Favorite Scenes



Jay Picks

The Rock Gardens of the Maerl, Chapter 13 of The Illearth War, "The Story of a Leper"

This scene is a fairly long one, so I won't type out the whole thing. Look it up if you have the book on hand, its easy to find. But if you don't, I'll give you the summery of it here. Basically in this chapter Covenant, along with Elena, Troy and Mhoram, have left Revelstone. Along their journey they take a side trip to see The Rock Gardens of the Maerl. Every is all happy and excited to see this great monument. Except Covenant. The face in the rocks remind him of a young woman he knew back on Earth. This woman was a leper like himself. She had a full life before the decease, much like Covenant, but after she learned she had leprosy her life changed for the worse. Her husband left her and divorced her. She lost her job. But this wasn't enough to stop her from living her life, she moved elsewhere, made new friends and new jobs. But while she keep trying to live her life like nothing was wrong, the leprosy was slowly eating away at her body. A few lost fingers here, a lost leg there. When Covenant met her, her life was in ruins, her body eaten away by the disease, but she still had her spirit and a crooked smile. At the end of his tale, Covenant ends it simply by saying, "If I ever get my hands on her husband, I'll wring his bloody neck."

While soon I plan to fill this section will all of the greatest moments in the Covenant series, I thought I'd start by listing one scene that I think a lot of people forget about. It was one that I truly enjoyed. Up until this point in the series we have only so much insight on the man that is Thomas Covenant. This scene in The Illearth War is the first time that we get a different view of Covenant. Well, I don't know about you at least, but I had a greater respect for him after reading this passage. Mhoram summed it up by saying "Ur-Lord Covenant is a prophet."

The Kevin's Watch Disscussion Board Picks

Surrender, Chapter 18 of The One Tree, "Nom"

During the random disscussions we've had so far on the message board here at Kevin's Watch, one of the topics to come up was the favorite scene in the series. We got many good ideas, but one of the clear favorites in the entire story could be summed up in one three-letter word. "Nom." This one word is the one that very effectively ended the second part of The One Tree. The emotions that go through your body in this scene are undiscribable. If you've read the series, then you know what I'm talking about. Here we are, all of the heros stuck in the dungeon of the evil Kemper's Sandhold, and there seems to be no hope of escape. Then, the Kemper comes in. He is able to force Linden Avery to use her power to free Covenant from the Elohim silence. And then, when Covenant awakens, he says thed most outragous and completely unexpected line in the entire series-"Nom." Who wasn't blown away from this line? Let me quote a small passage leading up to it.

Yet she saw him-saw the boy in the man, Thomas Covenant-as life and will spread back into his limbs. She saw him talk hold of himself, lift his head. All her senses functioned normally. She could do nothing but wail as he turned troward Kasreyn, exposed himself to the Kemper's geas. He was still too far away from himself to make any defence.

But before the Kemper was able to use his ocular, the instructions she had left in Covenant reached him. He looked strait at Kasreyn and obeyed her.

Distinctly, he articulated one clear word:

"Nom."

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