Bakker LI - The Darkness That Lies Ahead (TUC Spoilers!)

[Hello World]

6 minutes ago, odium said:

because he is the only individual who seems impervious to the gods' meddling. There's no reason to assume someone else could do that...

That we know about...

The way I see it, there's no reason to assume he's the only one.

[End of Disc One]

If Bakker was serious about Ajokli/Kellhus in the AMA, I hope he sees our bitching and takes the opportunity to change things for the final trilogy/duology/whatever.

[Darth Richard II]

8 minutes ago, End of Disc One said:

If Bakker was serious about Ajokli/Kellhus in the AMA, I hope he sees our bitching and takes the opportunity to change things for the final trilogy/duology/whatever.

But he doesn't read comments about his stuff on the interwebs!

(Also he kind of hates this place)

[Kalbear]

48 minutes ago, odium said:

It is rather heavily implied that Kelmomas is the only one that can activate it, because he is the only individual who seems impervious to the gods' meddling. There's no reason to assume someone else could do that... it just so happens that there's also no explanation for why he's somehow compatible, and what with the whole "son of Seswatha" red herring, we have no real way of knowing if it's an Anasurimbor thing or what.

You've got it the other way around. Kelmomas happens to be the one who DOES activate it, and the result of that is that he is impervious to the gods meddling. Others could have done that in theory, but Kelmomas is the only one who did it, and therefore he's the only one who does it.

[Hello World]

47 minutes ago, End of Disc One said:

If Bakker was serious about Ajokli/Kellhus in the AMA, I hope he sees our bitching and takes the opportunity to change things for the final trilogy/duology/whatever.

He's more likely to double down because we complained.

[Darth Richard II]

3 minutes ago, Hello World said:

He's more likely to double down because we complained.

Yeah that's what i was getting at with my he hates this place comment.

[unJon]

2 hours ago, odium said:

It is rather heavily implied that Kelmomas is the only one that can activate it, because he is the only individual who seems impervious to the gods' meddling. There's no reason to assume someone else could do that... it just so happens that there's also no explanation for why he's somehow compatible, and what with the whole "son of Seswatha" red herring, we have no real way of knowing if it's an Anasurimbor thing or what.

What Kalbear said. He beat me to it. 

[Hello World]

1 hour ago, Darth Richard II said:

Yeah that's what i was getting at with my he hates this place comment.

He already said he's starting the next series with Crabicus because readers complained about the ending if I'm not misremembering. I don't think it's specific to this place, though.

[Hello World]

2 hours ago, Kalbear said:

You've got it the other way around. Kelmomas happens to be the one who DOES activate it, and the result of that is that he is impervious to the gods meddling. Others could have done that in theory, but Kelmomas is the only one who did it, and therefore he's the only one who does it.

If he becomes the No-God why is he invisible before? Wasn't there supposed to be a distinction between how the Gods and the Outside exist at all times in Earwa but the No-God exists after time or something? At some point the Apocalypse happens and a separate, new timeline, begins. That was my understanding, and the No-God is part of that, but until it happens Kelmomas is just a boy with a soul.

[Dora Vee]

2 hours ago, Hello World said:

He already said he's starting the next series with Crabicus because readers complained about the ending if I'm not misremembering. I don't think it's specific to this place, though.

Really? Uh-oh. Then I guess I should shut up about Proyas then or there'll be a scene in Damnation with him getting shoved between Cnaiur's asscheeks. Or worse, Kellhus's. 

He probably despises Tumblr...

[lokisnow]

On 10/23/2017 at 8:26 AM, Maithanet said:

I think "readers don't just get it" is even worse.  There's nothing wrong with making something with lowbrow mass appeal that critics hate.

Bakker has taken "the readers don't get it" to previously unattained heights, since he writes very ambiguously and then gives statements in his AMA that seem directly contradictory to the text.  Or he includes things that no one could reasonably be expected to "get".  I remember that when he was posting here as Pierce Inverarity (many years ago) that he said that the three women in the first trilogy were meant to represent the "whore, waif, harridan" triumvirate.  But people pointed out that they'd never heard of this triumvirate of female characters, it's not exactly something people look for.  And that Istriya (sp?) doesn't really fit for harridan, since she was actually not a woman but a skin spy monster.  And why do all three women use sex as essentially their only method to get what they want?  His answers in the Bakker and Women threads, showed that Bakker had thought carefully about how his characters are presented and what that means, but that he had significant blind spots which frustrated a careful reading.

That criticism goes double for TUC.  Bakker was ambitious, and at times he was very good, but really missed the mark on a lot of stuff.  Surprisingly IMO, he was at his best when he was doing the typical fantasy stuff.  The awe of seeing golgotterath for the first time or Kellhus destroying the Horn were great.  But really all of Aspect Emperor suffers from poor storytelling, poor characterization, and poor plotting.  Lots of things have buildup with no payoff.  This series tries to achieve great things, but in the end the more you think about it, the less sense it makes. 

The funny think about the triumvirate is that this was before aspect emperor was published. 

Bakker dashed that off and people were like "wtf? There are only two women in this universe " (aside: sort of like how there are only two women in the original Star Wars trilogy universe)

with the benefit of hindsight, one can see Bakker was speaking from a place with knowledge that his universe had three women, not two, and he was structuring mimara, Esme, and serwe in this manner. Not being able to take it back or admit he'd revealed a spoiler about esmenet, Bakker had to cover his ass and lie weakly with the claim that istriya was the missing third. 

[Kalbear]

20 hours ago, Hello World said:

If he becomes the No-God why is he invisible before? Wasn't there supposed to be a distinction between how the Gods and the Outside exist at all times in Earwa but the No-God exists after time or something? At some point the Apocalypse happens and a separate, new timeline, begins. That was my understanding, and the No-God is part of that, but until it happens Kelmomas is just a boy with a soul.

Why do you ask questions you already know the answer to, Esme?

Earwan time has already happened. It is already basically set. I've used and will continue to use the analogy of the book. You can read the pages of the book, usually in linear fashion, but you reading something on page 110 doesn't change what happens on page 320, nor does reading page 320 change what happens on 110. 

The No-God was always going to succeed because we know that there are limits to what the gods can see. If they could see everything, nothing could shut them out. Similarly, Mimara has the judging eye when she is not pregnant because she was always destined to get pregnant. 

And for Kelmomas, he was always going to exist past the end of the book, and therefore cannot be perceived by the gods at any point in that book. Kelmomas is the bookmark in the book, and no matter how much that bookmark interacts with the book, it doesn't change what is written. 

[Darth Richard II]

3 hours ago, Let's Get Kraken said:

Why wouldn't he just say that he'd be introducing a third female character in TAE that would complete the picture? I mean, hasn't he argued that the point he's going for will be made more clear after TAE in other instances?

Cause he was still sock puppeting.

[Kalbear]

So the theory is that Esme was supposed to be the 'harridan' and Mimara the whore? Uh...wha?

 

[Darth Richard II]

You could also argue he didn't know what he was doing and wrote shit as it came to him.

[Dora Vee]

Yea, I can't see Esmenet being that much of a harridan. 

For me, Mimara and Serwe would be the "waifs", Esmenet is "the whore" and maybe the unknown Miramis could become the "harridan", especially if she's anything like Saubon. 

[Darth Richard II]

What is this triumvirate you guys speak of actually from? Is this some obscure philosophy thing?

[Dora Vee]

It's something I saw in a discussion. Bakker was saying that he was presenting the whore, the waif and the harridan, which are archetypes. 

 

"I self consciously picked three mysogynistic types for my female characters (just as I picked fantasy cliche types for my male characters): the whore, the waif, and the harridan. Earwa is a brutally patriarchal world, much as our own was (which makes our own fascination with fantastic versions of our past that much more peculiar), and I wanted to explore the significance of those types in such a world. Serwe is obviously the waif, the frail innocent wronged by the machinations of a cruel world. As such she had to die.

But it was the innocence part, that struck me as the most significant and the most redemptive. Without giving too much away, there is a manner in which Serwe is the most important character in the book."

 

http://www.second-apocalypse.com/index.php?topic=947.0

[Darth Richard II]

Eh, I thought he mentioned that stuff on this forum when he was still sock puppet-ing

[Callan S.]

23 hours ago, Hello World said:

If he becomes the No-God why is he invisible before? Wasn't there supposed to be a distinction between how the Gods and the Outside exist at all times in Earwa but the No-God exists after time or something? At some point the Apocalypse happens and a separate, new timeline, begins. That was my understanding, and the No-God is part of that, but until it happens Kelmomas is just a boy with a soul.

I'd extend Kalbear's book idea to there being two books, one book inside the other. The gods can see all time in their book, but they can't see that the second book rewrites the first book to match the second books narrative. Remember the survivor saying 'this has all happened before' - for some reason he is aware of the rewrites or has figured it out. Kelmomas is an extension from the second book into the first book.

So the gods act like they've read the whole book and get everything in it, when really they are shitty readers.