The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant / Characters

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Introduced in the First Chronicles

Thomas Covenant

The title character and main protagonist of the series. Thomas Covenant was a successful author who contracted leprosy, leading to the loss of two of his fingers, his wife leaving him and taking their infant son, and subsequently descended into a downward spiral of self-loathing and alienation from his fellow human beings. That was about when he got nearly hit with a police car and somehow translated into the alternate dimension known as the Land, where he found himself thrust into the position of a champion against the local God of Evil, Lord Foul the Despiser (due to his resemblance to a legendary hero and possession of a white gold wedding ring, in the Land an object of great power) — and promptly decided he'd have none of that, christening himself "the Unbeliever" and declaring the whole thing was nothing but an elaborate hallucination. Covenant is a notorious cynical Jerkass and consistently unpleasant character, though (very deep) down inside he possesses the true potential to "save or damn" the Land. He saves it.

The Atoner: Played with. His first attempts to atone for raping Lena only dig him deeper, at least in part because they were done deliberately to atone, and thereby tainted by his selfishness. Only when he started to become more determined to fight Foul and save the Land simply because it was the right thing to do did he truly begin to atone.
Catchphrase: Hellfire, Hell and Blood, Bloody Hell, Hellfire and Bloody Damnation.
- "Don't touch me."
- "Leper, outcast, unclean!"
Celebrity Resemblance: The fact he looks like famed hero Berek Halfhand down to missing fingers doesn't help Thomas' insistence he's not The Chosen One.
Character Development: Truly massive amounts of it. It's a long, hard road from the cynical, spiteful husk of a man of Lord Foul's Bane to the messianic figure of The Last Dark.
The Chosen One: Even if he starts as a...
- The Chosen Zero
Classical Antihero: With shades of Nominal Hero. Covenant is a pretty pathetic shell of a human being, largely devoid of heroic (or even particularly pleasant) qualities, and though he's more ineffective and unpleasant than outright evil most of the time, his first major action in the Land is practically a Moral Event Horizon crossing. That said, he gets a hefty dose of Character Development across the First Chronicles, and by the Second Chronicles he's more of a Pragmatic Hero, still not classically heroic or particularly pleasant company, but much more genuinely devoted to protecting the Land and its people.
Cynicism Catalyst: His bitterness comes from being diagnosed with leprosy and losing his wife and child.
Deadpan Snarker: Covenant has a dry, bleak sense of humor (perhaps not surprising, considering his life situation). He even snarks at Foul about how many names he has (the Despiser was not amused).
Determinator: Covenant spends much of the first trilogy determined to be as ineffective as possible. When he does decide there's something that needs doing, he'll move heaven and earth (possibly literally) to see it done. His brutal slog to Ridjeck Thome to confront Foul in The Power that Preserves being a prime example — he comes close to giving up several times, and did not start out with the ideal motivations, but he promised to bring the Crèche down around Foul's ears, and he did it.
Either/Or Prophecy: The paradoxical nature of white gold, wild magic, and Covenant himself is consistently emphasized by the prophecy that he will either "save or damn" the Land.
Flat-Earth Atheist: Though to be fair, he's convinced that if he allows his worldview to contain anything but leprosy, he'll lose his self-protective skills and die a very prolonged and unpleasant death.
Hates Being Touched: "Don't touch me!" is virtually Thomas' catchphrase, and his aversion to being touched is a good yardstick of how alienated or hopeless he feels at the time.
Hero with an F in Good: Covenant is really, really bad at being the good guy, even on those occasions when he's actually trying, especially in the First Chronicles. His first fumbling attempts to atone for raping Lena just seem to make things worse, if possible.
Heroic Sacrifice: By the end of the second trilogy, he resolves to give Foul his ring and let himself die, since the broken Law of Death will allow him to remain forever as a barrier between the wild magic and the Arch of Time.
How Do I Shot Web?: It takes a whole trilogy for Covenant to learn to use his ring.

Non-Action Guy: Covenant has no military training and finds killing repellant, and his leprosy makes him even more fragile than a normal person.
Power Incontinence: In the second series, Lord Foul uses cursed venom to deliberately induce this, hoping Covenant will lose control completely and annihilate the Land on his own.
Psychoactive Powers: Apparently, Covenant's troubles with making his ring work stem from his own self-doubt, self-loathing, and fear of responsibility. Other people can make it work fine, though without the same potential level of power Covenant as the rightful wielder possesses.
Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: Covenant rapes Lena early in the first book, chiefly because he doesn't think she or anything else in The Land actually exists. He most emphatically is not Easily Forgiven for it, and the consequences dog him and the Land across the entire First Chronicles, and are still a shadow hanging over the background later on.
Squishy Wizard: Despite his frailty, on those occasions he can make his ring work, he wields more magical power than almost anyone else in the Land.
Take a Third Option: How he resolves his dilemma about the Land's reality — he ends up deciding that it doesn't matter if the Land is real or not, because either way it represents something beautiful and worth preserving.
What the Hell, Hero?: Covenant does something very, very awful in the first book. He spends the rest of the first trilogy trying to deal with the consequences.
When He Smiles: A male example, when Linden watches as he trades his life for Joan's he smiles at her.
- "Don't worry about me." A difficult tenderness softened his tone. "You're safe now-that's the important thing. I'll be all right." Somehow, he managed to smile. His eyes betrayed his pain. The light from the fire cast shadows of self-defiance across his bruised mien. And yet his smile expressed so much valor and rue that the sight of it tore Linden's heart."
Your Approval Fills Me with Shame: Covenant isn't pleased with all the titles the denizens of the Land give him. When he's dubbed Earthfriend by the Giants, Covenant moans that that was the same title that Kevin Landwaster was given. invoked

Lord Foul the Despiser

An ancient, immortal spirit, Lord Foul the Despiser is the ultimate enemy of the Land. He was imprisoned on the Land's planet millennia ago by his opposite, the Creator, and has spent the time since struggling to find a way to break free, which would necessitate destroying the Arch of Time (and by extension, the world). Profoundly malevolent, extremely powerful, and highly competent, Foul has inflicted a tremendous amount of misery on the Land during his time there, and arranged Covenant's summoning in order to have access to his wild magic ring, the final tool he needs to attain his freedom. Foul almost never appears in person (he has exactly two scenes each in both the first and second trilogies), but his shadow lies heavy on the entire Chronicles.

The Anti-God: An oppositional force to the Creator, varyingly described as His son or brother.
Artifact of Doom: He uses one, the Illearth Stone.
As Long as There Is Evil: "Despite can never die."
Awesomeness by Analysis: Foul is not actually precognitive; being bound within the Arch of Time, he's forced to work with the constraints of linear time. He is, however, highly intelligent and has had millennia to study people, meaning that he can predict future events with a fine degree of accuracy nonetheless. Of course, even so things don't always work out quite like he expects.
Being Evil Sucks: It's implied throughout the Last Chronicles and pretty much confirmed at the end of The Last Dark that deep down inside, Foul loathes and abhors what he is as much as he hates anyone else. Not that he'd ever admit to it.
Big Bad: Though not always the immediate villain at hand, Foul is the ultimate threat in each of the three sub-series. If we take his backstory at face value, he's also the Big Bad of the entire universe.
- In the First Chronicles, he starts off as The Man Behind the Man to Drool Rockworm, then takes center stage as an Evil Overlord in the next two books.
- In the Second Chronicles, he's The Man Behind the Man to both the Clave and the Sunbane.
- In the Last Chronicles, he's teamed up with Kastenessen and between them they've set all manner of cataclysmic events in motion.
Breaking Speech: Pretty much every time he talks, it's either this or Evil Gloating.
Card-Carrying Villain: Look at the name! Foul's what the bumbling, mustache-twirling Card-Carrying Villains want to be when they grow up. Word of God delves into Foul's opinion on the matter of his own Obviously Evil nature in a bit more detail — Foul doesn't actually perceive himself as evil, since he thinks he's beyond all moral judgments anyone else might make of him. However, he does find being labeled evil — including being given his various Names to Run Away from Really Fast — quite flattering.
The Chessmaster: Foul is very, very intelligent, and is usually several steps ahead of everybody else.
Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Generally speaking, if anything is a distinct shade of sickly green, Foul's involved somewhere, particularly in the first trilogy when using the Illearth Stone. He's also associated with grey (note that one of his names is the Grey Slayer) and vivid yellow (his eyes).
Complete Immortality: It's heavily implied in the novels (and outright stated by Donaldson) that Foul, being a fundamental cosmic entity, is essentially indestructible, though he can be imprisoned or forced into dormancy by severe enough defeats. Crosses over with Resurrective Immortality, since his core self can be temporarily killed - he just always comes back.
The Corrupter: One of his goals is to drag as many people into Despite as possible. His success rate is fairly alarming. Word of God even notes that the true nature of Foul's power, in contrast to the flashy elemental magic of the setting's other main godlike beings, the Elohim, is his ability to warp people and things to his service.
Demonic Possession: Like his Ravers, Foul knows how to do this. Unlike them, while he exists primarily as spirit, Foul does have the ability to interact with the physical world on his own, so he rarely possesses people unless possessing that specific person gets him something he wants like possessing Joan to torment Covenant. He's also one of the various beings who can possess Anele and later Jeremiah, and for his final confrontation with Covenant in The Last Dark, he possesses Roger.
Despair Event Horizon: Not his own, but pushing people past these is pretty much his standard MO.
Enemy Without: Depending on what explanation you favor, he's either Covenant's, humanity's as a whole, or the Creator's. He's definitely somebody's Enemy Without.
Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: A fairly high-functioning case, but he still exhibits it. He generally gets that the people who oppose him have moral principles that compel them to act in certain ways, but he doesn't really understand why such things are important and believes that deep down everyone, given the choice, would choose to be like him, which tends to be the one flaw in his scheming.^note
Evil Gloating: He treats new heroes to the Land with magnificent monologues of exactly what he's done to hurt them, then explains how he'll continue to hurt them, predicting their breaking points. He hasn't been wrong yet.
Evil Is Deathly Cold: The interior of Foul's Creche is described as frigid both in its temperature and aesthetic; Covenant calls it a "damn icebox".
Evil Overlord: In the first trilogy. He gets more subtle in the second and third.
Evil Sounds Deep: "It was as if an abyss had spoken".
Evil Tower of Ominousness / Elaborate Underground Base: Foul's Creche/Ridjeck Thome manages to be both — it sports two sinister towers, but the bulk of the structure is underground.
Foil: Knowing that Lord Foul is just another side of the same coin (hatred vs. self-hatred) allows Thomas to defeat him.
For the Evulz: He just hates everything, and he's not shy about explaining this in detail. Though Word of God notes that Foul is smart enough to never engage in pointless sadism to the expense of his plans.
Glowing Eyes of Doom: His glowing yellow eyes are his most obvious and defining feature regardless of the form he takes.
God of Evil: In many ways, he is the Anthropomorphic Personification of Despite; the Despiser isn't just a catchy name, it's the fundamental truth of his existence.
Hope Crusher: In his very first appearance, he declares his intention to annihilate hope from the Land. He spends the rest of the series angling for exactly that.
I Have Many Names: And they're all unpleasant. As a sampling, there's Lord Foul the Despiser, The Gray Slayer, Fangthane, A'Jeroth of the Seven Hells, and Satansheart Soulcrusher. The Haruchai just call him Corruption, which for them is pretty damned horrible. The last series implies that of these, A'Jeroth is his original name, as other immortals are seen to use it.
Leaking Can of Evil: In the Second and Last Chronicles, he shows a very limited ability to reach outside of the Land's planet and commune with people in the "real" world, especially people who've given in to their own despite (he picks up at least one cult that way). Word of God notes that the repeated summoning of Covenant (and later Linden) probably weakened the barrier slightly.
Living Shadow: His preferred Shapeshifter Default Form is a humanoid shadow with glowing yellow eyes. In White Gold Wielder, Covenant remarks that Foul looks like his shadow. While not without merit, Foul is less than amused at the idea.
The Man Behind the Man: A favored tactic; he functions as the man behind the King of Doriendor Corishev in the backstory, Drool Rockworm in Lord Foul's Bane, and the Clave in the Second Chronicles. While his relationship with Kastenessen is more of a partnership in the Last Chronicles, it still has shades of this as Foul is clearly the brains of the operation.
Metaphorically True: Technically he never lies, but he's perfectly willing to phrase the truth in such a way as to leave a false impression. As he notes to Roger in The Last Dark, he always tells the truth, but that doesn't mean people always hear the truth.
Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: When Tom returns as a ghost to absorb the wild magic Foul is firing at the Keystone of the Arch of Time, he forgets he could have just banished Tom as he could any ghost. Instead, he just wastes all of his energy trying to harm someone who couldn't be harmed. Findail points this out when he banishes Tom.
Obviously Evil: He can hide it, but normally doesn't bother.
Offstage Villainy: Inverted. Foul himself is almost always offstage, showing up in person only a handful of times across the entire Chronicles. His villainy, on the other hand, produces consequences which turn up seemingly around every corner, especially in the later books.
Omnicidal Maniac: His usual MO is just to make people suffer, but since he's stuck inside Time, the only way to escape is by destroying the Arch of Time, which would also destroy the world. Doing so is his ultimate goal.
Orcus on His Throne: Foul is off-page for most of the series, since he usually spends most of his time in his current lair — Ridjeck Thome (first Chronicles), Kiril Threndor (second Chronicles) and inside Roger (Last Chronicles). Doesn't mean the reader isn't treated to the consequences of his Chessmastery in great detail, though. When asked why he kept such a charismatic villain offstage for so much of the action, Donaldson noted that Foul would probably seem far less charismatic if the reader actually spent time with him.
Physical God: He's a being roughly on par with the Creator, but being trapped inside the Arch of Time makes him a part of physical reality. He usually manifests as a spectral figure whose only clear feature are Glowing Eyes of Doom, but he can take more physical shapes as well (he reverts to an old man after being defeated by Covenant in The Power that Preserves, most obviously). It's worth noting that he's a Power That Is trapped within physical reality, so being a Physical God is actually a step down for him.
The Plan: Two kinds:
- Batman Gambit: His specialty is Flaw Exploitation.
- Xanatos Gambit: Not bad at these, either, such as in the Second Chronicles in which he arranges for Covenant to be infected with a poison that induces Power Incontinence — if Covenant uses his power to try and stop Foul, he'll eventually lose control and destroy the Arch of Time, and if he doesn't, nothing else can stop Foul from eventually destroying the Arch on his own. Unfortunately for Foul, Covenant manages to figure out how to Take a Third Option that Foul would never see coming.
- Despair Gambit: And many of his plans are of this type in addition to being one of the above two. Foul loves seeing how far he can push people beyond the Despair Event Horizon.
The Power of Hate: Uses it, preaches it, and in some senses is it.
Prophecy Twist: He is 100% accurate in all of his predictions. However, there's always a twist that Foul can't foresee. For example, in the second series, he predicts Tom will give him the ring freely of his own will. Tom does — but since the Laws have been broken, Tom's ghost blocks his ability to attack the Arch of Time.
Resurrective Immortality: How he avoids death, mixed with Complete Immortality. Sure, Foul can be killed, at least as a discrete being, but no matter what you do, he'll always reform out of ambient hate after a while.
Sealed Evil in a Can: Unusual example. The Land's planet is his can, and he can move around freely within it, but can't leave, which is what he really wants to do.
Sealed Inside a Person-Shaped Can: At the end of The Last Dark, Covenant imprisons Foul inside himself.
Sickly Green Glow: When wielding the Illearth Stone, he's wreathed in a corona of this color, and all his works tend to exhibit it in some way.
Sorting Algorithm of Evil: As Word of God notes, Foul is basically a One-Evil-Demigod-Sorting Algorithm, because he's both truly immortal and intelligent enough to learn from his mistakes, and therefore after each defeat he only returns more dangerous than before.
Will Not Tell a Lie: Foul has never once lied on-page. Word of God indicates that this is less a sign of any regard for the truth on his part, and more an expression of contempt for his enemies — his way of saying that he doesn't need to lie to defeat them.
Yellow Eyes of Sneakiness: No matter what form he takes, he always has his distinctive yellow eyes - and while he doesn't lie directly, he's incredibly cunning and manipulative. Also crosses over with Glowing Eyes of Doom.

The Creator

Lord Foul's counterpart, the mysterious being who created the Land and its world. May or may not like to hang around on Earth disguised as an old beggar-man.

All-Powerful Bystander: By necessity, since he can't actually enter the Land without freeing Foul.
Big Good: Albeit one who has to act very indirectly, due to the circumstances.
God: The supreme being of the Land.
God's Hands Are Tied: He can't reach into the Land directly without also making a hole big enough for Foul to get out, hence having to act through (at times extremely contrary) proxies.
Grandpa God: Assuming that he is the old beggar, he follows this aesthetic (interestingly, when Foul is forced into human form in The Power that Preserves, he also takes the form of an old, bearded man, but while the Creator is ragged but kindly, Foul is elegant and regal but coldly contemptuous).
The Maker: Only ever referred to as the Creator (or as Enemy, by Foul), never God.

The Ravers: Moksha Jehannum, Turiya Herem, and Samadhi Sheol

Originally triplet mortal brothers, the Ravers were the ancient enemies of the Land long before the arrival of Lord Foul. So great was their evil that they transcended flesh as three immortal possessing spirits, and they were the ultimate scourge of the One Forest that once dominated the Land. When Lord Foul first arrived, the Ravers were drawn to him and became his lieutenants, in the hope that through serving him they could rise to godhood themselves. The Ravers have accompanied each other and served Lord Foul for so long that any distinctions between their individual personalities — or between theirs and their master's — have largely been erased, and if Foul is the guiding will of evil in the Land, the Ravers are evil's diligent limbs.

Above Good and Evil: They see themselves as having transcended all moral limitations by becoming Ravers, hence their personal names reflecting their (mistaken) belief in their own enlightenment. In The Last Dark Jehannum has an extended monologue on how he feels the purity of his service to Foul and the renunciation of his humanity lifts him above other beings and will let him find godhood, trying to talk Jeremiah into serving Foul in the same way. Jeremiah gives the appropriate response.
As Long as There Is Evil: As long as Foul lives, the Ravers will be there with him. Or at least, that's the common belief. The Second and Last Chronicles show that Ravers can be destroyed, albeit with great difficulty and under very specific circumstances.
Ax-Crazy: They really, really enjoy torture and killing, to put it mildly, not to mention gloating about it. There's a reason they're called "Ravers", after all.
Body Surf: The basis of their immortality, since a Raver can always escape his host's death at the last moment and steal a new body. The only way to actually kill them is for someone with a will strong enough to resist the Raver — like a Giant or Haruchai — to voluntarily allow themselves to be possessed, then trap the Raver in their body while someone else kills them. Samadhi and Turiya both bite it this way.
Co-Dragons: Though Samadhi is usually the most prominent at least until Nom gets at him, Word of God indicates this is coincidental. In the end, Moksha Jehannum takes home the gold as last Raver standing, and gets to be Foul's sole Dragon.
Demonic Possession: It's what they do best. They also need to do it, since they no longer have physical bodies of their own and can't affect the physical world directly without hijacking someone else's.
Demoted to Dragon: The Ravers actually predate Foul's arrival in the Land; they were its reigning supreme evils for a while, until Foul showed up and the Ravers were drawn to him like moths to a flame. Of course, seeing as personality-wise there's little difference between Lord Foul and a Raver, they still get to do pretty much what they would have done anyway except with a more powerful patron, so they're generally content in their servitude.
The Dividual: The three Ravers are more-or-less interchangeable, less three distinct character and more one evil creature that has three independent sections. Word of God notes that they were brothers together, became Ravers together, and entered Foul's service together, resulting in their being essentially no differentiation between them in terms of ability, personality, or rank.
The Dragon: They are Foul's top lieutenants. Since there are three of them and they act essentially as equals, that makes them Co-Dragons
Evil Chancellor: Samadhi played this role to the last king of Doriendor Corishev (the guy Berek Halfhand rebelled against). Moksha later did it to Kastenessen, riding herd on the mad Elohim and keeping him focused on things that would aid Lord Foul's purposes.
Glamour Failure: Unusually for possessing spirits, the Ravers aren't that hot as actors, with their lust to do violence shining through no matter what body they're possessing or role they're trying to assume. Only generations of subtle corruption created an environment where Samadhi was able to rise to power in the Clave, and even then, the head of a cult that practices Blood Magic and human sacrifice is more or less a Raver's dream job.
Godhood Seeker: Word of God indicates that the reason they serve Foul (beyond a shared passion for Dog Kicking) is the belief that if/when he escapes from the Arch of Time, he'll reward them with godhood.
Hive Mind: They're capable of acting like this; under ordinary circumstances, a Raver can control one person of human-level intelligence at a time, or a swarm of nonsentient animals.
I Have Many Names: Each Raver has three names that apply to him alone; the name he understands for himself (Moksha, Turiya, and Samadhi), the name the people of the Land call him (Jehannum, Herem, and Sheol) and his Giant name (Fleshharrower, Kinslaughterer, and Satansfist). That's not counting names they steal from the people they possess.
Kick the Dog: The Ravers are essentially professional dog-kickers, and since they get out and about more than their boss, they are a bit more proactive about it than he is. Listing all of their crimes would take far too long for this page.
Meaningful Name:
- Their own chosen names are moksha, turiya, and samadhi, all terms for the various levels of enlightenment in the Hindu religion (Donaldson grew up in India, as the son of missionaries). Word of God is that this reflects the tendency of evil people to think they are really more clear-sighted than everyone else.
- Their given names are also very close to Semitic words. "Jehannum" sounds like "Jahannam," the Islamic concept of hell, "Herem" can mean "utter destruction" in Hebrew (it refers to irrevocably giving something to God) and "Sheol" is the realm of the dead in ancient Judaism.
Mobile Menace: While their boss spends most of his time sequestered in his lair, the Ravers have a marked tendency to pop up precisely where they're least wanted.
Names to Run Away from Really Fast: The names that others have for them (Jehannum, Herem, and Sheol) are all terms for condemnation or damnation, reflecting how the other inhabitants of the Land see them. In their Giant forms their names are Fleshharrower, Kinslaughterer and Satansfist.
Quirky Miniboss Squad: Defied, by Word of God. Donaldson designed them to be essentially interchangable, and seems to dislike it when fans ascribe certain skills or personality traits to any one of them.
Single-Minded Triplets: And on the (rare) occasion that more than one Raver is in the same scene, they're prone to talking in creepy unison and/or carrying on each other's ideas in conversation.
The Starscream: Defied. The Ravers are generally content in their servitude to Foul, seeing as he's as evil as they are but far more powerful, and being his lieutenants is a pretty cushy job from their point of view. However, Foul is well aware that if the Ravers got their incorporeal hands on something that would make them more powerful than him, they'd easily turn Starscream on him, which is why they're always under strict orders not to take Covenant's ring for themselves.
Was Once a Man: They were once three human brothers, but their evil was so great it continued on after their physical deaths—eventually Foul found them, and made them his lieutenants.^note

Lena

An idealistic Stonedownor girl, Lena is the first human Covenant meets in the Land, and the first to identify him by his ring and missing fingers as The Chosen One. Driven by the shock of getting feeling back in his body and his own denial of her reality, Covenant raped her. This act would have catastrophic consequences for both their lives, and the Land itself.

Break the Cutie: Hoo, boy.
Broken Bird: Though she herself is creepily oblivious to the fact, owing to aforementioned insanity.
Cloudcuckoolander: In The Power That Preserves, it's very clear that Lena and ordinary reality are no longer on speaking turns. It's a gut punch for Covenant, who is forcibly reminded every time she opens her mouth that he's responsible for her condition.
Defiled Forever: It drives her insane. Worth noting that this is mostly a result of the psychological, rather than physical, effects of the rape. No-one holds what happened against her, but no-one really knew how to deal with her mental downward spiral either.
Heroic Sacrifice: Even after realizing what Covenant actually did, she still takes a spear for him rather than let the one person who could defeat Foul die.
Manic Pixie Dream Girl:
Morality Chain: It initially looks like she'll be set to play this role for Covenant. To say he screws it up horribly would be an understatement.
Romanticized Abuse: Invoked Trope Falling in love with Covenant and deluding herself into thinking that their encounter was consensual is her way of coping, but it is explicitly very unhealthy as is true in real life.

Saltheart Foamfollower

A Giant, and Thomas Covenant's closest friend in the Land. Foamfollower has tremendous physical strength and endurance and an even more tremendous heart, which leads him to befriend Covenant when he's at his lowest point. Foamfollower was the only Giant to avoid crossing the Despair Event Horizon and escape the destruction of his people, though he blamed himself for fleeing rather than trying harder to save them. In the end, he accompanied Covenant to Ridjeck Thome, and died playing the pivotal role in defeating the Despiser.

All-Loving Hero: Foamfollower has a tremendous amount of compassion and kindness in his heart, and became Covenant's closest friend and staunchest ally in the Land as a result.
The Big Guy: Well, he is a Giant, making him the largest and strongest main character in the First Chronicles.
Blood Knight: Nearly fell into this in The Power that Preserves, reveling in fighting the Despiser's minions in order to avenge his people and free himself from the guilt of abandoning them. After surviving Hotash Slay, he overcomes this darker side of his nature.
Last of His Kind: But only in the Land — there are still plenty of Giants in other parts of the world.
Messianic Archetype: To the jheherrin.
Morality Chain: In the first series, he's about the only thing tying Covenant to humanity (and for that matter, sanity) for a while.
Our Giants Are Bigger: Is one of the Seareach Giants.
Spanner in the Works: To Lord Foul.
Warrior Poet: Giants in general tend towards this. Foamfollower himself is both a mighty warrior and a passionate storyteller, both of which come in extremely handy across the first trilogy.

Lord Mhoram

A Lord (later High Lord) of the Council of Revelstone, Mhoram is another of Covenant's friends and one of the chief leaders in the fight against Lord Foul. Though relatively young (by Lord standards), he is wise beyond his years, a tremendously skilled wielder of Earthpower, and a powerful warrior. Mhoram becomes particularly important in The Power That Preserves when, as High Lord, he is the leader of the final resistance against the Despiser's army, and much of the book is told from his perspective.

All-Loving Hero: Though he's not as blatant about it as Foamfollower. Mhoram tends more towards quietly believing the best of everyone around him, and his skill as a leader owes in many ways to bringing that best out.
Authority Equals Asskicking: As High Lord, he's leader of the Council and also its most powerful member.
Blessed with Suck: Prophetic visions aren't a lot of fun when a) they're normally about horrible things, and b) you can't stop the visions from coming or coming true.
Magic Knight: As a Lord, Mhoram would have been required to demonstrate mastery of both magic and war, and he showcases both skills many times across the trilogy.
Only Sane Man:
- In a world where the good guys favorite toy seems to be the Idiot Ball he's a refreshing breath of rationality.
- When Linden berates him (and the other Lords) accurately for their actions in the past, Mhoram isn't hurt like the others. He simply tells her the others will be hurt but they needed to hear what she said. He then gratefully says, "You are well chosen."
Seers: Seer and Oracle of the Council of Lords.
Supporting Leader: In The Power That Preserves.
Wizards Live Longer: Mhoram, by the end of the First Chronicles, is nearly eighty. He looks somewhere between half and two thirds of that.

High Lord Elena

The daughter of Lena and Thomas Covenant, and High Lord of the Council in The Illearth War. Elena is a brilliant and charismatic but damaged young woman whose life has been shadowed and shaped by the father she never knew and for whom she nurses a deep-seated attraction. Capable of both great and terrible things, Elena is one of the most tragic figures in the entire First Chronicles — and that is saying something. By breaking the Law of Death in an effort to resurrect Kevin Landwaster in the hopes that he could defeat Lord Foul, Elena inadvertently allowed the Despiser the ability to raise and command the dead — including herself, after Kevin killed her. The undead Elena was bound to Foul in an unholy parody of marriage and forced to wield the Staff of Law on his behalf, until she was freed by the Staff's destruction.

Back from the Dead: Foul brings her back to be The Dragon.
Broken Bird: Her mom was insane, her grandparents found her hard to be around as a living reminder of the crime done to their daughter, her biological dad was completely absent, and her only vaguely-functional parental figure was her mom's ex-fiancé. Small wonder the poor girl grew up rather badly adjusted.
Child by Rape: The daughter of Thomas Covenant and Lena.
Dark Magical Girl: Elena's not evil, but she's got... issues. Much like her biological father, she's precariously balanced between greatness and evil, and being rather more proactive than he is she falls off the edge.
The Dragon: Foul briefly adds an enslaved, undead Elena to the Ravers as a fourth Dragon, apparently out of sheer cruelty towards everyone who knew and loved the living Elena.
Hoist by Her Own Petard: Calling up the ghost of Kevin Landwaster bites her hard.
Magic Knight: She actually holds her own against the undead Kevin for a while, though the fact that she had the Staff of Law probably helped.
Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: She breaks the Law of Death to allow Lord Kevin Landwaster to be resurrected, which just made things worse. Far worse.
Not Good with Rejection: Covenant (after being given the hurtloam by her) nearly repeats what he did with her mother, even going so far as to rip off her clothes. When he stops, and pulls himself away, she insists that she's willing, and because he turned her down, she goes on to steal the white gold ring and face off against Lord Foul herself. It does not go well.
Parental Incest: Covenant is her biological father, though she doesn't consider him her "real" father. She does, however, hero-worship him and nurse a deep-seated attraction to him. He says no, because, well, Squick.
Tragic Heroine: Very much so. There was true potential for greatness in Elena — not for nothing was she High Lord — but she was also deeply flawed, and her misjudgment of the best way to combat the Despiser led to her downfall.
Unholy Matrimony: "Elena Foul-Wife". Word of God is that it was just to mess with Covenant, though, seeing as Foul has no desire to actually have a wife on any level.
Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: As Elena Foul-Wife, the undead Elena is driven to fight against everything the living Elena ever loved.
The World Is Not Ready: She accesses magic none of the Lords were ready for yet, and it leads to disaster.

Hile Troy

A blind military strategist from Earth, brought to the Land during a botched attempt to summon Covenant. Troy became the leader of the Lords' military forces, and unlike Covenant embraced the Land wholeheartedly. Unfortunately, Troy greatly underestimated what the Despiser was capable of, and though he was able to defeat Foul's army, it came at great cost, and Troy himself was transformed into a Forestal and became the apprentice of Caerroil Wildwood. Now immortal, Troy continued to serve the Land into the Second Chronicles.

Despair Event Horizon: What prompts him to even try luring Foul's minions to Garroting Deep in the first place.
Disability Superpower: He has no eyes because of a birth defect. However, the hurtloam gives him enhanced vision.
Eyeless Face: Thanks to a birth defect, he simply doesn't have eyes. This is how he knows The Land is real — being born blind, he has no memories of what colors are, or what sight even was, so it's impossible for him to have dreamed them.
Heroic Sacrifice: In the Second Chronicles.
Nature Spirit: As the Forestal Caer-Caveral.
Supporting Leader: Leads the armies of the Land against Fleshharrower in The Illearth War while Covenant and Elena quest for the Earthblood.
The Strategist: Played with. Troy's very good — but Fleshharrower's army is so much more powerful that it (almost) doesn't matter.
Undying Loyalty: To the Lords and the Land itself, chiefly because he not only has sight, but he's in a Black-and-White Morality situation, instead of the "real world's" Gray-and-Gray Morality.
Was Once a Man: The price that the Forestal Caerroil Wildwood exacts for helping Troy destroy Fleshharrower is that Troy will become a Forestal himself.
What the Hell, Hero?: The first time we meet Hile, he basically tells Coventant in plain American slang to stop with the self-pity and actually help — or go away.

Bannor

A Haruchai warrior, one of the foremost of the Bloodguard, Bannor is Covenant's near constant shadow during the First Chronicles. Bannor is a man of few words but unflinching honor, and as a leader of the Haruchai he is one of the most skilled warriors to walk the land. After the disbanding of the Bloodguard, Bannor joined the Ramen in the plains of Ra, and there encountered Covenant one last time, though he refused to enter Foul's Creche.

The Ageless: While under the effects of the Bloodguard Vow, Bannor is immune to old age, and doesn't need to sleep.
Bare-Fisted Monk: Like all Haruchai, he distrusts any weapon but his own hands, feet, and skill.
Honor Before Reason: So strongly, it's magically binding. When the Bloodguard swore themselves to perfect service, it literally enabled them to bypass the need for sleep or the process of aging.
Not So Stoic: Covenant comes to realize that he is a deeply passionate man, just one who expresses emotions through action rather than overt displays of emotion.
Proud Warrior Race Guy: The Haruchai are a harsh, stoic warrior people, and Bannor stands at the pinnacle of their discipline.
The Stoic: As a Haruchai and an immortal, Bannor is rarely given to expressing emotion.

Drool Rockworm

The main antagonist of the first book, Drool was a Cavewight whose ambitions far exceeded his ability to pull them off. A tool of Lord Foul, Drool is ultimately a pitiable figure, albeit still an extremely dangerous one. He is also the initial summoner of Covenant to the Land, albeit under the direction of Lord Foul.

Alas, Poor Villain: In-universe. Covenant expresses pity for Drool in the later books.
Big Bad Wannabe: Tries to set himself up as "Lord Drool" using the Staff of Law and Illearth Stone in tandem. Because he got Lord Foul to help him, this ended extremely poorly for him.
Cast from Hit Points: Drool becomes increasingly frail and sickly across the course of book one. It's unclear if this was because the artifacts he was wielding were too powerful to control, because Foul led him wrong, or a combination thereof.
Disc-One Final Boss: He's the main villain of the first book, but in the grand scheme of things... well, book one isn't called Drool Rockworm's Bane, after all...
Evil Overlord: Styled himself "Lord Drool" and set himself up as ruler of the Cavewights. His reign, however, was a brief one.
Evil Sorcerer: He tries. It doesn't work out well for him.
Glowing Eyes of Doom: And they're red, to boot.
Starter Villain: The first major villain Covenant encountered in the Land, but doesn't live past the first book.
Unwitting Pawn: Drool apparently trusted Foul to give him good advice in the use of his powers. That... is one of the worst mistakes possible to make in these books.

Cavewights

Monstrous creatures that live beneath Mount Thunder, the Cavewights are physically powerful but weak-willed and long ago fell under Lord Foul's dominion. They traditionally formed the bulk of his armies.

Always Chaotic Evil: Though they weren't originally that way; the Cavewights were once friends of the Land and renowned as miners and craftsmen, but their physical strength, numbers, and proximity to the various banes under Mount Thunder attracted Foul to them and he turned most of them to his side long before Covenant arrived in the Land.
Ax-Crazy: Cavewights tend to be violent and emotionally unstable.
Mooks: The basic footsoldiers of the Despiser's armies.
Our Orcs Are Different: They don't physically resemble orcs, but fill basically the same niche.
Weak-Willed: They're explicitly noted to have strong bodies but weak minds, and long ago most of them were corrupted by Foul.

Ur-viles

Spawn of an ancient race called the Demondim, ur-viles are artificial beings of enigmatic purpose and great magical knowledge. In the First Chronicles, they're allies of Lord Foul and among his most terrible servants. In later series, they reshuffle their priorities.

Always Chaotic Evil: They're more a case of Blue-and-Orange Morality: everything the ur-viles do is a reaction against their own horror at their existence as artificial beings in defiance of Law and Earthpower.
Conservation of Ninjutsu: Inverted; loremasters can combine the strengths of individual ur-viles together, meaning individual ur-viles' power has a good chance of going up the more of them are around.
Enigmatic Minion: A whole race of them.
Elite Mooks: They're no stronger than Cavewights, but are a lot smarter and have powerful magic on their side. While Cavewights will just Zerg Rush an enemy position, ur-viles attack in disciplined formations with loremasters at the head to wield the combined magical power of all ur-viles present, making them ultimately far more formidable.
Evil Sorcerer: Ur-vile Loremasters are some of the most dangerous magic-users in the Land.
Eyeless Face: Ur-viles have no eyes; just massive, extremely sensitive nostrils that dominate their faces.
Heel–Face Turn: Started in the Second Chronicles, fully in the Last.
Magic Knight: The loremasters.

The Haruchai

A stoic race of martial-arts masters from the western mountains, the Haruchai once attempted to conquer the Land, but were convinced by High Lord Kevin to make peace instead. In response to his nobility, they formed the Bloodguard from five hundred of their most elite warriors and dedicated it utterly to the service of the Land. The Haruchai are known for their tremendous level of martial discipline and their impossibly high moral standards.

Ambiguously Human: Unlike the Stonedowners, Woodhelvenin, and Ramen (who are clearly human) or the Giants (who clearly aren't), it's never really made explicit what the Haruchai are.
Honor Before Reason: To a mind-numbing degree.
Planet of Hats: The Haruchai are easily the hattiest race in the Land, with all of them seeming to be relatively minor variations on the same personality. Justified because the only Haruchai to show up in the Land in the first place are elite warriors who are products of the same intense training regime; the Haruchai homeland (and by extension, the bulk of their population) is never seen.
Proud Warrior Race: Their racial Hat is a blend of martial arts and Honor Before Reason, landing them squarely in this trope.
Psychic Powers: Haruchai can communicate mind-to-mind with each other, and with certain other magical beings like Nom the sandgorgon.
The Stoic: Because of their intense discipline (and probably partially due to their natural form of expression being telepathy most non-Haruchai can't hear) they tend to come off as largely devoid of emotions, at least to people who don't know how to read them.

The Giants

A race of proud seafarers and explorers, the Giants are descendants of an expedition that lost its way home and found itself in the Land. Making alliance with the Lords, the Giants leant the services of their stonemasons towards the building of Revelstone, and were the "Rockbrothers" to the people of the Land ever since. They were destroyed by the Raver turiya, who had possessed a Giant body he re-named Kinslaughterer. In the later series, Giants from the Giant homeland appear.

Boisterous Bruiser: The Swordmains among them are usually this trope.
The Exile: The entire Giant race in the Land, not because they're not allowed to go home but because they lack navigational directions.
Expy: Of Ents. While they're definitely humanoid and their element is stone not wood, they hate hastiness and their true names are too long to say.
Made of Iron: Fire doesn't harm 'em, cold doesn't harm 'em, acid does but not as much as humans. However, they are as hurt by fire as anyone else, so they sometimes undergo a camora, a literal burning that metaphorically burns their sins away.
Our Giants Are Bigger: A larger-than-life people in every way, the Giants are strong, boisterous, and friendly, always eager to meet new people or hear new stories.
The Storyteller: They love telling and hearing stories. When Covenant tells them the story of their missing people, they nearly swear fealty to him on the spot.
Unpronounceable Alias: Their real names take a year to say.

The Ramen

A race of humans who dwell on the Plains of Ra in the southeast of the Land, their culture revolves around the magical horses known as Ranyhyn.

Insistent Terminology: They don't tend the Ranyhyn, they serve them.
Planet of Hats: They love horses. A lot.
Proud Warrior Race: Not to the same extent as the Haruchai, but definitely there (the two peoples' don't usually get along, by the way). They're probably more like a proud hunter race.

Ranyhyn

Powerfully magical horses, the Ranyhyn are revered across the Land as Earthpower incarnate, and are often seen to bear Lords and Bloodguard into battle.

Bond Creatures: The twist is the Ranyhyn choose the rider, not the reverse. The only one they don't choose is Covenant — they all offer themselves to him, and they hate him.
Cool Horse: Their whole deal is being the most awesome horses in the world.
Sapient Steed: Exactly how intelligent they are isn't explicitly stated, but they are implied to be at least as smart as people and have an intuitive sense of the world around them. They also seem to be psychic, knowing when they need to be summoned well in advance of the summons.
Sworn in by Oath: Covenant knows that all of the Ranyhyn hate him, and clearly don't want him to pick any of them. Covenant frees them of that burden, just making them promise they'll come if he needs them. They rear en masse in agreement. The Ramen become completely in awe of Covenant after that: "They reared to him!"

High Lord Kevin

Great-grandson of Berek Halfhand and last of the Old Lords. Kevin was a mighty ruler and loremaster, but was tricked into accepting Lord Foul (in the guise of A'Jeroth) into his Council, setting in motion a series of events that would lead to the near-destruction of the Land at Kevin's own hand.

Came Back Wrong: Sort of. The fact that he came back at all was the problem, since it badly damaged reality; the actual specter seems to have been more-or-less the same person living Kevin was, at least until Elena sent him to fight Foul and he was put under the thrall of the Illearth Stone.
Despair Event Horizon: Oh God.
Fallen Hero: He never lost his love for the Land, but despair and Lord Foul led him to do some truly terrible things.
Names to Run Away from Really Fast: After the Desecration, he gains the name "Landwaster".
Posthumous Character: Though Kevin died a thousand years before the First Chronicles, he's one of the most pivotal figures in the Land's backstory.
Senseless Sacrifice: Kevin destroyed the Land to try to save it from Foul. He realized after finishing the Ritual he was tricked by Foul into doing exactly what he wanted.
Tragic Hero: He was considered by many the greatest of the Old Lords, but he was tragically flawed and Foul used him to nearly destroy everything he'd ever loved.
Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: He was this.

The Lurker of the Sarangrave

A mysterious and hostile creature that inhabits and, to a certain extent controls the Sarangrave Flats and the swamp Lifeswallower. it doesn't directly serve Foul but is just as evil.—-

Bad Is Good and Good Is Bad: It thrives on the pollution fed into the Sarangrave from Mount Thunder by the Defiles Course, and pure water and air is poisonous to it.
Eldritch Abomination: It's basically a mass of tentacles which has inhabited the Sarangrave marshes since time immemorial although it din't become really active until it was roused by the Illearth Stone.
Hazy-Feel Turn: In The Final Dark it allies with Covenant and Linden after turiya Raver tries to take it over and Covenant saves it, and also to protect itself from the Worm. Although it never really becomes good, it's basically acting out of its own interests. But it does keep the bargain it makes faithfully.
Magic Eater: It is attracted to and feeds off creatures and artifacts of Earthpower.

Introduced in the Second Chronicles

Linden Avery

A physician from the "real" world, Linden is a driven and dedicated healer but is haunted by the ghosts of her past, particularly witnessing her father's suicide at age 8 and pulling her dying mother off life support in her teens. After moving to Covenant's home-town, Linden has a run-in with the mysterious old beggar who may or may not be the Creator, and subsequently joins Covenant in being transported to the Land. Like Covenant, Linden is forced to wrestle with outward manifestations of her own demons, but eventually manages to find her own strength and becomes a hero of the Land in her own right.

Agent Scully: Unlike Covenant, Linden comes to terms with the fact that she's in an alternate reality fairly quickly. Some of the specific things she encounters there, though, she refuses to take a face value, mostly because she doesn't believe in absolute evil. Samadhi Raver gives her a taste that forcibly changes her mind.
Action Mom: Upgrades to this in the Third Chronicles.
Action Survivor: In the Second Chronicles.
Allergic to Evil: Has the ability to sense health or disease in living things. She then finds herself in a world ravaged by a supernatural curse, in which every living thing is diseased.
Blessed with Suck: Linden's health-sense means that she's in pain whenever her surroundings are warped by evil magic, which is the case constantly for long periods of time.
Broken Bird: She's got some pretty powerful scars in her psyche, and spends most of the Second Chronicles learning to put herself back together again.
The Chosen One: In the Land, she's known as "Linden Avery the Chosen", and both the Creator and Foul claim to have been the one who chose her.
Classical Anti-Hero: Though never as unpleasant as Covenant at his worst, Linden — a young, largely untested medical doctor who wrestles with trust issues and depression — isn't exactly the stuff epic heroes are made of (at least, she certainly believes it about herself). In the Last Chronicles, she's much more proactive, but also more ruthless, making her more of a Pragmatic Hero.
Dark and Troubled Past: Her father locks her in the attic with him and slits his wrists. Leaving her alone with him until he dies.A few years later she suffocates her dying mother by stuffing tissues down her throat. It's safe to say, she hasn't had the best life.
Dark Magical Girl: Rather like Elena, she's not evil, but has issues. In Linden's case, those would be depression, mistrust, and a degree of power-hunger she mostly keeps hidden even from herself.
Demonic Possession: Partway through the Second Chronicles, Linden learns to do this. She spends much of her time wrestling with the moral implications of using this ability.
Despair Event Horizon: Particularly in the Second Chronicles she wrestles with depression and nearly crosses this several times. She Who Must Not Be Named also tries to force her over it in the Third Chronicles.
The Empath: Even by the Land's standards, her health sense is strong.
Magnetic Hero: Linden inspires loyalty and admiration from other people.

"Lady, I have observed that your true strength lies in neither the Staff of Law nor in white gold. Rather it lies in the force of self which attracts aid and allies wherever you are, even from among a-Jeroth’s former servants. You inspired the Mahdoubt’s devoir as you did mine, and that of the Demondim-spawn as well. You do not have such friends because you wield magicks, but rather because you are Linden Avery the Chosen."

Mama Bear: In the Last Chronicles.
The Medic: Well, she is a doctor. Half of Against All Things Ending is her healing everyone.
Mind Rape: A victim of one, courtesy of Gibbon/Samadhi.
Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Resurrecting Covenant in Fatal Revenant, which seemed like a good idea at the time but also woke up the Worm of World's end. Oops.
Sugar-and-Ice Personality: Linden is usually cool, professional, and somewhat brisk, having buried her sentimental side a long time ago. Only Covenant and Jeremiah can consistently bring it out in her.

The First of the Search

A Giant warrior and the leader of the Giant expedition known as the Search. The First meets Covenant and Linden when they help rescue each other from the Lurker of the Sarangrave and its minions, and she becomes their companion for the rest of the Second Chronicles.

Action Girl: Not unusual for Giants; most Swordmainnir (professional Giant warriors) are women, though the First is the only Swordmain in the Search.
Everyone Calls Her "Barkeep": Everyone (including the narration) just calls her "the First" except for her husband Pitchwife, who when he wants to be affectionate uses her actual name, Gossamer Glowlimm.
Lady of War: She's an imposing, commanding presence and about as elegant as Giants get.
Our Giants Are Bigger: She's actually from the Giant homeland, unlike Foamfollower.
Ugly Guy, Hot Wife: With Pitchwife

Pitchwife

A deformed but good-humored Giant, Pitchwife is the First's husband and is in charge of maintaining the Giantship Starfare's Gem. Like his wife, he accompanies Covenant and Linden across most of the Second Chronicles.

Alchemy Is Magic: How he fixes the ship; since Giantships are made of stone, he needs to prepare a special mixture capable of sealing stone in order to repair most damage. The material is called "pitch" and the act of applying it is "wiving", hence "Pitchwife".
The Grotesque: Though he keeps good humor about it, and the other Giants know his worth full well.
The Heart: Whether for his consistent good humor or good heart, Pitchwife is consistently the moral center of the Search.
Our Giants Are Bigger: Pitchwife is actually a dwarf, hunchbacked giant, so he's not as big as most, but still larger than a human (he's not actually that much taller than Covenant or Linden, thanks to his hunch, but is much bulkier).
Ugly Guy, Hot Wife: With the First.

Sunder and Hollian

Two Stonedownors born and raised under the effects of the Sunbane; Sunder is a Graveler (who can manipulate the energies of the Sunbane) and Hollian is an eh-Brand (who can predict its phases in advance). Though both are initially suspicious of Covenant and Linden, they're eventually persuaded that something is terribly wrong with the Land and form a resistance against the Clave. Oh, and they fall in love with each other, too.

Back from the Dead: Hollian
Battle Couple: Eventually
Blood Magic: Like everyone who uses the Sunbane, they need to shed blood (their own or other peoples') to make their powers work. At the end of The Wounded Land, Covenant gives them the krill, enabling them to use it to fuel their magic instead.
Defector from Decadence: Both of them
La Résistance: Against the Clave

The Clave

The corrupted descendants of the New Lords, the Clave is a mysterious cult which rules the Land during the era of the Sunbane, and though they are much revered, they are also feared because of their tendency to abduct random people to take back to Revelstone to sacrifice. The Clave claim (and many of their members believe) that this helps moderate the effects of the Sunbane. The truth is, the Clave's leader Gibbon na-Mhoram is actually a vessel of Samadhi Raver, and the Clave as a whole are merely Lord Foul's proxies for terrorizing the Land and increasing the Sunbane's power.

Black Magic: Their use of the Sunbane's powers definitely qualifies.
Blood Magic: And they're not picky about who's blood they use.
Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Oh, the guys who wear black and red and use Blood Magic can't possibly be the bad guys...
Fantastic Nuke: The grim, an incredibly destructive magical attack used to utterly obliterate anyone who stands up to the Clave too much or too successfully.
Fantastic Rank System: The na-Mhoram is the overall head of the Clave. His closest followers and most elite agents are the na-Mhoram-in. The bulk of the Clave's operatives are called na-Mhoram-wist. The Clave's initiates are the na-Mhoram-cro.
Path of Inspiration: They preach a false religion that the Sunbane is punishment on the people of the Land for failing to defeat Lord Foul, and claim that they alone can protect the people from the Sunbane. They're actually Lord Foul's pawns.
Powered by a Forsaken Child: The Banefire, which both feeds the Sunbane and allows them to directly access its powers, is powered by human sacrifice on an industrial scale.
Red and Black and Evil All Over: Red cloaks over black robes are their standard uniforms.
Red Eyes, Take Warning: Gibbon has red eyes. Whether this is his natural eye color, a side-effect of his constant use of the Banefire's power, a result of his having been possessed by Samadhi for so long, or some combination of the above is unclear.
Unwitting Pawn: Most of them, to Lord Foul (except for Gibbon, who being a Raver is in on the con, and possibly a handful of his closest lieutenants, depending on how much he actually tells them).
Villain with Good Publicity: Well, not good exactly, but while the people hate them, they do trust them to keep them safe from the Sunbane. That's not quite how it works...
Well-Intentioned Extremist: The organization as a whole claims (falsely) to be this. Certain individual members are, though.

Kasreyn of the Gyre

A manipulative thaumaturge who imprisoned the monstrous Sandgorgons in a magical whirlwind and thereby gained a place at the court of Bhraithairealm. For several generations, Kasreyn has been the true power behind the Bhrathair throne, and when the Search arrives he determines to steal Covenant's white gold ring, coveting such a potent magical object.

Achilles' Heel: As a result of their bargain, killing the croyel also kills Kasreyn.
Agony Beam: One of the spells he uses to torture Covenant with is like this.
Arc Villain: He's the main villain of the Brathair sequence in The One Tree. He also holds the distinction of being the only major villain in the series to be completely independent of Lord Foul.
Charm Person: Can do this to anyone he looks at through his eyepiece (except for the Haruchai, whose mental fortitude is sufficient to No-Sell it).
Curse Escape Clause: He's forced to include these in his spells, since he's skilled enough to create perfect magic, but perfection can't exist in an imperfect world. Therefore, Kasreyn has to deliberately insert a flaw of his own choosing into each spell in order to allow it to function.
Deal with the Devil: He bargained with a croyel at some point in the past; the exact terms are unknown, but he does have to carry the croyel around with him and let it feed off him and killing it kills him too.
Evil Chancellor: He's "Kemper" (chief advisor) to the gaddhi of the Bhrathair, and uses the position to covertly rule the entire kingdom.
Evil Old Folks: He looks to be in his mid-seventies. He's actually several centuries old at least.
Evil Sorcerer: An exceptionally skillful thaumaturge and completely without conscience when it comes to acquiring more power.
Immortality Immorality: Bargained for power and longevity with a croyel, which according to Finail is enough for damn him beyond redemption.
Immortality Seeker: But he seeks true immortality using Covenant's ring as his instrument.
Karmic Death: He bargained for power with a demonic creature called a croyel. And when the croyel bites it, so does Kasreyn.
Manipulative Bastard: Especially in his playing of the gaddhi.
Resurrective Immortality: Since something (his own magic, the croyel, or a combination thereof) can bring him back from the dead almost instantly if he's killed, he doesn't need to be able to fight.
Smug Snake: Kasreyn is extremely clever, but he's also supremely confident of his own invincibility and didn't expect that the combination of Linden, Covenant, and Findail would be able to undo him.
Squishy Wizard: Kasreyn doesn't appear to have any particular ability in hand-to-hand combat.
Take a Third Option: Why he wants white gold; since wild magic itself represents a flaw in reality, he would be able to use Covenant's ring as a focus to create perfect spells without needing to insert an escape clause.
Wizards Live Longer: Kasreyn is old, and it's not clear just how old. However, he admits that he's not truly immortal, but thinks he can change that if he has Covenant's ring.

Vain

Heroic Sacrifice: Didn't see that one coming, did you?
Implacable Man
The Load: On account of following the heroes around while being nearly impossible to make do anything.
The Voiceless: Until he's Suddenly Voiced, speaking to impart information once and never speaks again.
Wild Card: Sort of. Vain doesn't do much, but he does have an ultimate purpose, and nobody knows what that is (except for Findail, who's not telling). It turns out he's half of what's needed to recreate the Staff of Law.

The Elohim

The Fair Folk: Godlike spirits of fairy-like demeanor.

Introduced in the Last Chronicles

Kastenessen

Ax-Crazy: He has been driven murderously mad.
Big Bad Duumvirate: Arguably with Foul, since unlike most of the Despiser's dupes, Kastenessen's an Elohim and is too powerful to be treated as a minion — and his goal of destroying everything dovetails nicely with Foul's goal of breaking the Arch of Time.
Omnicidal Maniac: His goal is to burn everything.
Physical God: Has divine levels of power.
Playing with Fire: The result of merging with skurj essence.
Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: Yeah, he wants to destroy the Elohim (and everything else) but given what he's been through (losing his lover, being forced to keep skurjs imprisoned for all eternity) it's kind of hard to blame him.

Roger Covenant

Ascended Extra: He's only an infant in Lord Foul's Bane; when he makes an appearance again he's a grown man.
Ax-Crazy: He goes on a murder spree killing several people in the real world in an attempt to gain possesion of his father's ring.
Big Bad Wannabe: Try as he might, he is not quite Big Bad material.
The Charmer: He is able to use his charm to get his way (with Lynton and Roman).
Evil Gloating: Does this to Linden under Melenkurion Skyweir.
Evil Plan: Wants to use Jeremiah's powers to escape the Worm and become a god.
Faux Affably Evil: When he first appears he seems polite enough, the sheriff calling him a 'pleasant guy'. He quickly drops this act when he goes to abduct his mother.
Red Right Hand: Courtesy of Kastenessen, one of his hands is made of lava.
Raisedby Grandparents: Due to his mother's increasingly fragile mental state.

Joan Covenant

Jeremiah Avery

Liand

Last of His Kind: The only living Stonedowner.

Esmer

Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: He doesn't even want to, it's literally woven into his nature.

Anele

Chekhov's Gunman

Stave

My Species Doth Protest Too Much
Proud Warrior Race Guy
Not So Stoic: After his son Galt's death.
The Stoic: As a Haruchai this is pretty much a given.

The Masters

Lawful Stupid: Desecration was accomplished by abuse of Earthpower. Therefore, if the inhabitants of the Land can be kept ignorant of Earthpower, there will be no further Desecration. "Yes, but..." — the Masters aren't interested in any "yes, but"s.
Knight Templar
Proud Warrior Race Guy: It is unclear whether there are any Haruchai in their own country who aren't fierce, highly trained hand-to-hand combatants who spurn even the most mundane of weapons except in the last extremity, but we don't meet any in The Land.

The Humbled

Proud Warrior Race Guy

The Insequent

Almighty Janitor: The Mahdoubt works as a servant in Revelstone while secretly being a powerful magic-user.
Ambiguously Human: Are they innately magical beings, or just humans who have developed unique forms of magic?
Ancient Keeper
Ape Shall Never Kill Ape: No Insequent can oppose the plans of any other Insequent, on pain of death and madness.
Big Bad Wannabe: The Harrow.
Big Fun: The Ardent is plus-sized and the most cheerful of the Insequent.
Crippling Overspecialization: This can happen to them, as the Harrow found out. Seems that being the world's expert on using and fighting Demondim magic doesn't do much to protect you from a Kastenessen-powered Roger Covenant.
Evil Sorcerer: The Harrow. The Vizard wasn't very nice either.
The Hedonist: All Insequent are greedy for something. In the Ardent's case, that something is physical experience, particularly food.
I Know Your True Name: An Insequent's true name gives its speaker power over them, which is why they usually go by titles.
Kung-Fu Wizard: The Theomach, who in his first appearance fought a martial arts duel against Brinn and was barely defeated. Also the Vizard, who was so good at being this that thousands of years after the hauruchai encountered him, they're still feeling inadequate in comparison.
Proud Scholar Race: Of the Mystic variety.
The Unfettered: To varying degrees.
Wizards Live Longer: Exactly how long-lived they are isn't stated, but if the Theomach is any indication, they last for several milennia at least, although it is possible that he got to live much longer after usurping the Elohim that guarded the One Tree and becoming ak-Haru. That said, the Harrow also makes reference to being centuries old, and at some point in the past quarreled with the Vizard, who was already a powerful Insequent before the arrival of the Haruchai to the Land and is implied to have been a contemporary of the Theomach.

Characters / The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant

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