Bakker XXII: All Aboard the Damnation Express

[Madness]

so Madness you would agree that Esmenet's death is guaranteed at the hands of WLW?

I have three reactions to this.

1. Timing is critical, even if Esmenet's death is inevitable. Let me give an ASOIAF example- in ACOK the Faceless Man gives Arya three deaths because she saved three people from the flames. She regrets her choices and wishes she would have chosen Tywin Lannister and Joffrey Baratheon. However, as we find out later on, they both do die, but their deaths neither save House Stark nor destroy House Lannister. We can make a similar assessment with Stannis Baratheon and his leeches. Similarly even if the WLW assassinates Kelhus and Esmenet both, timing does matter hugely. As with the Faceless Man, we have simply no sense of timing about the WLW's assassinations.

2. Can the WLW warrior be deceived into attempting to assassinate a skin spy/illusion by mistake?

3. I actually still do believe Kellhus' prediction to Esmenet-

"A gust from over the dark sea. The violet sheers roiled and billowed, parted like gossamer lips.

"The White-Luck," he whispered in a voice that was the sky, the curve of all horizons, "shall break against you."

She gazed up at his face through sting and tears, and it seemed that in it she could see every face, the mien of all those who had bent upon her in Sumna, when she had kept a whore's bed.

"How? How can you know?"

"Because the anguish that makes mud of all your thoughts, because the fear that stains your days, because all your regret and anger and loneliness…" A haloed hand cupped her cheek. Blue eyes sounded her to the bottommost fathoms."All this makes you pure."

" (TJE Kindle 3681)

I really dislike whatever happened to the quote tags here.

I do think that Esmenet's murder by the Warrior is guaranteed - assuming Meppa doesn't kill him.

Some response thoughts:

1. I actually think it's poetic: the Warrior is going to protect Esmenet until the Gods decree she is to die (the timing is already Ordained).

2. Possibly. More evidence needed.

3. In the Warrior's perspective Maithanet and Esmenet both get the honorific "Holy." Kellhus, obviously, does not. So despite murdering them, the Warrior's visions seem to revere the two of them. So perhaps Kellhus knows something we/Esmenet do not about the function of the White-Luck and the Warrior (pretty likely with Bakker).

[Shryke]

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.

I don't think it's that it wouldn't work in the first series, I think it wasn't supposed to be shown at all. The second series clearly focuses far more on a different set of metaphysical issues then the first one. One assumes leading up to the conclusion of the Ordeal.

The gods play a much bigger role in the second series because of what Kellhus is up to and so they come to the forefront. Their presence on the edges of the first series is deliberately to de-emphasize them.

[Sci-2]

Actually from what I recall Bakker actually was surprised that people didn't think the gods were real until they read the conversation between Kellhus and Big Moe at the end of TTT.

I think the forum he mentioned this on (Dead Cities) is long gone so I can't directly quote him on that.

[Shryke]

Actually from what I recall Bakker actually was surprised that people didn't think the gods were real until they read the conversation between Kellhus and Big Moe at the end of TTT.

I think the forum he mentioned this on (Dead Cities) is long gone so I can't directly quote him on that.

People didn't think the gods were real? Wow.

I assumed the gods were real. I didn't think they were doing much though.

[sologdin]

i still think the theistic bullshit is all character ideology rather than part of the setting. if RSB disagrees, he's wrong.

[jurble]

Hold on, are the Gods supernatural? Does Bakkerworld actually have natural laws, or do the gods (like Momas and the weather) actively micromanage in a consistent manner that it appears that the world has natural laws? And if the latter, then doesn't that mean that the Gods are natural, rather than supernatural? Are there laws governing the Gods? They're clearly restricted in given manners, and have distinct portfolios. So, the Cishaurim are physicists? If Bakkerworld doesn't have physical laws, it does at least have gods that behave in consistent manners according to their identity.

So, the Cishaurim are natural scientists.

But, then why do the Cishaurim even believe the God exists? Why aren't they athiests? What has them convinced, these people who can actively see the Gods that the Inrithi worship, that there is a God distinct from these creatures?

[Armitage]

Some notes on the presence (or lack thereof) of the gods in _Prince of Nothing_. I searched ebook versions for the names of several of the gods.

First, the gods are barely mentioned. "Yatwer" occurs five times in TWP and not at all in TDTCB and TTT (glossary excepted). Some of the other gods (Momas, Husyelt, Onkis, Gierra, Ajokli, Anagkë) are mentioned in passing once or twice per book.

The gods who make "appearances" are Onkis (with Inrau) and Gilgaöl (with Saubon in TWP and Cnaiür in TTT). If we want to stretch, we can say that Akkeägni appears, perhaps Anagke as well, and appearances by Husyelt and Hotos are mentioned in passing.

Here are those appearances:

Onkis with Inrau is a long passage in TDTCB; it's well-known and I won't quote it here.

Gilgaöl with Saubon, in TWP:

His misapprehensions fell away, and the old exhilaration coursed like liquor through his veins, a sensation he had always attributed to Gilgaöl, One-Eyed War.

The Whore will be kind to you. [Anagkë reference]

...

He glanced at the retreating forms of Gotian and Sarcellus as they thudded down the slope. The thought of sacrificing them—as Prince Kellhus, or the Gods, had demanded—suddenly deadened his heart.

Punish them. You must make sure the Shrial Knights are punished. Something cold caught his throat, and as quickly as Gilgaöl had possessed him, the God fled.

Later:

“It is you, Coithus Saubon,” Cumor replied, his tone so soft that few, Kellhus imagined, could hear him. “You … Many saw it. Many saw him, the Shield-Breaker, glorious Gilgaöl … He looked through your eyes! Fought with your limbs!”

Also a general reference in TWP: "But many more roared in exultation, the madness of battle upon them, cruel Gilgaöl galloping through their hearts."

And with Cnaiür, in TTT:

And this one Scylvendi, this Utemot Chieftain. Conphas had witnessed it, as much as any of the Columnaries who′d quailed before him in Joktha. In the firelight the barbarian’s eyes had been coals set in his skull. And the blood had painted him the colour of his true skin. The swatting arms, the roaring voice, the chest-pounding declarations. They had all seen the God. They had all seen dread Gilgaöl rearing about him, a great horned shadow …

And now, after wrestling him to the ground like some lunatic bull, after the wonder of capturing him—capturing War!—he had simply vanished.

Anagkë, in TDTCB, with Achamian:

After three hundred years, he, Drusas Achamian, had rediscovered the Consult. After two thousand years, he, Drusas Achamian, had witnessed the return of an Anasûrimbor. Anagkë, the Whore of Fate, had chosen him for these burdens! It wasn’t his place to ask why. Nor could such questions relieve him of his burden.

And again with Achamian in TWP:

After a time he found himself weary and nearly out of wine. He’d trusted Fate, Anagkë, to take him to the camp-followers; she was, after all, called “the Whore.” But as with everything else, she’d led him astray—the fucking whore. He began daring the light to find directions

Akkeägni, in TWP:

When Hepma Scaralla, the ranking High Priest of Akkeägni, Disease, informed the Great Names that the rumours were true, that the dread God indeed groped among them with his hemoplectic Hand, panic seized the Holy War.

...

After four or five days, skin would discolour—welts raised by the God’s Hand, the physician-priests explained.

A great fear seized the surviving leaders of the Holy War. Caraskand continued to rebuke them, Akkeägni oppressed them with misery and death, and the Padirajah himself marched upon them with yet another heathen host."

And in TTT:

Yet again he found himself at war with the urge to flee. Of all the unclean spirits, few were as terrifying or bloodthirsty as those belonging to dread Disease. Pulma had possessed him, the physician-priests had said, one of the most fearsome of Akkeägni’s innumerable demons.

The lung-plague.

Husyelt's appearance to Angeshraël is retold by Kellhus in TWP.

And, to end, this morsel from TTT:

He had asked her about the temple prostitutes of Gierra, who believed that despite the hundreds of men who used them, they coupled with only one, Hotos, the Priapic God. She laughed, saying, “No deity could be so inconsistent.”

[Madness]

Yeah, Armitage - I actually think if you expand your search to metaphoric keywords and phrases (Serwe must refer to Kellhus like a gift a handful of times).

I'm with lockesnow. Bakker used Kellhus and Achamian, even Cnaiur whose God is dead, to play upon my conceits about privileged knowledge of the world (and I know a number of you live closer to the heart of the Empire than most in the world - westernized, fantasy reading countries - a large percentage identifying as male).

Esmenet and Serwe clearly think in terms of the World has having participatory Gods throughout the whole PON and there are a handful of examples laced in throughout the narrative.

Unlike kalbear, I share lockesnow's opinion that Bakker accomplished it more or less skillfully.

[Armitage]

Yeah, Armitage - I actually think if you expand your search to metaphoric keywords and phrases (Serwe must refer to Kellhus like a gift a handful of times).

Good idea. I'd briefly considered that, but 1) ran out of time and 2) really do not want to know how many times "whore" appears in the series :-)

Also, anyone interested in the Gods' actions should reread "The False Sun." Twice Shae mentions a connection with Onkis. That the smartest non-Dûnyain in the milieu, armed with all the knowledge of the Consult, should still think in these terms suggests to me the Gods' interventions are real.

[Anatúrinbor]

Without the opportunity to take the Narindar's place, the Warrior could not have gotten to Maithanet.

Issue is that the Gods count on hindsight. They knew Kelmomas was always going to cause a rift between Maithanet and Esmenet. They knew Esmenet was always going to try and have Maithanet assassinated because of the discord Kelmomas causes. And the Warrior was always going to take the Narindar's place...

How does this hindsight thing work? Didn't they know for example that Kellhus was going to become TWP/AE and do whatever he's doing now before he even left Ishual? And if so, why is he still alive?

[Sci-2]

People didn't think the gods were real? Wow.

I assumed the gods were real. I didn't think they were doing much though.

My recollection is fuzzy on this as it was years ago, close to the publication of TTT.

I remember talking to him about this, and him noting I wasn't the only one who was surprised that the gods were real.

If memory serves he then said he'd thought the presence of the gods was clearly in the text. I feel like I'd recall if he'd talked about layers of revelation, but then we know he doesn't like to give away the game and would rather let the reader come to their own interpretations.

[Madness]

How does this hindsight thing work? Didn't they know for example that Kellhus was going to become TWP/AE and do whatever he's doing now before he even left Ishual? And if so, why is he still alive?

1) Difficult to describe. Let's say history was a scroll you could read. The Gods get to read the whole scroll, except for the parts with burns where I dropped embers from my bowl on it (occlusions of the No-God, perspectival constraints, etc - say they can only "read the scroll" by viewing the World through particular people, places, or moments). The Gods sit there thinking - wrongly - that they have access to the entirety of history BUT they also have the ability to go back and make certain adjustments, influences AND the scroll changes to reflect their adjustments, influences, as if they'd always happened.

There was a better analogy on SA but that is a jist.

2) Of course. And we have yet to really see how the Gods partake in Kellhus journey. We're book-bound to the events as they happen in the narrative. And I would argue that the journey from Ishual to Cnaiur is the part of Kellhus journey with the most possibility of intercession by the Gods, Moenghus, Fate, etc - it's really, really unlikely that Kellhus would have made it to Cnaiur specifically without Ordination by someone/something.

3) Because the Gods only warp back to stab Kellhus on the toilet in Act VI: The Return of the Gods. The moment of their Ordination has not yet arrived in our experience of the narrative unfolding.

[Gaston de Foix]

2) Of course. And we have yet to really see how the Gods partake in Kellhus journey. We're book-bound to the events as they happen in the narrative. And I would argue that the journey from Ishual to Cnaiur is the part of Kellhus journey with the most possibility of intercession by the Gods, Moenghus, Fate, etc - it's really, really unlikely that Kellhus would have made it to Cnaiur specifically without Ordination by someone/something.

The Gods do not act directly on Earwa, with the possible exception of the manifestation of Yatwer to Sorweel. Generally speaking, they need tools, and I suspect, only men/nonmen can serve as those tools. As Meppa says...

"Demoness!" the Last Cishaurim bellowed. He descended the steps toward her, his face held forward as stiff as a doll's. "I know the true compass of your power. You are written across ages and yet you need tools — Men. And all Men can fail. It is the foundation of what we are! You will be broken with your tools! And you will starve in your pit!" (WLW, Kindle 4222).

[Madness]

The Gods do not act directly on Earwa, with the possible exception of the manifestation of Yatwer to Sorweel. Generally speaking, they need tools, and I suspect, only men/nonmen can serve as those tools. As Meppa says...

I don't think I disagreed with you:

1) Difficult to describe. Let's say history was a scroll you could read. The Gods get to read the whole scroll, except for the parts with burns where I dropped embers from my bowl on it (occlusions of the No-God, perspectival constraints, etc - say they can only "read the scroll" by viewing the World through particular people, places, or moments). The Gods sit there thinking - wrongly - that they have access to the entirety of history BUT they also have the ability to go back and make certain adjustments, influences AND the scroll changes to reflect their adjustments, influences, as if they'd always happened.

[lokisnow]

I'll add a few more:

The two crucial ones are these first two, this is why Bakker tricked everyone: Kellhus shares the biases and perspective of the modern Earth reader, a bias and perspective that is 'smarter' than the supernatural, a bias and perspective of a disenchanted world. Because Kellhus is nominally the tagonist of the narrative, the reader sees a natural point of agreement with him here and goes along with it. Because Kellhus is deceived, the reader is deceived, because the reader has been lulled by Bakker into agreeing with Kellhus.

For Leweth, Kellhus knew, the world was fraught with gods, ghosts, even demons. It was steeped in their conspiracies, crowded with omens and portents of their capricious humours. Like a second horizon, their designs encompassed the struggles of men—shrouded, cruel, and in the end, always fatal.

Bakker, R. Scott (2008-09-02). The Darkness that Comes Before (The Prince of Nothing) (p. 15). Penguin Group. Kindle Edition.

“Sorcery . . .”

Always the curious intermingling of awe and dread when Leweth uttered this word. There were witches, Leweth had told him, whose urgings could harness the wild agencies asleep in earth, animal, and tree. There were priests whose pleas could sound the Outside, move the Gods who moved the world to give men respite. And there were sorcerers whose assertions were decrees, whose words dictated rather than described how the world had to be.

Superstition. Everywhere and in everything, Leweth had confused that which came after with that which came before, confused the effect for the cause. Men came after, so he placed them before and called them “gods” or “demons.” Words came after, so he placed them before and called them “scriptures” or “incantations.” Confined to the aftermath of events and blind to the causes that preceded him, he merely fastened upon the ruin itself, men and the acts of men, as the model of what came before.

Bakker, R. Scott (2008-09-02). The Darkness that Comes Before (The Prince of Nothing) (pp. 16-17). Penguin Group. Kindle Edition.

Next, the first time Gierra is mentioned is the first (and only time the Tusk is seen. Interesting that Bakker compares the Tusk to a whore. He is either saying that whores are holy or that the Tusk is not so pure.

The Tusk. Holiest of holies.

Shining with oils and ribbed by inscriptions, like the tattooed limbs of a Priestess of Gierra.

The first verses of the Gods. The first scripture. Here, before his eyes!

Bakker, R. Scott (2008-09-02). The Darkness that Comes Before (The Prince of Nothing) (p. 103). Penguin Group. Kindle Edition.

Not explicitly of the gods, but it should recall at least two specific parables, and it connects to the next scene when Esmenet experiences revelation:

At last, through a screen of passing people, she saw a little girl standing barefoot in dusty sunlight. She would do. With large brown eyes the girl watched Esmenet approach, too wary to return her smile. She clutched a stick to the breast of her threadbare shift.

I survived, Akka. And I did not survive.

Esmenet stooped before the child and astounded her with the gold talent.

“Here,” she said, pressing it into small palms.

So like my daughter.

Bakker, R. Scott (2008-09-02). The Darkness that Comes Before (The Prince of Nothing) (p. 261). Penguin Group. Kindle Edition.

Thinking of rebirth, sacrifice, she gives away everything she has. This finds favor with the gods I think.

Esmenet walked through the gloom with the others, her heart thundering. She could feel the teetering immensity of the Gate of Pelts above her, as though it were a hammer Fate had held poised for a thousand years in anticipation of her escape. She glanced at the surrounding faces but saw only weariness and boredom. For them, passage from the city seemed uneventful. These people, she imagined, escaped Sumna every day.

For an absurd moment, she found herself fearing for her fear. If escaping Sumna meant nothing, did that mean the whole world was a prison?

Then suddenly she found herself blinking tears in the sunlight. She paused, glancing at the tan towers hulking above. Then she looked around, breathing deeply, ignoring the curses of those behind her. Soldiers lounged on either side of the gate’s dark maw, eyeing those who entered the city but asking no questions. People on foot, on wains, and on horseback bustled about her. To either side of the road, a thin colonnade of mongers hawked their wares, hoping to profit from vagrant hungers.

Then she saw what before had been only a hazy band on the horizon, surfacing here and there from the crowded circuit of Sumna’s walls: the countryside, winter pale and piling endlessly away into the distance. And she saw the sun, late-afternoon sun, spread across the land as though it were water.

Bakker, R. Scott (2008-09-02). The Darkness that Comes Before (The Prince of Nothing) (p. 271). Penguin Group. Kindle Edition.

So there's Esmenet experiencing a divine vision moments after giving to charity her talent (she gave out of her poverty, hmm?). Also, Foucoult's prison, interesting.

She glanced at the greening tattoo across the back of her left hand. The mark of her tribe. The Sign of Gierra, though she was no priestess. The Shrial Apparati insisted all harlots be tattooed with parodies of the sacred tattoos borne by the temple-prostitutes. No one knew why. To better fool themselves into thinking the Gods were fooled, Esmenet supposed. It seemed a different thing here, without walls, without the threat of Shrial Law.

She considered calling after the teamster, but as he trundled away her eyes were drawn to the road, which struck a perfect line across the broken landscape, like mortar between chapped bricks.

Sweet Gierra, what am I doing?

The open road. Achamian had once told her it was like a string tied about his neck, choking him if he did not follow. She almost wished it felt that way now. She could understand being dragged to some destination. Instead, it felt like a long fall, and a sheer one at that. Simply staring down it made her feel dizzy.

Such a fool! It’s just a road!

Bakker, R. Scott (2008-09-02). The Darkness that Comes Before (The Prince of Nothing) (pp. 271-272). Penguin Group. Kindle Edition.

Don't miss that prayer to Gierra, not just a passing thought, that's a prayer, that question.

There's another Gierra reference later on:

But how could one fret when the very heavens shivered with their might? Such a congregation! Who could imagine that such potentates would take up the Tusk? And far more, besides. Priests, not merely of the Thousand Temples but from every Cult, representing every Aspect of God, had clambered from the beaches or wound down from the hills to take their place in the Holy War, singing hymns, clashing cymbals, making the air bitter with incense and the noise of adulation. Idols were anointed with oils and attar of rose, and the priestesses of Gierra made love to calloused warriors. Narcotics were reverently circulated and sipped, and the Shakers cried rapturously from the dust. Demons were cast out. The purification of the Holy War began.

Bakker, R. Scott (2008-09-02). The Darkness that Comes Before (The Prince of Nothing) (p. 332). Penguin Group. Kindle Edition.

[Gaston de Foix]

Brilliant post Lockesnow.

Since we are discussing Gods I want to point out a discrepancy. It may be a continuity error or it may be more. Kelmomas sees the idol of Ajokli in the Allosium, which I presume is somewhere in the Imperial Complex or Temple in Mommen, but apparently Ajokli is condemned by the Tusk according to the Narindari, which begs the question of how/why the Idol is present. (sorry about the quote tags- these are excerpts from the book. I really need to learn how to quote properly). .

Soon they reached the Forum's outermost aisle, where the idols of the Hundred Gods resided in their adorned recesses....Kelmomas watched it toil toward the leering mountain that was the idol of Ajokli, the Four-Horned Brother (TJE, Kindle Location 109 of 7102)

The Narindar frowned and smiled. "The Four-Horned Brother… Do you know why he is shunned by the others? Why my Cult and my Cult alone is condemned by the Tusk?" (WLW, Location 6476 Kindle Edition)

[Sci-2]

There were witches, Leweth had told him, whose urgings could harness the wild agencies asleep in earth, animal, and tree. There were priests whose pleas could sound the Outside, move the Gods who moved the world to give men respite. And there were sorcerers whose assertions were decrees, whose words dictated rather than described how the world had to be.

Does this ever happen? Seems like an artifact from when this was a D&D campaign, referencing clerics who can heal.

[Faint]

IIRC Bakker has noted Esmi's stumbling in the second series relates to her depression. I'm not sure how well this is conveyed in the text though.

Has he explained her stumbling during the first series and the interim between the two?

At some point we have to call a spade a spade. I know the author is fond of masquerading Esmenet as a character when all she has ever been is a plot device, but I'm not sufficiently persuaded we should keep indulging him in this charade.

As things stand, I would have found it far more credible had he explained her unique ability to breed with Kellhus as a function of her magical ovaries given to her by some nameless whore goddess. A ridiculous explanation obviously, but at least one that isn't demonstratively and empirically false by the very text of the series.

She really didn't have anything to do with it.. the WLW would have positioned himself exactly where he needed to anyway regardless of what Esmi did or didn't do. So not really an own goal?

I'd argue that the way that she claims responsibility for Maitha's death, despite the craziness of what just happened, shows great presence of mind and solid improvisational leadership tendencies.

You had it right the first time. The assassination was going to happen one way or another. Esmenet was simply a bystander (something I'm sure she excels at given that it's her customary position).

As for her decision after the assassination, I can hardly give credit to someone choosing the one choice she has. It would be like scoring perfect on a multiple choice test that had only one bubble to fill in for every question asked.

More to the point, If we're digging this far to try to find evidence that Esmenet is not as dumb as she seems, I think the effort itself proves instructive. I, for one, will take the simpler explanation: she really is dumb as a doorknob, terribly easy to manipulate, and a slave to her emotions.

[Armitage]

More to the point, If we're digging this far to try to find evidence that Esmenet is not as dumb as she seems, I think the effort itself proves instructive. I, for one, will take the simpler explanation: she really is dumb as a doorknob, terribly easy to manipulate, and a slave to her emotions.

She's in her thirties and teaches herself to read. That's not to deny she's emotional and can be manipulated, but she's not "dumb."

[Madness]

More to the point, If we're digging this far to try to find evidence that Esmenet is not as dumb as she seems, I think the effort itself proves instructive. I, for one, will take the simpler explanation: she really is dumb as a doorknob, terribly easy to manipulate, and a slave to her emotions.

Bold: What?

Italics: What?

So... I hope you think the same about all the male characters too?