I finished reading Sir Apropos of Nothing by Peter David the other day and started doing that mental analyzing thing that I tend to do. As I did so, I thought to myself well Apropos is kinda like Thomas Covenant from the books by Stephen R. Donaldson. Well, they have some similarities at least. Though I have to admit, this maybe completely and utterly wrong because I didn't get very far in the Donaldson book before putting it down because I just... didn't like it.
Still from what I read, there were similarities. Both of them are anti-heroes. They don't follow along the heroic track, they don't set out to be heroic. Apropos does end up being heroic... but only through other people's eyes. To him it's just dumb luck. I have no idea if Covenant ends up being heroic, but I imagine that he does.
They also both had similar sort of mindsets- being very selfish- which motivated them them to do things. And they both did horrible things to accomplish their goal. (Or at least I'm told that Covenant does.)
The thing was, I found Covenant horribly annoying and while I didn't necessarily like Apropos, I could understand him. I think it was because Covenant seemed to be sort of stuck in a "Woe is Me" sort of mind set. He was a leper. (Which reminds me of a Munchkin card the Lepercaun.) He was shunned by society. SHUNNED I tell you. He lived by himself and wallowed in misery. Then when he was taken to the other land he was cured! Miraculously, but without the naked elven twins having incestuous lesbian sex. He was just cured... which is also a pretty big Dues Ex Machina. But then again it's kinda hard to have a hero wandering around when he's a leper and bits off him are falling off. Personally, I think if you're going to give a character a disability you need to stick with it and not give them one that's going to miraculously cured. There could have been something else that Covenant could of had that made him a pariah in society without needing to be fixed when he got to the Other Land. It could be cured along the way, but it doesn't need to automatically be fixed.
Apropos on the other hand, is not a leper. He does, however, have a lame leg. He's also a bit of a society pariah being born from a gang rape and his mother was a whore. He's horribly cynical, hates his only friend because he feels that it's not fair that his friend is better than him -more heroic than him- and really has terrible luck. The first woman he falls in love with steals all his money and bashes his mother's urn of ashes over his head. But instead of wallowing in self pity he goes and does something about it. He doesn't do the heroic thing about it, but he does something about it. He's very motivated about staying alive and tries to do what he can to keep himself alive.
Now, I fully admit that Covenant may have done such things, may have ended up less of an angstwhore as the books progressed, but I haven't read them, so I don't really know. In fact, I fully admit that this entire essay could be completely and utterly wrong. But from what I read, this is what I feel to be true.
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