Jump to content

Bakker LII: Ol' Golgotterath Blues


Larry of the Lawn

Recommended Posts

On 12/2/2017 at 0:47 PM, Hello World said:

I feel like he could have cut out Kellhus raping Proyas and the rest of his arc upto his death and no one would have missed anything. Maybe that's a different story but with Bakker leaving other, more important, character arcs unresolved it makes me wonder why he spent so much on Proyas. I mentioned when I first read the book that the first couple hundred pages made it seem like Proyas was by far the main character in TUC. 

(a little late here, I know). Anyway, I would have missed something, but that's just me. As for why some much time was spent on Proyas, I think it was to basically set people up into believing that certain things would happen only to have them dashed and then to draw it out for him be killed in a way that no one would have seen coming. Like I said before, subversive for the sake of being subversive. Proyas could have been scapegoated without having to die. If Kellhus really needed to him to bear witness, then he would have done whatever it took to keep him alive even if it meant getting the Malowabi treatment.

How hard was it to hand Proyas over to Achamian? It's not like anyone had to know and really, to mutiny over something like that when Proyas was already punished would have been galatically stupid. 

I am STILL angry over this. Brrr...I have to say that Bakker is quite effective. 

As for the other character arcs, well, if they're still alive, then they'll be dealt with in the No God. The only problem is that, at this point, Achamian is the only one who matters now. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Ser Drizztos said:

I have heard the grave news that TUC pretty much sucks. Is it true? How could the messiah fail us so?

The prose was way better than in TGO, and there are some really great moments.  There are also a few moments where it's like 'Bakker wtf are doing?'.

 

Ihave a lot of issues (a real lot!) with it but enjoyed it and will read it again.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

45 minutes ago, Dora Vee said:

How hard was it to have Proyas over to Achamian? It's not like anyone had to know and really, to mutiny over something like that when Proyas was already punished would have galatically stupid. 

I am STILL angry over this. Brrr...I have to say that Bakker is quite effective. 

That's interesting because I was never emotionally invested in Proyas or his quest to please Kellhus, but I could say the same about almost all other characters in TAE. The only exceptions are maybe Sorweel and Serwa.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Dora Vee said:

Proyas could have been scapegoated without having to die.

[spoiler warning for those asking about TUC]

Kellhus didn't kill him? He was literally hung out in a way where he'd just hang but live - sure, it sucked and was slowly killing him, but it wouldn't kill him. Then Cnaiur turned up, apparently unexpectedly - that was Proyas's end.

Kellhus has done this before - he went to kill Cnaiur once...then decided to use him instead. He goes to kill Proyas...but then basically just sit him on the shelf in case he can use him (also there's some sub routine of optimal time spent alive so as to avoid damnation torture)

Quote

How hard was it to hand Proyas over to Achamian?

It would not be the shortest path.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

IIRC he says if he gets run over by a bus, assume she's dead. Otherwise Sewa is still potentially in play.

I dunno if I'm being lulled by dunyain wiles, but as the first true dunyain woman (sorry, gunna call it, Thelli doesn't quite count) I'm seeing her as a kind of element that the dunyain were missing and made them so very weak (ignoring for now the monsterousness of the whale mother treatment). Still bloody cut throat, as she would kill Sorweel if she knew he would betray the cause, but strident feeling along with calculation instead of just exacting calculation.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Quote

I'm seeing her as a kind of element that the dunyain were missing and made them so very weak

Well, the only weakness Kellhus displayed was being blind to a takeover by a God. I don't know what having women would have changed in his character. Especially since he showed no problems dealing with and conditioning human women at all. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I read this review on Goodreads and thought it was hilarious. But is it true? Did Bakker go overboard with the gay snuff porn this time? Is there really a dragon who yells "I like cunny"? Is it just a massive cliffhanger for the next series of novels that leaves all major questions unanswered?

 

Quote

 

 
I wanted to like this so much. SO much. I love his other books. But it's awful in my opinion, just wretchedly awful. 

It's about 30% super gross and repetitive gay snuff porn, maybe more...expect the first 40% of the length of the book to be little else. Bakker repeats the same lines over and over and over with a lot of arbitrary italics to try and lend weight to certain phrases (the Meat! vile angel! argh). Always verbose, he takes it to the next level here, framing scenes of mass gay rape and necrophilia with ponderous musings about the shitty nature of the human soul. Bakker, for some fucking reason, felt the need wax on with not just phallic imagery, but romance erotica language like "his manhood" and "throbbing phallus" and "turgid horn"...too many times to even count. Entire major storylines that have been built up over the last 2-3 books get dropped like red herrings. Major characters die, but not in the George R Martin school of "OMG!". It's more like "what, that's it???" Whole story arcs just fizzle into literary blue balls. And when you come up towards the end and you're still baffled but you've got another 20% to go so your figure there's still time...NOPE! That last 20% of the book is appendixes! Yes, there is good info there, but I shouldn't have to read The Unholy Silmarillion to understand the book I just spent days reading.

And as usual, Bakker has issues with writing female characters. They're all dependent on male characters and largely useless outside of their interactions with them, with one exception, which I'm not naming for spoilery reasons. Her character has strong development, but was still pockmarked with dumb things like (when describing her genitalia, because of course he does) "the downy hair of her cursed sex". No reason, it's not cursed in any relevant sense, Bakker apparently just felt like saying that. And while her character is one of the best, she nevertheless feels like fan service, like "look, I can write a strong female...so I'm gonna make this chick basically a superhero to offset all the whores and pregnant women who depend on men in this series". She still dies in obscurity for what seems like no reason at all. And a dragon literally yells "I LIKE CUNNY!" lmfao

It's a lot of pornographic pontification about blah blah the soul blah blah the holy blah blah ejaculating on a corpse blah blah human nature. That may seem like a given, but this book took it to the nth degree. It wasn't just shocking, it was incredibly boring and repetitive. And most of the book just makes no sense at all.

Yeah, I'm mad at this book. I am such a big fan, and I feel not only let down, but honestly a bit offended that this was even published in this state.

 

 
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, Ser Drizztos said:

Did Bakker go overboard with the gay snuff porn this time?

Actually, as much as I actually loved the Gay Cannibal Holocaust, it was a bit much. Yes, there is a dumb "Cunny" dragon, but Serwa takes care of him. Yes, it's a cliffhanger. The review is not off, but they clearly disliked it far more than I did. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I didn't see it as a cliffhanger to be honest. The Consult won, the Ordeal is done, Kellhus is done. Whether the No-God succeeds in closing the world or not is to be determined in the years and decades to come. 

The only cliffhanger is the fate of some major characters.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Point to consider. The manuscript wasn't being published because the publisher thought it was absurd to publish something that bad and in need of front to back 100% rewrite?

"they haven't assigned me an editor!" Mmhm sure. Your editor read the cannibal rape holocaust and whale mothers and nuclear bombs and was like "nope." ;) lol

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, lokisnow said:

Point to consider. The manuscript wasn't being published because the publisher thought it was absurd to publish something that bad and in need of front to back 100% rewrite?

"they haven't assigned me an editor!" Mmhm sure. Your editor read the cannibal rape holocaust and whale mothers and nuclear bombs and was like "nope." ;) lol

Wasn't that whole publishing clusterfuck debunked a while back?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I wonder if there's some string of British code in the culture there - as if dragons must be dangerous, yes, but they must be polite! They can't just shoot their mouth off and say any old disgusting thing! "Oh, I say!" Monocle falls off

( On a side note the dragon, to me, seems an excellent reference to angry male teenage virgins, turned misogynistic on the drive of their lust and incapacity to do shit about it. But it'd also be a sin to have a fantasy creature be an metaphor for people in real life )

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, Callan S. said:

( On a side note the dragon, to me, seems an excellent reference to angry male teenage virgins, turned misogynistic on the drive of their lust and incapacity to do shit about it. But it'd also be a sin to have a fantasy creature be an metaphor for people in real life )

It was too on the nose to be called a metaphor and I think most readers were either laughing out loud at the absurdity of the scene or going "WTF!" or both that they failed to take it as any serious commentary on anything. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...