Kevin's Watch

I don't fully inderstand the nature of this event at all. Is Stephen Donaldson trying to distinguish the people of the lands ethics from ours, or is he trying to create the impression the Elena is insane?

First Mark Tuvor:

don't fully inderstand the nature of this event at all. Is Stephen Donaldson trying to distinguish the people of the lands ethics from ours, or is he trying to create the impression the Elena is insane?

She was insane. Or "flawed from birth" as Triock put it.

Remember how we kept hearing about the "otherness" of her gaze,
as though part of her was always looking at something other than
what was in front of her?

What I've never understood is just why the other Lords ever made
her High Lord? She seems mentally disturbed from almost the first
moment we see her....

I wonder if Covenant's presence was what undid her so? Maybe she
was much better before he showed up ...

Hey, she wasn't a raving lunatic...I mean, she does good work for the council 'n stuff, and I think her lineage has something to do with her getting elected...whoa, does that ever sound familiar!
I still don't understand that Elena/TC thing all that well...and how does he feel about her? Obviously some sort of fondness...but erm, what sort...

You can't blame TC for this.

1) She's of age.
2) He didn't raise her or watch her grow up.
3) Only a few weeks after raping Lena, he meets Elena - how can he imagine her as a daughter?
4) She's (I guess) very attractive, and she comes on heavily to him.
5) She's extremely seductive, physically, emotionally, and intellectually (as Hile Troy puts it, "hard to resist" - this isn't just because she's pretty).

And most important:

6) TC doesn't DO anything. He doesn't have sex with her, rape her, marry her, feel her up. ANYTHING. Well, he does smack her, but that's only after she virtually throws herself at him.

My point is that TC can't possibly imagine her as a daughter. So what if he is attracted to her. He doesn't do anything, and by the time he CAN imagine her as his daughter, the problem is solved.

No, the sketchiness of the TC/Elena relationship is almost entirely Elena. She's taught to worship TC by Lena, and taught to believe he is the only hope of the Land by the Ranyhym (and probably Mhoram). But this does not excuse her manipulation of TC - and the evil of her feelings for him leads to the breaking of the Law of Death.

I'm definitely with dukkha on this one. TC, regardless of his feelings, didn't act.

I'm with dukkha too. TC doesn't do anything to her. Well, besides hit her, which I don't blame him for doing that. She deserved it. Elena does seem to be highly messed up.

Elena has always seemed to be a rather odd person to me, too.
But it does show TC's moral progression that he does NOT touch her, even when she more or less throws herself at him

If someone is "flawed from birth", and is raised by a woman who is quite a bit off, my opinion is that she doesn't deserve to be hit so much as helped. She has undoubtedly been taught that certain acts and relationships that I think are wrong are right; and that, no matter what he does, Thomas Covenant can do no wrong. Difficult to not accept as true things that you were taught from the moment you could understand words.

dukka wrote:3) Only a few weeks after raping Lena, he meets Elena - how can he imagine her as a daughter?

That's a great point!! The difference in the passage of time between Covenant's Earth and the Land is so incredibly important to him, but I sometimes forget it. Thanks for the reminder.

Here's what Covenant did:

He gasped and her breath was snatched into his lungs.
He was stunned. A black mist filled his sight as her lips
caressed his.

Then for a moemnt he lost control her. He repulsed her
as if her breath carried infection. Crying, "Bastard!" he
swung, backhanded her face with all his force.

The blow staggered her.

He pounced after her. His fingers clawed her blanket, tore
it from her shoulders.

But his violence did not daunt her. She caught her balance, did
not flinch or recoil. She made no effort to cover herself.With her
head high, she held herself erect and calm; naked, she stood before
him as if she were invulnerable.

It was Covenant who flinched. He quailed away from her as if
she appalled him. "Haven't I committed enough crimes?" he panted
horasely. "Aren't you satsified?"

To me, it looks like Covenant was well on his way to committing
another rape.

So, yeah, he acted. He didn't rape her, but he almost did. The
intent was there.

Turiya! Hitting highly messed up people, eh? You'd be worse than Nurse Ratched at a psycho ward would!

The key is he ALMOST did, but in this case he rose above the temptation.

In the real world there can be no justification for raping someone.

But the paradox of Covenant is here. We are replused by his rape yet feel compassion for the mitigating factors:
He was completely ostracised from human contact for months.
His requirement for complete self control just to stay alive and not turn into the thing he fears the most, namely the leper in the leprasarium.
His sudden return to health and removal of impotence, a cure that he has had drummed into him to be impossible.
His belief that this all must be a dream.

When he awoke from sleeping after the rape, he saw the consequences of his actions and the monster he had become. Normally when you wake from a nightmare your actions in the dream have no consequences to your world.

With Elena his actions are less understandable except remembering that his has lived with being ostracised again 'in the real world.' His call from Joan, his one opportunity to get some human comfort was taken away from him, now he has a beautiful woman throwing herself at him. The violence of his actions dont show a desire to rape, Elena would have been willing, - he's her Dad in name but he can do no wrong.
The violence, I think is from a reaction to being ostracised and his abnormal control of his emotions. Like a tightly coiled spring, he treats her kiss as an attack and his response is to attack back. Yet in a way, she is offering the thing he wants most, solace in the arms of another.

He is so un-used to dealing with social interactions.

Being ostracised can make anyone into a monster.

Masrock

masrock:

With Elena his actions are less understandable except remembering that his has lived with being ostracised again 'in the real world.' His call from Joan, his one opportunity to get some human comfort was taken away from him, now he has a beautiful woman throwing herself at him. The violence of his actions dont show a desire to rape, Elena would have been willing, - he's her Dad in name but he can do no wrong.

The fact that she was willing doesn't change the violence of his
actions.

I didn't realize until I wrote that entry last night, but his actions are
almost a virtual repeat of what he did to Lena: striking her, ripping
clothing (or a blanket) off her ...

And remember, Covenant did something else to Elena that was in
many ways worse than raping her: he took advantage of her love
for him in order to try to get her to take his place in the Land's
destiny. Remember:

I watched you and helped you so that when you got here you would exactly like that-- so you would challenge Foul yourself without
stopping to think about what you're doing-- so that whatever
happens to the Land would be your fault instead of mine. So that I
could escape!

I didnt deny the violence, I tried to put it into context other than the desire to rape.

masrock wrote:
The violence, I think is from a reaction to being ostracised and his abnormal control of his emotions. Like a tightly coiled spring, he treats her kiss as an attack and his response is to attack back. Yet in a way, she is offering the thing he wants most, solace in the arms of another.

Masrock

I cant blame TC for trying to get Elena to take his place, in many respects TC has been manipulated by everyone. The lords trying to pursuade him to save the land, Foul to damn the land, only Bannor had no expectations or agends for TC.

Maybe he thought Elena should save her own land and leave him in peace.

Masrock

I am always appalled whenever anyone says that you can excuse Covenant for the rape of Lena because 'hey - he thought it was a dream', for me that doesn't work - Its just like saying 'hey its O.K its just a book' The principle of the thing is what counts. I don't feel any compassion for him in this - I despised him for a long time, its a testament to SRD skills that I continued to read - it was because of the descriptions of the Land and its people and inspite of the Covenant character - I only began to tolerate him again during his journey with Foamfollower in TPTP.

Elena was mad - no question, surely that was SRD whole point in the rape in the first place - Action/consequence etc., seems simple but it isn't really, its these things and a huge amount of others that make the whole series so facinating and wonderful. That's my 2 cents worth on this vastly complicated subject.

Prince of Amber wrote:I am always appalled whenever anyone says that you can excuse Covenant for the rape of Lena because 'hey - he thought it was a dream',

Did you read my first line?
'There is no excuse.....'

The dream mitigation was the last of a list of factors that may cause us to feel a little compassion for a man driven mad by circumstances. -An action he can never atone for but in the end, in his desire to atone may have given him the strength to resist despair/despite and ultimately lead him to save the land. So the pendulum swings between good and evil.

I never gave an excuse for his actions.

I was trying to explain how despite his evil actions, we continue to read and care about his predicament. Descriptions of the land can't be the only reason.

To look at my comments in such black and white terms leads me to believe that you haven't been down your own dark path yet. (not that I've ever done anything so wicked.) I felt compassion for him from his circumstance, but I never forgave him. Hence I could never be a lord or swear on oath of peace. I wouldn't have stopped as Atarian, Triock or Trell did.

Masrock

The strange thing here is that in our world we consider rape evil because of the consequences for the victims. And a great amount of this is the physical and especially psychological damage done, which in our world is considered irreparable.

Lena, however, does not live in our world. She lives in a world where nerves can be regrown by mud and where the earth itself will speak to you if you know how to listen to it. So why is it that she is so irreparably scarred by Covenants actions? And even more so, why does her daughter carry the mark of the same evil (if you accept that) when both her grandmother and her 'stepfather' both are paragons of virtue as seen in the land (They uphold the Oath of Peace)?

Another point is that how is it that rape is known in the Land at all? If the health sight that Linden possesses in the second chronicles is common in the first chronicles how can people bear to do such a thing at all knowing the pain of others like they do?

I think SRD never wanted us to forgive Covenant (just as Covenants never wants anybody to forgive him). He wants us to accept that despite this evil act - for which there is an explanation but no excuse - he can redeem himself in the end. It is the process that we witness - his understanding that dream or no dream he is responsible for his acts and has to deal with the consequences.

I disagree, Prince. How to put this?...I don't forgive him...I guess I understand it. He was in an extremely difficult position, and channeled his confusion, and I guess anger too, into this rape of a girl who obviously has feelins for him.

amanibhavam wrote:I think SRD never wanted us to forgive Covenant (just as Covenants never wants anybody to forgive him). He wants us to accept that despite this evil act - for which there is an explanation but no excuse - he can redeem himself in the end. It is the process that we witness - his understanding that dream or no dream he is responsible for his acts and has to deal with the consequences.

I agree with you here.

As for Ryzel, hurt pain and madness must still exist among the people of the land otherwise why would they need hurtloam etc. Rape must therefore occur despite the viewing of health in others.

Masrock