Thomas Covenant conversion ?

[svensson]

The setting has some really good but very bad points. I would judge it an overall 'nope' but with elements borrowed out for a more balanced homebrew setting.

My single biggest problem with it is the character Thomas 'the Whiner' Covenant himself. I read these books back in the 80s in my more innocent days before I found myself in very difficult circumstances and realized that I had some deficits in my own character. Covenant's *constant* whining and self-flagellation was a continual and morbid turn off then. After I'd been through some personal trials and addressed some issues I had, I tried to read the books again and found myself with the same opinion, but even more so.

How the Hell can you take legitimate responsibility for your actions if you're so hung up on your issues that you can't move forward. In many ways it's kind of like a difficult math problem... you're never gonna solve it if you let the mental block of THIS IS HARD stop you from understanding the problem and dealing with it.

So all in all, I think I'd give almost anything in the Unbeliever universe a hard pass. But I will stipulate that I liked the giants and Bannor a lot.

[Malin]

It is interesting the kind of things we take from books. I picked up the Power that Preserves (the third book) translated (very well) to swedish when I was... fourteen maybe? During the summer? The first two were lent out, so I started with book three (I often did things like that), fell in love, finally got to read and reread all three in order. Got obsessed, reread them some more (I do that). Then I found out there was a second trilogy, but it was only published in English. I was, at that point, an extremely average English language student who had read a single book in English (which I had already read in Swedish, Watership Down). But I bought the books, read and reread them during the summer (oh boy, not the most simple english language in those) and when I started high school I was a top English language student.

Anyway...  for me, the books really struck a chord, in so many ways. The main character was one reason, I think these were the first book I read where I realized that I wasn't supposed to like or sympathize with the protagonist, which was such a freeing experience. Being... on the spectrum, as people say these days, I rarely sympathized with main characters anyway, more often obsessing over some side character or a villain. For me, this was the first time I read books where those kinds of assholes got to have their own story. Books I felt spoke more directly to me than other, more liked, literature. But never mind, that is the beauty of books: they all have their readers, and as I often say, it is one of those books I like but will never recommend to anybody.

I would still never use the world as a setting.

Why? Because the world is written for the story, the tensions it holds depend on it. Without the center, it is just a normal fantasy world with some cool naming conventions. However, there are a LOT of ideas to steal! Many of them rhyme quite well with RQ in fact... Hmm. Might have to go back and do some rereading, 'cause I've got some future heroquests to build.

 

[mfbrandi]

2 hours ago, Malin said:

However, there are a LOT of ideas to steal! Many of them rhyme quite well with RQ in fact …

• This unbelief … thoroughly exposes the artifact of the normal fantasy Secondary World as a stage-set for the deeds of protagonists whose every act is deeply patriotic, deeply land- and folk-affirming … The land itself is under threat from Lord Foul, a Dark Lord whose only escape from the Bondage of being intrinsic to the land is to dissolve it. He is in a way himself a leper, longing to dissolve his body, and in this sense is Covenant’s true dark Shadow.
  — John Clute, Encyclopedia of Fantasy

• Leprosy has a low pathogenicity, and 95% of people who contract M. leprae do not develop the disease … M. leprae and M. lepromatosis lack the genes that are necessary for independent growth … [They] are obligate intracellular pathogens, and cannot be grown (cultured) in the laboratory.
  — Wikipedia: Leprosy

Clute’s perspective might almost be that of one of Ralzakark’s sword broos, and perhaps Mycobacterium leprae — used carefully — will do as an occasional metaphor for Chaos: the bacterium ≠ the disease; the bacterium is mostly harmless but can cause horrific damage; it needs hosts (us) to grow. But metaphors are false — “Chaos is M. leprae” — and not to be taken for science or the findings of the ethics committee!

The Glorantha setting seems to have all the ingredients for a profound skepticism about the land and its heroes, but I get the feeling (I may be wrong) that that is a cake its chefs don’t want to bake.

[Malin]

50 minutes ago, mfbrandi said:

The Glorantha setting seems to have all the ingredients for a profound skepticism about the land and its heroes, but I get the feeling (I may be wrong) that that is a cake its chefs don’t want to bake.

They write the recipes; it's we who bake the cake 😁

[jajagappa]

4 hours ago, Malin said:

Anyway...  for me, the books really struck a chord, in so many ways. The main character was one reason, I think these were the first book I read where I realized that I wasn't supposed to like or sympathize with the protagonist, which was such a freeing experience.

While I couldn't like either Thomas Covenant or Linden Avery, I enjoyed reading the books (later tried the third series, though, and gave up about 1.5 books into it).

4 hours ago, Malin said:

I would still never use the world as a setting.

I've found some interesting aspects to it that I have drawn on (not the whole setting but pieces). In particular the behavior and effects of the Sunbane from the 2nd series works well for portraying a Chaos Nest or places in the Wastes. The Sarangrave Flat could be drawn upon for the Bleak Shore or Mosquito Marsh/Defender's Shore with their high cliffs behind. (But as a whole setting, no, wouldn't try to do so.)

[Malin]

1 hour ago, jajagappa said:

(later tried the third series, though, and gave up about 1.5 books into it)

Yeah, those four books needed to be three, and they didn't really take off until the last two books for me. Luckily, I am a fast reader.