Bakker L - Unholy Consultation and Collaboration (Now with TUC Spoilers!)

[Michael Seswatha Jordan]

3 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

We've seen Mimara's son, who is so holy he blinds Mimara. 

As to holy being important, you're using the case of them being holy to say that they're important, and you're saying that they're important because they're holy. Shockingly that kind of tautology isn't very convincing. 

When I have I used the case that them being holy makes them important? I said they were the only ones have we've seen through the JE to be holy. I said Esme is important for some reason, why, I have no clue. Me pointing to her giving birth to Mimara (the prophetess) and Kel (TNG) are reason that she might be important. Youre reducing it down to her being a vessel for them two as something wrong or less....because feminism. I think there's more to it than than that though. Yes, the baby is holy, or not damned, we don't know which one. A soul that has yet to come into the world and interact with it, doesn't have a chance to be stained by damnation. I'm sure there is something special about Mimara's baby (baby Kellhus, liking it more and more), but it's not certain. Other than the baby, can we name another seen through the eyes to be saved? See, Mimara is holy, we know this through the haloes. Esme had no haloes, she was seen as saved, not really holy. So, you making my argument for me, isn't at all how I'm thinking about. Try asking, not assuming.

 

14 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

It's the most obvious reason that they would be, especially given Mimara and Esme's many, many sins. Mimara even remarks on it. Ultimately we don't know, but given that Esme is somewhat holy, Mimara is very holy, and Akka Jr. is SUPER holy, chances are good it has something to do with being the lineage of whatever the heck Akka Jr. is. 

Why else would Esme be holy? Why else would Mimara?

Again, we don't know that the baby is holy, as I explained above. Its just totally free from sin at that point. I think haloes are what announce holiness, and only Mim and Kellhus are seen with those.

[Michael Seswatha Jordan]

3 minutes ago, Let's Get Kraken said:

Are we certain that the child that survived was the holy one? Don't have my book atm, but did Mim look at it with the JE after it was born?

No, I don't believe so. And, as I said because it blinded her doesn't mean it to be holy. We've always interpreted the JE as showing salvation/damnation, not holiness. Saying the baby is holy from that passage is pure conjecture as we've never used the judging eye to show holiness. 

[Kalbear]

1 minute ago, Michael Seswatha Jordan said:

When I have I used the case that them being holy makes them important?

You literally just said that. Like, three posts ago. "Yes, I believe being holy and being important to hand in hand, didn't think I had to explain that."

1 minute ago, Michael Seswatha Jordan said:

I said they were the only ones have we've seen through the JE to be holy. I said Esme is important for some reason, why, I have no clue. Me pointing to her giving birth to Mimara (the prophetess) and Kel (TNG) are reason that she might be important. Youre reducing it down to her being a vessel for them two as something wrong or less....because feminism.

Because from an objective view of the world, the most important thing a woman could possibly do is carry the soul of the Living God. Since she cannot be, ya know, actually the god. This goes hand in hand with women having objectively less worth than men. The reason I think that is that it is the simplest textual explanation, it is literally the only explanation we have so far in the books, and it fits. If you have another explanation, feel free to provide it.

1 minute ago, Michael Seswatha Jordan said:

I think there's more to it than than that though. Yes, the baby is holy, or not damned, we don't know which one. A soul that has yet to come into the world and interact with it, doesn't have a chance to be stained by damnation.

Being not stained by damnation is not the same thing as being holy. The text reads:

"Then, at so very long last, it looks to her belly ...
And is struck blind."

That isn't just what a person free of sin looks like, from prior books, and it isn't what Mimara looks like. 

1 minute ago, Michael Seswatha Jordan said:

I'm sure there is something special about Mimara's baby (baby Kellhus, liking it more and more), but it's not certain. Other than the baby, can we name another seen through the eyes to be saved?

No one has been seen through the Judging Eye to be saved. They've been seen to be holy. Don't conflate the two. 

1 minute ago, Michael Seswatha Jordan said:

See, Mimara is holy, we know this through the haloes. Esme had no haloes, she was seen as saved, not really holy. So, you making my argument for me, isn't at all how I'm thinking about. Try asking, not assuming.

When you use words like holy and saved interchangeably, it's hard to even determine where you're going. When you say that you don't equate holy with important and 3 posts before say that you do, it's hard to take you seriously. 

But let's humor you.

So holy means you see haloes, though in Mimara's case only she sees them, and in Kellhus' case everyone does. Is that what you believe?

And you also believe that what Mimara sees when she says she sees people as holy is that they are saved, but they are not holy? 

1 minute ago, Michael Seswatha Jordan said:

Again, we don't know that the baby is holy, as I explained above. Its just totally free from sin at that point. I think haloes are what announce holiness, and only Mim and Kellhus are seen with those.

Do you have any evidence of this textually?

[Darth Richard II]

5 minutes ago, Let's Get Kraken said:

Didn't Bakker nix the Baby Kellhus thing in the AMA?

https://imgur.com/Ie8ticW

[Kalbear]

6 minutes ago, Michael Seswatha Jordan said:

No, I don't believe so. And, as I said because it blinded her doesn't mean it to be holy. We've always interpreted the JE as showing salvation/damnation, not holiness. Saying the baby is holy from that passage is pure conjecture as we've never used the judging eye to show holiness. 

I don't know about this 'we' here. I've assumed that when the Judging Eye sees people as holy, it sees people as holy, partially because we still don't know what it means to be saved. 

This is an interesting random passage that I'm now convinced is the words for Mimara's birthing:

And so life convulsed and life was expelled from the socket, drawn sheeted in blood from the suffocating real, the very muck of amniotic origin,
and held exposed to the scrutiny of cold Void, the hospice of prayer ...So that some essence might alight ...Some breath be drawn and screamed.

And this one:

Light.
Cold.
Terror ...
Breath.
A convulsive wail of arrival ...
Lost in the deluge of those departing.

But yes, other than the looking at her belly as she gives birth and is blinded, we don't have any other view.

[Hello World]

6 hours ago, Triskan said:

I don't think I'd seen that. Very interesting to hear that Fane is super-wrong.  So much for everything.

Yeah I hadn't seen that either. Although my first reaction to that thread was oh God, madness is answering fan questions again...

[Michael Seswatha Jordan]

8 hours ago, Kalbear said:

No one has been seen through the Judging Eye to be saved. They've been seen to be holy. Don't conflate the two. 

No, you have that backwards. Except for Mimara being holy, no one else.

Quote

There she stands before her, Anasûrimbor Esmenet, the Blessed Empress of the Three Seas. Haggard. Palace-pale. A rose-silk sheet clutched to her breast ...

Dark with the writhing, straining shadows of countless carnal transgressions.
Glowing with the promise of paradise.
Tears ... An inarticulate cry.
Tears.

Absolutely nothing about her being holy, only the promise of paradise, of being saved, salvation. As I said, the JE doesn't deem one holy (only one example and that's Mimara, maybe), it shows the stains of damnation or the promise of salvation.

ETA: yes, in haste I said that being holy was important. But, I corrected myself, 3 posts later. Which though I am sure being holy is important, it's just not the only reason they are important. And, it's not clear at all that Esme is holy. As I said, in haste I didn't explain myself well enough.

[Michael Seswatha Jordan]

8 hours ago, Kalbear said:

That isn't just what a person free of sin looks like, from prior books, and it isn't what Mimara looks like.

Where in prior books do we see a person free from sin? Please provide me with that info. Because I know of no such case. Besides what I explained about Mimara's baby.

 

8 hours ago, Kalbear said:

But let's humor you.

So holy means you see haloes, though in Mimara's case only she sees them, and in Kellhus' case everyone does. Is that what you believe?

And you also believe that what Mimara sees when she says she sees people as holy is that they are saved, but they are not holy? 

Yes, let's humour me.

Yes, the only one seen with halos through the JE is Mimara, I take that as her being a Holy vessel of the God of God's. As for Kellhus, I would say yes. We know they have no mark and he doesn't even understand them. I do think it is something that will be revealed, because Bakker absolutely will not talk about them.

Mimara uses the word Holy as her only way to describe such things. Such as snakes are holy and pigs are not. I don't know of any other time She refers to anyone as holy through the JE, humor me and show me where. She might have thoughts on what is holy and so does Koringhus.

Quote

Do you have any evidence of this textually?

No, I provided my thoughts on it. Do you have textual evidence that it isn't the case?

ETA: so to be clear and concise, being holy and saved are not the same thing, in my interpretation. Yes, I understand I said that as I rushed a post before walking out the door and it was dissected. I'm not the first, nor last to contradict themselves on accident. Or, think things through more clearly.

[Hello World]

11 hours ago, Cithrin's Ale said:

"My understanding is that it's just Crabby. In fact, Bakker actually said the other reason he wants to make Crabiqiad the first book is how much it will piss off people who are waiting for a follow-up to the ending of TUC."

Yeah, that'll show them! 

Unless he already pissed off enough people that the next book won't be published. I'm curious if he said anything about that at Zaudunyanicon. 

[Darth Richard II]

6 hours ago, Hello World said:

Unless he already pissed off enough people that the next book won't be published. I'm curious if he said anything about that at Zaudunyanicon. 

Well he only had a contract for up to TUC. I have no idea what's going on with publishing for future books at this point.

[lokisnow]

On 9/15/2017 at 9:35 AM, Michael Seswatha Jordan said:

@Locke, so you are the creator of the Bakker Troll theory. So is it your assertation that the AMA changes nothing and we should just worry on the text? Or, was it a intellectual joke?

A little of both, sologdin had a great line about the fundamental invalidity of extra textual information After TGO was published, I think. But yes the AMA changes nothing because bakker's motivations in forwarding in extra textual settings his philosophical hobbyhorses and agendas about meaning have nothing to do with the textual storytelling he constructed that people have built communities around.

I view bakkers extra textual commentaries as constructed by Bakker to try and short circuit the brains of his readership, that he views our alleged "belief" in his stories as the same as belief in anything, and that all belief must be attacked and hopefully destroyed.

bakker, in this model, would view people as demonstrating they are infected with a disease if they are passionately devoted to lord of the rings, or game of thrones, or Star Wars. And I think he truly believes (heh) that if he can only DEMONSTRATE to people just how fake their fantasies are with a fantasy he can deliberately undermine then they would stop believing in any of them, they would be inoculated against the belief disease.

[Callan S.]

1 hour ago, lokisnow said:

A little of both, sologdin had a great line about the fundamental invalidity of extra textual information After TGO was published, I think. But yes the AMA changes nothing because bakker's motivations in forwarding in extra textual settings his philosophical hobbyhorses and agendas about meaning have nothing to do with the textual storytelling he constructed that people have built communities around.

Blimey! "Fuck you, story teller, we've heard the story and now we turn to each other and away from ye"?

Quote

 

I view bakkers extra textual commentaries as constructed by Bakker to try and short circuit the brains of his readership, that he views our alleged "belief" in his stories as the same as belief in anything, and that all belief must be attacked and hopefully destroyed.

bakker, in this model, would view people as demonstrating they are infected with a disease if they are passionately devoted to lord of the rings, or game of thrones, or Star Wars. And I think he truly believes (heh) that if he can only DEMONSTRATE to people just how fake their fantasies are with a fantasy he can deliberately undermine then they would stop believing in any of them, they would be inoculated against the belief disease.

 

I think I'd be willing to bet he has no beef with belief, in as much as he'd think you're stuck in it. But he does want to force you off fish and chips and to engage more complicated meals, until you reluctantly gain a taste to some degree. But generally all authors, apart from pure entertainers, aspire to this (whether any authors work really is complicated is another matter. I'm just talking aspiration)

I like your mention of inoculation. I've thought along those lines myself, but I've thought the texts were an inoculation against socio psychological hacking (or a partial inoculation, anyway)

[Cithrin's Ale]

6 hours ago, lokisnow said:

I view bakkers extra textual commentaries as constructed by Bakker to try and short circuit the brains of his readership, that he views our alleged "belief" in his stories as the same as belief in anything, and that all belief must be attacked and hopefully destroyed.

Except for the people who believe his stories aren't sexist. They're okay. You see, it's those who accuse him of misogyny who are guilty of bias and group thinking.

[Darth Richard II]

7 hours ago, Cithrin's Ale said:

Except for the people who believe his stories aren't sexist. They're okay. You see, it's those who accuse him of misogyny who are guilty of bias and group thinking.

That reminds me a bit of arguments you see atheists and non atheists get into sometimes, where someone inevitably says you need to believe in not believing so it counts as believing.

[odium]

Funny lokisnow should mention Star Wars up the page.

Today, at last, I achieved the Thousandfold Thought and ascertained not only the true form of the Absolute, but also the logical next step for Bakker in his quest to push TSA, and through it his Blind Brain Theory, upon the world at large. Given the sudden rekindling of the SW franchise, Bakker should take the opportunity to approach Lucasfilm about reinstating a classic and universally loved part of the EU, the Yuuzhan Vong invasion, but remodeling the Yuuzhan Vong after the Inchoroi and generally reflavoring their motivation from the sealing of the chosen world to the sealing of the chosen galaxy (far, far away). What will Luke Skywalker and the reborn Jedi Knights do when faced with the extragalactic race of lovers and the terrible truth that the Force can lead only to the dark side?! 

[Darth Richard II]

Nice, but there are no reborn Jedi Knights, so it can't work.

[Callan S.]

"I see your schwartz is as big as mine!"

[.H.]

On 9/15/2017 at 1:47 PM, Kalbear said:

It's not just the metaphysics, however (though there's a lot of that) - it's what actually happened. As an example, Koringhus. What happened to him? Was he right? As it turns out, Bakker has made him an example of being deliberately ambiguous, so his entire set of chapters are not meant to provide any more reason or meaning or answers, just make you think a bit and then move on. And his part was almost 1/4th of a book. 

Will Crabicus' book be basically that?

Will Mimara's answer about what TJE is and what she can do be basically that?

Will  Akka's dreams and his ultimate destination be basically that?

Will Kellhus' original plan to save the world be basically that?

Again, this is far beyond the metaphysics and gets into the meat of the story itself, at least for me. As I said in my review of TUC, it's becoming more clear that there aren't any real answers beyond very surface ones, and if you're looking for narrative depth you're likely not going to be satisfied - either because Bakker deliberately wants to make things ambiguous or he simply hasn't thought it through and doesn't care.

OK, that's a fair point, Bakker definitely leaves a great deal of ambiguity on the table.  My personal feeling is that he partly does that because there aren't going to be an "great" answers to those questions, but again, there is no doubt I have implicit bias here given that the ambiguity doesn't really bother me.  This is most probably born out of the fact that, when I read something, I rarely care for the characters in even the slightest fashion.  Bakker's works are no different for me in that respect.

The ambiguity allows the reader the space to argue various points though.  If we knew definitively what happened to Koringhus, there really wouldn't be much to discuss about him.  But I do agree that the ambiguity doesn't cut against the "narrative" quality of the series.  For whatever reason though, that doesn't really bother me.  I guess if you signed up for a "great" narrative, you'd end up feeling pretty left out though.

Chances are good that Crabicus' book is Blood Meridian: Eärwa Edition, which probably means that again, it probably is less about narrative than even TAE is.  I'm interesting in that, but I have to doubt lots of people simply aren't and that's fine.  I just have a hard time when people insist something isn't good because it isn't what they want.  Like if I buy an Italian cookbook and then say it wasn't good because what I wanted was Chinese food.  That analogy quickly breaks down, because the "label" on Bakker's books doesn't give you a warning that it willfully is working against "narration," but I think there is still something to it.  If strong narrative depth is what you want, Bakker probably will never deliver it.

On 9/15/2017 at 1:47 PM, Kalbear said:

And I get that, I do - but for a whole lot of other people knowing for certain that they'll never get any answers to things isn't satisfying. That Bakker outright attempts to mislead in his direct answers some of the time and not others is even less satisfying.

For me, the AMA was infuriating partially because of Bakker's incredibly ego-laden answer about how it's our fault that we don't like being misled into thinking there are answers when there won't be, and partially because it obliterated the notion that Kellhus had deliberately planned on being Ajokli and taking over the world. That ending was one of the best ones, it answered a bunch of things going far back, and...poof, authorial data says it's gone.

Bakker is a character, no doubt.  I have no clue if a good one or a bad one, but certainly one none the less.  As a fan, I do wish he came across differently than he does, but since this world is the only one we have, I'm apt to just accept it.  I'm not sure if it is uniquely Bakker to have his extra-textual answers cut off some number of theories though, I don't really follow enough of other authors to know.  It's bound to happen though, since the author's intent can only be somewhat singular.

[Kalbear]

3 hours ago, .H. said:

OK, that's a fair point, Bakker definitely leaves a great deal of ambiguity on the table.  My personal feeling is that he partly does that because there aren't going to be an "great" answers to those questions, but again, there is no doubt I have implicit bias here given that the ambiguity doesn't really bother me.  This is most probably born out of the fact that, when I read something, I rarely care for the characters in even the slightest fashion.  Bakker's works are no different for me in that respect.

Characters are something of a big deal for me (they are for the most part why I love GRRM's works), but narrative flow is really the big deal. B5 is one of my favorite works, and it works because of how good the story is. GRRM's brilliance also shows through when he's able to get a great narrative in, and AGOT remains such a good book because the narrative is so tight and so perfect and so surprising, yet set up perfectly well. 

3 hours ago, .H. said:

 I guess if you signed up for a "great" narrative, you'd end up feeling pretty left out though.

... I just have a hard time when people insist something isn't good because it isn't what they want.  Like if I buy an Italian cookbook and then say it wasn't good because what I wanted was Chinese food.  That analogy quickly breaks down, because the "label" on Bakker's books doesn't give you a warning that it willfully is working against "narration," but I think there is still something to it.  If strong narrative depth is what you want, Bakker probably will never deliver it.

Right - and that's what I'm coming to realize. One of the ways that I had hoped would be a big pay off was in narrative depth and clear, planned answers to many mysteries. I think the frission I feel is that Bakker either deliberately allowed people to think there was going to be big narrative payoff or actively promoted it himself (the implication of the term metaphysical whodunnit is that whodunnit is solved, and the implication of the g-string coming off is seeing more), when in reality it isn't the metaphysics that are going to stay vague, it's fairly big chunks of the plot itself.

And what doesn't stay vague isn't set up well, either (such as Kellhus' gradual descent into possession). And more than the reader not picking up on this, it's a structural problem; Kellhus is a character that in dealings with him you can assume most of the time to be lying, so the reader is naturally trained to dismiss some of his 'I only have the truth' bits when he says them, because we know this is how he manipulates. And his own PoV isn't particularly clear either, so that doesn't help matters more. Sure, the reader didn't pick up on some of the clues (to my knowledge no one actually did), but it's not clear how it would be expected that we would trust the narration of the most unreliable narrator and his dealings with others. 

3 hours ago, .H. said:

Bakker is a character, no doubt.  I have no clue if a good one or a bad one, but certainly one none the less.  As a fan, I do wish he came across differently than he does, but since this world is the only one we have, I'm apt to just accept it.  I'm not sure if it is uniquely Bakker to have his extra-textual answers cut off some number of theories though, I don't really follow enough of other authors to know.  It's bound to happen though, since the author's intent can only be somewhat singular.

I've known very few authors or humans who so quickly go to blame others for failures of interpreting. It is definitely unique. 

[Cithrin's Ale]

I'm rereading Warrior-Prophet and am currently at Antwurat. I like that for all the glorification Cnaiur's military genius received, Skauras thoroughly outwitted him. It's fun to wonder if the Holy War would have prevailed over the Fanim without Kellhus' defense of the swazond standard.