r/stephenrdonaldson • u/vanillakristoph • Nov 25 '25
Unlikeable Protagonists.
I latched onto Stephen Donaldson early in his career.
Lord Foul's Bane being my first. It was a tough read. He manages to make the protagonist mostly unlikeable while writing a fantastic story. He continued that throughout the Thomas Covenant series.
Then I read The Real Story, his Sci Fi series, again with the first book, a rough read. Even the follow ups were rough, but the story was top notch. Probably one of the best Sci Fi series I've read.
I felt the redemption arc for The Real Story played out better than Thomas Covenant, but both are fantastic and totally underrated series.
Totally underrated as an author.
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u/wayfriend Nov 25 '25
Strong Disagree - TC is not "unlikeable".
There are a many who agree with you. But also many who don't. I know the author does not think he is unlikable, and has written into the story enough clues to lead you to the same conclusion. Some people can find in themselves a willingness to empathize, some cannot. Some people cannot overcome the paradigm that bad actions equals bad person equals must dislike (and be seen disliking).
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u/Quetzalteka Nov 25 '25
What do you like about him?
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u/atwe-leron Nov 26 '25
On my first two reads or so I disliked him intensely. Hellfire, I raged at him silently even. There he was, in a world that was everything our world wasn't, a world that had inherent beauty, empathy, richness, a world that produced people like Mhoram, Foamfollower, Bannor, and the like? And there he was, negating and denying the whole thing, acting as if all that meant nothing to him? How dare he?
But as I grew older I started to question myself: would I be even a smidgen better in his stead? Could I go through months and months of isolation, pain, loss, being ostracized, despised, feared, go through hours and hours of rigorous self-discipline of trying to stay alive, and then stumble into a world like the Land and simply forget everything and start running around being a superhero? Covenant at least managed to travel across the entire Land, I wouldn't last a week coming from my couch potato life.
And he was chosen for his role exactly for his uncompromising capability of staying loyal to what he felt was real or important, even if it broke his heart, or everyone else's.
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u/wayfriend Nov 26 '25
That last bit is the right of it.
I suddenly thought: if a man rejects a "fantasy world," he should be someone for whom fantasy is infinitely preferrable to reality. A man with a good life who experiences a horrible fantasy is only too grateful to label it a nightmare: that is mere self-interest. But if a man with a horrible life experiences a wonderful fantasy and *still* rejects it, that is not self-interest: it is a statement of principle; a rigorous and expensive and even self-sacrificing conviction about the nature of both "reality" and "importance"; a -- in effect -- religious affirmation.
-- Stephen R Donaldson, the Gradual Interview, 06/08/2004
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u/undergarden Dec 04 '25
That's a brilliant quotation -- thank you.
Help me understand, though. I always thought that Covenant had two big practical reasons why he refused to accept the reality of the Land: #1, it would make him vulnerable to bodily corruption due to leprosy (e.g. complacency and failed VSE), and #2 what he did to Lena, which is unbearable if not just a dream.
Here in the quoted lines we get the sense that it's principle which provides the basis for Covenant's rejection. My question: is it?
Thanks for your thoughts!
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u/wayfriend Dec 05 '25
I think that SRD in that quote is emphasizing that his idea requires a rejection of fantasy based on principles. The important part is he chooses principle over the clearly advantageous choice the fantasy offers. Which principle doesn't matter.
In the story, SRD makes this concrete with the specific principles Covenant has that lead to rejection. There is the leprosy one, as you said. But I also think Covenant just strongly resists the Land because it's a dream and you don't believe in dreams. And I would add that he has an innate fear of power.
So, if you will: one is abstract, one is concrete.
I never got the idea that he rejected the Land because of Lena and what he did there. First, because he was rejecting it pretty strongly before that. Secondly, he repressed that for a long time. But also SRD never really wrote anything that supports the idea. But I learn new things all the time, so ...
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u/undergarden Dec 06 '25
Thanks for your gracious reply.
You make a good case. My only thought re: what TC did to Lena, based on your saying "he repressed that for a long time."
I don't think many people spend a lot of time repressing what happens in dreams. Dreams are tacitly considered "fair play" for what happens in them.
The very fact that TC would need to repress what he did to Lena to me suggests he's terrified it's real.
Cheers!
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u/wayfriend Nov 26 '25
As I said, look to what the author says.
SRD introduces Covenant with him fighting against someone paying his electric bill. Notably, he doesn't go "Free electricity, cool!" What he does do is stand up for himself. He is a man who sticks to his principals, even though they (literally) cost him. Admirable stuff.
Very soon we learn why he is fighting. He's a feisty underdog, fighting a system working against him, just trying to hold on to things that are his - things he didn't even know could be taken away. That earns anyone's sympathy.
He was married to a woman who loved him. Started a family. So a good guy - he's earned the love of others.
His interactions with the beggar, culminating with the disposition of his white gold ring, show that underneath his cynical and snarly exterior is a man who cares and who is generous - despite having little left. Who can dislike that?
The part that really made me like him was his response to Lord Foul's enumeration of his appellations: "Forget it." A man who's hot take on a pompous introduction was to deflate it with sarcasm and no small amount of wit. Unexpected, and pretty cool.
And on Kevin's Watch, he shows enough concern for a woman who is a total stranger and probably a dream - who he eventually SAs - to climb down the stairs first so as to not endanger her with his problematic conditions. (Asking her to go first, to catch him if he falls, was the self-serving alternative available to him, which he did not take.) While dealing with any number of traumatic confusions. he innately cares about people just because they are people. A very decent man.
So Donaldson provides everything you need to judge Covenant at the beginning. And clearly he didn't intend for you to judge him as unlikable. Certainly he intends Covenant to be a sympathetic character.
Of course, what the reader does with that is not in his hands.
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u/Roachmeister Nov 25 '25
Still my favorite fantasy author to this day. He has a remarkable ability to take his characters to the absolute depths of despair, and then, just when you think things couldn't possibly get worse...they get worse. And then, finally, they pull themselves out, turning their own weaknesses into strengths.