Bakker's TGO Excerpts II: Mining our Merest Fraction [Spoilers]s

[.H.]

5 minutes ago, Baztek said:

How are peeps getting it so early?

It's the ARC, his is actually late rather than early.

[Kalbear]

How about you, @.H. - any surprises or insights since reading the conversation around the excerpts?

[Sci-2]

8 hours ago, Happy Ent said:

How to enter the Outside

I think we know: a topos. Just make a local hellhole by torturing lots of people intensely and over a long time. The Nonmen needed generations of unspeakable Gulag-like conditions. Kellhus knows what he’s doing, so he can probably set up something perfectly terrible and wait for five years or so. This would work well, plot-wise, because even Kellhus needs resources for building such a topos: time and innocent children, say. Even Kellhus can’t just enter the Outside willy-nilly. It’s a 10 year project or so. And very dangerous, of course.

There doesn't seem to a topoi in Ishual though?

I actually wondered about this as well, but if the Daimos opens a gateway between Inward and Outside isn't that enough?

[Kalbear]

13 minutes ago, Sci-2 said:

There doesn't seem to a topoi in Ishual though?

I actually wondered about this as well, but if the Daimos opens a gateway between Inward and Outside isn't that enough?

I was wondering about the Topoi thing in Ishual. That was kind of surprising too. The only thing I can figure is that a Topoi is created not by sin, but by suffering - by a soul crying out for help, or crying in pain. Or it's created by desire for pain - for wanting to cause that suffering. To punish. 

But the Dunyain didn't do that. They did as the chapter mentioned - sadism without cruelty, utterly heartless and insensate. Their actions were horrible, but their intent was not. Mimara sees the sin - sees it as bad as the Inchoroi and the horrors of Golgotterath - so its clear that the stain of damnation exists there and that doing what was done to the whale mothers was a sin, a horrible one. 

So I'm not sure that the above example of creating a chamber of Truth to torture people would actually cause a Topoi. How does Kellhus hate? How does Kellhus punish?

[.H.]

33 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

How about you, @.H. - any surprises or insights since reading the conversation around the excerpts?

Possibly?  I mean, I am pretty dense, so when you guys dive deep into the philosophical stuff, I am only understanding it in the broadest terms.  My stupidity aside, when you read the final product, there will be lots to discuss.  You guys are more astute readers than me as well, so I'm sure you will all catch things that I have no hope of seeing, except maybe on my third or fourth reading.

It's been interesting to see what people make of the excerpts though and it will be interesting what people make of the whole thing when it's out.  I'm actually very interesting in reading the retail copy too, to see if anything changes, plus getting the ebook will let me search for things (I can usually remember things, but have a hard time placing them in the where).  You might find some answers, or you might find more questions, or both, it's hard to say.  I guess it depends on exactly what you are looking for.

Still though, like i said in my crappy excuse for a review, this is a very Bakker-esque Bakker book, so there plenty to pull apart.  I think we'll have fun discussing it for a good while, which aught to give us something to do while waiting for TUC to "wrap it up."  If it really does even wrap it up...

[bakkerfans]

Bakkerfans reviews The Great Ordeal!

http://www.second-apocalypse.com/index.php?topic=1805.msg26390#msg26390

[Happy Ent]

3 hours ago, Sci-2 said:

There doesn't seem to a topoi in Ishual though?

I actually wondered about this as well, but if the Daimos opens a gateway between Inward and Outside isn't that enough?

Good points both. I don’t know why Ishuäl is not a topos. Apparently the Nonmen are a good deal eviller than the Dûnayin. (Neither is cackling, hand-rubbing, Doofenshmirtz-like evil. They simply don’t care about the defectives or human slaves.)

Attempt at rationalisation: Topoi don’t form just anywhere. You need the geography to be correct. Then you can construct a topos by just being locally sinful for a certain time. In other places: no topos. It’s like mining for gold. If it isn’t there, it isn’t there.

But the Daimos observation is correct. Kellhus did study with Whathisface, so there may have been a perfectly prim way of entering. The mooring to a soul-trapping device is still fine, though.

Question: It seem like an oversight that the Consult left no guards around in Ishuäl.

[Sarcellus]

58 minutes ago, bakkerfans said:

Bakkerfans reviews The Great Ordeal!

http://www.second-apocalypse.com/index.php?topic=1805.msg26390#msg26390

Fervour whetted, bakkerfans.

[bakkerfans]

Just now, Sarcellus said:

Fervour whetted, bakkerfans.

ALRIGHT!

[Hello World]

Why does he have to create a topos? Can't he just use one of the old ones assuming that he needs to?

On the synthese saying they will take you home because the Consult was in Ishuäl. This assumes that the synthese knows about the map in the coffers.

On a side note, if this series ends with "love is the one thing that transcends space and time"  I'll be upset.

[bakkerfans]

1 minute ago, Hello World said:

Why does he have to create a topos? Can't he just use one of the old ones assuming that he needs to?

On the synthese saying they will take you home because the Consult was in Ishuäl. This assumes that the synthese knows about the map in the coffers.

On a side note, if this series ends with "love is the one thing that transcends space and time"  I'll be upset.

somehow, i don't think you have to worry about that

[Kalbear]

Quote

On the synthese saying they will take you home because the Consult was in Ishuäl. This assumes that the synthese knows about the map in the coffers.

Not necessarily, though I get why you're saying that. I think it mostly implies that Akka is looking for Ishual, and what he finds there will lead him to the Consult. 

That being said, it's not that weird of an idea to think that the Consult found out about Ishual through Sauglish too. 

Another question on those lines: what on earth makes Mimara and Akka want to go to Golgotterath? Okay, they found Ishual and found the billions of Consult corpses there, as well as two Dunyain. Why would they think they should go to Golgotterath? I can see them wanting to head to where the Ordeal is - because Mimara needs to stop Kellhus, apparently. I can also see Mimara desperately wanting to go back to Momemn, and that would be kind of awesome. (I don't think it's going to happen). But what would cause Mimara and Akka to go to Golgotterath by themselves? 

My thought is something that we talked about a long time ago as a possibility - that some of the Dunyain were taken. Perhaps we find out through Akka that it's necessary to have an Anasurimbor in the sarcophagus for the No-God, and the Consult captured one of Kellhus' sons or brothers so that they can use it. And that's why we got the timing of NC's dream then. Or perhaps some of the Dunyain willingly joined the Consult, and are now super dangerous. 

[Baztek]

4 hours ago, bakkerfans said:

Bakkerfans reviews The Great Ordeal!

http://www.second-apocalypse.com/index.php?topic=1805.msg26390#msg26390

Good shit. Get hype.

 

I'm also pretty sure Kellhus can travel to the Outside at will now, so he probably isn't going through the trouble of being responsible for another Earwan holocaust every time he wants to pop in and say hi. 

[bakkerfans]

16 minutes ago, Baztek said:

Good shit. Get hype.

 

I'm also pretty sure Kellhus can travel to the Outside at will now, so he probably isn't going through the trouble of being responsible for another Earwan holocaust every time he wants to pop in and say hi. 

Fuck yeah--the hype will not be Taller than the reading itself

[bakkerfans]

20 minutes ago, Triskan said:

There's an inconsistency of sorts in that passage though.  Mimara both observes that the Dunyain do what they do without any cruel intent but she also observes it to be deeply sinful.  Maybe the act is sinful or not independent of the intent of the actor.

YES

[Kalbear]

2 hours ago, bakkerfans said:

YES

Okay, well...guess we've got ourselves a new Madness to ply.

I've always thought that the actions were the cause of the sin, even if the intent was 'pure'. It still doesn't explain why Ishual isn't not just a Topoi, but one of the worst in the World. In terms of torture and depravity I'd think it'd rival anything that the Consult did in quantity and quality (and Mimara thinks that too), but apparnetly not. 

[unJon]

Let me question the assumption. Maybe topoi have to be deep underground and Ishual has one, but Akka and Mimara haven't stumbled on it yet. 

[Gasp of Many Reeds]

56 minutes ago, unJon said:

Let me question the assumption. Maybe topoi have to be deep underground and Ishual has one, but Akka and Mimara haven't stumbled on it yet. 

What if the Thousand Halls is part-labyrinth, part-topoi?

[Kalbear]

1 hour ago, unJon said:

Let me question the assumption. Maybe topoi have to be deep underground and Ishual has one, but Akka and Mimara haven't stumbled on it yet. 

The plains of Mangedda were a Topoi, no?

[mnedel]

Hello guys, a bit off topic, but reading about the Great ordeal, I realized I don’t remember a lot of the philosophical concepts or even characters. Sadly, I don’t have time for a reread of the entire series so can you recommend a good summary of the previous volumes? Really need to refresh my knowledge about the story and underlying philosophy before the new book comes out.