Re: The Character You Hate the Most (Spoilers)

JavaJosh wrote: 
Sea Wasp wrote:

JavaJosh wrote:

I'm curious to know which fictional characters y'all hate the most, and
why.


	General Xinchub, Schlock Mercenary.

	Albert Bester of Psicorps, Babylon 5.

Captain My Lord Pavel Young, Honor Harrington Series. 


I'm sure these are good picks - *why* do you hate them so? (Of the
three I am only familiar with Bester, who IIRC is an excellently
loathsome example of a "The Man" type character. Although that sort of
character is despicable, they just don't get under my skin. I'd be
curious why he gets under *your* skin.)

Xinchub: an opportunistic paranoid self important pompous *** of a general who manipulates the entire military of his universe for his personal gain (possibly while self-righteously convincing himself that it's really for the Good of Humanity). And who seems to have an almost supernatural ability to fall into sh*t and come up holding gems.

Captain Pavel Young: Sociopath raised in a privileged environment, Young is best described by Hanover Fist's lines about Captain Stern in "Heavy Metal": "... a lyin', cheatin', backstabbing, double-dealing, larcenous, cowardly perverted worm. Hangin's too GOOD for 'im! BURNIN'S too good for 'im! He ought to be torn into little bitsy pieces... and BURIED ALIVE!"



A close runner up is *Thomas Covenant*, the whiny protagonist in
Donaldson's series. I couldn't get through the first book even though
the world was solid (and not a little fascinating). The protag was so
unsympathetic, I wondered about Donaldson's motivation for writing this
book (working out a personal problem, perhaps?). But again, like Sansa,
Thomas has a hard time accepting reality as it is. Of course, he
doesn't cause evil things to happen based on his delusions - he just
continually whines about himself even when he's obviously been given a
new lease on life in a big way.


	While I have no problem with people disliking TC -- I hated him
soundly for 2.8 books,



Hold on a minute - you read about someone you hated for almost 3
books??? My god man, WHY? And almost as importantly, HOW?

Because of the Land and some of its other inhabitants -- most notably, Saltheart Foamfollower and Lord Mhoram.



at least -- THIS does him a disservice. He has
been warned -- brainwashed, in fact -- by his doctors (who, in our
world, would have a serious pending malpractice suit) to realize that
the greatest danger to him is FANTASY. To break with reality and
believe that he can be cured. To possibly develop delusions.



Hmm. That is an interesting reading. It's been some time since starting
"Lord Foul's Bane" and I do recall Donaldson's stylish descriptions of
the "real world". He had a great way of evoking that hard-to-label
viewpoint you have when you were a kid and home sick from school,
watching strange daytime television. Everything seems attenuated,
muted, and dessicated. Same thing in LFB. The doctors struck me as the
same way - attenuated, almost impressionistic doctors. Anyway Covenant
didn't seem like the gullable sort. Scared to death of death,
certainly. But not an unreasonable man. His learning curve was not that
steep, and he didn't seem to want to climb it.

Not gullible at all. But they way in which they showed him how his disease would work, and the scare tactics they used, are classic methods of conditioning. When done by people that you have every reason to believe (Covenant's world "felt" to me like the 1950s or maybe 60s, where a doctor's word was almost never questioned), it's almost as strong in effect as early parental conditioning can be. Sometimes even stronger.

The note about Covenant's world is important; a careful reading of the book makes it appear that his world is not exactly the same as ours, especially in the medical/tech arena. (I haven't read the first book in the new Chronicles, so I don't know if that's changed)



	So the Land represents EVERYTHING he's been conditioned to fear. He
**KNOWS** it cannot be real. He knows there are no other worlds, that
there's no cure for leprosy, etc., and so the ONLY possible
explanation is -- he's snapped. He's so weak that his mind is
inventing this place where he's not only not shunned, but IMPORTANT,
where his disease goes away magically, etc., etc., etc. If he accepts
what's happening there, according to everything he knows, he's
effectively committing suicide -- and in an extremely gruesome way, as
he's had shown graphically to him in the leprosarium.



Yes, and this would be a reasonable attitude to take for a few days,
maybe even a week or so. But his stubborn refusal to simply *enjoy*
himself continued for as long as I continued to read. It was just
painful to see someone deny themselves pleasure like that.

Painful, but understandable. Think of it as a cult brainwashing, a religious position. If you really believe you'll go to hell for doing X, do you expect a true believer to break down in a few DAYS?



	So while he can certainly be disliked, I think one should realize
that his whinging behavior has at least some considerable
justification behind it.



Yes, I see it now. I don't recall the "brainwashing" of the doctors,
but I believe it. However, I suspect it had more to do with self-denial
- the doctors were just a rationalization to continue denying himself
the pleasure of this gift he had been given.

BTW - does Donaldson ever explain why he's transported? I'll never read
the series, but I'd be curious to know if there's someone or thing
behind it.


	SPOILERS GALORE




















Oh yes indeed. That very ability to disbelieve his senses. "He who wields the white gold is a paradox." The power of the White Gold is both inside and outside of the Land, and the only being who can truly wield it is one who is both inside and outside, one who both believes and disbelieves in the Land -- who UNbelieves, in short. When Covenant finally realizes the key -- that it DOESN'T MATTER whether the Land is real or delusion, that he still has to make moral choices based on what he feels, not on what he has been told -- he finds the ability to believe in the Land-As-Moral-Choice while still not necessarily believing in the Land-As-Physical-Reality, and can then unleash the power of the White Gold against Lord Foul. And can also recognize the real power of the Land to protect itself against Foul.

In the Second Chronicles, I found Covenant MUCH easier to tolerate, mainly because he demonstrated right from the outset that he HADN'T forgotten the lessons he learned in the first.


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				Sea Wasp
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