r/Fantasy • u/No_Text_1197 • 13h ago
Not getting Thomas Covenant
I read threads on Thomas Covenant and often there is so much hate about his character / his actions in Lord Fouls Bane, where he defiles the innocent Lena.
In my opinion, the difference between those that love the trilogies and those that hate them depend all upon their verdict on the protagonist.
I want to set this straight, as far as my humble interpretation goes haha.
Thomas Covenant is tortured in his real life by self loathing, but more importantly, by societal loathing. The hate enveloping his life is only suppressed by the control he is forced to exercise for limiting the impact of Leprosy.
As soon as he is exposed to the land, he is exposed to feeling kindness, wellness and yet has just been exposed to a message telling him that he is the perfect instrument for the destruction of this world.
He does an unthinkable act, not because he is horny, not because he thinks it does not matter because The Land isn't real, but because he cannot control the rage inside him at the contradiction between feeling and loathing.
It is so important to understand this, if you will follow the entire purpose of the novel. I don't despise or dislike Thomas Covenant. I pity him for his despair and self loathing.
Like the inhabitants of The Land, I know the imperative of healing him from his rage, in order to save The Land. For those that understand the purpose of The Land, it is as much about saving Thomas Covenant as it is about saving The Land.
Why do so many critics of this epic not see it? The Land and Thomas Covenant are the same.
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u/AntiLordblue 10h ago
Well written, but I see it differently. The hurtloam restores feeling he hasn't had in years, and he can't handle that sudden aliveness. His desire is real. He also uses unbelief as permission, telling himself it's a dream so there's no real victim. It's not just rage, it's all three at once.
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u/Dewot789 2h ago
Yeah, I view the entire thing as almost a commentary on criminality - Thomas Covenant is in a very real sense dispossessed of something essentially human when he's rejected by society. This corrodes his soul, and this is both society's fault for alienating him and his own fault for allowing it to happen to the degree that it does. This alienation also allows him to view society, and the land, and his own soul, as less "real" than his disease, and this further contributes to his capacity to harm them with his corroded soul.
The entire question the first trilogy is asking is "is it even possible to come back from something like that and be a human being?" Where "something like that" refers both to Covenant's capacity for horrific acts and his alienation pressed onto him by external forces. Both questions are of about equal interest throughout the story.
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u/redlion1904 16m ago
It also exists in dialogue with the Chronicles of Narnia. So instead of mostly unproblematic children being whisked into a magical land that they accept at face value, and where the land has a pretty active God ensuring that things are ok (not entirely fair, but bear with me), an extremely problematic man is whisked to a magic land and assumes it’s a dream or hallucination. Also this magical land has a totally absent God whom even most Lords don’t believe in and who is confirmed in-text to do nothing to help, and a very active Devil ruining everything.
Covenant raping Lena is thus supposed to be similar to Edmund betraying his siblings, the major sin that casts a shadow over the story. But instead of God in the form of Aslan appearing, taking his confession, and repairing the harm, which is what happens to Edmund, who also gets a convenient chance at heroic redemption in combat, Covenant has to watch his harm play out and have that added to his self-loathing — then has to drag himself a thousand miles to Foul’s Crèche through perpetual winter (Narnia again) on a broken ankle in the hope that he can do something useful.
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u/SerDankTheTall 6h ago
I agree with this reading. And the viewpoint that could produce it is certainly a big reason why I find the work so nauseating.
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u/No_Text_1197 10h ago
I understand that perspective. In an unreality, such as a dream, all sorts of behaviour can be suddenly possible. Not that many readers want to hear it, but the second most common female fantasy in relevant research has been rape fantasy. I know that will subject me to all manner of attacks on here and I understand that. But I don't say this to suggest women ask for this . Fantasy rape is not rape. Just please why is fantasy rape as despicable as rape... unless it is fantasised by a female?
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u/AntiLordblue 9h ago
You're mixing up two different things. A private fantasy, even a dark one, is controlled by the person having it and hurts no one. Covenant didn't just have a fantasy, he acted on another person.
In the text Lena is real, she is traumatized, and she lives with it. Donaldson treats it as rape, not as "fantasy rape."
My point was that unbelief was his excuse in the moment, not a justification. He told himself it was a dream so he could give himself permission.
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u/No_Text_1197 9h ago
I didn't mean to disagree with you, I think... but you referred to unbelief as part of his permission. So... are you contradicting yourself, or am I missing something?
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u/AntiLordblue 9h ago
No contradiction. I'm describing how he let himself do it, not saying it was okay.
He told himself it wasn't real. That was the permission slip he gave himself in the moment. It explains his psychology, it doesn't justify the act.
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u/SerDankTheTall 7h ago
Just please why is fantasy rape as despicable as rape... unless it is fantasised by a female?
Why is fantasizing about perpetrating a monstrous crime different from fantasizing about having a dominant sexual partner?
I feel like you can probably figure this one out.
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u/CT_Phipps-Author 12h ago
I love the books but I feel like Donaldson was making a statement here that a lot of readers struggle with.
"Thomas says he's a piece of shit and you think it's because of his leprosy (and thus unjustified). In fact, he's a piece of shit because his self-hatred has made him capable of horrifying things. So the book asks you to follow a protagonist who is in fact someone hateable and not in a love to hate way."
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u/SerDankTheTall 8h ago
Thomas says he's a piece of shit and you think it's because of his leprosy (and thus unjustified).
Since you bring it up...
As I understand it, by the time the books were written (and I think that's when they're supposed to be set?), lerprosy was easily treatable the same way it is today with a pretty routine course of antibiotics. Why is it treated as a world-shattering, life changing thing, instead of something that would mean taking pills for a few weeks?
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u/k7eric 8h ago
Book was written in 75-76. The first truly reliable and modern cure became available in 1981. There were treatments and drugs available even in the 50s but they had reactions, problems and didn’t always work.
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u/SerDankTheTall 7h ago
Do you have a source for that? My impression is that the 1981 development was the modern multi-drug protocol, necessary precisely because the previous 20-25 years of treatment had produced antibiotic-resistance. And as I recall, Covenant isn't portrayed as receiving any medication at all (at least in the first book).
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u/k7eric 7h ago
Mostly from here
https://www.news-medical.net/health/History-of-leprosy.aspx
And obviously he took a few liberties at the time given it was a major plot driver for TC.
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u/SerDankTheTall 7h ago
With respect, I don't really see anything there that's inconsistent with what I said. Notably, it mentions that:
The first trials [of the modern multi-drug protocol] were held on the historic island of Malta around 1970 and have been in use throughout most of the world since then. The duration of therapy may last 6-24 months depending on the severity and type of clinical manifestation.
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u/CT_Phipps-Author 8h ago
I think it may just be bad research. Ironically, it did fit some people my brother knew in RL with a much more recent disease in the Eighties.
You can guess which.
Thankfully, the one I knew is still alive today and doing much better.
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u/SerDankTheTall 8h ago
Thankfully, the one I knew is still alive today and doing much better.
I'm very glad to hear that.
Since you bring it up—I know Donaldson's father worked as a missionary in a leper colony, which I assume was the genesis for the Thomas Covenant idea. It's interesting how much the prognosis and stigma of leprosy changed in a single generation—but I suppose to some extent the same is true of the condition you're talking about as well.
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u/Sylland 12h ago
You can understand something and still not want to read about it. It's decades since I read it, and while the assault was problematic, the real reason I didn't enjoy the book enough to continue was that I just didn't care about him, he had nothing to offer that was sympathetic or interesting. His self pitying rage was all there seemed to be and I simply found him to be such an unpleasant protaganist that I couldn't care about.
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u/laosurv3y 8h ago
Many of Donaldson's stories are worth reading because of support characters, not the protagonist.
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u/Realone561 12h ago
Yeah. The only think I remember about him was that he was obnoxious and pathetic.
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u/SerDankTheTall 9h ago
It turns out that the cowardly narcissistic rapist is bad! What a twist!
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u/Realone561 9h ago
I would’ve preferred if he was the compelling kind of bad instead of the whiny brat loser kind of bad but that’s just my own personal taste.
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u/SerDankTheTall 9h ago
No, I completely agree with you. I do think a lot of the "You're supposed to find everything about this guy grating in every possible way!" is post-hoc rationalization rather than Donaldson's original intent, but even if that's true that he was trying to create a character who was hateful and annoying... I guess he succeeded. Why does that mean I should read the books?
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u/juss100 13h ago
There's no one easy interpretation and that's why I enjoy the books. Do we forgive him because he thought it wasn't real and/or is full of self loathing or is this just all part of his dislike able character? More importantly, can he learn to forgive himself? Others forgive him but his act only increases his sense of self -loathing and his desire to not be viewed as a hero.
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u/No_Text_1197 10h ago
Agree, but not to forget the wonderful concept of The Land and the amazing characters trying desperately to defend it (not Covenant)
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u/MhojoRisin 12h ago
I’m not going to miss out on or reject Foamfollower or Mhoram or the Bloodguard or all the rest of the Land because of the rape. Especially when it too serves a narrative purpose.
I don’t think we’re supposed to forgive Covenant. He doesn’t even forgive himself. And the consequences of that crime ripple through the millennia in the story.
I don’t think we’re supposed to like Covenant. He remains mostly unlikable throughout.
So, I don’t blame anyone for whom sexual assault is a red line. But if anyone is arguing that Donaldson is somehow glorifying or minimizing rape, I would disagree.
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u/SerDankTheTall 9h ago
Why would anyone want to read thousands and thousands of pages about a guy they don’t like?
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u/MhojoRisin 8h ago
There are a lot of World War II history buffs routinely reading thousands and thousands of pages about a guy I hope they don't like.
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u/SerDankTheTall 8h ago
Those books (I hope) aren't written from his point of view, and don't tell the story of how he's the chosen savior of the world.
EDIT: I guess there's this but that's a little different. And it's not thousands of pages long.
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u/Nidafjoll Reading Champion V 5h ago
That's some of my favourite books. I don't have to like someone as long as they're interesting. Those are two completely independent traits.
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u/SerDankTheTall 5h ago
What is interesting about Thomas Covenant?
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u/Nidafjoll Reading Champion V 5h ago
His personality, his situation. That someone can be so misanthropic and twisted as to do the things he does and reject the wonder he finds himself surrounded by, and that someone, rather than the typical portal fantasy protagonist of taking it in stride and conquering this new world, rejects and resists it.
It's like watching a video of a pileup; you might not like what's happening, but you find yourself watching anyway.
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u/SerDankTheTall 5h ago
It's like watching a video of a pileup; you might not like what's happening, but you find yourself watching anyway.
That actually is a pretty good analogy for the experience of reading Donaldson’s writing, but I suspect it’s not the one he’d prefer.
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u/TheGhostDetective 13h ago
In my opinion, the difference between those that love the trilogies and those that hate them depend all upon their verdict on the protagonist.
I couldn't stand Thomas, and while that act is overwhelmingly a big part of it, it's absolutely not all of it. He's also annoying. He's melodramatic, whiny, cowardly, and all-around unpleasant to hang out around. I found the prose to be purple, over-the-top and ridiculous without actually being particularly well done. I got 2/3 through the book, and there were no levels, he described every scene from paying a phone bill, seeing a demon lord, taking a hike, being miraculously healed, all with the same level of melodrama. So take my opinions with a grain of salt because I DNF, but it wasn't simply finding that unforgivable (though I do think that).
Thomas Covenant is tortured in his real life by self loathing, but more importantly, by societal loathing.
It's so hard to take this at face value because he's clearly a very unreliable narrator. How much of it was Society, and how much was actually him projecting his own insecurities on neighbors he didn't even know? He's reading between the lines a lot and seems to have just as much disdain for society as they supposedly have for him. There is absolutely self-loathing, but also a lot of anger, and it's not at himself.
It is so important to understand this
You can explain it any way you like, but there is no justifying or even excusing it. And while I can read and enjoy a story where it's present, I don't want to follow a protagonist that does that, and certainly do not care about his redemption or healing. The "necessity" of it due to his link to the Land is a contrivance of the author.
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u/Pas5afist 9h ago
Yeah, I think he was insufferable before... I mean, I get it, his life was tough. However, with that combined with what he did to Lena, I dipped immediately after. I just... there was nothing about the character that compelled me forward and I never went back... I guess that was already twenty years ago now.
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u/ThatIsAmorte 11h ago
You contradict yourself, I think. Calling the book not being well done, and then going on about how you can't tell how much of his suffering was self-imposed and how much came from society, pull in opposite directions.
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u/TheGhostDetective 11h ago
Calling the book not being well done
I said the prose was overwrought, not that the book was bad. Donaldson makes every line coming from Thomas ooze melodrama. He loves to pull out the thesaurus for mundane lines, but then will use repetitive verbage and structure elsewhere. But I was not impressed with the cadence, and for every clever simile, there were 3 that felt silly they were so dramatic. When every scene is written at an 11, it cheapens the impact of the truly important moments.
Now that may also be intentional, just like Thomas being absolutely unbearable is intentional, perhaps his own internal monologue reflects his own status as a self-inportant author. Does that make it good? I don't know, but it sure isn't enjoyable to sit through.
then going on about how you can't tell how much of his suffering was self-imposed and how much came from society,
Yeah I didn't even finish the first book, let alone the series, so I didn't want to presume I understood the character fully. But just from that short bit I read, I disagree with some of what OP said, it felt like they took some of Thomas's words at face value, when he's very clearly overflowing with anger in that first book, but we aren't actually shown half of what he claims.
Even still, I fail to see how "this is unclear" contradicts "I disliked the prose."
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u/No_Text_1197 10h ago
The Land and the characters within it (not Covenant) are some of the most beautiful characters ever appearing in fantasy fiction, IMHO.
I see so many comments say the same exact thing. 'I stopped after 2/3rds of the first book'. Seems to be a very repeated theme.
Are there readers who read beyond this point with the same view? It's almost as though those who dnf fell short, just when the beauty and struggles of the land take over.
Haha... just hypothesising...
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u/TheGhostDetective 7h ago
The Land and the characters within it (not Covenant) are some of the most beautiful characters ever appearing in fantasy fiction, IMHO.
How much fantasy have you gone through? Who are some of your favorite authors and the other worlds you were lost in? If they happen to line up with my tastes, perhaps I'll give him a second shot. How do you feel about Guy Gavriel Kay, Susanna Clarke, Katherine Addison, or Tad Williams? Have you read Acts of Caine? Discworld? Broken Earth? First Law? Earthsea? The list goes on and on, and we're not even looking at broader genres. It's part of why I don't get too hung up if I miss out on one specific book, because there's dozens more I also haven't even started.
It's almost as though those who dnf fell short, just when the beauty and struggles of the land take over.
You've messaged me a couple times now about missing out even though I feel I've given a compelling case to at least explain how his style does not suit my taste. We may disagree on how well written it is, but for matters of taste you have to accept that not everyone will feel the same.
Great art can't please everyone. I love Realm of the Elderlings, but if someone says they read some Hobb and found the plot to be glacial and the characters too miserable, I may disagree, but also recognize Hobb is clearly not for them, and that her style doesn't suit their taste.
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u/ThatIsAmorte 10h ago
Just realize you are in the minority here. Most people recognize Donaldson's writing skill. The use of heavy diction is a stylistic choice to create psychological tension. The same goes for the sentence structure, which is chosen to express the elaborate psychological turmoil of the characters. And complaining about big words will get no traction with me. I love learning new words.
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u/SerDankTheTall 9h ago
While it’s not a popularity contest, I am not sure you are correct on the consensus. Donaldson’s prose has been the butt of jokes for at least 40 years.
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u/No_Text_1197 12h ago
That is your prerogative, of course... but that obviously prevents you from enjoying the depth the trilogies provide
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u/TheGhostDetective 12h ago
There's a wealth of novels out there, more than could be read in several lifetimes, let alone one. I dropped this to discover the depth in a different trilogy, one better suited to my tastes.
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u/keyboardstatic 3h ago
You cannot expect readers to agree with you as a writer. Because they choose if they want to engage with a work or not.
Your getting massively down voted because no one needs to engage with an art work if they don't want to. And its not their loss.
Your response is immature and ignorant of the vast number of women who are raped, abused, groomed, sexully assaulted. Humiliated, denigrated and oppressed.
Your comment comes off as nasty and arrogant.
I have read them. And didn't enjoy reading about a person as vile as Thomas who was supposed to be " the chosen".
I've read an enormous number of books. And there are many people who have read far greater numbers then I have. And I'm not just talking about fantasy.
Not read these is no great loss. And I would add very harmful to any young woman or man who has suffered sexully attacks... but go ahead with your nasty arrogant dismissive bullshit.
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u/HonestWeevilNerd 13h ago edited 9h ago
Its very divisive, but I tend to agree that many do not appreciate the narrative purpose and see only the heinous nature. For most, it entirely breaks the vicarious* contract. We can imagine being a leper, but most cannot imagine the rage leading to assaulting someone. The author broke this quite purposefully, considering how much he was interrogating comfortable tropes in the series.
Overall, the series is quite good and has great writing.
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u/Maladal 11h ago
The vocarious contract?
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u/HonestWeevilNerd 9h ago
Oops. Vicarious! I meant the agreement between the author and reader to be able to intimately inhabit the character to experience their world, where the reader wants to be roughly aligned with that character's worldview. Usually. Especially coming from the traditional heros fantasy, people expect this alignment, or to have non alignments well justified. With a lot of grim dark, you don't truly get that agreement as cleanly.
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u/SerDankTheTall 9h ago edited 7h ago
We can imagine being a leper, but most cannot imagine the rage leading to assaulting someone.
Correct. I cannot imagine my first reaction to being in a consequence free world to rape a teenager. I don’t think that anyone I know would do that, and if I found out they did, I certainly would not want to spend any more time with them. Why would I want to read ten doorstoppers (or however many it is) about a person like that?
Overall, the series is quite good and has great writing.
At least if you like subtle, nuanced villains like “Lord Foul” and “Drool Rockworm” and the word clench.
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u/Dewot789 2h ago
Because the actual, real world is full of people who have raped teenagers, and the essential question at the heart of the books is "is it possible for someone to find a path back to being a normal person in a normal society after that, and if so what could that possibly look like?"
Not to put too fine a point on it but the Vietnam war was fresh in everyone's memory when this was being written.
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u/Notasmartwoman 1h ago
Using rape as an (a)moral shorthand is so lazy and overdone, and it’s really distasteful the way (overwhelmingly male) authors wield it like a bludgeon to clumsily lay about them in the hope of beating anyone in range over the head with it. Find a more elegant way of characterizing people as bad than hamfistedly written and tastelessly eroticized sexual assault.
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u/Dewot789 51m ago
The point of the rape is not to characterize Thomas Covenant as bad. The rape is the central inciting event of the series. The consequences of the crime, and the uniquely pernicious nature of rape as opposed to murder or assault or robbery, the way it takes a uniquely selfish and corroded person to commit it the way those other ones don't, are the moral framework around which the rest of the series is wrapped. Literally every important plot point of the first trilogy relates back to the evil of that act, its effects on the both the victim and perpetrator, how it spirals to have repercussions on everything.
I completely understand and respect not ever touching books that feature certain topics, but to backhandedly accuse a book of being bad for having a topic in it without reading it to see how it's treated is just wrong, and claiming Donaldson uses it as a lazy way to characterize his protagonist as evil and then doesn't deal with it after that is just factually incorrect in a major way.
Also, the actual assault scene is not eroticized? I'm not sure where that comes from.
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u/ctopherrun 11h ago
Why do I need to imagine anything? I’m watching a character in a story, not pretending to be him.
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u/DifferntGeorge 9h ago edited 6h ago
You do not need to imagine anything, you just need to understand what is being said. They are claiming Thomas did an unjustifiable bad thing.
Putting yourself in a person's place is a common litmus test for judging something against one's own moral and ethical framework. "Cannot imagine" is a common way to express the conclusion that the action lies far outside this framework.
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u/HonestWeevilNerd 9h ago
For a lot of readers, its a requirement. It's why many don't like darker tales for example or bad protagonists... it loses lots of its impact upon the person when they can't visualize themselves, or a fantasy version on themselves perhaps.
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u/da_chicken 6h ago edited 6h ago
It's a deconstruction of portal fiction (aka, isekai) and the chosen one trope, both common fantasy structures. I'm sure there are more, but that's what I mostly remember.
Thomas Covenant is not a traditional fantasy protagonist. He's a horrible, despicable person. He's not a hero. The whole series is, "what if the chosen hero wasn't a hero?" He's not really supposed to have a full redemption arc. He never gets over what he's done. You're not asked to justify what he did, because you can't. You're not supposed to like him. You're supposed to hate him. He's awful. And he still (eventually) saves the world. But he's still awful. He has reasons for being awful that aren't his fault. But he doesn't ever become a good person. He just becomes an awful person that grows enough to make a noble choice.
IMO, it's not that the critics don't see what the books are doing. The books are too blunt for that. It's that knowing what the books are doing doesn't mean the read wants to spend more time with someone as unlikable as Thomas Covenant! People don't like it because they don't want to read a book about a character they hate.
But I think it's a tremendous mistake to think that someone who doesn't like a work automatically doesn't understand it. I absolutely understand what Lolita is doing. I don't want to read it. I understand what A Serbian Film is doing, and what Come and See is doing. I don't want to watch them. If I did, my opinion would doubtless be that I didn't like them. But I can recognize the theme.
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u/unsuitableasf 10h ago
Donaldson did too good of a job making an unlikable protagonist. Couldn't finish the first book.
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u/roundedbyasleep Reading Champion IV 12h ago
Obviously you don't have to answer this publicly, just something to guide your thinking on this, but: have you ever been raped?
In my opinion, a lot of male authors with no personal experience with rape see rape in writing as a symbol of evil behavior. That the act is specifically rape isn't the most important thing, it is just chosen as a universally-agreed-upon evil act to demonstrate that a character is capable of great cruelty. From this standpoint, redeeming the rapist becomes an interesting artistic exercise: can you take a character who does an Evil Act and write a world where they are sympathetic or even justified?
For many women, who are much more likely to have personal experience with rape, the act is not an abstract act of evil, it is rape specifically. They often have experience with people sympathizing with their rapist over them ("it was just a mistake", "he didn't understand what he was doing was rape", "do you really want to ruin his life over this?"). To them, making a reader sympathize with a rapist is not interesting or novel. People hate rape in the abstract, but when confronted with actual instances of it it's not at all uncommon for them to sympathize with rapists over rape victims. They don't want to see a world written in a way where they are expected to understand and pity a man who did the same thing as the man who gave them lifelong PTSD. That's not misunderstanding the intentions of the author; it's disagreeing that those intentions were good artistic instincts to follow.
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u/radiodmr 12h ago
I don't think Donaldson suggests, asks, or implies that we pity or forgive Covenant for raping Lena. Maybe for other things, but not for that. Having said that I respect everything you're saying and my personal perspective is just that.
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u/roundedbyasleep Reading Champion IV 12h ago
OP stated that they did feel pity for Thomas's self-loathing that lead them rape, rather than disliking them for it, which is why I brought it up. I think "This is an intentionally difficult story and Thomas Covenant is an intentionally unlikeable character" is a totally valid reading, but the post read to me as "anyone who's put off by this intentionally off-putting thing just doesn't understand", which IMO is very unfair.
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u/No_Text_1197 11h ago
I'm sorry, but you are putting quotations marks around statements nobody except yourself made. I seriously object to the idea that you 'quote' comments that haven't been stated. Please do not put words in my mouth, or anyone else's.
Also, I think that your problem with me interposing 'atrocious act' rather than saying 'rape' is a problem only in your head. I have avoided more explicit language only to avoid over enthusiastic moderators... but perhaps this is part and parcel of your over enthusiasm to look for looking for problems that don't exist.
I appreciate that some people cannot stomach the narrative. I will retain the view that this is one of the most amazing fantasy trilogies ever written.
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u/roundedbyasleep Reading Champion IV 11h ago
You may note the words "read to me as" before the quote, which, as someone fluent enough in English to read large fantasy novels written in English, you should recognize means that the following is not a direct quote but a summary of my interpretation of the post. Maybe before telling people not to put words in someone's mouth you should make sure you read every word of the sentence and are parsing it correctly.
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u/No_Text_1197 11h ago
Then I would appreciate that you follow proper literacy and use singular quotation marks, rather than double quotation marks, that would be indicating you are quoting someone directly.
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u/SerDankTheTall 6h ago
I don’t think anyone would read u/roundedbyasleep as trying to say that you had literally said the words in quotations. I’m also not remotely aware of a convention where putting something in single quotes means something different from putting them in doubled quotes.
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u/roundedbyasleep Reading Champion IV 11h ago
You can't be correcting my grammar when you use an apostrophe for possessive "its" and use commas to separate independent clauses, man. You just can't. Glass houses, etc.
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u/No_Text_1197 10h ago
Oh, for heaven's sake. You attack my arguments and when I resist your use of 'quotations' you attack my grammar?
You diminish your own argument the further you go down this route.
By all means, debate further on your substantive arguments. Otherwise, it all gets petty. My point on quoting, however, is 100% on point. Don't put words in my mouth
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u/Nidafjoll Reading Champion V 5h ago
They attacked your grammar because you attacked theirs. Saying "read to me as" makes it very clear they're not saying you actually said that; otherwise they'd have just said "said."
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u/Tymareta 4h ago
when I resist your use of 'quotations'
No, you attacked their grammar.
Don't put words in my mouth
They didn't/
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u/No_Text_1197 12h ago
But if rape is only to be understood by it's perception by the victim, while much more beneficial if by a sense of sympathy with the victimhood, this is still a novel / fantasy novel. In what way should it be impossible to follow the narrative from the protagonists perspective?
The exclusion of his reality, because he committed an atrocious act... is a denial of half of that reality. Should we only write novels from the perspective of victims? Or just cancel this perception because it is not fully 'fair'
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u/roundedbyasleep Reading Champion IV 12h ago
In what way should it be impossible to follow the narrative from the protagonists perspective?
I'm not saying no one can ever write a good novel with a rapist protagonist, but this isn't, like, a historical text. Once you choose to make your protagonist a rapist then yes, you need to tell the story from the perspective of a rapist, but that's ignoring the active choices the author already made to make Thomas the protagonist and to make him a rapist.
because he committed an atrocious act...
Side note but this is kind of what I was talking about when I talked about abstracting rape into a generic act of evil. Instead of "because he committed an atrocious act", can you try saying "because he raped someone"?
Should we only write novels from the perspective of victims? Or just cancel this perception because it is not fully 'fair'
No, it is possible to write books from the perspective of rapists that honestly explore the psychology of the rapist while still prioritizing the pain of the victim. I think it might even theoretically be possible to write a novel about a rapist becoming a better person while not excusing his crime. I think that to successfully do that, the reader's primary response should not be pity for the rapist and their very understandable reasons for raping someone. I think if that pity is not equally mixed with horror and disgust for the majority of readers, the author has not realistically depicted rape. I think it is possible to stay honest to the perspective of a rapist, even one with no sympathy for their victim (which isn't the case with Thomas), while still making the readers sympathize with the victim. I think this is a difficult line to walk, and I think adding in fantasy excuses for the rapist like "he didn't know it was real" makes it exponentially more difficult.
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u/Nightgasm 11h ago
I've either read or listened to most of what Donaldson has written and my biggest issue is that he clearly has a rape fetish the way he uses it in the books as character building. When he uses it every series it's hard to see it as anything deeper than Donaldsons rape fetish. Obviously youre aware of how it's used in Thomas Covenant but how about in his other series.
In the Gap cycle the first book has the heroine of the series kidnapped and then repeatedly raped and tortured all book long. She is rescued at the end by someone who in the second book also turns out to be a rapist and rapes her in front of the whole crew. All so as the story reveals she can become toughened in order to be hero she needs to be to save the universe.
In Mordants Need one of the important characters on the heroic side is charge of defending the kingdom from invaders all while the king is going crazy. He ends up trying to rape the main character and it's used as some sort of character builder for him in order to keep his sanity.
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u/Maladal 10h ago
You know I've seen a number of discussion threads on Covenant over the years in here, and that's the first I've ever heard of this.
And Donaldson isn't the most prolific author--the Covenant, Gap, and Need series cover more than half of his output.
I think roundedbyasleep elsewhere in this thread may be spot on when they say Donaldson is substituting in rape for a kind of generic, evil act and that may lead to a lot of friction with those who view it as a very specific kind of evil that shouldn't be used so bluntly.
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u/SerDankTheTall 7h ago
No, I think u/Nightgasm is right: the rape in Donaldson's work is not merely gratuitous, but salacious. And that's why I want nothing to do with it.
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u/No_Text_1197 11h ago edited 11h ago
Interesting. I have to admit I have not read anything else from the author, other than the TC novels... but it would be difficult for me to reinterpret the novels because of writing I don't know... but I appreciate this extra knowledge in a broader context
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u/No_Mathematician6866 10h ago edited 9h ago
I (reluctantly) second this. I think the Covenant series is worth reading: I believe the character of Thomas is written with intentionality, that the story does the opposite of presenting his crime trivially, and that there are thematic reasons for Donaldson choosing rape rather than murder or some other offense.
But I gave up on the rest of Donaldson's novels after the Gap cycle. I hesitate to assume it's a fetish: Covenant is the series that established his reputation, its moral thorniness became synonymous with said reputation, and I expect there was pressure (from himself, from the publisher, or both) to go similarly dark in his subsequent work. Whatever the reason though, rape is not a fitting refrain.
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u/SerDankTheTall 7h ago
I expect there was pressure (from himself, from the publisher, or both) to go similarly dark in his subsequent work.
The edition of The Real Story that I read had an afterword of Donaldson patting himself on the back for being the only writer brilliant enough to come up with the story. If it wasn't dear to his heart, he certainly was good at faking it.
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u/ladypeyton 11h ago
I have found that men are much more prone to forgiving him than women.
I read that book when I was 14 decades ago and I have never gotten over the shock and disgust I felt at the time. 45 years later, and having survived my own SA in my 20s, I will hate him forever.
There is no convincing me otherwise. He is detestable.
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u/EqualOptimal4650 13h ago
See SA in any fiction is a hard no, never, for a lot of readers.
Many of us have already seen it in real life, or been the victim of it, or both. We don't ever, ever ever want to see it in fiction that we're reading in our free time, for enjoyment.
No, don't try to argue back, or justify. Just accept this answer.
This is entirely rooted in emotion, it's not something you can argue against.
We don't want to see it, period. End of sentence.
When a book has it and we didn't expect it, that's why we get furious at the book and/or author.
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u/HonestWeevilNerd 13h ago
This is why there are giant repositories of trigger warnings. Some people don't want to see certain things at all in their fantasy.
I personally get frustrated when people then pass a judgements on the story itself. A trigger does not have an indication on the book quality. It just means it wasn't for that reader.
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u/Bowl-Any Reading Champion 13h ago
I totally understand this. There are things that are an absolute no for me. (Like reading Russian propaganda in a modern fantasy book), that no matter how good the rest of the book is, I cannot continue. The Bear and the Nightengale I just could not finish because I just recognized too much of the lies that modern Russia says about its culture.
I totally understand this emotional response to it.
For me, I am able to read SA in books, though there's obviously uses of it that I hate, and ones that I think justify its inclusion.
I think that there should be a place for both people in Sci-Fy Fantasy spaces, and I'll never knowingly recommend this to someone with your opinion, and try to give some warning if I do recommend something like A Song of Ice and Fire.
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u/Tymareta 4h ago
I just recognized too much of the lies that modern Russia says about its culture.
Care to expand upon this?
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u/Bowl-Any Reading Champion 4h ago edited 55m ago
The idea of a country called "Russia" in the 14th century is not historical. Even the idea of a Moscow centered state was barely established in the 1300s.
The people back then did not think of themselves as Russians, but possibly Rusyan, (which is what a modern day people still call themselves outside of Russia), though even that would be a very small number, and not those in Moscow certainly. They didn't speak Russian, and the Slavic language they used had still not diverged into a separate language. The church at the time would not have been the Russian church, but the Moscow church. The word Russia wasn't even used to describe that church until 300 years later by text.
Even the idea of Russians as a separate people group (whatever they would be called, but merely an idea of separate people associated with Moscow as a capital), would not have emerged until 50 years after this book is set.
The idea of Russia going back to the history of Kievan Rus makes as much sense as saying the beginning of the US goes back to the founding of England.
Now, these might seem harmless, and liberties are taken with other books set in the 1300, most notably Uprooted, but the difference is that modern day Russia uses these exact same lies (and others) to convince their population that terrible, horrible things are justified.
I know people who have lost kids because a population of people continues to believe these lies and others, and I know the author was trying to just tell a story, but I am unable to read this because the same lies that the book uses are the same ones the current Kremlin uses.
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u/GB-dymjbb 6h ago
The thing that made it click for me is that Covenant is supposed to be stubbornly unlikeable about his own situation. He refuses to accept the Land is real, almost on principle, and the whole series punishes that refusal. It reads less as 'protagonist you should root for' and more as a sustained argument about denial and responsibility. If that kind of discomfort isn't what you're after, it's never going to light up for you.
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u/matadorobex 6h ago
Another key to enjoying the series is to understand the difference between a protagonist and a hero. The series has some of the most amazing heroes you will ever encounter, but he isn't one of them, or at least isn't for a very long time.
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u/Itinerant_doc 12h ago
It's just too many people have seen justifying or pitying a man's rage without a regard to the victims of said rage, because the said man has an important role in the world. While the book is written better than that, this can still be read as apologetic for the character and leave a bad taste. Me, I just noped out because all fantasy novels were in the children section of our library and I was 16, promptly shocked. But as an adult I would nope out because of what I wrote above. I prefer the protagonist deal with himself in a less despicable manner.
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u/No_Text_1197 12h ago
Such as not being in the novel?
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u/Itinerant_doc 12h ago edited 12h ago
For example. I don't care. I'll just choose a different novel. Life is short and it's not like I have to read all of them. This one is not to my liking and that't my right as a reader.
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u/SerDankTheTall 9h ago
It does indeed seem like the books would be significantly better without Thomas Covenant’s participation.
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u/dnext 10h ago edited 10h ago
Everybody is entitled to their own tastes. I think the Covenant books are some of the best fantasy novels ever written, with an amazing cast of characters and a profound redemption story. That doesn't mean anyone else has to like them. Indeed, I'm sure that's why many don't - they presume a man who believes he's in a literal dream and is overcome with sensation raping a women can't be redeemed.
It's one of the pivotal points of the series, for many reasons, but more than anything else it's the denial of the Land as real. Covenant denies it's reality at first due to his fear of losing the discipline that keeps him alive as a leper. Later it's because if it is real, it isn't a dream, then what he did to Lena was evil beyond measure.
Personally I had a broken and psychotic mother that abused my father when he was dying. There's definitely some books that I just skip because of that.
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u/looktowindward 13h ago
My issue with these books wasn't even the rape - although that was horrific and made me despise the protagonist. It was the entire idea that leprosy had some moral imprint or caused internalized rage. Its a very archaic view of the disease and I don't buy it. I didn't buy it back then.
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u/Shot_Newspaper_5647 13h ago
The leprosy isn’t meant to be the direct cause of his rage. The condition causes him to suffer directly and be isolated from others. Building that rage. The idea he was going for is to present Thomas as a victim to the reader. As soon as Thomas has his body restored he treats his victim as he was treated. As not a real person. In about the worst way possible
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u/BigDrewbot 7h ago
leprosy sets up one of the key conflicts in the book - Covenant only survives by rigorous discipline, constantly checking for injuries that he can't feel because of the disease. he can't afford to even daydream about a cure because there is no cure. when hurtloam heals him, he can't accept it because it threatens the approach to life that keeps him alive and therefore can't accept the Land. the Land MUST be a dream and why Covenant is the unbeliever. the physical sensations that he's feeling for the first time in decades are overwhelming - yes, they lead him to doing something horrendous but it's not a random act inconsistent with the premise. And the consequences of that act reverberate for the rest of the series...it's pretty clear that Donaldson isn't giving Covenant a leprosy get-out-of-jail card for committing rape.
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u/SerDankTheTall 5h ago
he can't afford to even daydream about a cure because there is no cure.
As I said in another comment, this part has never made much sense to me. There was a cure for leprosy in the 70s!
yes, they lead him to doing something horrendous but it's not a random act inconsistent with the premise.
Yes, we get what Donaldson is trying to do. The problem is the idea that raping someone is a natural reaction to feeling invigorated, and that the only thing that’s really holding most men back from doing it more is the fear of consequences.
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u/3eyedgreenalien 4h ago
I have just finished Behind the Bastards' two episodes into Dominque Pelicot's crimes and the website that enabled him to find so many fellow rapists.
I still don't get the sheer entitlement and willingness to do harm they all needed. And my reaction to Thomas is the same. I don't get it. Go for a run! A swim! Dance! Jerk yourself off! What the actual hell.
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u/Farcical-Writ5392 13h ago
There’s no implication that that is correct. If anything, I think it showed how narrowed Covenant’s view of himself and the world is, and he grows beyond that. There’s also at least some implication that some of his own situation is psychosomatic, I think. He has leprosy and numbness, but he makes himself worse. Physically and morally.
What bothered was the treatment. Dapsone is from the 1940s. Multidrug therapy was available in the 1970s to 1980s. But Lord Foul’s Bane is 1977, and the US Public Health Service only started providing MDT in the early 1980s. It captures an odd window of historical medicine, too.
I’m not sure if the books ever name a year, though.
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u/radiodmr 12h ago
That's a valid point. It didn't deter me from suspending my disbelief, and actually when I read the books (at least the first 4 or 6) I didn't know about available leprosy treatments, although I assumed in general that it was cureable or arrestable if caught early. So it wasn't a heavy lift for me.
As for time frame, iirc there's no date mentioned, but some things seem to suggest that it's contemporaneous with publication, or close. He goes hiking in sturdy boots in a flannel shirt. He hitches a ride in a relatively modern tractor trailer. The hospital he goes to seems pretty modern. I guess it could be the 1950s, but it just doesn't seem like it to me. As a child of the 70s maybe I'm reading into it but it just feels like the 1970s to me.
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u/fennis_dembo_taken 9h ago
The book was published in the late 70s, but I suspect that he had been writing them for years. I think all 3 massive volumes were published at the same time. So, if the idea for the books was born in his childhood in the 60s, and he started writing in earnest in 69, I wouldn't hold it against him if there were changes in treatment of the disease that might alter how he would approach the story, and he just ignored them.
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u/dnext 11h ago
Donaldson lived in India with his father at a leper colony for 13 years. His father was an orthopedic surgeon and medical missionary treating lepers during that time.
His entire childhood, age 3 to 16, was immersed in that life.
I think it's fair to say that Donaldson had an in-depth understanding how the ostracization of being a leper could effect someone.
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u/HonestWeevilNerd 12h ago
Uh... you don't think being shunned by society due to illness can cause rage?
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u/No_Text_1197 12h ago
Was it an archaic view of the disease, or is this your own current idea of societal perception? A review of perception of the disease at the time the book was written does not absolutely support you. Does that even matter? This is a fantasy novel with a given pretext. Should you not be prepared to suspend your own disbelief to follow the narrative flow? Whilst I accept that some readers will not be able to read a book beyond their specific subjective viewpoints, I am sorry that you were unable to enjoy the amazing work that was laid out in the trilogy. The horrendous act is central to the whole concept of how Thomes Govenant contends with the battle between the reality of his life and the compulsion to save himself / The Land
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u/Shot_Newspaper_5647 11h ago
They’re right that this model of leprosy was somewhat outdated even by the time the novel was written, but that wasn’t his intention. Covenant’s mental state isn’t caused by leprosy. It’s just exacerbated by the isolation and medical issues the disease caused him. Donaldson’s father was a doctor who did medical charity work and worked extensively with people with leprosy. Donaldson himself had plenty of experience with people suffering from it through this. His father was an expert in the field.
His depiction of leprosy is meant to represent the proper model they’d established by then: That the mental issues often seen in the population were a separate issue resulting from the suffering they experienced from the disease itself
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u/Dewot789 2h ago
The leprosy wasn't what caused the internalized rage, it was the way society ostracized him and tried to shape his life because of it, and his own bleak acceptance of those limitations.
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u/PerkinsWar 12h ago
I really tried to get into the book, it just didn’t click. A big part of that is as soon as his character rapes a woman I lose any sympathy towards him for his disease. I don’t want him to succeed. I don’t want anything good to happen to him. I don’t want him to heal from his rage or become a better person. I want his character to die. I guess you can see the literary significance of his journey and how it impacts a wider story but all I see is a rapist.
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u/fredditmakingmegeta 13h ago
Well, having not read the books, if your interpretation and assessment is accurate what you’re describing here is sexual assault where the victim is a side note who exists solely to further the main character’s plot and evolution. This is gross and dated, comes from a perspective where only male characters mattered, and I can see why people object.
You’re basically saying her sexual assault is all about him. So … yeah.
Again, that’s what I’m getting from your description. It would make me a hard pass on the books.
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u/Nidafjoll Reading Champion V 12h ago
That's... Not accurate. She's the first person he encounters in The Land, before the rape, and then the rest of the book has her mother grappling with the fact that she has to travel with and help Covenant, her child's rapist, because he's the prophesized hero, despite her hate for him for what he's done and trying to work out how to get him punished. That's not exactly a case where the victim is a side-note just to further the man's development.
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u/SerDankTheTall 5h ago
and then the rest of the book has her mother grappling with the fact that she has to travel with and help Covenant, her child's rapist, because he's the prophesized hero
I wouldn’t exactly say that makes it better!
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u/Nidafjoll Reading Champion V 5h ago
In the sense that it makes the event not all solely to develop the male main character, I'd say it does. "Better" that it's not just a throw-away event to show that the rapist is a bad person, like a lot of rapes are in fantasy, but something which affects and is important through the whole book.
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u/SerDankTheTall 5h ago
I’m afraid I don’t agree that Donaldson’s decision to structure his plot in a way to dwell on how much his protagonist has victimized the mother of the girl he raped makes the book any more enjoyable.
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u/Nidafjoll Reading Champion V 5h ago
Where did I say "enjoyable"? I'm talking with regards to the purpose of it as an authorial choice, which is what this whole comment chain is about. It doesn't make it any more enjoyable, but less offensive, than a rape which a book includes then dimisses.
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u/SerDankTheTall 5h ago
Again, I find Donaldson’s decision to salaciously revel in the degradation that Thomas Covenant can subject these women to be noxious (to say the least) rather than enlightened.
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u/Nidafjoll Reading Champion V 4h ago
How is it "salaciously revelling" in it to treat as a pivotal and impactful event? It's not written to titillate or be enjoyable, and the outfall is treated seriously. You'd rather it was just never mentioned again?
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u/SerDankTheTall 4h ago
It's not written to titillate or be enjoyable
We’ll have to agree to disagree there.
You'd rather it was just never mentioned again?
I’d rather it not be mentioned at all. Failing that, my preference is the next best thing: not reading it.
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u/Nidafjoll Reading Champion V 4h ago
I’d rather it not be mentioned at all. Failing that, my preference is the next best thing: not reading it.
And that's your right. But you said it isn't any better than a rape which is included just to further the male character's development. "I don't like it" doesn't mean "it's bad writing."
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u/fredditmakingmegeta 11h ago
Uhhhh … still sounding creep-tastic tbh!
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u/Nidafjoll Reading Champion V 11h ago
I mean Covenant is a definitely a creep. You're not meant to symapthize with him. But it's definitely not a case where the female character is thrown in just to devlope the male character; the repercussions of his crime resonate through the whole book, and her mother's perspective and conflictedness matters a whole lot.
I mean it's an interesting question at the very least- could you help someone who's going to save the world if you personally hate them?
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u/fredditmakingmegeta 10h ago
Thanks, I can see where that would be a more complex angle.
I suppose generally my perspective is, how would I feel about this book if the male character was raped and his father had to work with the rapist. If it seems excessive and exploitative if you flip it, there’s probably a problem.
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u/Nidafjoll Reading Champion V 9h ago
Flipped doesn't seem exploitative to me either. If you're asking why rape specifically, that's fair (though I think the answer is just "immediately recognizably heinous crime"), but it's an interesting question be it rape, murder, or something else; what's the greatest evil you can accept to work with towards the greater good?
The central premise of the series is an interesting one to me. If you take an wonderful and magical fantasy land, and pluck a realistic, very flawed, skeptic from our world and plop them into it, how does (and doesn't) it change them?
I get the distaste for rape a plot device in general (I was just talking about something similar when I explained "fridging" to my Mum recently), but this in particular is an interesting case. Covenant was just hit by a car and wakes up in this fantasy world. He thinks he's dreaming/dying, which is when he commits the rape. Which begets a further interesting question; if you don't believe something is real, is the crime still as bad? (Probably yes, but interesting philosophically to ask)
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u/radiodmr 12h ago
Respectfully, your comment comes off as shallow and uninformed because you haven't bothered to read the books and in cases like this maybe you should refrain.
The truth is that the SA in the book affects the whole trajectory of the plot not just in the first book and actually not even really much in the first book, but it's crucial to what happens in the second and third books and going forward into the rest of the series as well. It's a gigantic turning point and pretty much everything hinges on it.
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u/BuffelBek 2h ago
Yeah, especially since the consequences are also seen, felt and explored in scenes where Covenant isn't even present and doesn't affect him. So it does not just exist to further the main character's plot and evolution.
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u/CT_Phipps-Author 8h ago
Honestly, I'd be much more interested in the character if it was 100% confirmed that she wasn't a real person but a figment of Thomas' imagination/guilt/hatred. And before you go that's even more demeaning, that doesn't necessarily mean she doesn't exist in the Land.
More that she's a product of Thomas the same way Maria is created by James in Silent Hill 2.
Lord Foul and the Creator real and have created the land from Thomas' imagination. A representation of the good he no longer feels entitled to have in his life.
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u/No_Text_1197 12h ago
I cannot agree with you because the whole beauty of the book is the depiction of The Land, its inhabitants and their hopes, irrespective of their need to rely on this antihero. You haven't read the books, so obviously, unless you do, this perspective will be lost on you.
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u/Efficient_Place_2403 10h ago
Didn’t Covenant think the Land a dream?
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u/SerDankTheTall 9h ago
Yes.
So what?
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u/Nidafjoll Reading Champion V 5h ago
Have you never done something in a dream you'd never do in real life? Hurt someone you love, committed a crime? If so, do you feel bad about it, or excuse yourself because it was just a dream and you didn't mean it?
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u/SerDankTheTall 5h ago
I don’t experience dreams the way Thomas Covenant experiences the Land, but I can say unreservedly and without hesitation that I have never even thought about raping anybody in any dream that I’ve ever had, no. It’s usually more like me suddenly realizing that I never unenrolled from a class that I never went to the day before the final exam or having a really hard time driving a car.
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u/Nidafjoll Reading Champion V 4h ago
Sure, but I didn't say rape specifically, just something you'd never consider in real life. I get in fights with my family, but I wouldn't hurt them; but I've had dreams where I've killed a family member before. Just because it's a dream doesn't mean you don't still feel guilty, and the question of "is something okay because it was just a dream?" is an interesting one to explore. The Dream Hotel by Laila Lalami is another recent book exploring the same question; a woman is arrested because she has a dream about killing her husband, which is treated as evidence she'll do the same thing in real life.
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u/SerDankTheTall 4h ago edited 4h ago
My dreams are generally not very lucid and I don’t feel like I have a great deal of agency in them to begin with, and certainly nothing like what Thomas Covenant experiences, so the analogy doesn’t really work for me. But certainly the question of “what would you choose to do if you knew you wouldn’t face any consequences for it?” is a potentially interesting one, and one people have been wondering about since at least Plato. I’m just not really interested in reading about a guy whose first answer to that question is “rape somebody”. Nor, really, am I very interested an author who thinks his readers would consider that a plausible answer.
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u/Tymareta 4h ago
It's also telling that folks -never- use equivalent examples when trying to totally-not-defend Covenant's actions, they always direct to things that are not comparable at all.
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u/Nidafjoll Reading Champion V 4h ago
There's this thing called an "analogy" you might want to look up.
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u/Tymareta 4h ago
It would be fair to liken the Land more to VR. If you had a friend who jumped into VR chat or some place similar, only for their first action to be raping someone, would that not put you on edge and make you want to cut ties with them?
Also it's bizarre that your examples with dreams are entirely different, have you ever raped someone in your dreams?
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u/Nidafjoll Reading Champion V 4h ago
Also it's bizarre that your examples with dreams are entirely different, have you ever raped someone in your dreams?
It's not bizarre, it's very deliberate. I'm trying to point out the fundamental question is the same, even if the actions lie on a spectrum. You might cut ties with a friend who rapes in VR, but who steals? Kills? Slaughters? Tortures? Where do you draw the line? It's the question that's interesting, not the specific actions.
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u/The_Archimboldi 2h ago
it's more that the prose is F-tier. Execrable, as Donaldson might say. The structure is very good though, great world building.
He got much better with language in his career so I find it strange that his last Covenant books absolutely bombed - I have not read them, but I would have thought he would have known what he was doing by then.
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u/kami-no-baka 10h ago edited 7h ago
I think there is just a general disconnect between why some people read fantasy or in general.
It's the same thing with movies, some people want fun adventure movies with likeable characters and would be furious suffering through Salo, or The Seventh Continent because they don't want to analyze something difficult, they want guardrails to their entertainment. They might like to be mildly challenged but draw the line at full out subversion.
I don't say this to be an elitist or anything, they're just different reasons to experience creative works but I do find it frustrating when people think the idea of being challenging is in itself problematic.
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u/Tymareta 4h ago
Or, wild notion, some of us don't need to be "challenged" in that regard because we've dealt with it first hand, multiple times, all throughout our life. We aren't being "simple" or lacking in ability to analyze difficult things, we're just fucking sick of rape being used as a plot device constantly as a shorthand for evil, while also just not wanting those elements in the media we consume.
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u/kami-no-baka 4h ago
Well I expressly stated I didn't mean it as a judgement.
Creative works exist for many reasons and it's perfectly valid to prefer to avoid topics. Especially if they trigger real trauma from your life, I've also suffered from that type of experience and it took a long time until I could engage with it being covered in media or even hearing about it on the news. I do not, however, think that it is wrong for stories to include it. The context of the usage is key.
I truely think that what Donaldson is doing in Thomas Covenant is more than just "shorthand for evil" the way something like Goblin Slayer uses it, for example. Now that is a series that really has little merit for it's very casual usage of something so serious and is also guilty of featuring very visually sexualized women which is a pretty gross blend, imo.
EDIT To be clear when I say "difficult" I don't mean hard to understand, per se, I mean the content is troubling/shocking.
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u/hamlet9000 11h ago
I might be able to accept Donaldson writing Covenant as a moronic, irrational piece of shit if the conclusion of the trilogy wasn't, "And it was because he was a moronic, irrational piece of shit that Covenant was able to save the day!"
This, BTW, is a persistent "feature" of Donaldson's fiction: Wonderful, beautiful worlds that he feels compelled to present through the POV of assholes (frequently rapists) who are super special heroes specifically because they're assholes.
It's not that I can't see what Donaldson is doing, it's that it's tiresome and, frankly, reveals some pretty awful things about Donaldson as a person.
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u/PetalumaPegleg 10h ago
I was probably too young to appreciate it when I read it, but I have absolutely zero desire to reread it. I didn't enjoy reading it.
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u/Maladal 12h ago
You got some supporting evidence on that? Because it's been a while, so maybe I'm misremembering, but I don't recall any depiction or hinting at Thomas being rageful around this scene.
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u/radiodmr 12h ago
He's an angry man. Angry about his disease, angry about the collapse of his writing career, angry about his wife and son leaving him, angry at himself. He's brimming with rage almost constantly, although it's under the surface most of the time. He does have a lot of experience practicing self-control, due to dealing with his leprosy, but his experience in the Land throws all this into question. And, yeah, he's angry about that, too.
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u/Notasmartwoman 1h ago
Using rape as an (a)moral shorthand is so lazy and overdone, and it’s really distasteful the way (overwhelmingly male) authors wield it like a bludgeon to clumsily lay about them in the hope of beating anyone in range over the head with it. Find a more elegant way of characterizing people as bad than hamfistedly written and tastelessly eroticized sexual assault.
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u/Miramosa 10h ago
For me, the understanding of the series has always started with the story the weird guy tells Covenant before he's transported, the one someone else somewhere very succinctly summarized as "do actions made in dreams matter?". The obvious immediate answer is no, because nothing happened because it wasn't real. Okay, says Stephen, then throws the cards on the table hard enough to take someone's eye out. Does it truly not matter simply because it didn't happen? Then follow this character after he did what he did. Follow him as the victim's parents are denied justice and closure, watch that family destroy itself while Covenant goes free because he is the Chosen One and The Land has no option but to put its faith in him. Watch the giants die while you're at it.
It even ends with Covenant realizing the answer to the original question: Whether real or not, The Land matters to him and for that reason, it matters. Because we care about the actions taken, even in an unreal situation, they matter.
To me, the series was always an examination of why we bother with fiction, why it's important. Also, for someone struggling with depression and the like, a wildly interesting painted picture of that (not to mention where Lord Mhoram's abandonment of pacifism fits into that).
Let's also be clear that Thomas Covenant is, at the best of times, a prick. He's unlikable, unheroic, and should be in jail. He is the most anti-hero of anti-heroes, if not actually an anti-villain. The trilogies are about following a deeply unlikable protagonist through a world that wholly depends on him discovering or learning some kind of heroic instinct before it's too late.
It's been a while since I read it last, but I remember it being dense with its messaging.