The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever
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The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever is a fantasy epic by Stephen R. Donaldson.
The main character is Thomas Covenant, a cynical leprosy-sufferer, shunned and despised by society, who is destined to become the heroic saviour of an alternate world (or, perhaps, only of his own sanity?). Throughout six novels published between 1977 and 1983, Covenant struggles against the evil Lord Foul - "The Despiser" - who intends to break the physical universe to escape its bondage and wreak revenge upon his arch-enemy "The Creator". Many elements of the story correspond to those of Richard Wagner's epic "Ring Cycle", but with curiously inverted values.
In 2004 Donaldson returned to the chronicles with a new series, intended to be the last chronicles.
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1.1 Lord Foul's Bane |
The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever
Lord Foul's Bane
(First Published 1977)
Thomas Covenant is a former author and a leper, who is deserted by his wife. When he is hit by a car he is transported to The Land (an alternate world threatened by Lord Foul), where his mutilated hand and white gold wedding ring cause him to be identified as the reincarnation of Berek Half-hand, first Lord of the Land and a promised saviour. He is befriended by a young girl named Lena, who uses a special mud to cure his leprosy. This is only one example of the Earthpower: a rich source of healing energy present throughout The Land. Covenant refuses to accept the Land and its power, and names himself The Unbeliever. Unable to handle the sudden restoration of his health and the curing of his impotency, Covenant rapes her, a pivotal event which sets the scene for much of what comes later. Lena's friends and family are barely able to comprehend the enormity of this crime, but their Oath of Peace (sworn by every native inhabitant of The Land) forbids them from taking vengeance. Lena's mother Atiaran takes Covenant to the Land's rulers, the Lords, where he is initiated into their council as an Ur-Lord (stemming from the German prefix 'Ur-' which means ancestral or primal, as he is seen as Berek returned). However, an evil cavewight, Drool Rockworm, has seized the "Staff of Law", a stave by which the Earthpower can be controlled, and has become the puppet of Lord Foul. Covenant, the Lords, and a Giant named Saltheart Foamfollower set out to wrest the staff from Drool's evil grasp and after many adventures they succeed. Covenant is eventually returned to his own world, a leper once more.
The Illearth War
(First Published 1978)
Covenant returns to the alternate world when he hits his head a few days later, but finds forty years have passed in the Land. Lord Foul has assembled a massive army, with which he now threatens the peoples of The Land. Furthermore, it has been discovered that Lord Foul's commander is one of three brothers born to the race of Giants, a people previously thought incorruptible. With the aid of the powerful Illearth Stone, Foul's non-corporeal servants, the ravers, have possessed the three brothers, now rechristened Kinslaughterer, Fleshharrower and Satansfist. (In shame and despair, the other Giants offer no resistance as Kinslaughterer murders them in their homes.) Lena's grown-up daughter Elena (the product of Covenant's rape) is now High Lord of the council, and wields the Staff of Law on behalf of her people. She shows no ill-will towards her biological father, and she and Covenant become close friends. The Lords' army is commanded by Hile Troy, a blind man from Covenant's "real" world whose sight has been restored by the Earthpower. While Troy strives to outwit Lord Foul and his Giant lieutenant, Elena and Covenant go in search of the "Seventh Ward", a repository of ancient magic lore which Elena believes will assure victory. When their goal is attained, Elena foolishly uses it to summon High Lord Kevin, her ancient predecessor from his grave, and send him against Lord Foul. Kevin is soon defeated and enslaved by Foul, and sent back to destroy Elena. The two High Lords engage in a battle of magic, in which Elena is eventually defeated and the Staff of Law lost. Meanwhile however, with the help of the woodland "forestal" Caerroil Wildwood, Troy has defeated Foul's army, whose Giant-commander Fleshharrower is strangled to death. The war ends in a stalemate and Covenant returns to his own world.
The Power that Preserves
(First Published 1979)
Covenant is devastated by the loss of Elena, and back in his own world he lets the leprosy spread. After getting snake venom in his system he is close to dying, and he is once again summoned to the Land. He finds that several years have gone by since the Illearth War, and Lord Foul has enslaved the spirit of former High Lord Elena, who now wields the staff of law against her own people. The Lords have lost their loyal supporters, the Bloodguard, and the Land has been cast into a perpetual winter. Furthermore, Lord Foul has rebuilt his army, which, under the command of the third Giant-raver Satansfist, now beseiges the Lords' mountain-fortress of Revelstone. In desperation, the new High Lord Mhoram, an old friend of Covenant, summons the Unbeliever to his aid. Covenant and his friend, the Giant Foamfollower, now journey to the very heart of Lord Foul's dominion, where they succeed in defeating Foul. Elena is freed from her enslavement and peace is restored to The Land. As a reward the Creator of the Land gives Covenant a choice: either he can remain in the Land in full health, or he can be returned to life in his own world. Covenant, still unwilling to fully accept the Land, choses the latter.
Gildenfire
(First Published 1981)
An episode cut from The Illearth War for narrative reasons, as explained in the Author's Foreword. Gildenfire deals with the doomed mission to rescue the Giants.
Major Themes in the First Chronicles
An issue of major importance in the First Chronicles is the question of the reality of the Land. From Thomas Covenant's perspective, the Land may be only a delusion of his disturbed mind. Stephen R. Donaldson goes to great lengths to make this just as plausible as any other theory (e.g. Thomas Covenant is indeed mentally imbalanced, events in the Land seem to parallel his unconscious struggles, etc.). This raises the 'Fundamental Question of Ethics' that appears at the very start of the Chronicles, which can be rephrased as "do actions performed in dreams have any significance?" Convenant's rape of Lena can be seen as an attempt to test this theory. One interpretation of the First Chronicles sees the reality of the Land eventually 'proven' to Covenant; another interprets Covenenant's eventual decision to act for the Land as understanding that, be the Land real or not, it is of significance to him.
Another major theme, closely related to the one just mentioned, is the psychological symbolism of the Land. It very clearly parallels Covenant's own psyche: he is filled with self-hatred, manifested in the Land as the Despiser; he is ravaged by a corrupting disease that eats away at him, similarly to the Illearth Stone, and so forth. In this way the fantasy genre allows the author to explore Covenant's inner workings in a very effective way.
The Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant
After ten years have passed on Earth, Thomas Covenant returns to the Land, to discover that four thousand years have passed there. Lord Foul had corrupted the Lords and the Earthpower to create the oppressive "Sunbane." Covenant, with his companion from Earth, Linden Avery, must re-create the "Staff of Law" without destroying the entire world.
The Wounded Land
(First Published 1980)
The Wounded Land presents us with two main characters, the familiar Thomas Covenant and Linden Avery, a doctor by profession. They appear in the Land together, after Covenant is possibly mortally wounded. Once there, they find that a terrible change has transpired: the Earthpower is gone, or nearly gone, and the people of the Land are out of touch with what remains of it. With Linden Avery he travels the land, and eventually he discovers that the cause of the current condition of the Land is the destruction of the Staff of Law. Without the strength of the Staff to protect it, the Despiser manages to corrupt the Earthpower itself. Covenant and Linden Avery set out to fashion a new Staff of Law, joining forces with a group of Giants they encounter. A creation of the Ur-Viles, Vain, joins them as well, at the behest of Saltheart Foamfollower's spirit.
The One Tree
(First Published 1982)
Most of this book takes place outside of the Land, but still on the same planet (if that is the right term), making this book different than the others in the first and second chronicles.
Covenant, Linden Avery and the Giants go to seek a solution to the matter of the Staff of Law. Their travels take them to the Elohim, a community of beings seemingly made from Earthpower itself. Bound by a strange code of behavior, they provide no direct help, and cause harm by sending Covenant into a catatonic state ("Don't touch me" is all he says). Leaving the Elohim, the travellers find that one of the Elohim has joined them, Findail by name. They arrive at the port of the Braithair, a desert people. Little is achieved there however, except that Covenant returns to normality following an attempt to take his ring from him. Further travel eventually brings the group to the One Tree, from which the Staff of Law was fashioned. However, taking a branch from it to fashion a new one proves too dangerous, threatening to destroy the world itself. Thus, the quest ends in failure.
White Gold Wielder
(First Published 1983)
Without a new Staff of Law, the group return to the Land. Defeating the Clave, corrupt rulers of the Land, the problem of the Sunbane diminishes but does not vanish. They set out to encounter the Despiser in the depths of Mount Thunder. Finding him, Covenant gives the ring willingly to the Despiser; Linden Avery refrains from preventing him from this action, despite her ability to do so. The Despiser then kills Covenant, and attempts to destroy the Arch of Time. However, Covenant's spirit blocks the bolts of energy that the Despiser sends upward, and in a fit of fury the Despiser continues doing so until he vanishes, spent. Linden Avery then takes the ring, and Vain bonds with Findail, providing the basis for Linden to fashion a new Staff of Law, combining the rigidness of the Ur-Vile's lore with the pure and free Earthpower of the Elohim. With the new staff complete, she heals the Land of the Sunbane, and returns to the "real" world, finding Covenant dead, as expected.
Major Themes in the Second Chronicles
If the First Chronicles were involved with Covenant himself, his psychology, and his relationship with the World, the Second Chronicles add a second character, Linden Avery. The interaction of the two characters becomes a major topic, with relations warming up and cooling off at different times, but in the end settling on mutual respect and warmth.
The resolution of the crisis and the defeat of the Despiser reveal another theme. Covenant discovers despite in himself, and thus that the Despiser is part of him, in a sense (figuratively, or, perhaps, even literally). Thus he does not need to combat him directly - indeed, direct conflict failed to defeat the Despiser more than once. Hence the surrender of the ring to the Despiser, and allowing him to fail in his attempts to destroy the Arch of Time.
The Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant
- The Runes of the Earth (2004) ISBN 0399152326
- Fatal Revenant
- Shall Pass Utterly
- The Last Dark
External links
- Interview (excerpts) (http://www.locusmag.com/2004/Issues/09Donaldson.html) with Donaldson in Locus magazine
- SciFan entries for:
- The Thomas Covenant Universe (http://www.scifan.com/series/universe.asp?UN_universeid=58)
- The First Chronicles (http://www.scifan.com/series/series.asp?SR_seriesid=193)
- The Second Chronicles (http://www.scifan.com/series/series.asp?SR_seriesid=194)
- The Last Chronicles (http://www.scifan.com/series/series.asp?SR_seriesid=5333)