Thomas Covenant

[Mr Fox]

Just wanted to comment on this and not hog the shout box.

I think Donaldson is a great writer and I've read other works by him besides just the TC books. What irked me about the TC series is that he really does spend 3 or more books debating with himself whether what he is experiencing is real or not.

It would have taken me all of about 3 to 5 minutes.

All of my (admittedly weak) five senses are telling me this is real.

Option 1: I've gone stark raving mad and it's all in my head. Oh darn, I've gone to the happy place in my head and it's turns out it's really freakin cool! Shucky-darn I'm going to roll with it and enjoy the fact that at least in my head my fingers and toes aren't falling off and I don't stink of rotting flesh. Sure in the real world someone's wiping my ass now and then and I'm probably sitting in a puddle of urine in a long term care facility, but at least in my head I'm having a hell of a time and I'm the savior of the world with spiffy magic powers.

Option 2: It's actually happening, so I'll go with it and do my best to enjoy having a magic ring that makes me the savior of the world.

There, what that so hard?

Oh, and either way whether I think I'm losing my mind or not, I won't be a magical douchebag and rape the pretty girl that has come along to help me.

So, I actually do plan to write a novel and have a large chunk of the plot charted out already. In the story the protagonist does find himself in a similar situation at one point and I will have him go through the thought process mentioned above. It's my way at poking fun at the TC series. That series was either the second or third set of books I ever read when I was in junior high, btw.

[jameson (ST)]

With all due respect I think you are both oversimplifying and missing the point. By the end of the third book (the end of the 1st trilogy) Covenant has more or less dispensed with his unbelief, he still doesn't know if the Land is real but he no longer cares, its real to him and that is all that matters.

During that series his unbelief comes from the basest of human drives & desires: life. Each time he is "summoned to the Land" it is at the same instance of an accident of his in the real world. Trauma, whether by simply banging his head, being hit by a car, or swallowing the poison of a snake and taking a tumble down an embankment, is the force that propels him to the Land. As bad as his life is, being a leper, pariah, and outcast, he cannot allow himself to believe in the Land because to do so would destroy the emotional walls he had built that allowed him to deal with his physical and emotional isolation in the real world.

Sure he could have simply chosen to believe, embraced what he saw but what if he had been wrong and it was all a dream? He'd be that much worse off upon awakening. After his first visit he knows that whatever the Land is its not permanent for him which serves only to further reinforce his need for emotional distance and disbelief. At the end of The Power That Preserves Covenant has finally come to a point where he is able to overcome his own self doubt and despair. As a result he takes an active role in the Land (and thus destroys Foul's Creche and the Illearth Stone) and returns to the "real" world a changed man.

... at least that is how I have always seen it.

[Mr Fox]

yeah, like I said, I do get that, I just disagree with it. For me if it was a break from sanity, it was at least a very pleasant break from sanity. Besides, all 5 of his senses are telling him it's real... he didn't have a choice but to deal with what he was experiencing regardless of whether it was real or not. Me, I'd have kicked back and enjoyed it instead of dithering for all that time. I would also have prayed it didn't end.

[jameson (ST)]

So you'd basically give up on life in favor of a delusion? *shrugs*

For the record the 2nd Trilogy has a much more proactive TC, and due to the circumstances of said series the Land is proven to be more than just a delusion of his mind when unconscious.

The new series is to be 4 books and is apparently Donaldson's endgame for the Land, a story he devised back when he wrote the 2nd Chronicles but till recently was not willing/able to write.

[Mr Fox]

If the 'delusion' is effecting all five senses then there isn't really a choice. Denying it does no good at all since it is effecting all five senses and you can't choose to not accept what input they are giving you. So not accepting is pretty pointless leaving you with only one option, accept it, which as you say, he eventually does. I'm just saying the decision making process wouldn't have taken me multiple trips, it would have taken me 5 minutes because whether you want to accept it or not, you are stuck dealing with what your senses tell you.