Elena coming on to Thomas

Revan · Posted: Wed Apr 02, 2003 12:46 pm Post subject: Elena coming on to Thomas

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?

KaosArcana · Guest 0 White Gold Dollars User Items:

First Mark Tuvor:

fightingmyinstincts · Posted: Wed Apr 02, 2003 7:45 pm Post subject: re

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! Laughing

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...
_________________
"Well of course I understand. You live forever because your pure, sinless service is utterly and indomitably unballasted by any weight or dross of mere human weakness. Ah, the advantages of clean living."
TC to Bannor, LFB

dukka · Guest 0 White Gold Dollars User Items:

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.

Lord Mhoram · Posted: Thu Apr 03, 2003 12:48 am Post subject:

I'm definitely with dukkha on this one. TC, regardless of his feelings, didn't act.
_________________
"All my life I have sneered at the natural rights of man." - Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

Reisheiruhime · Posted: Thu Apr 03, 2003 1:40 am Post subject:

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. Confused

duchess of malfi · Posted: Thu Apr 03, 2003 3:46 am Post subject:

Elena has always seemed to be a rather odd person to me, too. Confused

But it does show TC's moral progression that he does NOT touch her, even when she more or less throws herself at him Rolling Eyes

_________________
Love as thou wilt.

Fist and Faith · Posted: Thu Apr 03, 2003 4:02 am Post subject:

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.

KaosArcana · Guest 0 White Gold Dollars User Items:

Here's what Covenant did:

Worm of Despite · Posted: Thu Apr 03, 2003 4:03 am Post subject:

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

_________________
"I support the destruction of the Think-Tank." - Avatar, August 2008

duchess of malfi · Posted: Thu Apr 03, 2003 7:02 am Post subject:

The key is he ALMOST did, but in this case he rose above the temptation.
_________________
Love as thou wilt.

masrock · Posted: Thu Apr 03, 2003 12:05 pm Post subject:

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
_________________
"To defend . . . this is the Pact. But when life loses its value, and is taken for naught, then the Pact is . . . to avenge.".

KaosArcana · Guest 0 White Gold Dollars User Items:

masrock:

masrock · Posted: Thu Apr 03, 2003 2:20 pm Post subject:

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

Prince of Amber · Posted: Thu Apr 03, 2003 2:36 pm Post subject:

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.
_________________
There is also Love in the World.

Guest · 0 White Gold Dollars User Items:

Ryzel · Posted: Thu Apr 03, 2003 8:51 pm Post subject:

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?
_________________
"Und wenn sie mich suchen, ich halte mich in der Nähe des Wahnsinns auf." Bernd das Brot

amanibhavam · Posted: Thu Apr 03, 2003 9:21 pm Post subject:

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.
_________________
------------------------------------------------------------------------
love is the shadow that ripens the wine

Aglardh - a place for discussion on Tolkien's languages

Lord Mhoram · Posted: Thu Apr 03, 2003 9:39 pm Post subject:

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.
_________________
"All my life I have sneered at the natural rights of man." - Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

masrock · Posted: Thu Apr 03, 2003 9:43 pm Post subject: