Bakker XXXVIII: Where The Posters Are Damned

[Sci-2]

Welcome Odium!

 

Hi all. This is my first post on the forum. I've been lurking for quite some time now, and between browsing the Bakker threads here and on Madness' Second Apocalypse forum I've grown familiar enough with the fandom to know what a nerdanel is. I've read the books along with some scattered rereads and frequent visits to confirm theories and things I've seen on the communities surrounding the series. I have a few questions, just things that I don't remember ever seeing answered while I lurked.

 

Funny thing is Nerdanel may have been on to something....

 

Just a couple of my own thoughts on some aspects of the series and some of the common theories I've seen tossed around:
 

1. Is there any comprehensive analysis by someone of Achamian's dreams? I recall reading that Scott at one point mentioned that every one of Achamian's dreams somehow reflected the greater narrative. I couldn't find it just now as I perused through my copies of the books, but I feel like I remember picking up on a reread that in either TDTCB or TWP Achamian dreams of a library with a dragon in it. I can't recall any other specific examples, but it made me wonder if perhaps the encounter with Wutteat was being foreshadowed.

 

I don't recall a library with a dragon, but I do recall the library opening up to a scene of the Whirlwind?

 

2. Personally, from the clues presented in the narrative and proposed by members of this and Madness' forum, I don't think Moenghus will continue to be involved in the story.

 

Assuming you mean Big Moe, rather than Cnauir's son aka Lil' Moe?
 

I think that the parallel of Inri Sejenus rising at another holy city and his own death being near one (someone articulated this parallel better than I did at some point) is interesting, and I haven't personally discarded the notion of Meppa being related to him somehow, but it would be lazy writing for Moenghus to suddenly be uncovered as responsible for anything in the second trilogy.

 

I agree that Big Moe showing up would damn TUC [I mean the book, not the in-world group] unless it is handled incredibly well. I do think Meppa may have been someone converted to seeing at least some things the way Big Moe saw them, though Meppa seems to have greater recollection of the Whole based on his command of the Water. (Assuming that's how it works?)
 

I personally believe that Moenghus couldn't see beyond the Thousandfold Thought, and that he correctly realized that the trial had broken Kellhus upon their meeting. However, I think that symbolically this represents something more along the lines of how they have both come to the limits of Dunyain's logic ability to parse their world, and Kellhus found a way to surpass that limit.

 

I'd agree to an extent. I think Big Moe realized his own limitations and planned to die after his meeting with Kellhus. He conditions Kellhus beyond his own death, but Kellhus doesn't see it.

 

I do think there is a limit to seeing the world the way the Dunyain do, in that there is something to Real that can't fit into the algorithms Kellhus utilizes. As Nerdanel once suggested, the Dunyain ultimately run Greedy Algorithms but this fucks them over in the long, long run.

 

3. As far as opinions go, what do you all think of the relative power levels between the main players? I'm curious what the Consult will have to stop him. Just going on a hunch from the series' overall flavor, I don't think Shae and the Inchoroi twins will be a match for Kellhus' sorcery in a straightup battle (although, considering the Gnosis is a fairly logical sorcerous discipline, I personally think that thousands of years without the Nonman problem of finite memory should have been long enough for the Consult to prepare themselves even for someone like Kellhus).

 

Well it's not clear exactly how we should be ranking sorcerers. It sees the advantage of the Gnosis is in its purity of meaning, and that with Cleric the Nonman memory problem actually purifies his meaning to a greater degree by (if I understood the text) freeing the Nonman from the memories that occlude what we mean in the present moment.

 

But there is also the purity of the Cish, which Titirga seemed to have partially grasped before even Fane came around. Shae, when recollecting Titirga's power, notes the archmage "seizes would should not be seized" (paraphrase). I think this might mean Titirga can not just carve up the onta but also partially alter the very ontological status of the world, the Ground, and this is why his stain seems purer. Reality isn't perfectly aligned to Titirga in the way it is with Fane's Cish magic but it does show that the Gnosis and the Psukhe could be blended.

 

Does Kellhus posses enough passion to fill in the Cish part of Tirtiga's power? Unclear.

 

I watched the SA podcast and, while thoughts rapidly branched off from the main idea of the in-series power levels (at least while I listened), some people thought that the Quya of Ishterebinth could probably match Kellhus. This too seems reasonable to me, but it makes me wish we could better stake out Kellhus' limits.

 

Well keep in mind Kellhus seems to have a special skill with the manipulation of space, and with meta-gnostic cants in general. He can alter the altering of the onta, which means he might be able to twist the spells of others rather than merely battering down their defenses.
 

4. I once saw the theory proposed that the Captain of the Skin-Eaters was hinted to be a ciphrang. Could anyone point out for me where the books suggest this? I'm very curious because I would have liked to see the captain explored a little more as a character.

 

Well Kosoter fears damnation, so I think he is just a fanatic or possibly a soul that was damned but somehow bounced back. The rules of the Outside seem to be regularities. (Same with the Inward, IMO, though those are less exploitable to souls bound in bodies.)

 

5. My personal thoughts about certain eventualities of TUC:
 

Kelmomas' voice is Ajokli, in another expression of the gods' true agency in the world, and his arc is there to eventually lead into him saving his mother from the White-Luck. Also, I realize that his is the only Dunyain infancy we're able to observe, but he seems to be more talented from a younger age than any of the other half-Dunyain.

 

I would sort of agree, given the naridanar (sp?) that the WLW replaced mentioned that the Four Horned Brother can see reality in a way other gods miss. At the same time, it would be a little weird to have the WLW simply be wrong about his time sight without some deeper explanation.
 

I think Zeum will support Fanayal and destroy the empire Kellhus has left behind unguarded, and that this is all part of a greater scheme Kellhus has devised which none of the other Dunyain have foreseen and are thus unable to factor into their own lesser plans. I'm not sure what I think about the true purpose of the Great Ordeal, something tells me it is more than just a flesh palanquin for Kellhus to ride into Golgotterath on. 

 

 

I think Kellhus wants Zeum to take over the skeleton of the Empire in case he fails to stop the No-God from rising. That is assuming, of course, that Kellhus' plan isn't simply to control whatever the No-God is.
 

Hm. I actually don't have anything to add besides that at the moment. Anyway! I'm glad to finally be a part of the little gaggle of thinkers that populate these threads and I hope to add something constructive to the discussions that arise here. :) See you on the Slog.

 

Well, my advice is to keep in mind the most important question that remains unanswered is Why Don't Dragons Wear Chorae? :cool4:

[odium]

Very interesting thoughts everyone. Having been an adolescent when I first read the series, it drove me to seek a deeper understanding of philosophy because even then I couldn't help but feel like many, many things were going over my head. It took me till around halfway through TWP to realize that I wasn't just witnessing a relatively well-done derivative of Tolkien like so much other popular fantasy. Unfortunately that wasn't so long ago and my quest to understand the SA series (and philosophy, and the world!) is ongoing and I imagine will continue to be so for quite some time. All of your opinions offer a great perspective for me!

 

Also, I was definitely referring to Big Moe at all times. I'm still curious to see how Cnauir's son becomes relevant to the narrative. I've taken his character so far much like the idea of what Cnauir would have been like if he'd grown up surrounded by Dunyain. Cnauir himself was the first of the worldborn to understand the Dunyain and one of the few capable of doing so in the first place. I can only imagine what his capacities would have been like if he grew up associating with them as his siblings. 

 

 

 

I think for me moenghus is useful as a heuristic that collapses kellhus' ubermensch aura and allows me to contemplate scenarios in which kellhusian methods are applied to kellhus and he can be equally deconstructed into suffering the same failings and delusions as all the world born he expresses such contempt for. So in this sense I do not really believe moenghus is behind everything, rather the 'sign' moenghus functions as a proxy, ( solve for x, so to speak ) for the possible unknown unknowns; this use of moenghus to assault kellhus' credibility by proxy gives one an equation wherein we can tease out possibilities of just what range of 'signifier' solutions is going to be be possible or probable.

 

I agree that Moenghus was an excellent measure of Kellhus' fallibility when we had otherwise only seen how perfectly he manipulated the worldborn. I agree with your analysis that Bakker dropped a big hint about Kellhus making a logical misstep which was insinuated when he kicked a skull near the beginning of his conversation with Moenghus, and that Moenghus may have used this throughout their encounter. But ultimately I think the question of whether or not Kellhus surpassed Moenghus' apprehension of the TTT, or whether or not Moenghus was conditioning Kellhus with his death is impossible to answer.

 

However, in response to:

 

 

 

I'd agree to an extent. I think Big Moe realized his own limitations and planned to die after his meeting with Kellhus. He conditions Kellhus beyond his own death, but Kellhus doesn't see it.

 

I do think there is a limit to seeing the world the way the Dunyain do, in that there is something to Real that can't fit into the algorithms Kellhus utilizes. As Nerdanel once suggested, the Dunyain ultimately run Greedy Algorithms but this fucks them over in the long, long run.

 

 

I don't think Moenghus intended to die because of the scene with Cnauir immediately following his encounter with Kellhus. It doesn't give me the impression of a man accepting his death. Unless (a theory I haven't discarded outright) this somehow ties into Meppa.

 

I don't know what you mean by greedy algorithms? Could you elaborate? 

 

 

 

...

 

But there is also the purity of the Cish, which Titirga seemed to have partially grasped before even Fane came around. Shae, when recollecting Titirga's power, notes the archmage "seizes would should not be seized" (paraphrase). I think this might mean Titirga can not just carve up the onta but also partially alter the very ontological status of the world, the Ground, and this is why his stain seems purer. Reality isn't perfectly aligned to Titirga in the way it is with Fane's Cish magic but it does show that the Gnosis and the Psukhe could be blended.

 

...

 

 

Well, I would assert that I don't believe that anyone, individually, is as powerful as Kellhus. However, the body of the whole Quya, or Shae and A&A, could be something of a match for him. We really can't know how powerful each is in a head-to-head sort of way.

 

 

Makes me wonder whether we should view the confrontation between Titirga and Shae/Aurang in The False Sun as foreshadowing the coming confrontation between Kellhus and Consult. Kellhus is likely more powerful and has greater mental acumen than any individual member of the Consult, as even with their millennia of experience they are compromised by their madness, but the Consult are experienced in exploiting the shortcomings of otherwise more powerful beings (of which, as lockesnow argues, Kellhus as many).

 

Tangential: I feel like one can objectively say that Titirga would lose to Kellhus in a duel. As GoMR states, Kellhus probably has vastly superior mental faculties to the Consult's leading triumvirate and they were able to catch Titirga off-guard because of his arrogance. Presumably a Dunyain would have no problem finding a way to manipulate him, assuming Kellhus couldn't just outright overpower him, which is also possible.

 

I like the idea that perhaps the False Sun is foreshadowing that possibility. While Shae/A&A are compromised by madness, Kellhus is arguably just a slave to an even greater madness. It's going to be hard for me to suspend my disbelief enough to say that thousands of years hasn't been enough time for the Consult to come up with a few contingency plans in case a sorcerer like Titirga ever showed up again. Like everyone has said however, the three of them will probably be quite a match for Kellhus. To begin with, we saw Kellhus underestimating his opponents in the original trilogy when he was caught off-guard by the strength behind Cnauir's blow. He's probably never had an encounter against entities as powerful as Shae/A&A and perhaps they too will hit him with something unexpected.

 

Of course, these are all just my harebrained thoughts on the subject. I think that fandoms often spend time debating minutiae that are really left up to the author's whim. Personally, I feel like Kellhus is doomed to fail. He has practically been the deus ex machina that Earwa needed ever since he left Ishual. It would be uncharacteristic of Bakker not to subvert that idea in some way. My opinion is that he'll harness the No-God in some way for his own devices, or fail. 

 

In any case I'm as eager to hear good news about TUC as anyone else. Hopefully Bakker's posts on TPB weren't just wishful thinking...

[Gasp of Many Reeds]

I don't know what you mean by greedy algorithms? Could you elaborate? 

A greedy algorithm is a problem-solving formula that seeks out the nearest local optima in the hope of reaching a global optimum - what Kellhus and the Dunyain refer to as the Shortest Path. The problem is that, by seeking out local optima, it can be quite easy to miss the global optimum if it is isolated by non-optimal valleys. So Kellhus, by seeking the Shortest Path, becomes constrained by his prior history of choices and convinced he has grasped the best possible solution to the problem of the World when in fact there is a superior optimum that has escaped his comprehension due to its apprehension requiring an ability to comprehend the World at a higher level of perception (perhaps he requires an understanding of the Inverse Fire?).

[Antonius Pius]

1. I couldn't find it just now as I perused through my copies of the books, but I feel like I remember picking up on a reread that in either TDTCB or TWP Achamian dreams of a library with a dragon in it. I can't recall any other specific examples, but it made me wonder if perhaps the encounter with Wutteat was being foreshadowed.

 

 

 

You don't mean the dream where Seswatha tries to defend Sauglish against the Consult? I don't recall which book this was though.