Kevin's Watch

Thomas or Jeremiah?

I generally love it when a story has a decent (well written) love story in it.

So who do you think she loves more?

Boy - no respones! (the vote was mine)

A mother will ALWAYS chose her child over her spouse/lover/partner. That's what moms do!!!

Creator wrote:Boy - no respones! (the vote was mine)

A mother will ALWAYS chose her child over her spouse/lover/partner. That's what moms do!!!

She's not his real mother though.

Darth Revan wrote:

Creator wrote:Boy - no respones! (the vote was mine)

A mother will ALWAYS chose her child over her spouse/lover/partner. That's what moms do!!!

She's not his real mother though.

Doesn't make a difference. Adopted or not, a mother's love is NOT to be underestimated!! [Unless she is a BAD mother. ]

Yeah... but Covenant taught her to feel love anyways... I think she loves Covenant more... and let'sface it, he had more personality Her loyalty to Thomas Covenant is not to be underestimated either Creator...

I don't think she really loves either of them, or maybe that's the Linden hater in me I've always been of the opinion that Linden and Covenant were bonded by their bizarre circumstances, and because they were both emotional messes. I think Linden got something she needed when she was with Covenant, and the same goes for Jeremiah. I think her adoption and mothering of Jeremiah is more about her than him. However, I voted that she loves Jeremiah more, because she does feel that protectiveness of him, whereas she seems to be somewhat awed by Covenant.

I think that Thomas had and indeed, has a part of Linden that no-one can touch.. not even Jaramiah.

Neither. It's like asking me who I love more: my wife or my son? It's not the same, and if it can be measured, it isn't genuine.

I will say, though, that Linden's love for Covenant is more complete. At least that was/is a two way street. On the other half-hand, and in no small part inspired by Jeremiah's condition, Linden's love for Jeremiah is more... dedicated, unswerving, devotional... something along those lines.

As an adopted bastard myself, I can guarantee you that while no enmity exists between my mother and I, she loves my father much more than me - albeit it is a very different kind of love. If she were to lose me, she would move on. If she were to lose him, her heart would have no more rooms. Not for a long time at least. They are one couple that is deeply in love with each other. It's quite a sight to behold.

Yeah, I always thought she loved Thomas more myself... I mean she was much more closer to him than she could ever be with Jeremiah.

I don't think it is a fair comparison whatsoever.
As has been stated before, they are 2 different kinds of love.

Thomas Covenant is dead for all intents and purposes at the end of the Second Chronicles.
Jeremiah is a living person in her original world.



But it does remind me of a question I was once asked:

You are standing on a lakeshore. Your mother and your wife are swimming some distance apart far out in the lake.
They are both drowning. You will only be able to save one of them. Whom would you choose?

Make that Linden standing on a lakeshore, TC and Jeremiah drowning, and I believe she would choose to save Jeremiah. After all, she was willing to risk the Earth to get him back from Foul.

ur-bane wrote:I don't think it is a fair comparison whatsoever.
As has been stated before, they are 2 different kinds of love.

Thomas Covenant is dead for all intents and purposes at the end of the Second Chronicles.
Jeremiah is a living person in her original world.



But it does remind me of a question I was once asked:

You are standing on a lakeshore. Your mother and your wife are swimming some distance apart far out in the lake.
They are both drowning. You will only be able to save one of them. Whom would you choose?

Make that Linden standing on a lakeshore, TC and Jeremiah drowning, and I believe she would choose to save Jeremiah. After all, she was willing to risk the Earth to get him back from Foul.

I would save my wife personally... not that I have one...

But jeremiah.... how can she have a connection with him? I don't mean to sound like a bastard... but you can hardly share a bond with someone who doesn't react to anything. I don't mean she can't love him, because she obviously does. But she can't have a bond with someone when they don't have any feeling for you.

Darth Revan wrote:
But jeremiah.... how can she have a connection with him? I don't mean to sound like a bastard... but you can hardly share a bond with someone who doesn't react to anything. I don't mean she can't love him, because she obviously does. But she can't have a bond with someone when they don't have any feeling for you.

I can definately see your point. It seems hard to imagine a bond between Linden and Jeremiah that does not simply include Linden. But at the same time, Linden has a need to be needed. She has had that need since first we met her. Jeremiah, in her mind, needs her. Just as she needs Jeremiah.
That could be misconstrued as love. But think about the kind of woman that it would take to knowingly accept someone of Jeremiah's condition into their life as a son. To actually adopt him. That alone is a wonder in itself, and certainly shows the depth of her love for him, even if it started as pity.
Although the loves are different, I believe her love for Jeremiah is more real for her. It also fulfills her need. Covenant can take care of himself, and doesn't need Linden the same way.

This is exactly the dilemma Linden is being set up for in Fatal Revenant. With both Jeremiah and Covenant returned to her - the one impossibly active and responsive, the other impossibly alive - she is left with a decision of what - and who - to believe, when all of it contradicts her own knowledge of the two if them.

You are absolutely right, Murrin.
Put in that context, I think she will "choose" neither.

The fact that both are false will finally cause her to find what she needs most......faith in her own abilities; the knowledge that her strength comes from within, that her decisions can make a difference. It won't be an instant revelation, but will be a long journey for linden as she tries to find the truth.

Covenant was dead at the end of WGW.
Jeremiah was little more than an apparent empty shell at the beginning of Runes.

What she sees riding toward her at Revelstone is not what she left behind.

Linden Avery the Unbeliever?

Caer Sylvanus wrote:Linden Avery the Unbeliever?

Very funny! But, however, also possibly true.
It has been suggested in another post that the Last Chronicles are going to bring us full circle back to the beginning.

It wouldn't surprise me in the least if the very last sentence of the 4th book were:

She came out of the store just in time to see
her young son playing on the sidewalk directly in the
path of the gray, gaunt man who strode down the
center of the walk like a mechanical derelict.

I'll say this: If Linden isn't faced with this choice in this series, I'll be extremely suprised.

It'll likely become a choice of who to restore - The Land to Health, TC from death, or Jerimiah from Foul/"Autism".

(Sorry for the double-post, but I was fleshing this idea out in the shower, and wanted to share.)

Linden is going to HAVE to make this choice, and I think that the Caesures are going to play a large part in informing it.

I think that most of the "collective distrust" of Linden stems from the fact that she hasn't seen the purity and innocence the Land is capable of producing. She never knew Lena, or experienced the shame of her defilement. She never saw the Dance of the Wraiths. She never saw Trell's breakdown.

We don't trust her, in short, because she doesn't appreciate the extemities of her choices. To us, her assertion that she will destroy the World, if that's what it takes to save Jerimiah from Foul, seems ill-informed.

SRD has said that we (and Linden) won't be meeting the Landwaster, or anything that predictably annoying. But the Ceasures provide the means for Linden to be brought to appreciate the value of an unadulterated Land, before she's asked to destroy it in Jerimiah's name.

Also, Linden isn't the only character with a child, don't forget Roger Covenant, maybe Covenant will have to make his own choice between Linden and his child himself.