Findail on the deck of Starfare's Gem, pensive at his oncoming fate.
Findail is another member of that strange and fey race, the Elohim. He first appears on stage in The One Tree, the second book of The Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, where he is encountered by the company at Elemesnedene on the eldritch isle of the faery folk.
Appearance and Personality[]
Uniqquely amongst the Elohim, who all have both the innate ability to shapeshift into whatever form pleases them and (usually) the burning idée fixe to look as suavely chic and as effortlessly elegant as possible, Findail does not choose to manifest himself in the personal of an über-glamorous matinee idol. Instead - for reasons that may shortly become apparent - Findail invariably adopts the form of an elderly man with long white hair and beard, wearing a deeply pensive and oft times pained expression.
Again for reasons that will soon be revealed, Findail is not in the least known for his cheerfulness. Instead, he swings from morose grumpiness to a resigned acceptance of whatever it is that he presciently knows his eventual fate will be.
Findail throughout displays a dismayed horror at every glimpse of Vain - it's as if the latter's very existence is pure anathema to the Elohim.
Role in the Story and Eventual Fate[]
Findail futilely resisting an instant before being drawn into the new Staff of Law.
Findail leaves Elemesnedene with Covenant, Linden and the assembled company of Giants and Haruchai. He achieves this by sneakily transmogrifying himself invisibly into the figurehead of the Giantish vessel, Starfare's Gem, where he is only discovered once the ship is far out to sea. Findail spends much of his time attempting to dissuade the party from their chosen course of action, promising that they will only serve to destroy the earth - in his incessant recommending of inaction, one suspects that Linden must harbor a secret crush on him, since she's so annoyingly prone to the same tendencies of doing absolutely nothing.
It transpires that Findail has been given the title of Appointed by the rest of the Elohim. As far as he is concerned, this is A Bad Thing™ - and he's right. Whereas normally, any Elohim would sell his or her own grandmother to collect any title, no matter how trivial, that might in any way enhance their status, when it comes to becoming one of the Appointed, they'd rather chew off their own feet than receive this dubious "honour". Being designated as an Appointed is quite literally the most horrific punishment that can be meted out to any Elohim by their fellows. Far FAR worse than death - in fact to the Elohim way of thinking, even worse than having to wear clothes sourced from K-Mart for all eternity.
The sentence of Appointment is usually reserved for Elohim that have in some way done acted less than cool. For this unspeakable aberration, certain Elohim are condemned to forever more serve in some fashion as protection against evils or banes that might disturb the suave elegance of the faery folk's eternal cocktail party. Others who are known to have been Appointed include Kastenessen and the two Elohim who became the Colossus of the Fall and the original Guardian of The One Tree respectively. No wonder Findail looks permanently pained, then.
At the end of White Gold Wielder, we finally learn that Findail's fate is to become mystically merged with Vain to create a new Staff of Law, combining the mesmeric fluidity of the Elohim with the perfect structure of the ur-viles' culminatory creation. So, the poor Elohim gets to spend all eternity as a stick then, being clutched by the damp hands of Linden and wielded (rarely, since she's such a wuss). Ewww.