Spirals, now, there's a shape that being [not A being, but being itself] can get behind. [there may be some others...but lots and lots of them are polygonal...and sudden sharp changes in direction HURT...especially if you've got the mass of a whole life of memory and experience built up]
Since this is the Christian Comparison thread, isn't the whole point of JC not to do so? I mean, in most of that theology [some exceptions] we were made from dust, and born sinners...and salvation is all about, when we return to dust, the sin nature has been lifted from us.
Their "real" bodies are other dust. Now they have different ones...twin dust of one spirit.
And let's remember: it's not as if none of these people EVER went back...they DID. And it SUCKED.
Well, not quite sucked.
But, like the inhabitants of the Land could never come here, when they did come back they could only bring part of what they were/learned. They became LESS. In Linden's words, it "sufficed." There is almost no word more depressing to a soul than saying their life "suffices."
Is that what we want, really?
There's a story of enlightenment...very roughly from memory...a man meets an enlightened one coming down a mountain and asks "What is it like to be enlightened?" and the one lays down his heavy pack. And the traveler asks "what is it like afterwards?" and the one picks up his pack again and continues down the mountain...some think that is a circle. And a lesson. It isn't a circle, it is a lesson...what is left out is that the one is STILL ENLIGHTENED.
TC et al coming back here wouldn't be like that. It would be like, when the traveler asked what came after, instead of picking up his pack he cut off a leg.

The after death thing is purely speculative [though I have some specific notions, I'll lay them aside] but I'd say the circuit isn't "broken." Because, though circuit relates to circle, circuits exist to DO something. And even if they complete/reset, and "begin again" it is with different people, in different states. The point isn't to repeat identically ad nauseam. It is to accomplish a task...and though the TASK might need repetition, the particular thing being worked upon is NOT the same. The conditions are NOT the same.

The only way I can imaging a return to our world being satisfying would need at LEAST another book to explain how such an occurrence was "fulfilling" [of themes and char's] and how such a thing didn't violate every rule of integrity/coherence established in the first 10 [or at least last 7, that were conceived as a unit].
EDITED to add my "color" commentary.

[Orlion]

Like others, I thought it was abundantly made clear that there would be no return to the real world for our main characters (Linden and Covenant) once Kevin's Watch was annihilated. That was some pretty heavy handed symbolism

Then in Against All Things Ending, Covenant pretty much said, "yeah, y'all dead". This meant that Donaldson did not really have a crutch for the ending like he did with the first two series. It just meant he had the crutch which always existed for such stories and that he ended up using

How that fits in with the "Land is real v. dream debate is not ever made clear, dammit!" insistence of the author is for another post.

As far as the Christian comparison, one can be a Christ figure in literature without being exactly like Christ. I think Covenant is very much a Christ figure by the end of the Second Chronicles: he did sacrifice himself in what would normally be viewed as a victory by the enemy in order to save/redeem the world. He pretty much had godlike powers to resolve his problems but refused to use them as such. And further, he ultimately achieved apotheosis through his death.

He also struggled with doing what he knew he had to do (think, "Father, if it be possible, let this cup be passed by me").

Where the Christian Comparison appears to fail (or at least is turned on its head) appears to be in the Last Chronicles.

[deer of the dawn]

SRD's thinking was influenced by Christian theology (his Dad was a missionary doctor, after all), but his worldview, and the construct of the Land (the entire premise!) is not a Christian one.

Nevertheless, there are strong Christian thematic elements that apparently arise from SRD's upbringing, even if he did not embrace evangelicalism the way his Dad did.

- The whole sacrifice/redemption thing. Redemption does not come from "getting it right", it comes through spectacular, prodigal gestures of giving; usually by the few or one on behalf of many.

- The whole "guilt is power" theme touches on the Calvinist doctrine of "total depravity" which means not that people are as bad as they can be (and many are very good), but that no matter how good a person is, the Fall is inescapable and no person is perfect; every impulse is mixed. No matter how noble a gesture, there is some rootlet of selfishness at the heart-- and yet, "Attempts must be made."

- "Attempts must be made": understanding that "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" Christians are nonetheless told to "keep fighting the good fight of faith". Frailty is no excuse.

- Light vs. darkness: not exclusively a Christian theme, but a resonant one that "illuminates" the beginning, middle, and ending of the biblical narrative. As does:

-the Tree at the center of destiny/fate/the Plan. The Bible begins with a fateful tree (of the knowledge of good and evil), which becomes the tree (or cross) where the sacrificed One became a curse for us; and ends with the Tree of Life in the New Heaven. The Chrons has its fateful One Tree; and the image of Linden and Thomas under Caerwood Ur-Mahrtiir's tree enacting their own ritual. (The Bible, by the way, has a wedding in a garden at the beginning, middle, and end.)

-The climax (even if some would call it an anticlimax) of the Chronicles comes through absolute death and darkness to renewal. Again, not exclusively a Christian theme; but only in Christ do we see the (real) Creator of the universe* sacrifice His very own self-- not an angel or demigod, but Himself. The demons really thought they were pulling a number by killing Him, but then the Resurrection happened (and I imagine that infernal heads rolled when Lucifer realized his mistake). Just as only by "following the Worm" could the Land be reborn, so only by Christ taking all the sin and darkness and curse upon himself could Creation be redeemed.

*Jesus, not the Father, was the agent of Creation (see John 1).

- The Worm itself reminds me of the Babylonian creation story of Rahab, the serpent that represented Chaos; defeated by a god who orders the world so life can be possible. This story is referred to in the Job 26:12 as an allegory (or perhaps more) for Yahweh, the Lord, not only turning the "formless and void" earth into an ordered place of light and life, but also of what He will do to the chaos of nations when He returns to kick butt.

I would not try to make the Chronicles "Christian"; but I do see the impact of Christian thought on SRDs writing.

[aliantha]

Deer -- I'm taking out your spoilers because we decided no spoilers were needed in this forum. The understanding here is that everybody's read all 10 Chrons -- and if not, they're entering at their own risk.

Vraith, I dunno how I missed your post earlier. I like the spiral analogy in relation to the story arc in the Last Chrons. It was *never* supposed to come full circle; instead, the main characters have ascended to a higher level. Where, okay, the same kind of stuff might happen again, since Foul isn't vanquished and yada yada -- but this time Covenant, Linden and Jeremiah are in charge, and they've evolved and grown enough to take their new roles confidently. Which is a far cry from where they each started out in this series.

I think it was in the TLD forum where Way (I think it was Way, anyhow) quoted something about how the Worm had to devour Earthblood in order to become gravid. I musta skipped right past that when I read the books to start with, because that's a huge stinkin' clue about how the whole story would end. The Worm *had* to devour the Land in order to give birth to it again. There's your cycle, guys. That's how the circle of life in the Land completes itself.

[DrPaul]

I've been planning a longer thread on this topic but it has become even clearer to me after reading The Last Chronicles that the Creator and Lord Foul are not analogues of God and Satan in Judaic and Christian theology, and so any parallels with Christianity are probably limited. Rather, the Creator and Foul both embody fundamental principles of the universe that exist in a relationship of dialectical contradiction that was originally a creative and constructive one. Foul's turn to Despite is IMHO basically due to his misconceiving his place within that dialectic. SWMNBN adds a further dimension to the dialectic (perhaps making it a "trialectic"). In TLD Linden has redeemed SWMNBN and perhaps restored her to her rightful place in the cosmology, while Covenant's absorption of Foul is likely to be, among other things, an attempt to redeem Foul and enable him to be restored to his proper place in the scheme of things.

[DrPaul]

Further to my previous comment, the "unity of opposites", first enunciated by the pre-Socratic philosopher Heraclitus and subsequently adopted as a basic principle of many systems of philosophical dialectics, is a very constant theme throughout all the Chronicles. Covenant's replies to Infelice in the Epilogue of TLD simply ice the cake.

[DrPaul]

As Mhoram says, "There is hope in contradiction" - if we think of contradiction in the dialectical sense rather than the Aristotelian logical sense.

[Mighara Sovmadhi]

Depending on what Jung wrote that influenced SRD, well, if it really was ANSWER TO JOB, I suppose the Covenant novels could be viewed in part as an exploration of the redemption, not of humans as such, but of humanity's concept of God. In this case, the concept of God begins fully externalized, but with a dark side that is part of the internalizable deity. Eventually the concept begins to fissure and absorbs notions of entities like She Who Must Not Be Named, until finally it is completely internalized in "You Are Mine." The progress might be from an anti-autonomy concept of God (the aloof and vengeful Father) to a fully autonomy-conducive one (the immanent and paraclescent Spirit).