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Message: <blockquote data-quote="barsoomcore" data-source="post: 1703194" data-attributes="member: 812">I'm going to go out on a limb here and bet that you're not trying to make an absolute statement here -- rather, you're trying to express what it was about the Covenant books you found so annoying.I bet that you don't mean to say that novels that are about terrible people who whine are a priori bad novels. I bet you'd agree that it's possible IN PRINCIPLE for a novel about a terrible person who whines to be a thrilling, wonderful story that you would love and cherish.The books of Stephen Donaldson happen to not be those novels.But any argument to the effect of "Good novels can be about bad people," while you may agree with the truth of it, won't change your opinion of Thomas Covenant.I bet.There's a distinction my wife and I make when talking about why we liked one story or another -- that between "identification" and "sympathy".We enjoy stories through identification when we admire and wish to be like the hero of the story. Their triumphs become our triumphs and their struggles become our struggles. Stories like this usually feature characters whose personal traits are very pale, easily brushed aside -- so that they don't interfere with the audience's identification with the character."Neo", from The Matrix, is a great example of a character who practically has no personality whatsoever -- and that fact is key to understanding the popularity of the stories. His lack of personality makes it easier for the audience to identify with him. What kind of music does Neo like? Whatever you want him to like. What kind of food does Neo like? Whatever YOU like, I guess. That movie was designed for people to identify with the main character.We enjoy stories through the process of sympathy when we care about and understand the hero of the story. They may hold very different ideas than we do, but we nevertheless care about them and their struggles. Stories that seek this sort of connection feature characters that are detailed and provide strong descriptions of their likes and dislikes, their loves and their fears and whatnot.Thomas Covenant only makes sense from the point of view of sympathy. For most of us, anyway. If you usually enjoy stories through identification, these books will be repugnant to you because they appear to be asking you to participate in horrid crimes and behave in weak and selfish ways. Donaldson is asking his reader to sympathize with someone that they might ordinarily condemn out of hand. Not to approve of the conduct or overlook the crimes, but to care about them as a human being and agree to consider their struggle.I make no claim that he succeeded at that, but I do think it's important to understand the distinction between those two approaches. They are approaches to READING, be it understood, not WRITING. You cannot WRITE a "identification" story -- though you can write a story that draws its power from the reader's tendency to identify (or sympathize).Steven Brust, in his third Vlad Taltos book, suddenly insists that his readers stop identifying with his hero. Vlad does some very bad things for not very good reasons, and it was a little shocking to me as a teenager when I first read Teckla -- up to then I'd been largely identifying with Vlad and suddenly he was sort of a bad guy. Sort of annoying, actually. I had to sympathize with him rather than identify with him in order to enjoy the story.The point is, a sufficiently skilled writer ought to be able to make us sympathize with ANYONE -- and that means that a great story can be made out of any human being's struggles. No writer, however, no matter how skilled they may be, can get us to identify with someone whose conduct we find repugnant.I submit that Donaldson wanted his readers to sympathize with Thomas Covenant. Each of us has to decide if he succeeded or not at this task.</blockquote>

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