Bakker: Pounded In The Brain By The Great Ordeal Spoilers III

[Happy Ent]

1 hour ago, Rhom said:

I still have problems reconciling the difference in the WLW's vision.  The first one being when his sword breaks when AK parries and the shard runs him through.  The second being the ending of TGO when we see him throw the hilt at him.

 

Is this quite correct? The Seleukaran is parried not by AK, but by a nameless Gielgathi thug. The only inconsistency is “heart” versus “throat”:

Quote

In Gielgath, two thieves assailed him, and the White-Luck Warrior watched them scuffle, drunk and desperate, with the man who was their doom. They lurched out of alleyway shadows, their cries choked to murmurs for fear of being heard. They sprawled dead and dying across cobble and filth, the one inert, the other twitching. 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.

—WLW Chapter VIII.

 

[Happy Ent]

8 minutes ago, generic said:

I assume she asked the WLW to kill him in that last scene but it is unclear.

Not in so many words. 

In the italicised WLW POV, p. 456: “She had hidden her will from herself, but still the Demon can see.” So Esmi never really tells the WLW to kill AK, he just (correctly) surmises it. This is why she keeps him around, even though she never admits that to herself.

[Happy Ent]

If I were planning the Ordeal, I’d spend twenty years getting hold of and then breeding Excursi Sranc.

(Hm… the Consult probably has them auto-destruct after prolonged contact with humans or something similar. They would be an insanely powerful thing for the Consult’s enemies to get hold of.) 

[all swedes are racist]

What is the purpose of the embedded chorae anyway? Simply to defend the walls from sorcerers attack? I was under the impression they only protect a living being and contact with skin is necessary?

[Kalbear]

Just now, R'hllors Red Lobster said:

What is the purpose of the embedded chorae anyway? Simply to defend the walls from sorcerers attack? I was under the impression they only protect a living being and contact with skin is necessary?

You don't need a living being (an arrow with a chorae works). My guess is that the chorae embedded were there to protect against some of the ways that the Scarlet Spires and the Cishaurim (and later, Akka and Xin) move through the world and can get to places without traveling physically. They may also be able to stop some of the calling/possession spells, but that I'm not as clear about.

They seemed pretty arbitrary though, and fairly bad as far as designs to keep people safe. Esme's chorae around her waist is significantly better protection than random chorae around the palace. 

[lokisnow]

also, continuity error, kellhus teleports into the palace to make the yatwerian piss herself. But if it's embedded with chorae, he shouldn't be able to do that.

Unless the chorae are fakes kellhus constructed and no one knows it but him, and the gods presume they can use these fake tears to make him vulnerable?

[jurble]

5 hours ago, sologdin said:

if sorcerer can live in aporetic house, why not have aporetic clothing? oirunas armor, maybe.  

The stronger the Mark, the less near a chorae needs to be to begin salting a person.  Quya are said to salt within a length (how long is a length?) of a chorae.   Also, maybe the chorae's AoE would also hamper magical dispensations.

3 minutes ago, lokisnow said:

also, continuity error, kellhus teleports into the palace to make the yatwerian piss herself. But if it's embedded with chorae, he shouldn't be able to do that.

Unless the chorae are fakes kellhus constructed and no one knows it but him, and the gods presume they can use these fake tears to make him vulnerable?

Not necessarily.  Kellhus moves  from point to point without moving between the interval, presumably.  There becomes here.  The Chorae-in-Walls prevent the phasing-through-the-walls stuff that the Cishaurim used to attack the Scarlet Spires.

[LuckyCharms]

Could someone please make a citation of the Chorae embedded in the walls as a defense mechanism? I don't recall that at all and don't have e-books that I can search.

[generic]

3 hours ago, Happy Ent said:

Not in so many words. 

In the italicised WLW POV, p. 456: “She had hidden her will from herself, but still the Demon can see.” So Esmi never really tells the WLW to kill AK, he just (correctly) surmises it. This is why she keeps him around, even though she never admits that to herself.

I had a similar thought actually. Could you interpret most of the murders as fulfilling Esmi's hidden wishes? Her repeated insistence that she loves her children read like they are intended for own consumption, like she wants to convince herself more than anyone.

58 minutes ago, Damned with the Wind said:

Not necessarily.  Kellhus moves  from point to point without moving between the interval, presumably.  There becomes here.  The Chorae-in-Walls prevent the phasing-through-the-walls stuff that the Cishaurim used to attack the Scarlet Spires.

It supposedly also prevents sorcerous destruction of the walls. I consider it highly unlikely that AK would build a palace he can't teleport freely out of.Why build a trap that only captures yourself?

[Rhom]

5 minutes ago, LuckyCharms said:

Could someone please make a citation of the Chorae embedded in the walls as a defense mechanism? I don't recall that at all and don't have e-books that I can search.

In one of the TGO spoiler threads, someone linked it.  Think it may have been early in the second thread.  It was in response to me asking the same question.

[all swedes are racist]

10 minutes ago, LuckyCharms said:

Could someone please make a citation of the Chorae embedded in the walls as a defense mechanism? I don't recall that at all and don't have e-books that I can search.

Don't have it with me, but I am 99.9% certain it's first mentioned in TDTCB, I wanna say the Emporer makes note of it, possibly also DA in the torture chamber?

[Michael Seswatha Jordan]

5 hours ago, generic said:

Really I'm curious where her arc is going. If we think that Akka is Onkis' piece in the game than the obvious equivalent for Yatwer would be Esmi. 

I would think Akka would be Anagke's (Fate) piece. Mimara even mentions in TGO how Fate has them snared and it's not even worth fighting anymore.

[lokisnow]

Quote

She found the towering doors to the Imperial Audience Hall ajar. She wandered in, walked small beneath the soaring stonework. She pondered all the loads teetering, and the Sumni harlot within her wondered that such a place could be her house, that she lived beneath ceilings impregnated with Chorae, gilded in silver and gold. The sky framed the monumental dais with stages of pale brilliance. Dead birds bellied the netting that had been strung across the opening, as dry as flies. The upper gallery lay in graven shadow, while the polished expanses gleamed below. The tapestries strung between the columns seemed to sway, one for each of her dread husband’s conquests. The scene tapered into gold instead of black in the corners of her eyes.

 

[all swedes are racist]

5 hours ago, Triskan said:

Maybe we're thinking of skin contact due to what we know happens when it touches those that bear the mark but mistaking it for being the exact same on protecting from sorcery, if that makes sense.  So for the marked it's like "don't let that thing touch you" whereas with protection it's like "the best protection is if it's touching you, but if you've got it in your knapsack that's still better protection than nothing."

Maybe, but I seem to remember some  references to people (Cnaiur at Kiyuth, Esmi treating with "Fayanal") pointedly removing chorae from within clothing to have direct contact. But yeah, I would rather be safe than sorry in their shoes, I could see that.

@Kalbear, I meant only to be afforded the protection from sorcery, not that a chorae requires something living to work at all. Otherwise I'd think the whole of Sarakpus would be immune given the chorae horde

i dunno, probably over thinking it

[sologdin]

it's silly, of course.  does chorae provide coverage merely to the space in which it exists?  to those immediately adjacent spaces against which it has physical contact?  of course it has contact merely with the first layer of molecules. why should coverage extend beyond the first layer?  if so, what controls the extension of coverage?  or does it apply coverage to the entirety of a living thing into which it comes into contact?  how does it know that it is in contact with a living thing, if so?  why should it orient itself toward a bearer, rather than simply sounding off as though it were an alarm clock?

[Kalbear]

Amusingly intent appears to matter to chorae.

[jurble]

Well of course, chorae aren't anarcane, they're sorcerous artifacts that negate sorcery.

[Kalbear]

15 minutes ago, Damned with the Wind said:

Well of course, chorae aren't anarcane, they're sorcerous artifacts that negate sorcery.

Yes, but the way they do that is by providing confusion in intentional systems via paradox. The idea that intent matters when using an artifact that is itself negating intention is an amusing paradox itself. 

[lokisnow]

I think bakers two big answers on the other forum regarding chorae would be useful here.

just ignore his obfuscation about timeaus and terminology provenance, I think he doesn't want us getting too close (but note he disparages Derrida and modern philosophy and exclaims a greater interest in the Plato esque really old guys, so definitely more timeaus than Sauf le nom)

[karaddin]

On 20/08/2016 at 4:58 AM, Maithanet said:

So I just finished the book, and overall I thought it was good, but not great.  Bakker is constantly leaving important things ambiguous, and frankly I was really getting tired of it.  It wasn't until I read this thread that I even considered that the item Kellhus found was a nuke.  I thought there was some important artifact like the sarcophagus, heron spear, etc, and Kellhus needed it.  Once he got it, he summoned a crazy gnostic spell to kill everybody, and then teleported away.  I need to go back and reread, it is possible I was just being obtuse, but really I feel like this should have been clearer.

I still haven't gone back to reread either, but I'm still not 100% convinced it was indeed a nuke.  As I said earlier, a nuclear explosion seems perfectly in line with expansion of gnostic battle cants via metagnosis and apart from the appearance of the device itself, everything else makes more sense if this is true.

Kellhus has been conditioning Proyas to lead the ordeal after he leaves, and specifically to turn the ordeal to cannibalism - he both knew he would be leaving, and that he would kill all the Sranc.  He knows the effects of radiation poisoning, even with his brilliant intellect I don't see how he could have worked this out from the principles of the explosion, however if he had experimented before on small scale he would have known.  Even his approach of hollowing out the mountain doesn't make a huge amount of sense unless he knows something is there that he is searching for - he could have just destroyed the place with earth quakes of his own, I'm sure the metagnostic walking on the echoes of the ground he showed in TWLW would have sealed Viri shut.  If instead the whole point of this part of the Ordeal is to get to Dagliash and excavate Viri to find something he believes is buried there, then he a) knows he will be leaving, b.) knows he will be killing all the Sranc before he leaves, c) he always planned to go back to the empire rather than that coming out of nowhere (Yatwer doesn't need to know why he does, she just knows he does so she saw this all along) and d) the current state of the ordeal is entirely according to plan.

On 21/08/2016 at 4:41 AM, Happy Ent said:

Is this quite correct? The Seleukaran is parried not by AK, but by a nameless Gielgathi thug. The only inconsistency is “heart” versus “throat”:

I think you are misreading the passage, the nameless thug damages the blade in a way that means when WLW attempts to strike AK, the blade breaks and his stroke continues past AK blade and kills him.  Its another way of getting around his ability to read the strike that is coming and dodge it, he can't foresee that the blade will break.