Bakker XLIII - the prattle of unnumbered years

[Kalbear]

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That's a pretty slick theory. My only problem with it is it doesn't remind me of Kellhus. He doesn't leave much to chance. If Cleric doesn't decide to commit suicide, then that trip is done. But, I guess there was no other choice? 

He leaves a whole lot to chance. He sets things on the highest probability and hopes. Just like his dad. And some times he throws a hail mary, hoping that'll succeed. Remember the 'punish the Shrial knights' thing that ended up working despite him having no idea that it should? Or going on the Circumfix at all, and all the craziness that had to result in order for him to not be dead but be seen as holy - like Cnaiur revealing and killing a skin spy? Kellhus, like his dad, works on chances, not perfection. 

You can also argue that  what they had to go through was a lot worse than it could have been. They might not have had to go through Cil-Aujas were it not for some storms, for example. And it's unlikely that Kellhus knew that Wutteat had taken home in Ishual, though I suppose it's possible. Cleric being dead is probably not something he anticipated. He likely anticipated Mimara doing what she did to become more familiar with Cleric - shaving her head, acting like his dead wife or daughter - but Cleric going nuts and then failing to kill Akka? Probably just correspondence of cause. 

Alternately, Kellhus has realized that the idea of causality is complete bunk, and what we have is a perfectly frozen timeline that can be perceived via the Outside. Everything is happening and has already happened; all Kellhus has to do is follow his lines. This goes well with the Atreides and Dune motif, and also hints at what Kellhus is trying to do - give people the ability to make choices and unfreeze time. 

[Michael Seswatha Jordan]

Wutteat=Sauglish

Yea, fair enough, it seems plausible that it was a roll of the dice and he figured Ajokli and Seswatha is on his side too. I wonder if Ajokli will manifest in any way? We know Akka is a Whore of Fate, I wonder if fate will show his face, like Gigoal, Yatwer and Kel's god, whatever his name.

[sologdin]

goodness, am hoping it gets more nebulous as to the participation of deities.  volumes IV & V becomes a bit too homeric for me; much preferring the implied aristeia of volume III.

[Michael Seswatha Jordan]

2 hours ago, sologdin said:

goodness, am hoping it gets more nebulous as to the participation of deities.  volumes IV & V becomes a bit too homeric for me; much preferring the implied aristeia of volume III.

Me too. Although I do like the Yatwer storyline. But, too much and it becomes a bit gimmicky.

[Sci-2]

I think the level of divine intervention we've gotten so far is fine.

I don't want to see Kellhus lead an army into the Outside, heck I don't even need hard answers on what the 100 are, if there are Angelic Ciphrang (people assuming this read too much into Bakker's words IMHO), or even if Kellhus is an instrument/incarnation of God.

At the same time it is a metaphysical whodunit, and so I'd like some clarity on damnation, whether the Inverse Fire shows reality or is a goad, whether sorcery damns a person.

I can see others being upset if we don't know whether Kellhus is damned or not, but that's something I could take as being left a mystery.

[lokisnow]

"The rise of anasurimbor moenghus to take his place"

This quote takes place in the middle of a probability trance list of what would happen after kellhus confronts moenghus. All of the other items within this list have been shown to be apparently true by the aspect emperor series.

How seriously should we consider that this line, "the rise of anasurimbor moenghus to take his place" is coequally true to all the other probability trance calculations within which it was entwined.

Consider:

They are described as identical other than follicle growth throughout the chapter by kellhus several times and by cnaiur, who thinks moenghus is kellhus.

Kellhus never has a povs after his alleged teleportation

Cnaiur describes the final location as an inversion of ground (and the Tekne cannot locate the skin spies here)

The skin spies are suspended over a pit.

Kellhus topples into a far greater blackness. Topples. We never hear from him again. His sorcerers light remains... For a short time.

Topples.

Dunyain topples.

Topples.

Moenghus has demonstrated an ability to project a simulacrum of another's face onto his own (thematically replacing kellhus completes the parallel between dunyain and skin spies established throughout the first series)

Moenghus disables one skin spy and torches another before requesting cnaiurs strength resulting in a non typical chorae outcome. The only other non typical chorae outcome in the entire series is mimara passing through the chorae and "holding the gates". Here moenghus burns, all other cishaurim flash incandescent with a nacre of black, all non cishaurim sorcerers and ciphrang flash incandescent and turn into salt. Moenghus begins to burn then kellhus sorcerers light goes out and that is all we know.

Possible conclusion:

The location of the encounter, an inversion of ground, was designed to thwart kellhus obvious escape route.

The mechanism is by inverting ground, moenghus has changed the fundamental laws kellhus would use, gnosticly, to craft a teleportation spell. So a teleportation spell that works with normal ground would not work at inverted ground.

moenghus may have replaced kellhus, precisely as described in the probability trance series of descriptions.

[Larry of the Lawn]

Pretty cool. So that would make Kayutas the actual son of Kellhus; and the rest of the gang would be Kelkhus's half-siblings?

What if the eventual replacement by Anasurimbor Moengus really refers to Little Moe, Sorwheel and Serwa staging a coup and taking Ishterebinth?

[sologdin]

locke, slick.  what's the epistemology of 'ground' in the text?  someone with an ebook needs to concord all the textual loci so we can look at it closely.

is there a metagnostic cant for transposition of the anima, then, such that 'inversion' of 'ground' involves swapping AM into AK, who thus commits filicide.

[lokisnow]

6 hours ago, larrytheimp said:

Pretty cool. So that would make Kayutas the actual son of Kellhus; and the rest of the gang would be Kelkhus's half-siblings?

 

Yes. I don't have the books at the moment, but I would expect that the number of children of moenghus that maithanet refers to matches up to the number of children kellhus allegedly has.

btw, this is not a crackpot. This is suggested explicitly by the text. Kellhus is the one that says that Moenghus can (and plans to) replace him. I am extrapolating directly from the text, directly from what Kellhus describes as the most probable outcome he has computed in the probability trance. And the other outcomes described from the same probability trance all appear to be bourne out by the events of the Aspect Emperor.

[lokisnow]

6 hours ago, larrytheimp said:

Pretty cool. So that would make Kayutas the actual son of Kellhus; and the rest of the gang would be Kelkhus's half-siblings?

 

Yes. I don't have the books at the moment, but I would expect that the number of children of moenghus that maithanet refers to matches up to the number of children kellhus allegedly has.

btw, this is not a crackpot. This is suggested explicitly by the text. Kellhus is the one that says that Moenghus can (and plans to) replace him. I am extrapolating directly from the text, directly from what Kellhus describes as the most probable outcome he has computed in the probability trance. And the other outcomes described from the same probability trance all appear to be bourne out by the events of the Aspect Emperor.

[unJon]

locke, slick.  what's the epistemology of 'ground' in the text?  someone with an ebook needs to concord all the textual loci so we can look at it closely.

is there a metagnostic cant for transposition of the anima, then, such that 'inversion' of 'ground' involves swapping AM into AK, who thus commits filicide.

Ground gets used in The False Sun in a few neat and relevant ways.

*********

“The ruins of Viri.”

“The very same,” Shaeönanra replied.

“A lesson,” Titirga said, “to those who would dig too deep.”

***********

And Shaeönanra knew that this was no ploy, that Titirga would, without a breath of hesitation, deliver his impossible fury to his tower. He had heard the tales–the whole Ground had heard the tales. Titirga Mithalara, they called him–the Giver of Mercy!–ironic renown for his ruthless extermination of his foes.

******************

“Rival you?” he replied under cover of this trivial distraction. “The Ground is at peace. The Scintya are pacified.[9] The All-King watches from Umerau.” He turned with a bronze vessel that Titirga waved away.

************

“The sky, Titirga! Think! The sky is an endless void. Each star is another Sun, like our own, and Grounds spin about them–whole Grounds hanging like motes in the Great Void!”

He was not simply offering them salvation, he was showing them sanity!

“Other Grounds?” Titirga cried with a derisive bark, and why not? when the Ground was by definition the basis of everything. It was just as Aurax had said. Truth becomes ignorance when Men make gods of Deceit.

“I know how this sounds,” Shaeönanra said. “But what of the Ark? The Inchoroi? They prove the existence of other Grounds, do they not? Grounds like our own!”

“Noooo…” the glistening Inchoroi rasped, speaking an archaic intonation of Ihrimsu, his inhuman voice falling like a flake of ice upon sweaty skin. He had stepped into Shaeönanra’s blind flank and now loomed over him, his frame a sleek motley, like fish skinned and sutured together. “Not like your own.”

[unJon]

Actually several more "Ground" references. Worth rereading story with this in mind.

Titurga description of the NoGod to come :

“A lunatic God… perhaps. The Hells that you think you see. Something… Something adulterate, foul. Something that craves feasting, that hungers with an intensity that can bend the very Ground.”

[lokisnow]

And of courses viramsata, "the breath than is ground."

If it were sorcery, viramsata would be "the song that is ground."

[lokisnow]

Per the other site, audio book has narrator and release date same as book. July 5. Announced by audio book publisher.

[Madness]

 

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Dates posted from the audiobook publisher:

http://www.recordedbooks.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=rb.show_prod&book_id=93937

Digital
"*Item not yet released. You may order now, it will ship when available. Anticipated Release: Sep 01, 2016"

CD:
"*Item not yet released. You may order now, it will ship when available. Anticipated Release: Sep 15, 2016"

 

[Michael Seswatha Jordan]

2 hours ago, Triskan said:

Survey question related to that final Moe scene in TTT:

Do you read it as Moe being unexpectedly Choraed by Cnaiur, or do you read it as Moe having orchestrated being Choraed?

I read it as orchestrated. Along with being in Kyudea (a Topoi more than likely) and all signs point to that he was in control and had a plan. And the plan went the way he wanted it too. Hence Meppa. The last or first(after all died in Shimeh) Cishaurim wondering in the desert to be found by Fayanal. 

ETA: a soul transfer, needing Cnauirs strength and passion. Remember, Meppa is described as having a ocean of Water. Where does the Water come from? Passion.

[lokisnow]

Water comes from kyudea, obviously.

[bakkerfans]

Bakker's brother and Jason Deem teamed up to make an animated trailer about The Second Apocalypse! TEASER: http://snip.ly/rk5e6#https://youtu.be/w54Uriq6epI

[bakkerfans]

Bakker "I’m already working on the copy edited version of The Great Ordeal, so the July release date looks firm." https://rsbakker.wordpress.com/2016/03/03/moving-pictures-of-awe-spectacle-and-doom/

[Michael Seswatha Jordan]

2 minutes ago, bakkerfans said:

Bakker's brother and Jason Deem teamed up to make an animated trailer about The Second Apocalypse! TEASER: http://snip.ly/rk5e6#https://youtu.be/w54Uriq6epI

Awesome, thanks MG!