Kevin's Watch

Who do you think he cared about more? I really can't decided... My place is to question things rather than answer... This topic might have been done before... If it has... please delete.

I think Covenant truly loved and cared for Joan, and he needed her.
Linden and Covenant, with all their flaws, were perfect for each other, and they both needed each other, needed someone to love them and understand them.
Covenant loved both Joan and Linden the same amount, but in different ways.

My gut answer is Joan, but I'm not really sure on it. He'd die for either, so after that point, I'm not sure it matters.

I think he loved Joan in a mournful, you-divorced-me-when-I-needed-you-but-I-still-love-you kind of way. So, a sad, but still devoted kind of love, which he sort of closed the book on when he sacrificed himself to save her from Foul's possession in TWL.

Linden he loved because she wasn't afraid of his leprosy or its effect on him. Also, she was instinctively drawn to him because he too was a damaged person, yet he had found the internal redemption that she craved. Also, he loved her simply because the Creator had chosen her to heal the Land, which he loved dearly. He felt the need to protect her and teach her in the 'shared delusion' of the Land.

DW
[Weird, warped, and Wascally]

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Well said, Matrixman.

It seems to me that Covenant was two very different people at these two points in his life. The earlier Covenant loved Joan as much as the later Covenant loved Linden. I don't think the Covenant we see at the end of White Gold Wielder would have been happy with Joan for very long. I think she was too...simple, for want of a better description. As Matrixman said, from the little we know of Joan, she seems to have wanted nothing more than a neat little family life; whereas Covenant's experience with leprosy, and then with the Land, left exposed previously hidden depths that would just seem gaping chasms in any future relationship with Joan. Near the beginning of the Second Chronicles, it's made clear that Joan's name still has great meaning to Covenant - for those who've read that far, I'm thinking of

Spoiler

Covenant triggering the wild magic while under the delusions induced by Marid's venom, when Linden mentions Joan

- but I take it to be more the pain of betrayal and the memory of a love lost than any continuing real love for Joan.

hmmmm.... Don't forget that Joan is the mother of his child... I think that is an important factor.

I think before things wen't south for Joan and Tom, he probably loved her as much as he was capable of. I believe in Covenant's love for Linden but its just not going to be the same. And it didn't seem to be. IMHO

That's because it wasn't... He was a different person back with Joan.

I agree that he loved them both but differently.

In what ways differently?

I think that he and Joan had a 'chemistry' kind of love, where they were attracted to each other, and were content with living in the comfortable institution of marriage with each other, though they didn't necessarily understand each other's internal motivations that well. Of course, being a writer, TC probably felt he understood her better than she did him, but being a 'deep' person doesn't really guarantee that your relationships are of a higher quality. Don't you just hate moody men?

IMO, TC and Linden were closer to being 'soul-mates,' because they both found redemption from the outcasting that they had undergone; TC from his social and then internal leper's outcasting, and Linden's deeply buried self-denial and total lack of acceptance that she had crappy, self-absorbed weak parents that were to blame for her black moods. Linden had to forgive herself, or at least understand that the darker decisions she had made were done under great duress. TC understood this, because he had to go through his own process of self-forgiving and not allowing the cruel, stupid leper-hating "real" world crush his spirit and deny him participation in the human condition that all earthlings are entitled to.

So at the end, they understood each other at a pretty deep level, and what's more, they accepted & approved of each other, either in spite of or because of that knowledge. That's why I think he and Linden were closer to being true 'soul-mates.'

DW
[Weird, warped, and waiting to take over for Dr. Phil]

hmmmm.... That was amazingly put Dukkha... I couldn't have put it better myself... I agree with all you just said... Thomas loved Joan very much... and would have been content to live with her for the rest of his life... If he didn't get leprosy... But Linden and he were Soul-Mates... and were better together... Put how different was Thomas before leprosy and after Linden came into his life? I suppose that would make a difference as well...

The manner in which he loved Joan seemed to me to be more needy on his part. Joan always seemed to me to be somewhat detached from TC.

The love he had for Linden was a more mature and accepting love - it had to be because they both had so many issues.

I don't think he loved Joan at all... Not in the second chronicles... I agree with the Doctor and say he was just loyal to his own pain.

It seems to me he loved his mom more. Why, he was always talking about her. Couldn't shut him up about her, in fact. And his son, Roger. Deep, deep love there. Okay, enough of that crap.

Once he realized his daughter had the hots for him, then he also noticed her major mental issues. It was then that he learned to love her as a father. Prior to that, he only knew love in a selfish sense (i.e. - what did Joan do for him that made him love her), and hadn't really developed any deeper levels of love. That is why I think he doesn't talk about his parents; they either never cared for him, or they died before he could get to know them. TC had only a utopian concept of love when he became a leper. I think Joan was his token for that concept; that is why held on to her. Leprousy taught him most of what he ever knew about himself, and the Land taught him the rest. The Covenant that fell in love with Linden knew more about love than the younger, married Covenant could imagine existed.

Excellent point, Dandelion.

I agree with what Darth said also in that in the second chrons, TC felt that his leprosy ruined Joan's life as well (because she went nuts and joined a cult! Not a very stable person, to my mind) and then she was possessed by the raver. TC was only taking care of her out of duty. He no longer loved her.

TC's greatest love was for the Land.

I agree with that also... but he would have done anything for Linden as well as for the Land.