GRADUAL INTERVIEW SPOILER WARNING!   ..........   Spoilers - Fatal Revenant Robert Murnick:  Dear Sir, Thank you for your kind note to my last posting. I'll try not to get carried away again. I loved FR and look forward to the next book. I have a question about Roger. Why (and when) did you decide to make him an evil character? In the earlier series', Roger is a baby (innocent and, to be blunt, nearly inconsequential). Now he's a grown-up bastard (literal sense), influenced by Foul and perhaps by circumstances we don't know about (apart from growing up fatherless). God, I hate him (which, hopefully, was your intent). But he's also a *real* person, like Linden, Covenant and Hile Troy. In the beginning of TROTE, we only see him as someone who may be Foul's puppet (which I have no trouble buying). But in FR, we see under his skin some, and he's so incredibly resentful that he's willing to go to great lengths to provoke the destruction of the great beauty that is The Land (in order to "become a god"). So I infer he's learned to hate his father (maybe we'll learn more about that later), and has some knowledge of his father's history in the Land. (Is this a reversal of the Luke Skywalker/Darth Vader archetype?) Did you ever consider him in a non-evil role? Being a literal bastard myself, I selfishly want to see him as more real and have more sympathy for him. I certainly don't hate my real father (whoever he was) like Roger does. Any hope for this? Thoughts about the end of FR - "Hmmmmm. Thomas Covenant is alive again. I have to guess that he's here to stay for a while - why would Donaldson ressurrect him if only to conceal him again shortly thereafter....wonder what his conflict is going to be....formerly all-powerful master of Time now reduced to human form....might his leprosy return?" I can't address much of this. But you might try thinking of Roger as his father's doppleganger. Roger has inherited his mother's legacy of fear (and self-abhorrence) rather than his father's (learned) legacy of courage. In that, Roger is rather like Linden--without the benefit of Covenant's intervention; without spending crucial time in the company of characters who are motivated by love rather than by fear. You could say that he just doesn't know any better. Fear, I think, is a natural and inevitable part of the human condition. But being ruled by fear is a choice. And it's unfortunately true that choices can be very hard to see or understand if people haven't been taught that those choices exist; if people lack role models for making those choices. I knew as soon as Joan decided to abandon Covenant that Roger would follow his mother's example. It's the only one he's had. I don't want to say much more on the subject. But I'm confident that Roger has NO IDEA he's being ruled by fear. He isn't aware of the choice. (03/05/2008)