The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant - the movie?

[Lightray]

@Decker187

I don’t know where to begin. This sight is supposed to be “Fighting ignorance since 1973”, but I’ve discovered nothing but ignorance since I came here. At least as far as this topic is concerned. The Covenant series is rich with locale, characterization, meaty dialogue, action, you name it. The reason Thomas is so weak and spineless is he is, at the most basic level, unfamiliar with the scope of the power of his ring, frankly is ignorant as to how to invoke it, and really doesn’t know what the repercussions might be if he does…

You should probably begin by re-reading the books, with a more critical eye. You don’t have a clue as to why Donaldson wrote things the way he did.

The Covenant books are a deconstruction of the “transported into a fantasy land to be its savior” trope. They do an awesome job of that – witness the loathing that most fantasy fans have for the books. The books do everything wrong that they’re expecting. The protagonist is an asshole. He doesn’t want to save the wonderful Land. He doesn’t miraculously find out how to use his Ultimate Power.

Furthermore, the Land is presented as a utopia; they don’t even have a concept of mental illness, it’s so perfect (cf. Lena, Trell, Atiaren, Pietten).

But Donaldson’s goal wasn’t to write a fantasy deconstruction: he wanted to explore whether awful people can be redeemed as heroes. Covenant was his first attempt at such a story, in the Gap series he repeats it. He needed to make Covenant a rapist because it’s an unforgivable crime where the victim is still around to suffer, and it would provoke visceral reactions in the reader. Which, it does.

All of the discussion we had years ago about how the storyline would have to be changed for a movie adaptation really danced around the central matter: those changes would obviate the entire reason that Donaldson wrote the books in the first place. Movie producers would no more understand that than you do, so the adaptation would be about as faithful as SyFy’s Earthsea miniseries was.

[GESancMan]

@Decker187

I don’t know where to begin. This sight is supposed to be “Fighting ignorance since 1973”, but I’ve discovered nothing but ignorance since I came here. At least as far as this topic is concerned. The Covenant series is rich with locale, characterization, meaty dialogue, action, you name it. […]

“Meaty dialogue?” Are you serious? Three times in my life I’ve decided to give this series a shot, and the furthest I’ve ever made it was about a third of the way through the first book. I didn’t object to the rape and the whining so much as the utterly ridiculous dialogue. It made the Star Wars prequels look like masterpieces of literature.

[Hamlet]

@adaher

It did have to be rape, because the rape was responsible for 80% of what comes next. most importantly, Elena.

I don’t think the story, the actions of Elena, and the characters in the Land, would have suffered if Elena weren’t Covenant’s child by rape. YMMV, of course.

[Disgruntled_Penguin]

@Lightray

But Donaldson’s goal wasn’t to write a fantasy deconstruction: he wanted to explore whether awful people can be redeemed as heroes. Covenant was his first attempt at such a story, in the Gap series he repeats it. He needed to make Covenant a rapist because it’s an unforgivable crime where the victim is still around to suffer, and it would provoke visceral reactions in the reader. Which, it does.

So he wanted to see if a leper could change his spots?

[Lightray]

@Disgruntled_Penguin

So he wanted to see if a leper could change his spots?

Heh.

@GESancMan

“Meaty dialogue?” Are you serious? Three times in my life I’ve decided to give this series a shot, and the furthest I’ve ever made it was about a third of the way through the first book. I didn’t object to the rape and the whining so much as the utterly ridiculous dialogue. It made the Star Wars prequels look like masterpieces of literature.

The over-the-top descriptions are actually deliberate on Donaldson’s part, emphasizing how turbo-fantasy he’s made the Land. It’s a shift in style to signal “now you are in fantasy-world”. It continues throughout all the series, although I think as Donaldson improved as a writer, he handled it better. In Lord Foul’s Bane it was indeed ham-fisted writing, so “meaty” is a pretty good description, really.

[Frank]

@Lightray

The over-the-top descriptions are actually deliberate on Donaldson’s part, emphasizing how turbo-fantasy he’s made the Land. It’s a shift in style to signal “now you are in fantasy-world”.

This is a defense of Donaldson’s writing? He deliberately sucked?

I read the first trilogy some 35 years ago. I found Donaldson to be an absolutely horrible and uninteresting writer, and have read nothing of his since.

[Lightray]

In many ways, Donaldson wrote Covenant to troll the fantasy genre. I’m not sure he’d describe what he was doing in that way, but he deliberately made choices to punch people’s buttons. The fact that readers still have such strong feelings (dislike or like) all these decades later would suggest that he knew what he was doing.

However, he took those choices to make several points, which tend to get lost under the visceral reactions to his protagonist, the rape scene, and the florid language. He is actually a very skilled writer, but his ambition exceeded his early talent.

[Hamlet]

@Lightray

However, he took those choices to make several points, which tend to get lost under the visceral reactions to his protagonist, the rape scene, and the florid language.

What are those points he made that haven’t been made by other, better writers? That a protagonist can be a complete douche? Yeah, done. See Elric. Alternative worlds? Yeah, done. See Oz. I really don’t see anything groundbreaking or any points being made that haven’t been by better writers. Maybe treating secondary characters that the readers grow to love like complete shit is a “point”, but I’m not sure that’s one that needs making.

[Lightray]

Covenant is on a redemption arc that, arguably, succeeds. Elric, not so much.

Further, Donaldson is making some very thoughtful points about how one must deal with Evil, and how one should behave toward dreams/fantasy worlds which are either completely antithetical to Elric, or completely untouched by Oz or other transported-to-fantasyland series.

[kaylasdad99]

@Hamlet

What are those points he made that haven’t been made by other, better writers? That a protagonist can be a complete douche? Yeah, done. See Elric. Alternative worlds? Yeah, done. See Oz. I really don’t see anything groundbreaking or any points being made that haven’t been by better writers. Maybe treating secondary characters that the readers grow to love like complete shit is a “point”, but I’m not sure that’s one that needs making.

Even if it is, we’ve got Tom Batiuk for that…

[Morgyn]

@Frank

This is a defense of Donaldson’s writing? He deliberately sucked?

I read the first trilogy some 35 years ago. I found Donaldson to be an absolutely horrible and uninteresting writer, and have read nothing of his since.

You’re missing something, then. I read the first Covenant series in high school, and I really disliked it. I’m not sure how much of that was because of the rape and the general annoyingness of the main character; I think it was more because, in my eyes, they were very badly written (and I completely missed the ideas that Lightray’s post revealed—thanks for that, Lightray). But I’ve also read his duology called Mordant’s Need, and his short story collection Daughter of Regals, and they were both excellent books.

Not quite excellent enough to make me go back and read any of the Covenant series, but pretty darn good. I recommend them.

[Alessan]

@Morgyn

You’re missing something, then. I read the first Covenant series in high school, and I really disliked it. I’m not sure how much of that was because of the rape and the general annoyingness of the main character; I think it was more because, in my eyes, they were very badly written (and I completely missed the ideas that Lightray’s post revealed—thanks for that, Lightray). But I’ve also read his duology called Mordant’s Need, and his short story collection Daughter of Regals, and they were both excellent books.

Reave the Just and Other Tales, his second short-story collection, is also excellent, perhaps even better than* Daughter of Regals*. I strongly recommend it.

Incidentally, the title story features what may be the world’s first passive-aggressive superhero.

[Snowboarder_Bo]

I’m a big, big fan of his The Man Who novels; he does gritty hardboiled neo-noir PI real well, IMO.

[foolsguinea]

WHYYYYYYYYYYYY

No, that’s unfair.

I don’t think Donaldson’s narrative style would translate well to film. I mean, you could do it if you really tried, but some stories are too much about the internal state of the lead to work as well photographically as in prose.

[unwashed_brain]

@Hamlet

Here’s my biggest problem. It didn’t have to be rape. Donaldson chose to make Covenant a rapist. There are hundreds of other things that Covenant could have done that would have required some kind of redemption for Covenant. But Donaldson chose to make his protagonist a rapist, a horrible decision.

I’m coincidentally re-reading the first two series in order to get to the Last, and I don’t agree. The rape of Lena was Covenant’s reaction to his first taste of potency he’s had in years, coupled with the sheer insanity of being transported somewhere that is surely just a dream. Recall that as a leper, he’d lost feeling in most of his extremities a long time ago, and mention of his impotence had been previously made. The ramifications of this act resonate throughout the first trilogy. Seems an unflinchingly brave decision on Donaldson’s part - not a horrible one.

Elena as a product of this horrible act lends a wincing, tragic undercurrent to their every interaction. Not sure if this could have been achieved any other way. It all works for me, within the confines of the story.

I’m about halfway through The Wounded Land right now, and story itself isn’t holding up as well as I like to remember it. Prior to restarting the Chronicles, I completed the Wheel of Time series. Reading back-to-back good vs. ultimate evil series has me desiring a little more depth in my bad guys.

[Nonyapit]

First of all… I really enjoyed these books. I believe they are most definitely not for everyone though. These books take a strong imagination, large quotent of empathic intelligence, and gobs of patience. To enjoy these books, a reader really has to be the type of person that is not afraid to consider and explore the potentially most vile parts of human nature and what anyone is capable of given the right circumstances. A person that doesn’t shy away from putting themselves into the position of a pitifull broken wretch ( who was once happy, but has seen all that he ever loved, believed in, trusted, counted on, or expected from life and other people crushed, violated, shunned, castigated, torn, and ripped away from him in the most emotionally brutal ways possible), and then see the story from his perspective. Yes it can be tedious, and yes most people would be inclined to either not put themselves in that perspective, or just believe that they are so much more noble and better regardless of the situation. Maybe it helps to empathize if you’ve experienced depression, true loss, rejection, or significant long term health issues… I don’t know, but if you are not the type of person willing to explore these aspects of yourself and human nature, then these books are really not for you. Please don’t hate the author because of your own limitations.

My complaint on the series, more than the extensive lexicon of the book, consistant self loathing, or vile actions of some characters in the story, probably revolve mostly around the unessecary repition in the books. The most difficult part of the novels for me that no one seems to ever mention about this series is how Donaldson seems to assume the reader has forgotten everything before this moment, with the constant rehashing of plot points from previous chapters. The authors fondness for words like “conflaguration” that seem to be in every other paragraph, actually started making me chuckle after a while, with the sheer absurdness of the repetitiveness.

Now… as to a movie… NO this series would not make a good movie… There is not enough time in a movie to carry the subtle yet profound character development of these books. However, like others have said… An HBO/Netflix/Showtime/Hulu/Amazon/Whatever series could potentially pull it off, although it would be a definitel niche market, and probably become somewhat of an underground following thing. The crux of doing so would be in Humanizing Covenant with backstory before he enters the land. The producers would need to comb all ten books in the series for every bit of back story behind who Covenant is, and why he is like he is and put it in the first episode before the rape seen ever happens. People would need to follow his downward spiral. They would need to see his great happiness, succes, and hope for the future… then the first signs of the disease, the loss of his fingers, the loss of his varility, the betrayal and rejection by his wife, his child taken from him, ridicule, shunning, harrasment, and complete rejection by both strangers and people he counted as neighbors and friends, His colapse in to dispair and depression, the slow growing disease of his self loathing and hatred, the erosion of his mind and sensibilities by enforced exile and loneliness, then his struggle to protect what was left of himself by setting up stringent rules and pserspectives that if neglected could result in his death…

Then… and only then, when watchers could do nothing but pity him, could they bring Covenant to the land where everything he has taught himself to beleive is in question. Viewers would have to have a perspective of him that he was so broken, and terrified of what his strange circumstances could do to him if he allowed himself to believe in them, that he was capable of anything, and that those things although horrible, were understandable from him (even if never forgivable). He needs to be seen as the loyal pet dog that is so neglected and abused that biting its rescuers is seen as the logical and emotional outcome. This would make the rape sene digestable (perhaps not pallatable, but digestable) to viewers… The rest of the series would be like some sort of hybrid between lord of the rings (fantastic concepts and scenery), and the walking dead (human suffering and flashbacks) following his ever so slow growth across 10 books worth of material into being a whole person again. At least that is how I see it working without really chaning the story or his character… Just a little reshuffle at the beginning to make it translate to television better.

This is most definitely a story of redemption, self reflection, healing, and acceptance. That is why this is such a compelling story. Think about it… in reality… how much kindness, trust, love, faith, responsibility, etc has to be invested by others into a completely broken person, before they can be healed? If they can be healed… This series is a great study into human psychology if you have the patience and aptitude to try and understand it. I heard somewhere that in a relationship 10 good things have to happen for every 1 bad thing in order for the relationship to remain healthy. If that is also the case with mental health… Well, then maybe the character of Thomas Covenant is not so far off the mark, even with all his failings.

and… yes… I know this is an old post that seems to just keep being revived…lol

[adaher]

The problem with getting the viewers to sympathize with Covenant as you describe though is that who would want to watch the first chapters of the book for like three to five weeks? Even the book doesn’t really bring you all the way down into his world before whisking him off to the Land.

But really, I don’t think that was Donaldson’s point. White knights don’t need redemption. The whole idea is to make Covenant unsympathetic at the beginning so as to set up his continuing quest for redemption throughout the series.

[Miller]

I’m kind of amused by how many people, five years ago, were adamant that the rape scene was a deal breaker for making a successful fantasy movie.

And then, Game of Thrones.

[adaher]

Different context. There’s no main protagonist in Game of Thrones, But I guess it does show a way to make it work: Covenant isn’t the main character. Call the show “The Land” and make Mhoram the main protagonist.

[mack]

nm (already posted upthread)