Bakker XXII: All Aboard the Damnation Express

[Kalbear]

Achamian notes to Mimara that the WLW is a folk tale IIRC.

He does the same thing with the Judging Eye.

[Sci-2]

But in the first series, it seems like others could tell that Gilgaol was doing stuff - observers could note it. So it's not just a personal gnosis; it's an observable effect.

What does Gilgaol do though besides make people fight good?

If I recall Conphas might've seen a change in Cnauir's shadow when he loses so many men trying to capture the Scylvendi?

[sologdin]

so, who assists AK during his aristeia in volume II, and with the heart thing? is his patron compensatory, punitive, or bellicose? if the third, yatwer?

eta: nevermind. she's listed as compensatory.

[Sci-2]

The God of Gods allows Kellhus to pull hearts good.

Duh.

[Francis Buck]

I don't think anyone helped Kellhus. He did it himself.

[Rhom]

so, who assists AK during his aristeia in volume II, and with the heart thing? is his patron compensatory, punitive, or bellicose? if the third, yatwer?

eta: nevermind. she's listed as compensatory.

The God of Gods allows Kellhus to pull hearts good.

Duh.

Is there a god of rectums?

:leaving:

[WrathOfTinyKittens]

Gilgaöl is described as a horned demon. Conphas and his men see it. I quoted the passage extensively in a previous thread, but basically the points are:

- Cnaiur fights like a man possessed and with incredible strength, saying that the world was rotted leather and he was iron. This includes snapping bones and crushing spines. He also throws a spear through a shield and all the way through the bearer.

- Cnaiur's voice is said to be taken up by the flames

- the language implies possession or the presence of the god, even calling Cnaiur an "aspect" at one point which seems like a clear call out in retrospect.

- Conphas and his columnaries see a physical transformation in Cnaiur, including the shape ("great horned shadow"), glowing eyes, blood-colored skin.

Another possibility, if we take the text more literally, is that Cnaiur becomes a metaphysical aspect of the Scylvendi people. Which is not mutually exclusive with Gilgaöl.

[lokisnow]

I sort of agree with Kalbear? It's explicitly in the text, but it's written to be subtle, it's deliberately written to hide in our cultural or genre-biased blindspots. I think the idea of Bakker's was that you read them and miss them the first time, and then read them and get them the second time by switching to a more literal reading. I don't think it's written as consistently as it could be and I don't think it's set up very well within the text. It's probably too subtle for its own good, or it's just too enormous of a cultural blind spot to overcome, switching out of the god-the-clockmaker fantasy aesthetic is very difficult it seems--at least it's difficult when you write in a way that causes your readers to deceive themselves for three books only to pull the rug out from under them in the fourth with a 'revelation'.

Part of the problem is the perspectives we have are not well suited to deal with the divine part of war. Bakker's narrative already abandon's the entire world other than that involved in the plutocrats holy war machinations, there's no agriculture, no home front, no peasantry. the narrative has aristocrats, warriors, sorcerers and sexpots, that's it. The world outside of those roles isn't encountered. So we're already extremely narrowed, and the perspectives within those roles are not the best at acknowledging that they are not the awesomesauceestbest, just acknowledging the divine within the mileau is tremendously uncharacteristic for most of these egos.

It's interesting to note that Achamian has a ton of blindspots, and values sorcery extremely highly, and he's one of our primary fountains of information. As has just pointed out, he dismisses the Judging Eye and White Luck Warrior as nothing more than myth or legend. He has a tendency to always diminish and disparage that which he is not a part of, and I think he does this by never really thinking about or acknowledging the gods (or even his own damnation, which occasionally crops up in his thoughts, but he never dwells on it, his attention is always pulled away from that sort of introspection).

Kellhus also has massive blindspots when it comes to anything supernatural, and his internal narrative throughout the Darkness that Comes Before is almost as bad as Achamian's in thinking that anything he doesn't understand or possess is inherently lesser, he's constantly dismissing and discarding information as 'noise' as he swoops for the obvious easy and big power chords that his skills are conditioned to.

Cnaiur just does not give a fuck whatsoever about Inrithi gods, he just has contempt for their entire belief structure. so he's disinclined to yield any ground in acknowledging or focusing on them, his internal narrative will lead him in other directions of thought.

That leaves us Esmenet, Serwe and Proyas. Two lower caste members and one upper class. Proyas focus on intellectual theology rather than it's practical application and everything religious is all about how it affects Proyas and his own internal soul, thus, if Proyas saw Gilgaol on Saubon, Proyas is inclined to wonder why he wasn't holy enough for Gilgaol to choose him, so he's also not going to think much about the manifestation of the Gods in daily life other than how it might affect him, he doesn't want to notice them.

Serwe believes in the gods, worships the gods, sees, hears and communicates with them fairly constantly but unfortunately for the readers the MarySue-ness of Kellhus, the MarySue-ness of Achamian and the wishfulfillment-ness of Cnaiur have primed the reader to fully buy into the biases and perspectives of these three men which makes the reader dismiss Serwe's observations as just being deceived by Kellhus, or just being too premodern/dumb to not know the difference between divine and science.

Esmenet is an interesting case, she to believes in the gods, worships gods etc, but doesn't see them nearly as often as Serwe. she should probably think of them more often but doesn't. It is interesting that she gifts her gold in a prayer before leaving Sumna and is ultimately rather successful in her adventure: she finds akka then rises to the role of empress.

Saubon is rather like Serwe, he sees and experiences the divine pretty often, down to being able to describe the familiarity of connecting to Gilgaol's presence, but again, we've bought into Kellhus' comforting modernist-earth biases and more or less project a probable Kellhus' interpretation that Saubon is deluded.

In any event, the prince of nothing doesn't do a good job of setting up the gods from aspect emperor, and I think its the fault of the author, as well as the limitations and circumstances he writes his characters through, it would have probably felt more shoehorned or poorly written to make it more obvious, but it's pretty shoehorned and poorly written to make it so subtle. It's a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation, and he's not particularly adroit at skating the line between the two.

[Kalbear]

I think honestly that if he had just handled it like he did TJE - where it's explicitly and heavily described how it looks and the differences between a non-Gilgaol warrior or a Gilgaol one - that it would have helped. Or describe the haloes around Kellhus' hands a bit more in the same way, perhaps have Kellhus be surprised at it as well. There were at least two characters whose paradigm would result in surprise and heavy description at god intercession - Akka and Kellhus - and neither remark on it to a large extent when it does happen, or do so in a fairly opaque way.

Heck, it could have been a way for Esme to demonstrate her intellect; Kellhus asks about the haloes one night or she brings them up, and she describes them and says what they mean.

at least it's difficult when you write in a way that causes your readers to deceive themselves for three books only to pull the rug out from under them in the fourth with a 'revelation'.

That's true. I also think that it's not just 'allow yourself to be deceived' - but explicitly referencing the iliad and describing things in the same kind of way makes it even worse. It makes you want to think 'oh, this is just an homage' - and Bakker said that's what he was doing, too. So even the folks who 'get' the references are going to dismiss them as just a reference to something else.

[Gaston de Foix]

I don't think anyone helped Kellhus. He did it himself.

my pet theory is that the Whore of Fate, Anagke, did actually help Kellhus' prophecy about punishing the Shrial Knights come true....there is no sufficiently strong alternate explanation I've come across.

"The Goddess waits, Snakehead, and you are but a mote before her patience!Birth and War alone can seize-and seize She does!" (WLW, Kindle 4218) -

would anyone care to interpret this particular quote? What does it mean that Yatwer and Gilgaol alone call seize souls in the Outside?

[sologdin]

we'd need to read the context of the miracle and superhuman scenes, as cnaiur was read effectively, above (+like, wrath, locke, et al).

does the context refer to seizure of souls? (that's literally rapture in christianity, aye?)

[Francis Buck]

Good post locke.

This is totally off-topic, but I was thinking about why the Consult doesn't create more skin-spies and use them for a possibly more gainful purpose, I.E. as warriors. I mean the damn things are like super-soldiers. Greatly enhanced strength and speed, enhanced senses, enhanced "intellect", utterly driven to execute their assigned tasks, etc. They could cause absolute havoc on the battlefield too, since they could change their appearance to like the enemy.

But, this is also brings up the question of who made skin-spies, when, and whey they aren't making more. Aurang at some point mentions that there are "so few of his children left". Yet, we're also given the impression that these things are relatively new? They weren't around during the First Apocalypse, were they?

[Francis Buck]

my pet theory is that the Whore of Fate, Anagke, did actually help Kellhus' prophecy about punishing the Shrial Knights come true....there is no sufficiently strong alternate explanation I've come across.

"The Goddess waits, Snakehead, and you are but a mote before her patience!Birth and War alone can seize-and seize She does!" (WLW, Kindle 4218) -

would anyone care to interpret this particular quote? What does it mean that Yatwer and Gilgaol alone call seize souls in the Outside?

I was only referring to the Umiaki miracle, you could be right regarding the earlier one.

As to the quote...I think it may just be a reference to the idea that Yatwer and Gigaol are the most powerful of the Gods. I'd be surprised if they were literally the only Gods that can seize souls, but it is possible I suppose. In the end, we don't know how much to trust Psatma, or where she's getting all this divine knowledge (obviously some of it is from Yatwer herself, but even so, I think Psatma definitely skews certain things towards her own biases).

[Gaston de Foix]

we'd need to read the context of the miracle and superhuman scenes, as cnaiur was read effectively, above (+like, wrath, locke, et al).

does the context refer to seizure of souls? (that's literally rapture in christianity, aye?)

It's the debate between Meppa and Psatma in Fanayal's Court. Meppa says the Gods are but Demons for whom souls are as narcotics and Psatma effectively says, yes, call them what you like. They have power in the Outside, and can seize souls for eternity.

/

My question is : since when can only Birth and War seize souls? What do the 98 others do?

[Shryke]

I sort of agree with Kalbear? It's explicitly in the text, but it's written to be subtle, it's deliberately written to hide in our cultural or genre-biased blindspots. I think the idea of Bakker's was that you read them and miss them the first time, and then read them and get them the second time by switching to a more literal reading. I don't think it's written as consistently as it could be and I don't think it's set up very well within the text. It's probably too subtle for its own good, or it's just too enormous of a cultural blind spot to overcome, switching out of the god-the-clockmaker fantasy aesthetic is very difficult it seems--at least it's difficult when you write in a way that causes your readers to deceive themselves for three books only to pull the rug out from under them in the fourth with a 'revelation'.

Part of the problem is the perspectives we have are not well suited to deal with the divine part of war. Bakker's narrative already abandon's the entire world other than that involved in the plutocrats holy war machinations, there's no agriculture, no home front, no peasantry. the narrative has aristocrats, warriors, sorcerers and sexpots, that's it. The world outside of those roles isn't encountered. So we're already extremely narrowed, and the perspectives within those roles are not the best at acknowledging that they are not the awesomesauceestbest, just acknowledging the divine within the mileau is tremendously uncharacteristic for most of these egos.

It's interesting to note that Achamian has a ton of blindspots, and values sorcery extremely highly, and he's one of our primary fountains of information. As has just pointed out, he dismisses the Judging Eye and White Luck Warrior as nothing more than myth or legend. He has a tendency to always diminish and disparage that which he is not a part of, and I think he does this by never really thinking about or acknowledging the gods (or even his own damnation, which occasionally crops up in his thoughts, but he never dwells on it, his attention is always pulled away from that sort of introspection).

Kellhus also has massive blindspots when it comes to anything supernatural, and his internal narrative throughout the Darkness that Comes Before is almost as bad as Achamian's in thinking that anything he doesn't understand or possess is inherently lesser, he's constantly dismissing and discarding information as 'noise' as he swoops for the obvious easy and big power chords that his skills are conditioned to.

Cnaiur just does not give a fuck whatsoever about Inrithi gods, he just has contempt for their entire belief structure. so he's disinclined to yield any ground in acknowledging or focusing on them, his internal narrative will lead him in other directions of thought.

That leaves us Esmenet, Serwe and Proyas. Two lower caste members and one upper class. Proyas focus on intellectual theology rather than it's practical application and everything religious is all about how it affects Proyas and his own internal soul, thus, if Proyas saw Gilgaol on Saubon, Proyas is inclined to wonder why he wasn't holy enough for Gilgaol to choose him, so he's also not going to think much about the manifestation of the Gods in daily life other than how it might affect him, he doesn't want to notice them.

Serwe believes in the gods, worships the gods, sees, hears and communicates with them fairly constantly but unfortunately for the readers the MarySue-ness of Kellhus, the MarySue-ness of Achamian and the wishfulfillment-ness of Cnaiur have primed the reader to fully buy into the biases and perspectives of these three men which makes the reader dismiss Serwe's observations as just being deceived by Kellhus, or just being too premodern/dumb to not know the difference between divine and science.

Esmenet is an interesting case, she to believes in the gods, worships gods etc, but doesn't see them nearly as often as Serwe. she should probably think of them more often but doesn't. It is interesting that she gifts her gold in a prayer before leaving Sumna and is ultimately rather successful in her adventure: she finds akka then rises to the role of empress.

Saubon is rather like Serwe, he sees and experiences the divine pretty often, down to being able to describe the familiarity of connecting to Gilgaol's presence, but again, we've bought into Kellhus' comforting modernist-earth biases and more or less project a probable Kellhus' interpretation that Saubon is deluded.

In any event, the prince of nothing doesn't do a good job of setting up the gods from aspect emperor, and I think its the fault of the author, as well as the limitations and circumstances he writes his characters through, it would have probably felt more shoehorned or poorly written to make it more obvious, but it's pretty shoehorned and poorly written to make it so subtle. It's a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation, and he's not particularly adroit at skating the line between the two.

See, I don't get this at all since your basic point in all this is why it works. It worms it's way into the blindspots of our cultural biases and reinforces that via narration coloured by the biases of the characters.

That's what makes it a good reversal. It's convincing at first and then plausible in retrospect.

It's not subtle. It's all over the place. He's just not saying "Look right here and see how this is different from your expectations" cause the point is for the reader not to question it at first.

[Gaston de Foix]

Esmenet is an interesting case, she to believes in the gods, worships gods etc, but doesn't see them nearly as often as Serwe. she should probably think of them more often but doesn't. It is interesting that she gifts her gold in a prayer before leaving Sumna and is ultimately rather successful in her adventure: she finds akka then rises to the role of empress.

I think Esmenet doesn't think of the Gods initially because she believes herself damned (because the Tusk says so) and therefore shies away from the notion of the Gods. As you say, her prayers do come true, indeed even after her marriage with Kellhus Yatwer blesses her womb with fertility.

Since Mimara sees herself with the Judging Eye as good, I think she would/will see Esmenet similarly, notwithstanding the scriptural prohibition against prostitution. think the reason Kellhus makes the prediction he does "the White Luck Warrior will break against you" - explicitly referencing her innocence and suffering, is actually going to come true. She is protected in a way Kellhus or Maithanet aren't.

[lokisnow]

See, I don't get this at all since your basic point in all this is why it works. It worms it's way into the blindspots of our cultural biases and reinforces that via narration coloured by the biases of the characters.

That's what makes it a good reversal. It's convincing at first and then plausible in retrospect.

It's not subtle. It's all over the place. He's just not saying "Look right here and see how this is different from your expectations" cause the point is for the reader not to question it at first.

Yes that's why it works how it does, because the series is just badly positioned by character, bias and plot to deal with the divine intercessions within the world, I think that's a problem when the second series has major confrontations regarding the divine intercessions within the world, in part just because of mileau consistency. Even if it was set up this way, the explanation I posited is needlessly robust and comes across--to my ear at least--as more than a little ret-con desperate whiney, "well the first series was like that, it just wasn't the right kind of book to show it, so it's just hints and easter eggs and nah-hah fooled yah!" I grant that it works, and I understand the reason it works, I don't particularly have to like it, though, and I think it was sort of a good idea with a poor approach, I don't necessarily agree that Kal is entirely right, but I think it runs into the same limitations we see elsewhere in prince of nothing, like with the females or the marysues or the misogyny etc. The mileau is not effortless and self reinforcing like ASOIAF, it requires a lot of extracurricular reader activity to 'get' why it all works.

[Faint]

Heck, it could have been a way for Esme to demonstrate her intellect . . .

I'd sooner expect pink unicorns to show up in the story. Esmenet's intellect is the Loch Ness Monster of the series, albeit, supported by even less evidence.

[Anatúrinbor]

Well, she did manage to get Maithanet killed (WLW or not.)

[Kalbear]

Well, she did manage to get Maithanet killed (WLW or not.)

Yeah, well, she did that based on not being particularly smart and being easily manipulated by an 8 year old (Dunyain or not), and then didn't want him killed but had him killed anyway. If her greatest demonstration of intelligence is fucking up, that's not the best of signs.