WGW Ch 9, March To Crisis

[wayfriend]

Well, I still lean towards the idea that, if she possessed Covenant, then she is weilding Covenant's power by proxy. If she had possessed Covenant and made him walk, she would be in control, but they'd still be Covenants legs, they'd still have leprosy. So, I think she'd control the wild magic, but it'd still be Covenant's magic, and so it would still be venemous, still mottled with black.

If she had the power to seperate the venom from the magic, then she would have been able to remove the venom from Covenant, IMO.

I never read anything in the story that the purpose to which it is put affects wild magic in any way. It has 'no strictures', as Donaldson says.

[Zarathustra]

Well, I still lean towards the idea that, if she possessed Covenant, then she is weilding Covenant's power by proxy. If she had possessed Covenant and made him walk, she would be in control, but they'd still be Covenants legs, they'd still have leprosy. So, I think she'd control the wild magic, but it'd still be Covenant's magic, and so it would still be venemous, still mottled with black.

If she had the power to seperate the venom from the magic, then she would have been able to remove the venom from Covenant, IMO.

Sounds reasonable to me. As we learn in Runes,

Spoiler

she has trouble calling it up herself.

So the ease with which she can call it up in the 2nd Chronicles illustrates that she's not calling it up from herself, but rather out of Covenant. And since it's coming from him, it will carry his "infection."

[dlbpharmd]

Well, I still lean towards the idea that, if she possessed Covenant, then she is weilding Covenant's power by proxy. If she had possessed Covenant and made him walk, she would be in control, but they'd still be Covenants legs, they'd still have leprosy. So, I think she'd control the wild magic, but it'd still be Covenant's magic, and so it would still be venemous, still mottled with black.

If she had the power to seperate the venom from the magic, then she would have been able to remove the venom from Covenant, IMO.

Sounds reasonable to me. As we learn in Runes,

Spoiler

she has trouble calling it up herself.

So the ease with which she can call it up in the 2nd Chronicles illustrates that she's not calling it up from herself, but rather out of Covenant. And since it's coming from him, it will carry his "infection."

Regarding Linden, my biggest complaint now about her use of wild magic in WGW (especially taken in context with the ROTE info in Malik's post) is that SRD did not make it clear that she was only able to access wild magic so easily BECAUSE of Covenant's venom. IOW, the venom kept the wild magic close to the surface, so to speak. It seemed however that Linden used wild magic with ease. I'm not the only one who thought that if Linden ever returned to The Land, she would be practically omnipotent.

[wayfriend]

IMO, Linden was able to weild the wild magic with ease because of her percipience, not because of the venom.

Venom made it easier for Covenant to access wild magic because it affected his morals, not his power. Hence, "moral poison". In essence, it overcame his intrinsic principles. This would not be applicable to Linden.

As to the Runes spoilers angle to this topic: see the The Masters of the Land dissection for the resolution of that issue. See particularly where the author says

Spoiler

And during her time with Thomas Covenant, she had never lacked percipience. In the past, Kevin's Dirt had not existed.

[dlbpharmd]

I do see what you're saying, but that doesn't explain (ROTE spoiler)

Spoiler

her difficulty in using wild magic in ROTE, and her conviction that the white gold doesn't belong to her but to Covenant. She never had that kind of inhibition about using wild magic in WGW. In fact, she never needed any kind of mental or emotional trigger in WGW (as she does in ROTE.) Remember the part in WGW where Linden thinks to herself (paraphrasing): "If I had the wild magic, I could tear Foul's heart out."

[wayfriend]

That link explains the difficulty part anyway.