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Bakker XXI: Attack of the Maximum Fun-Fun Ultra Super Happy People


Happy Ent

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:dunno: Anything qualifies when you're insane. It might make sense if he's the one who informed Seswatha about the No-God and the Heron Spear in the first place, kind of acting like a spy or a double agent. But since he's the one who brought the Mangaecca to Golgoterath it only works if he turned against the consult after hearing about the No-God. That was before he returned back to the consult's side and fought for the No-God... Like I said, the guy is insane. He actually told Seswatha that he loves in TTT, but has to do the things he hate because he's erractic. So he's not pure evil.

Actually, this really goes to show that the simplest explanation are most often the correct ones, Bakker made a mistake.

HWA, in which book did Mek make the claim?

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The claim that he hates the things he does? In TTT.





“I am an Erratic,” Mekeritrig was saying. “I do that which I hate, I raise my heart to the lash, so that I might remember! Do you understand what this means? You are my children!”


...



“Though I love, I will upend your soul’s foundation! I will release you from the delusions of this word ‘Man,’ and draw forth the beast—the soulless beast!—that is the howling Truth of all things … You will tell me!” The old man coughed, drooled blood. “And I, Seswatha … I will remember!”


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TDTCB Prologue:

I am a warrior of ages, Anasurimbor ... ages. I have dipped my nimil in a thousand hearts. I have ridden both against and for the No-God in the great wars that authored this wilderness. I have scaled the ramparts of great Golgotterath, watched the hearts of High Kings break for fury.

I don't see any plot contrivance in Mek's actions in letting Kell go. The fight was already memorable, which was Mek's only goal (as far as we know), so there was no need to kill him.

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So maybe Mek just went nuts a few times and started fighting Sranc when he should have be fighting with them. Then he saw the Whirlwind behind the Consult legions and remembered why he was there.



Not convinced Bakker made a mistake here.


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Yeah, and it seems like most of the time when we think we've caught a mistake we end up finding a way out of it or at least a plausible one.

And the other mindf*ck is this prophet of the past thing...like...the story seems to be turning towards telling us that some of what we've been told was off.

It just seems like there were a lot of battles fought even after the No-God arose. It seems more than possible Mek regained enough of his old personality to switch sides at least once.

And yeah, there is a lot of accepted stuff that will be overturned before the story ends.

Curious how many mysteries remain after TUC.

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I think it's useful to post what he said here, Men v. Nonmen (2004):

I can recap and clarify the info that's been given so far: the Nonmen are an ancient race, the 'original people' of Earwa, who are nearly immortal, and who fought both for and against the No-God during the Apocalypse. They are slowly going insane: their minds can only hold roughly four or five human lifetimes of experiences, and as the centuries pass the traumatic experiences they suffer crowd out their other memories, until now, almost all Nonmen remember only the pain and loss in their lives. And some, like the Nonman (Mekertrig) that Kellhus meets in the Prologue, have taken to creating traumatic experiences just so they can have something to remember...


It's interesting that he uses almost the same phrase to say that Nonmen in general fought for and against the No-God during the apocalypse. He's probably saying that some Nonmen fought for the No-God and others against him. But it could have different implications if what Mek said to Kellhus in the prologue is really a mistake or something that was changed in later books (not that I think this is likely).

Yeah, and it seems like most of the time when we think we've caught a mistake we end up finding a way out of it or at least a plausible one.

To try and settle as much of these issues as possible, is there any explanation for why the skin spy took Geshrunni's face to impersonate him?

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:dunno: Anything qualifies when you're insane. It might make sense if he's the one who informed Seswatha about the No-God and the Heron Spear in the first place, kind of acting like a spy or a double agent. But since he's the one who brought the Mangaecca to Golgoterath it only works if he turned against the consult after hearing about the No-God. That was before he returned back to the consult's side and fought for the No-God... Like I said, the guy is insane. He actually told Seswatha that he loves in TTT, but has to do the things he hate because he's erractic. So he's not pure evil.

Actually, this really goes to show that the simplest explanation are most often the correct ones, Bakker made a mistake.

I don't know, I think you made a good case for it actually.

It's not that far fetched to think that he broke down somehow, released Seswatha, and let him escape with the Heron Spear, especially given that he seemed conflicted when he tortured Seswatha and he was a friend of his in the past IIRC.

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He probably took Geshrunni's face so that if the skin spy took over his identity at some point their would not be a body for the authorities to find, it was only discovered by a fisherman in the delta who happened to inform the Scarlett Spires of its existence and they surmised that it was Geshrunni. With is chorea in hand he could easily assume his identity if the Consult wished it.


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I always associated the face-taking with Mek's face cloak, since they're pretty close in the text; I know it doesn't make any sense, but I never made the connection between skin-spies stealing faces and, well, skin-spies stealing faces.

I don't really think it is a mistake, though - Bakker seems to have had the whole face-changing mechanics pretty well down in TDTCB, so it wouldn't make a lot of sense for it to be a GOTMism. On the other hand ... do we actually know that they don't need the faces to help them change their appearance?

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To me saying "I have ridden against the No-God" (and bragging about it) implies more than he got confused and fought some sranc a couple of times, or that he helped Seswatha escape in secret. It implies that he "officially" joined and fought with the other host against the No-God and the consult's host, in battle. And if that happened, did the rest of the consult not see it? Or do they not care now that he's back on their side?


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To me saying "I have ridden against the No-God" (and bragging about it) implies more than he got confused and fought some sranc a couple of times, or that he helped Seswatha escape in secret. It implies that he "officially" joined and fought with the other host against the No-God and the consult's host, in battle. And if that happened, did the rest of the consult not see it? Or do they not care now that he's back on their side?

Well, it's possible he did in fact switch sides for a significant length of time. The Consult could have killed him after he returned to the fold for that but perhaps doing so would cause all the Quya on their side to rebel.

eta:

I'm with Trisk. Pretending to be Geshrunni is all well and good until someone finds out Geshrunni has been identified as dead in the river.

Yeah that makes the most sense. I was thinking the skin spy kept the face as a memento for some reason.

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I always associated the face-taking with Mek's face cloak, since they're pretty close in the text; I know it doesn't make any sense, but I never made the connection between skin-spies stealing faces and, well, skin-spies stealing faces.

I don't really think it is a mistake, though - Bakker seems to have had the whole face-changing mechanics pretty well down in TDTCB, so it wouldn't make a lot of sense for it to be a GOTMism. On the other hand ... do we actually know that they don't need the faces to help them change their appearance?

I cannot provide a link to it at the moment, but I think there may have been some inderteminance of how skin spies do their thing at that point in writing. I would have to find a quote, unless Madness knows of what I speak already?
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But if that's right...if it means that Seswatha stole into the Ark because he already knew about the possibility of the No-God...how the Hell did he know? And how would he know that only a laser would work against it?

The glossary says that he believed it to be the only weapon that could defeat the No-God.

until it was stolen by Cet’ingira (see Mekertrig) and delivered to Golgotterath c. 750. Then in 2140 it was stolen again by Seswatha (see Apocalypse), who believed it to be the only weapon capable of destroying the No-God.

I'm going with Mekertrig told him about the Heron Spear and the No-God.

Another possibility is, whatever is sending Achamian the dreams is the same thing that brought Seswatha to Golgoterath and the Heron Spear. The two journeys mirror each other (with one exception). Seswatha takes Nau-Cayuti (his son secretly) on a false/apocryphal journey to find his concubine, and Achamian takes Mimara (his daughter secretly) on a false journey to find the coffers, they all end up in Golgoterath.

The difference is that Nau-Cayuti was turned into the No-God by the Consult (this is shown by Celmomas telling Seswatha that the end of the world is his burden -> his son, and that he sees Nau "Galloping through the hearts of my people, stirring them to wonder and fury!" -> that's the No-God). Mimara on the other hand is female, and she's pregnant with the eye of the God. Somehow she will turn into the Yes-God and destroy the consult, and Bakker's claim that we need to wait till the end of the series before criticising his female characters will still not make any sense but we'll at least know what he meant by it.

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Another possibility is, whatever is sending Achamian the dreams is the same thing that brought Seswatha to Golgoterath and the Heron Spear. The two journeys mirror each other (with one exception). Seswatha takes Nau-Cayuti (his son secretly) on a false/apocryphal journey to find his concubine, and Achamian takes Mimara (his daughter secretly) on a false journey to find the coffers, they all end up in Golgoterath.

The difference is that Nau-Cayuti was turned into the No-God by the Consult (this is shown by Celmomas telling Seswatha that the end of the world is his burden -> his son, and that he sees Nau "Galloping through the hearts of my people, stirring them to wonder and fury!" -> that's the No-God). Mimara on the other hand is female, and she's pregnant with the eye of the God. Somehow she will turn into the Yes-God and destroy the consult, and Bakker's claim that we need to wait till the end of the series before criticising his female characters will still not make any sense but we'll at least know what he meant by it.

O_o

I'm going with Mekertrig told him about the Heron Spear and the No-God.

I'm thinking this as well.

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