Kevin's Watch

...This thread is related to the one below proclaiming no sex ,,no high energy wantoness in Runes. Its a bit of tangent from.
...I offer up the combination of a few discussions being explored on this board. Ive already expressd that there is different type of energy to Runes than the previous TC work of SRD. Also was the long harrang concerning Male Virginity and now the Sex and Life continuation. Also have been my posts here and there,,starting with my comments in Most Dissapointing Character. I am putting forth the proposition that Linden, falling in Love with a Dead Man , Tom, and thus centering her life around everything Tom..is a mistake,,and could also be basis for Lord Divorce Lawyer saying,," You are already mine".

So...take a look at...the horsewrite and more importantly,,rite after the horsewrite..the treatment Linden receives upon the return to the Verge. Liand, holding her in his arms..hugging her and repeating her name over and over...Manethral Mahrtriir..kissingthe treasureberrys into her mouth..and what does Linden only recognize in her semiconsciousness,,Stave thru the flames.....and...here is where I expect to receive the heat...Linden makes the assumption that her experience with the horsewrite,,with the dark and fathomless EarthBlood,,was the same for Stave as it was for her...not even a " it was good for me, was it good for you?"....Donaldson you dog. See my posts on page 4 of Sex and Life in below Conscouisness, Spirituality etc board.

...Not till later does Linden understand that Staves experience was different...and because it was..he foresakes the Masters, takes his lumps and aligns with Linden...Brutal bachelor party included. So Linden does have the opportunity to realize a need to change.

...So..no sex?...its not porno,,but its warming up. I mean..Runes..Passions..Hope and Despair..Sorry gang,, the more I think about it all...there is some subtle stuff going on here,,keep an eye on it. And somebody's old boyfreind from the past just showed up at the door...MEL

Ummm... well... see the "Kevin's Watch Soap" thread if you want sex! <grin>

Im sorry. I really wasnt going to answer this, or bring it up at all, BUT.....
If Linden is still SO in love with TC, why isnt she saying "get off me" or something....

..You see the problem!...Her love is unreciprecated..nothing from Tom..little, if at all from Jerry,,and same from Joan..So Lindens" Life" is pegging the meter of " all Hope"..There are limits to " Hope"..? Interesting that the author seemed like he went out of his way in the first real chapters of pointing out the characters husbands, wives and boyfriends, etc.....but for Linden,,it was Jerry and Joan and the etheral Tom. No other " relationships"....MEL

... and sometimes a cigar is just a cigar...

...and social intercourse doesn't predicate sexual intercourse.

...Single mother with no social intercourse,,isn't going to be getting any sexual intercourse.
..Want to take the post horseright at step further up a notch?..Liand,,hugging her,,remember she is cold to the marrow of her bones..Mahrtiir kissing treasureberrys into her mouth and Stave seen thru the flames...Allow the figurative,,it is fiction and fantasy fiction at that,,so going figurative should be habitual by now...Liand hugging her,,etc...:,,she is wrapped in her innocence, and being sustaned by the service of a passionate faith in her self...As posted,,..she is fully confident that she is doing the right thing,,But shes wrong...she needs to break with her innocence,,her falling in Love witha dead man...its not real. She has forgotten Toms message for fallin in love with him.
...There is another perspective here..kevins Dirt...Liand and her are effected by it...Stave isn't..The Ramen see the dirt but don't enter into it..Anele doesn't appear to be effected...Its just Liand and Linden who loose the health sense when in the Dirt...Linden can't see herself in the dirt...Shes in love with a thought and not somebody real
...There is implied sex in that scene...but she is froze to the bone..She is cold to it...and only sees the passion in her faith that she is doing the rite thing..Shes All Hope,,no reality..MEL

lurch wrote:...Single mother with no social intercourse,,isn't going to be getting any sexual intercourse.
..Want to take the post horseright at step further up a notch?..Liand,,hugging her,,remember she is cold to the marrow of her bones..Mahrtiir kissing treasureberrys into her mouth and Stave seen thru the flames...Allow the figurative,,it is fiction and fantasy fiction at that,,so going figurative should be habitual by now...Liand hugging her,,etc...:,,she is wrapped in her innocence, and being sustaned by the service of a passionate faith in her self...As posted,,..she is fully confident that she is doing the right thing,,But shes wrong...she needs to break with her innocence,,her falling in Love witha dead man...its not real. She has forgotten Toms message for fallin in love with him.
...There is another perspective here..kevins Dirt...Liand and her are effected by it...Stave isn't..The Ramen see the dirt but don't enter into it..Anele doesn't appear to be effected...Its just Liand and Linden who loose the health sense when in the Dirt...Linden can't see herself in the dirt...Shes in love with a thought and not somebody real
...There is implied sex in that scene...but she is froze to the bone..She is cold to it...and only sees the passion in her faith that she is doing the rite thing..Shes All Hope,,no reality..MEL

singular parent with intercourse skills which in no way reflect or denigrate the obvious 'give and take' which is embarassing but not necesarily sexual until hey presto you make it so with the preconceptions which lead to conceptions and are pre-interpreatatios of horse, right? horserite? hoarse, right?

SO with the forgotten treasureberries which firstly are treasured and secondly buried that means that epinions are lost that is loosed.

Bones and dirt catch the obvious skeletal implinformations whereby approval is not real, metaphor for death (sex) implying that thisis a favour and your part is $600 dollars thankyouverymuchwillthat becashorcredit?
oh NOW i get the implications of froze bone cold it's the disneymonkeythem which means that themonkeybone has no faith in the right *NOT RITE IT'S NOT WITCHERY* pro forma ritual.

Well, that's *mY * epinion....

..,At least i can base my thoughts and perceptions on what the author wrote,,rather than just being a nonsensical ass with a chip on his shoulder about a fellow poster....I've got the intestinal fortitude and willingness to open up a discussion that you seem to rather make fun of instead of offering up your own constructive thoughts. If that is the best you can do..perhaps some advise like what SRD offered recently in the GI..just don't read my stuff, if you don't like it and can't relate to it. ..Edge,,Give your self a break why don't you?......MEL

Knock it off please, both of you. There's no need for readers of Donaldson to sink to personal insults.

Maybe she just is to blinded by getting Jerry back, she dont feel the desire????
Hmmmmm......nah. Nevermind. I'll just read here

lurch wrote: Interesting that the author seemed like he went out of his way in the first real chapters of pointing out the characters husbands, wives and boyfriends, etc.....but for Linden,,it was Jerry and Joan and the etheral Tom. No other " relationships"....MEL

That's because she doesn't exist.
Hile Troy also had no connections to the "outside world".

Love reading your stuff Mel, but have to chip in with the obsevation that a single mother (or any other mother) clearly does know a little bit about intercourse!

Sorry.

finn wrote:Love reading your stuff Mel, but have to chip in with the obsevation that a single mother (or any other mother) clearly does know a little bit about intercourse!

Sorry.

Linden *adopted* Jerry.


sorry

Fair call, Batman!

Hold on, guys -- this is kind of interesting.

Let's forget about that whole pesky "Land" thing for a minute and think about Linden's story in the Real World -- IOW, the first chapter(s) of TWL, the last chapter of WGW, and the first chapters of Runes.

Linden got no love from her parents. Dad forced her to watch him kill himself; Mom was so annoying and pathetic that Linden finally stuffed a box of tissues in her mouth to permanently shut her up. (Okay, Mom's death was a little more complicated than that, but bear with me.)

We learn the depth of our capacity to love from our parents. Linden learned from her parents that no one will ever love her unconditionally and that her love will never be returned.

So she's a cold fish. She becomes a healer, with a carapace of professionalism to keep her vulnerabilities protected. Are there any boyfriends mentioned? I can't remember. I don't think so. Berensford takes an interest in her (not a sexual one, just one of caring and concern) but she deflects him; he only makes a dent when he appeals to her professionalism and asks her to check on TC.

She's attracted to TC from the first, probably because she recognizes in him a soulmate -- for TC too has learned, over the past 20-plus years, that no one will ever love him unconditionally and his love will never be returned. She spends approximately 36 hours with him -- a good portion of that sprawled, unconscious, next to his cooling corpse -- and emerges from the experience somewhat thawed. She takes on responsibility for Joan; she adopts Jeremiah. Why? Partly because of their ties to Covenant, whose love for her she may or may not have dreamed up; but partly, I think, because neither Joan nor Jeremiah has the capacity, in their present state, to love her. Her relationships with them both must feel really normal to her.

Gods, I *so* love armchair psychology!

So anyway, getting to the alleged sexual imagery in Runes: Meh. If it's there, I don't think it's there consciously. Remember that the Land is the only place where Linden has ever allowed someone to get through her carapace. It would make sense that a story set in the Land and told from her point of view would include some erotic imagery. And on my initial reading of Runes, I did think Linden and Liand might, y'know, get it on. (I don't think so anymore. Liand's too normal to be Linden's type. He might have a jones for her, but she's clearly looking for a more complicated guy. Now, Linden and Stave -- *that* has possibilities! )

I'd like to point out, though, that intimate contact doesn't necessarily have to be erotic. Liand probably does care for Linden, but that doesn't mean they're going to have sex. And Mahrtiir's method of feeding aliantha to Linden is more like that of a mother bird caring for a nestling than like a lover kissing the object of his desire. As Usivius says, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

HLT: What do you *mean*, Linden doesn't exist? Is Covenant going to wake up at the end of the Last Chrons and do a Bobby Ewing? Surely not!

aliantha wrote:
HLT: What do you *mean*, Linden doesn't exist? Is Covenant going to wake up at the end of the Last Chrons and do a Bobby Ewing? Surely not!

I don't know.
I'm really embracing the whole "TC trinity (Creator,TC,Foul) and the Land is really a dream" thing.
Whatever that means exactly though I have no idea.

If so that might mean that there is no room for Linden to be "real" either.

I think the way I view the Land now is that it's sort of semi-real... it exists, in a way. But at the same time it's kind of a creation of Covenant's mind.
So Linden can be transported there (or a sort of astral version of herself)... but the Land itself is created by Covenant, and reflects him. And, I suppose, reflects Joan as well. I don't know how that works exactly.

I think your obsevations have merit, but I'd take it further and note that eveyone who crosses from the 'real' world to the Land has some kind of affliction. TC has Leprosy, Hile Troy was blind, Joan is a loony, Roger a psychopath/sociopath, Jeremiah has........ whatever he has and Linden is an emotional cripple.

The Land does not seem to attract 'normal' people, but seems to act as a proving ground for the infirm, a battlefield on which inner conflicts are fought out in the context of the Land's reality.

finn wrote:The Land does not seem to attract 'normal' people, but seems to act as a proving ground for the infirm, a battlefield on which inner conflicts are fought out in the context of the Land's reality.

That's exactly right. You have hit upon the function of the Land precisely: it is "a proving ground for the infirm, a battlefield on which inner conflicts are fought out." Clearly Linden worked out *some* of her issues during her time with Covenant in the 2nd Chrons. But she's still not emotionally whole enough to have a deep attachment to anybody who can give the same thing back to her. She still has a fair amount of growing to do.