402 replies to this topic

[Triskele]

OK, here's a crackpot theory:

I know that the idea that Nau-Cayuti is the No-God has been brought up before. I don't know if this has been brought up, but if this were so couldn't he fulfill the "An Anasurimbor will return at the end of the world" prophecy? And couldn't this make Mimara or Kellhus a false prophecy? Aurang suggests that there are false prophecies, so maybe they think their No-God is the Anasurimbor but they want to investigate Mimara just the same.

[Horiötha]

Bakker has posted his fan-fic submission page:
http://rsbakker.word...tories/fan-fic/

What's a good fan-fic topic to write?

Aurang/Conphas slash-fiction?

A Thousand and One Momemn Nights? That'd be a good one, I think, with Kellhus playing Harun Al-Rashid...maybe but who would play Jaffar Barmaki?

Edited by Jurble the Ebonhearted, 09 December 2011 - 01:04 AM.

[Callan S.]

I'm thinking of something along the lines of courting martial agency - that a character only has agency or strength if they can basically remove someone elses strength by kicking their ass/killing them. I'm thinking of having a female character kicking ass, precisely because we all want that, that sense of validation through physical power over others. Then I'm not sure - I'm thinking of having some character, a male one, go through precisely the same sequence of validation to beat the female character and she tumbles into the background, with the male seemingly 'the one' because of...martial agency. However, she keeps showing up in the background. The idea being the story seems to revolve around the strongest person, and so when he is undone by someone...working up the many grevances of the poor in the background (I wonder who?), even the tone of writing will pitch it as the strong one who we know to be in the right position because of his strength, brought down by fickle and insidious trechery. A tragic tale! Or you can take it that martial power is not the only means of agency or strength.

Sorry use the thread as a bit of a workshop. I think the hurdle in this is that I actually need to court my own sense of martial empowerment and write as if the guy suddenly becomes the protagonist of the story. But being in on the joke, so to speak, I'm not buying into his protagonism and wondering if I can really bring this.

[WrathOfSQL]

I bet if we got our heads together we could write some damn good stuff.

How's this for a topic: Inchoroi crash-land on earth, start an S&M club

(null)

[Triskele]

Yeah - This could be great. I definitely want to do something of the parody nature, but it might be kind of cool if someone attempted to write some serious ones as well as speculation or something.

[Lady Nerevar]

WrathOfCyvasse, on 09 December 2011 - 10:40 AM, said:

How's this for a topic: Inchoroi crash-land on earth, start an S&M club Japan.

[Madness]

Triskele, it seems to me that Aurang explicitly suggested in WLW that Mimara is a false prophecy and cites this as the reason that no harm should come to her.

Edited by Madness, 09 December 2011 - 02:45 PM.

[Callan S.]

I think I remember that too. Can kindles and such like record notes at specific points of a text? That's what would be good about a PDF of the books, because you could start to pin down all these elements.

[Triskele]

Madness, on 09 December 2011 - 02:45 PM, said:

Triskele, it seems to me that Aurang explicitly suggested in WLW that Mimara is a false prophecy and cites this as the reason that no harm should come to her.

Is it possible to explicitly suggest something? Wouldn't you have to explicitly state it or implicitly suggest it?

Either way, I think that's what was suggested. Something like "We have to be concerned with all prophecies; the false as much as the true."

[Kalbear]

Quote

Triskele, it seems to me that Aurang explicitly suggested in WLW that Mimara

Trisk is right. There is definite ambiguity on whether Mimara is the false or the correct prophet.

Now, here's some fuel for the fire. We know now that the Consult have altered the Tusk to wage war on the nonmen. They appear to be able to take fairly long views of things, the 'no-god sitting in a cave letting humanity die' argument notwithstanding.

We've not heard anything about the prophecy about Mimara. Or at least it doesn't seem like we have. No one's hinted that she is part of any prophecy other than the Consult so far. However, we have heard of a ridiculous amount of prophecy surrounding the Dunyain, the Celmomas prophecy, etc.

Given one prophecy is overt, one is apparently quite silent, which of the two makes sense to be the false one spread by the Consult? Which would make sense to be the 'true' prophecy? To me, the answer's pretty plain - the Celmomian prophecy is clearly false. Why would the Consult do this? Because it fucks around on the Mandate. Think about this; the two biggest enemies that the Consult has ever had are the nonmen and Seswatha. The Consult fucks over the nonmen by essentially rewriting a religion to cause people to fight a holy war against the nonmen. But they just bided their time against the Mandate for thousands of years? No. While I mock the Consult for being stupid often, they are at least vindictive and often subtle in their schemes. What better way to fuck with your old foe than to give them a prophecy that signifies the end times when nothing further is from the truth?

What if the Consult's goal is to make the world think that they're on the verge of awakening the No-God? What if the action that the three seas is taking - sending the biggest armed force that the world has ever seen - is precisely something that the Consult needs, especially with all the Mandate looking there? We've talked about that too - that the Consult (and potentially Kellhus) is using the Great Ordeal as a mobile sacrifice to actually resurrect the No-God. I don't claim that that's right, but I do think that the Consult wanting the Mandate to think that all is coming to an end, potentially even convincing them that they had 'won'...all of that works in their favor.

Now, there's one small rub here; it implies that they released Kellhus or knew about the Dunyain, but the text very solidly states otherwise. That's the somewhat confusing part for me; it fits very well if you think that the Consult knew all along about this group of people holding the Anasurimbor heirs in their bloodline for 2000 years and knew how they could provoke them into sending a person out into the world. That they were the ones that sent the sranc to harass Ishual, forcing Moe (and later Kell) to leave. But the text in the first series doesn't work there. So I don't know.

In any case, I think Mimara with her judging eye and her clear, objective, true connection with God is the true prophecy. I think Kellhus is the false one.

[Horiötha]

Well Aurang says that all prophecies must come to pass, the true as much as the false - the Consult hadn't anticipated an Anasurimbor to return. If what you say is true then through whatever method, they had Celmomas speak his prophecy, and therefore they hoped the Mandate would await the Anasurimbor while all the time the Second Apocalypse was building. It would spring upon the Mandate unawares while they were still sitting on their hands awaiting the Harbinger. That the Celmomian Prophecy actually came to pass was something they had not anticipated.

[Kalbear]

Maybe. I just don't think that they'd think the best way for the Mandate to be neutralized would be to make them think that the prophecy was needed before the end of the world came. That's not what they did with the nonmen, even after the nonmen weren't the biggest threat to them; their plan was more active and far more vindictive.

And it didn't really work, either; the Mandate was still exploring, still looking. And still the most powerful school.

[Lane Pryce]

I'm skeptical, Kal. The text in the first trilogy seems to clearly imply that the Consult was blind-sided by the appearance of the Dunyain (as you said). I suppose they could have picked up that a member of the Anasurimbor family made it to the secret hideaway, but it's a stretch to think that they could realistically track the survival of that line without knowing what the Dunyain were. Plus, the North is over-run with Sranc, so it would be more shocking if some of them didn't stumble upon the exterior of the Dunyain's hiding place from time to time.

Edited by The Wisest Bass, 09 December 2011 - 08:18 PM.

[Kalbear]

agreed. That part throws the theory out. But the Consult having Mimara as a 'false prophet' when they didn't even know where she was and was surprised to find her with Cleric (who was who they were actually following) makes me think that she's not part of any actual falsehood; they'd want to be a lot more aware of where she was and take care of her more actively if she was.

So there's got to be some solution in my mind that ties the notion of the Consult creating a prophecy together with what we know, that does not explicitly involve the Dunyain or a real anasurimbor. Hmm.

What if Seswatha's heart is a fraud? We've talked before about Seswatha being a potential Consult agent - how he somehow managed to survive the Ark, get the Heron spear. And it's a bit odd that the Mandate are the ones against the Consult given that they're the only other school that understands the Gnosis. Perhaps that's the false prophecy - the notion that an anasurimbor returning is just one more piece of the greater falsehood that is the history of Seswatha and his fight against the Consult. Hmm. That might work.

To what end, though? What does making every Mandati imprinted on Seswatha do for the Consult? Especially since they seem to hate Seswatha so much? You could go with the manchurian candidate vibe and it being a failsafe against their going against the Consult, but that's a fairly stupid idea; Seswatha's heart is essentially what has compelled them to fight the Consult for 2000 years. It'd be better to just destroy it and thus destroy the Mandate completely. No, it shouldn't be something like that, or if it is there's a deeper meaning. Like they'd need Mandate sorcerers for something, not just dead but bound to them for a use. Hmm.

In that case, the Great Ordeal's secret goal wouldn't be to bring all the people there; it'd be to bring the Mandate there. That's an interesting notion.

[Callan S.]

As I've said before, I think that the no god will rise and this will reverse that (unless Akka was just saying this as a comforting lie) those with the judging eye give birth to dead children. The no god will rise and while all other wombs birth corpses, Mimara will birth something living. But perhaps something...I suspect something different in terms of soul.

[unJon]

Oh, yeah, there's some foreshadowing I can see with that Callan. Kel impregnates Mim, who is the only child born alive post-No God, and is a focus of the third trilogy. And maybe on the other side, Serwe pops out a little half-non man baby. Not sure how I feel about it, but I can see some symmetry to the ideas.

[unJon]

(Sorry for double post-on bberry so can't edit.)

Crackpot time: what if the Dunyain breeding program isn't primarily to create a self-moving soul, but to create a human female that can mate with a Non-Man? It's the hidden motive that only the inner pragma circle knew. Ishual does seem to be a Mansion. And the crazy-deformed stillborn babies between Kel and Esmi would be one of the clues about the genitic drift caused by the breeding program.

[Lane Pryce]

There's definitely something strange about Seswatha's memories, and why they're shifting in Akka's mind to the point of drastic change. I think it's likely tied to the Divine/God acting through Mimara (the Dreams started to diverge after she showed up), although it could also be coming from the approaching Apocalypse.

Crackpot Theory: Souls in the Bakkerverse are all linked, "Thousandfold Thought" and that. What's happening to Akka as the memories change is that the boundaries between his soul and Seswatha's are disappearing, if they were ever truly separate in the first place. Maybe Akka is Seswatha reincarnated, and the false boundaries separating his life memories and consciousness from Seswatha's are disappearing as well. Or perhaps his consciousness is merging with that coming from Seswatha's heart.

After all, there was that incident in WP where Seswatha completely took over Akka's body.

You know, it would be interesting to know what Kellhus told Seswatha's consciousness in order to get him to allow Akka to teach the Gnosis.

Edited by The Wisest Bass, 10 December 2011 - 02:51 AM.

[lockesnow]

unJon, on 09 December 2011 - 10:21 PM, said:

(Sorry for double post-on bberry so can't edit.)

Crackpot time: what if the Dunyain breeding program isn't primarily to create a self-moving soul, but to create a human female that can mate with a Non-Man? It's the hidden motive that only the inner pragma circle knew. Ishual does seem to be a Mansion. And the crazy-deformed stillborn babies between Kel and Esmi would be one of the clues about the genitic drift caused by the breeding program.

I've floated this before but it was pretty heartily shot down, Non men wouldn't debase themselves to mate with humans was the general belief. And hell, you can square that with the short story on his website that his daughter wasn't dying of the womb plague but that she was 'contaminated' with a hybrid fetus and thus begged for death.

[lockesnow]

btw, I would like Happy Ent to write a fan fic where Birnam wood comes to Dunsinane, it would be a doubly literary parody (ref shakespeare and ref Tolkien's pet peeve with Shakespeare's 'trick') and pulpy (hehe) by firmly planting some ent-like creatures in Bakkerverse.

Also, I think I will write a fan fic, 'where do whores go?' give me a week or so, the first line will begin 'Ever are men'

I think every one of the fan fics should begin with an ever are men line and end with a death came swirling down.