416 replies to this topic

[Maithanet]

Rhom, on 18 October 2012 - 02:54 PM, said:

Question that was probably answered in one of the 9 threads that came before I finished WLW.

Akka tells Mimara that TJE is the eye of the unborn; and Mim is certainly pregnant after their bizarre, quasi-incestuous liason early in the AE story-arch.  But Mim tells Akka about TJE and (I think) even has a vision of his damnation even before they bump uglies.

How?

Uh?  What?  I'm fairly sure Mimara had the Judging Eye her whole life.  When she first talks about it, you certainly get the impression she's had it a while, not just since she got preggo.

And didn't Mimara say that the timeline didn't work for Achamian to be the father, that it was instead one of the guardsman from the Andiamine Heights that helped her escape?  She may have been lying or just not have known, as it seems like that timeline wouldn't work well for her to still be pregnant, but I'm not really sure.

[Sci-2]

IIRC it's the Eye of the Unborn, but presumably it touched Mim because she will get pregnant at some point.

[Madness]

"The Judging Eye . . . You will be furious when you realize how little I know . . . I tell you this because I truly know very little. The Judging Eye is a folk legend, like the Kahiht or the White-Luck Warrior, notions that have been traded across too many generations to possess any clear meaning . . . But I do know . . . that the Judging Eye involves pregnant women . . . Perhaps because of the profundity of childbirth. The Outside inhabits us in many ways, none so onerous as when a women brings a new soul into the world . . . those with the Judging Eye give birth to dead children . . . The Judging Eye is the eye of the Unborn... The eye that watches from the God's own vantage . . .

'But I've had... had this... for as long as I can remember' . . .

But things are tricky where the Outside is concerned. Things do not... happen... as they happen here... I'm just saying that in a sense your life has already been lived - for the God or the Gods, that is..."

- WLW, p. 89-91

Most of those are . . . segways (what is that punctuation actually called?) past description or Mimara's angsty responses. Mimara's one neccessary contribution to our understand is in the apostrophe's. Otherwise the ... are just Mimara and Achamian doing their best Shatner impressions.

Also, this is from Mimara's perspective, though everything quoted is Achamian's dialogue.

Edit: And I believe that's the only clarity we get on the subject because of Bakker's skillfully played addiction narrative - he basically has an ironclad excuse, in my opinion, for Achamian to keep acting out of character from the first four books, making it so that Achamian's perspective isn't clear enough to gives us the Authorial thoughts we're used to from his character.

Edited by Madness, 18 October 2012 - 03:18 PM.

[Rhom]

Maithanet, on 18 October 2012 - 03:08 PM, said:

Uh?  What?  I'm fairly sure Mimara had the Judging Eye her whole life.  When she first talks about it, you certainly get the impression she's had it a while, not just since she got preggo.

And didn't Mimara say that the timeline didn't work for Achamian to be the father, that it was instead one of the guardsman from the Andiamine Heights that helped her escape?  She may have been lying or just not have known, as it seems like that timeline wouldn't work well for her to still be pregnant, but I'm not really sure.

I don't have the quotes handy, but I distinctly remember her saying that the timing could not have been anyone else.

Madness, on 18 October 2012 - 03:16 PM, said:

"The Judging Eye . . . You will be furious when you realize how little I know . . . I tell you this because I truly know very little. The Judging Eye is a folk legend, like the Kahiht or the White-Luck Warrior, notions that have been traded across too many generations to possess any clear meaning . . . But I do know . . . that the Judging Eye involves pregnant women . . . Perhaps because of the profundity of childbirth. The Outside inhabits us in many ways, none so onerous as when a women brings a new soul into the world . . . those with the Judging Eye give birth to dead children . . . The Judging Eye is the eye of the Unborn... The eye that watches from the God's own vantage . . .

'But I've had... had this... for as long as I can remember' . . .

But things are tricky where the Outside is concerned. Things do not... happen... as they happen here... I'm just saying that in a sense your life has already been lived - for the God or the Gods, that is..."

- WLW, p. 89-91

Most of those are . . . segways (what is that punctuation actually called?) past description or Mimara's angsty responses. Mimara's one neccessary contribution to our understand is in the apostrophe's. Otherwise the ... are just Mimara and Achamian doing their best Shatner impressions.

Also, this is from Mimara's perspective, though everything quoted is Achamian's dialogue.

Edit: And I believe that's the only clarity we get on the subject because of Bakker's skillfully played addiction narrative - he basically has an ironclad excuse, in my opinion, for Achamian to keep acting out of character from the first four books, making it so that Achamian's perspective isn't clear enough to gives us the Authorial thoughts we're used to from his character.

So basically, what comes after determines what comes before?

[Sci-2]

Quote

I don't have the quotes handy, but I distinctly remember her saying that the timing could not have been anyone else.

IIRC she actually says it could one of three men but she just knows it's Akka baby. I really think Bakker is playing us regarding Mim's supposed infallibility. I think she can see sin, but I think her own experiences color what she sees and thinks she knows.

[Rhom]

sciborg2, on 18 October 2012 - 03:45 PM, said:

IIRC she actually says it could one of three men but she just knows it's Akka baby. I really think Bakker is playing us regarding Mim's supposed infallibility. I think she can see sin, but I think her own experiences color what she sees and thinks she knows.

Ah yes, didn't she sleep with a guardsman to slip away from the castle or something?

ETA:  Clearly this calls for a Three Seas episode of Maury Pauvich!  

"Drusas Achamian... you are...  NOT the father of Mimara's baby!"

{Akka jumps up and down around the stage and calls Mimara a slut.  While Esmi calls her a home wrecker.}

Edited by Rhom, 18 October 2012 - 03:51 PM.

[lockesnow]

sciborg2, on 18 October 2012 - 03:45 PM, said:

IIRC she actually says it could one of three men but she just knows it's Akka baby.

Sounds like Serwe.

[Rhom]

Quote

Also note that Achamian more or less got confirmation that NC could be Seswatha's son in WLW, and was less than impressed, it had long been rumored, but interesting that he still thinks of NC as an Anasurimbor, however, perhaps it is important that NC is Seswatha's son...

Well, Mimara identifies herself as Anasurimbor Mimara and Moenghus the Younger is considered an Anasurimbor despite the circumstances of his conception.  I suppose keeping the illusion of NC's parentage is no big deal.

ETA:  Dammit.  That quote should say that it was from Lockesnow.  It was on the last page of the closed thread.  Since I can't hit "Reply" on that page, it didn't carry over.  Even now as I edit it though, I can see the quote=lockesnow up there.  Ah well.

Edited by Rhom, 18 October 2012 - 04:06 PM.

[Madness]

By my understanding, Achamian's suggesting that it doesn't matter when she got pregnant, even if Mimara thinks that she's been pregnant for a certain timeframe and thus it is so and so.

I find it difficult to explain this though I've tried before.

Imagine instead that the God, or Gods - not in the actual narrative, just as a perspective to adopt towards understanding - are actually beings who exist at the most "current" point of happening, or unfolding in the Universe. We humans think that is how it is for us, that we live as existence happens.

Obviously, this gets tricky when we start incorporating physics and our ability to look through giant mirrors at the beginnings of the Universe and older and younger galaxies moving away from each other.

The Gods then exist in some far future from Achamian and Mimara's present sense. They figure out a way to look back on these times and influence them but are limited to wormholes (Topoi) or communicating in the minds of the people of the time (Psatma Nannaferi).

But more importantly, these future beings have archaelogical capabilities and understandings across the Universe and they think they know the historical facts of absolutely everything that ever happened before them.

Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, these beings would know exactly what happens and, more importantly, to get what they want from the happenstance of every single instance of experience, and thus manipulate circumstances so that their present conforms to their desires.

Does this mean that what comes after determines what comes before? Or does it just mean that the Gods are almost perfect manipulators. It would appear that they know absolutely everything that came before them - like Laplace's demon.

But Earwa's case... they don't.

I'm not sure that even made sense for myself but that is how I view the Gods. Beings for whom everything has already happened except that they are blind to certain events and entities but still consider their perspective whole.

Hense, the White-Luck Warrior's "That which comes after determines what comes before - in this World," WLW, p. 184

[Triskele]

Madness, on 18 October 2012 - 03:57 PM, said:

Hense, the White-Luck Warrior's "That which comes after determines what comes before - in this World," WLW, p. 184

Does the guy himself say it, or is it in one of those quotes at the start of a chapter?

[Madness]

It's the very first words of his perspective in WLW. So not a chapter epigraph or his actual dialogue.

Edit: I didn't mean that to sound dickish... I mean, I think I just made a pretty good argument as to why the White-Luck Warrior's perspective could be fallible. So I'm not sure if it helps to answer your question.

Edited by Madness, 18 October 2012 - 04:17 PM.

[Rhom]

Madness, on 18 October 2012 - 04:15 PM, said:

It's the very first words of his perspective in WLW. So not a chapter epigraph or his actual dialogue.

Edit: I didn't mean that to sound dickish... I mean, I think I just made a pretty good argument as to why the White-Luck Warrior's perspective could be fallible. So I'm not sure if it helps to answer your question.

The fallibility of the WLW is something I'm very curious about.  Have we already glimpsed the death of Anasurimbor Kellhus through WLW's eyes?  Or is there room for change along that path?

Gawd... this book cannot come out soon enough!

[Sci-2]

Good stuff Madness. The position of the gods w.r.t Earwa is an interesting one. It seems like the No God somehow blinds them to any and all events related to it. It makes me wonder how they rationalized the First Apocalypse.

My theory is that the gods are unified fragments of thoughts/experiences across time relating to their domain. So Gilgol is every battle and every thought of war experienced by consciousness. So the gods aren't necessarily sentient entities but living memes that react with animal instinct to human events. Whether they extend through the universe or are limited to Earwa is up for grabs.

Kellhus comes, and the gods-as-thought-spiders sense a shift in worship, then react against it. Human worshippers interpret this reaction via visions but these are just ways in which humans conceive of the gods via their own cultural lenses.

[Madness]

"He would look up, see himself . . . A queue of millions connected him to himself, from the Gift who coupled with the Holy Crone to the Gift who watched the Aspect-Emperor dying in blood and expressionless disbelief." WLW, p.185

"In Gielgath, two thieves assailed him . . . He wiped his Seleukaran blade clean across the dead one, even as he raised the sword to counter their manic rush. He stepped clear of the one who stumbled, raised his blade to parry the panicked swing of the other ... the swing that would notch the scimitar's honed edge - as thin as an eyelid.

The notch that would shatter his sword, so allowing the broken blade to plunge into the Aspect-Emperor's heart. He could even feel the  blood slick his thumb and fingers as he followed himself into the gloomy peril of the alley.

Unholy blood. Wicked beyond compare." WLW, p.355 - 356

Seleukaran is Zuemi metals, I believe. Best swords in the world, next to Dunyain steel and Nonman nimil.

Now I've connocted innumerable theories about Kellhus faking his own death, or even using his own death as some kind of Ascension endgame like I've argued Moenghus the Elder did, and knowing more than Yatwer and the White-Luck Warrior... would Kellhus show surprise when he actually died or does what the White-Luck Warrior see simply reflect a Dunyain "expressionless" and the White-Luck Warrior percieves it as "disbelief?"

Thanks, Sci. What you've just articulated fits pretty neatly into Bakker's argument about consciousness as incompletely knowable fragments of a illusioned whole - Gods to the God?

Edited by Madness, 18 October 2012 - 04:46 PM.

[lockesnow]

he says aspect emperor.

It's possible he's referring to another aspect emperor who comes after Kellhus.

[Triskele]

lockesnow, on 18 October 2012 - 05:40 PM, said:

he says aspect emperor.

It's possible he's referring to another aspect emperor who comes after Kellhus.

Hell, at this point it seems possible he's referring to Triamis who he goes back in time to kill.

[Twelve Angry Nonmen]

lockesnow, on 18 October 2012 - 05:40 PM, said:

he says aspect emperor.

It's possible he's referring to another aspect emperor who comes after Kellhus.

It's possible.  If Fanayal manages to conquer the Empire, why not take the title?  Momemn is Byzantium, and the Ottoman Sultan did take the title Emperor of Rome, though no one but the Turks recognized it.

Quote

If you take Akka to be a Prophet of the Past, then it would imply that seswatha was never at Sauglish, that he constructed a story about the epic battle of the burning of Sauglish--ala Michael Bay--but he didn't actually experience it--it's a seswatha fiction...

I really like this idea.  Does the burning of Sauglish occur in the Sagas/is it mentioned at all in the references to Sagas we're given as well? I would assume if the Sagas and the Dreams differ on any points, we might now consider the Sagas correct on that point.

[sologdin]

referring to Triamis who he goes back in time to kill.


add a third inutteral string to the cant of transposition and you've got the cant of distemporalization?  i likes.

[Sci-2]

@Madness: Good point on the fragments of divine consciousness mirrored in the fragmented consciousness of the mind. I really like your idea of the gods being Lapace demons. What confuses me is their blindness to the No God, and how exactly they exist beyond time.

Part of me wonders if they are akin to trees - rooted in the past but branching out into probable but not definitve futures. If they are blind to the No God, then they clearly don't have a complete picture with regards to time on Earwa.

[Drowned Crow]

Quote

The Gods then exist in some far future from Achamian and Mimara's present sense.

If that is true, why do the gods behave in  exactly the manner that you would expect from beings that are constrained by causality and the unidirectional nature of time? If they weren't, you'd expect them to do things like kill Kellhus as a child, before he became immensely powerful, in response to something he hadn't done yet. Nothing about the way that the gods have acted so far suggests any time travel capability.