Bakker LII: Ol' Golgotterath Blues

[Kalbear]

10 minutes ago, .H. said:

I never did figure out what he meant.  It could be either whatever souls powered the Sarcaphagus pre-Eärwa, or a reference to NC.

I got the impression that the No-God system was used over and over again. The Inchoroi didn't understand it at all and never interacted with it. My original theory is that the Insertant was specifically a specimen of the target world, and the Inchoroi were used to primary kidnap and abduct the natives so that they could be put into the No-God prosthesis. 

10 minutes ago, .H. said:

Bakker kind of said as much:

It's Kel's lack of identity rather than something special about having two souls.  Although, being haunted by the soul of a dead twin may well lend itself to an absence of identity.  I do still think that my summation of profgrape's ideas (in my post above) might be more on the right track of "why Kel?"

The better question to me isn't 'why Kel', it's 'why Nau-Cayuti'. NC doesn't show any signs of lack of self and appears in Akka's dreams to be quite self-aware and care deeply about himself and others. Why does he work?

[.H.]

5 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

I got the impression that the No-God system was used over and over again. The Inchoroi didn't understand it at all and never interacted with it. My original theory is that the Insertant was specifically a specimen of the target world, and the Inchoroi were used to primary kidnap and abduct the natives so that they could be put into the No-God prosthesis.

I had the opposite impression.  I'd love to say there is some definitive textual reason why, but I don't think there is, but my idea was that while Ark was alive, it contained the souls of all the Progenitors.  In this way, the Sarcophagus wouldn't need an insertant, it was powered by all the souls of in Ark (or maybe the soul of Ark).  This is why it was particularly difficult for the Inchoroi to even fathom the idea of having to shove random beings into it in the first place, post-Arkfall.  The Sarcophagus had always just worked.  Just like why they had such a hard time with all the Tekne post-Fall, it had all always just worked on it's own.

I'd guess this is also why NC (and probably Kel) have a time limit.  They are only a battery strapped to the Sarcophagus in a sense.  Or, perhaps more likely, a set of jumper cables meant to boot the System into Resumption.  The whole thing was supposed to be self-sustaining, but the Ark being dead kind of killed that.  Perhaps this is why the Mutilated called the Sarcophagus a "prosthesis of Ark" because it really was just a "addition, application, or attachment" (the meaning of the word from the Greek) to Ark itself.

15 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

The better question to me isn't 'why Kel', it's 'why Nau-Cayuti'. NC doesn't show any signs of lack of self and appears in Akka's dreams to be quite self-aware and care deeply about himself and others. Why does he work?

Yeah, I mean, unfortunately we know almost nothing about NC himself, only anecdotally.  I still think it's a similarity to a Progenitor's soul, or the soul of Ark itself, but I have no way to prove it, or what that would really even mean.

[Kalbear]

1 minute ago, .H. said:

I had the opposite impression.  I'd love to say there is some definitive textual reason why, but I don't think there is, but my idea was that while Ark was alive, it contained the souls of all the Progenitors.

This is somewhat credited by Bakker's extratextual 'Kelmomas was closest to the original insertants brain patterns'. 

One could imagine that the Progenitors either had a whole bunch of souls which had basically no sense of self hanging around to use as fuel, or that they themselves didn't have much in the way of 'self'. I think the former is more credible; it's hard to imagine a race that is selfish enough to want to murder everyone in the universe to save themselves willingly giving up self-identity. 

 

[.H.]

12 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

This is somewhat credited by Bakker's extratextual 'Kelmomas was closest to the original insertants brain patterns'. 

One could imagine that the Progenitors either had a whole bunch of souls which had basically no sense of self hanging around to use as fuel, or that they themselves didn't have much in the way of 'self'. I think the former is more credible; it's hard to imagine a race that is selfish enough to want to murder everyone in the universe to save themselves willingly giving up self-identity.

Yeah, could be that too, or if it was the soul of Ark itself, that probably makes the most sense, being some Tekne thing with a soul "grafted" on to it.  Kind of in the same way that the Sarcophagus with a soul grafted onto it somehow equals the No-God.

[Kalbear]

The soul of Ark being completely selfless also makes some sense given it being some kind of tool. It doesn't explain why you would do that to Ark but not Inchoroi save as a backwards explanation (they decided to give Inchoroi a self because then they'd have a soul that could see the inverse fire and actually want to stop things), but Ark in a same vein as Blindsight aliens makes some vague textual sense and makes sense  given Bakker's liking of Watts. 

[Consigliere]

1 hour ago, Callan S. said:

I couldn't parse Bakker's reply on that 'an original insertant'. What's that mean? There have been insertants before the first apocalypse? What was an original insertant?

Unfortunately the only mention we get about the "Original Insertant" comes from the AMA. I assume that the No-God system was used on other Worlds pre Earwa. Perhaps the original insertant was some sort of construct by the Progenitors that allowed the No-God system to just work instead of having the Inchoroi experiment on a trial-and-error basis by randomly chucking people into the Carapace until they hit the jackpot. The Inchoroi, who are merely another weapons race, were possibly just responsible for reducing the population to 144k after the No-God was activated by a fully functioning Ark.

[Lutarez]

One thing that bothered me is how Kellhus wanted to take on the gods. Didn't he know that it's impossible to be a self moving soul? so it's impossible for him to deal with "timeless" gods?

 

Without kellmomas he would have died in that building in momemm. He couldn't defend himself against their power. He was as helpless as anyone else...  

 

Is Bakker making a point about his arrogance? Or is there more here ?

[Larry of the Lawn]

Why Kelmomas and NC?

Some possibilities:

-most capable son of the Inchies enemy

-because those are the two that Bakker decided became the No-God, without actually having any reason for it, anything he's said since is to create the appearance of a reason or esoteric connection

I have to say one line of questioning I was hoping would be addressed was all the speculation about the accuracy of Seswatha's dreams, whether or not he actually existed, or how warped is the Mandates perception of him, how much of the First Apocalypse history is accurate... iRC the only non-mandate sources for any of this is pre TGO were Cleric (mistaking Akka for Seswatha), and Mekeretrig (recognizing Kellhus as an Anasurimbor), obviously not the most reliable dudes.

[Darth Richard II]

1 minute ago, larrytheimp said:

I have to say one line of questioning I was hoping would be addressed was all the speculation about the accuracy of Seswatha's dreams, whether or not he actually existed, or how warped is the Mandates perception of him, how much of the First Apocalypse history is accurate... iRC the only non-mandate sources for any of this is pre TGO were Cleric (mistaking Akka for Seswatha), and Mekeretrig (recognizing Kellhus as an Anasurimbor), obviously not the most reliable dudes.

Didn't all that teasing turn out to be that guy(name escapes me) basically deciding to just make shit up for the "ad" campaign?

[Larry of the Lawn]

1 minute ago, Darth Richard II said:

Didn't all that teasing turn out to be that guy(name escapes me) basically deciding to just make shit up for the "ad" campaign?

It could be, although I thought that this had been kicked around for awhile, probably more pre-TGO than right before TUC.

 

[Kalbear]

1 hour ago, Lutarez said:

Is Bakker making a point about his arrogance? Or is there more here ?

That's sort of what I took it to be. Kellhus simply had big blind spots, and was fairly arrogant about them. He had some contingencies, but ultimately his lack of spiritual power and his belief that he would win and must win caused him to miss very obvious things in retrospect. He thinks, for instance, that Esme is the reason that he does things, and doesn't think for a second that he is being possessed by Ajokli. He sees himself get pulled into darkness more and more, but doesn't think at all that this might mean something in the darkness would grab him.

I think it's important to note that Kellhus and the Dunyain - both the ones who believe in meaning over everything else - are the ones that completely fail, and they completely fail because they have such a vestigal soul.

[Kalbear]

2 minutes ago, larrytheimp said:

It could be, although I thought that this had been kicked around for awhile, probably more pre-TGO than right before TUC.

 

No, that's correct. @bakkerfans apparently just stated what he wanted to be true, but it wasn't particularly canonical or even answered. He apparently thinks that the veracity and origin of the dreams is settled, when it isn't. 

[Darth Richard II]

2 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

No, that's correct. @bakkerfans apparently just stated what he wanted to be true, but it wasn't particularly canonical or even answered. He apparently thinks that the veracity and origin of the dreams is settled, when it isn't. 

I'm still not convinced he read the same book as the rest of us.,

[Callan S.]

3 hours ago, .H. said:

It's Kel's lack of identity rather than something special about having two souls.

It's the same thing - Kellhus literally describes each soul shifting places with the other, and each are unaware of the shift - each, when at the fore, thinks they are Kelmomas and when at the aft (the whisperer) thinks they are Samarmas. They are without true identity.

Sorry, it's just falling more into place with the quote! It could seem that the lack of identity allows a plastic soul who can be shaped to reform the original insertant (whoever that was). Everyone else's soul is a little hardened and cannot be made to simulate that original soul. The soul is object, as in it can be shaped by the mechanism, and subject ('cause it's a soul) at the same time.

And I can't believe I'm feeling sorry for Kelmomas in saying this...

[Kalbear]

27 minutes ago, Darth Richard II said:

I'm still not convinced he read the same book as the rest of us.,

He might not have. It's pretty unclear what versions everyone ended up reading. In any case, I don't think anyone believes that Seswatha's dreams and that subplot was answered definitively or particularly at all in TUC. 

[Darth Richard II]

7 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

He might not have. It's pretty unclear what versions everyone ended up reading. In any case, I don't think anyone believes that Seswatha's dreams and that subplot was answered definitively or particularly at all in TUC. 

Well that too, but I was more implying that the guy is just plain crazy.

[unJon]

1 hour ago, Callan S. said:

It's the same thing - Kellhus literally describes each soul shifting places with the other, and each are unaware of the shift - each, when at the fore, thinks they are Kelmomas and when at the aft (the whisperer) thinks they are Samarmas. They are without true identity.

Sorry, it's just falling more into place with the quote! It could seem that the lack of identity allows a plastic soul who can be shaped to reform the original insertant (whoever that was). Everyone else's soul is a little hardened and cannot be made to simulate that original soul. The soul is object, as in it can be shaped by the mechanism, and subject ('cause it's a soul) at the same time.

And I can't believe I'm feeling sorry for Kelmomas in saying this...

Or the key is lack of identity, which could have multiple causes. In Kelmomas case it was caused by being two souled but could have been caused by something else for N.C.  

The text reports two cases of two souled and both involved twins where one died plus other weirdness of the twins seemingly entangled with each other when both alive. We have no reports that N.C. was a twin  

We do have reports of N.C. being dragged through Golgotterath by Seswatha on search of his love and concubine who was dead but Seswatha lies to him about her being alive. A potentially crushing blow to the psyche when he realized the truth. Then his wife poisons him, he is buried alive and dug up by Aurang, dragged back to Golgotterath where (?) happens to him. These events could be identity shattering. We in fact see a scene where N.C. views the Inverse Fire with no real reaction and his POV is intentionally “identity-less” there as opposed to prior N.C. scenes.

 

[Callan S.]

Yeah, but you've seen the lines of shattered souls from Akka's dreams being led in chains to the golden chamber. The consult do horrible things - why would it just be conveniently the dashing prince that is the one who breaks the most utterly amongst them? Rather than poor bastard #4323747?

[Kalbear]

10 hours ago, Let's Get Kraken said:

If this were really the case I'm surprised that Bakker didn't give us more Kellhus POVs. Kellhus slowly succumbing to a god's possession and not knowing it would be a hell of a lot more interesting to read (and reread) than two-hundred pages of cannibalistic rape-orgies.

Yep. Bakker says it's the case, but I think he missed out on a grand opportunity to show even Kellhus succumbing to things he doesn't understand, and even him thinking he's above it all. It could have been a fairly masterful setup too, set up as far back as WLW and showing more and more the odd thoughts that he continues to rationalize as his 'darkness' being actually Ajokli. 

It would be a good fanfic, or a good opportunity for another writer to collaborate. 

[Lutarez]

19 hours ago, Kalbear said:

I think it's important to note that Kellhus and the Dunyain - both the ones who believe in meaning over everything else - are the ones that completely fail, and they completely fail because they have such a vestigal soul.

It's interesting in a way. All the while they wanted to become like Sranc ,skinspies or Basrag. I wonder how a souless trained dunayn would work. Is kellhus greater than most of them because he has the least ammount of "soul" ? 

 

As a die note, there's on thing that really dissapointed my in retrospect. We get a lot about Sranc,they are scary and a crazy version of orcs, we get non-man and so on, a lot of original and interesting species.  

What we don't get enough of is: the bashrag. How do they think? what's up with them? Are they also "great lovers" like the others? In my imagination they are the most "foggy"...