Bakker XXIII: Priapic Godlings and Whoresome Folks

[Happy Ent]

Very nice, Locke! (Go ahead and write it. Great fanfic. Esmi and the Methods of Spying or something like that.)

It destroys the rags-to-riches idea of the Esmenet character (where she ends up being a spymaster, rather than starting as a spy). But few people are convinced by that arc anyway.

[Sci-2]

Very nice, Locke! (Go ahead and write it. Great fanfic. Esmi and the Methods of Spying or something like that.)

It destroys the rags-to-riches idea of the Esmenet character (where she ends up being a spymaster, rather than starting as a spy). But few people are convinced by that arc anyway.

Yeah, I do think it'd make a good fanfic...I like it but I think the challenge is that it also escapes the oppression and brutality of patriarchy that Bakker wanted to get across.

There's also the whole idea of Kellhus as symbolic of modernity and how emancipation is allowed in so far as it serves the state/capitalists...but that was the part I think most - including myself - found hard to follow.

[Callan S.]

Yeah, I do think it'd make a good fanfic...I like it but I think the challenge is that it also escapes the oppression and brutality of patriarchy that Bakker wanted to get across.

It's probably a little genre busting (particularly perhaps for the demographic it's aimed at), but if Esme were still a whore but actually...a man and merely playing the role of a woman, that'd be interesting. Heck, atleast one character was like that anyway. It'd tie int the patriarchal brutality, but something a little more close to home maybe?

I'm not sure what Bakker would make of the upgrade of Esme running whores as a madam - once again the whore dissappears into the NPC bit part role, so to speak, rather than having any staring part? Once again the forgetable people.

I think maybe the texts fall too much into the educational category rather than entertainment - too much a horrible histories for adults. And at times the build up for characters suffers due to that - and build up it is as it is a made up story rather than a historical tale. Sadly the magic blasting Akka and the head lopping Cnaiur provide build up by the very nature of their heritage - thus they have build up without putting effort into build up. Works fine to not bother with build up even though its ostensibly an entertainment/genre piece (subverted or not), till we get to Esme. Then it's a question of whether you break with the whole psuedo historical structure and build up the character or...not. If the books had little violence and mostly political manouvering, I think Esme would show up far more strongly - but violence is just such a bright light compared to the action that is politics. And you need to build things up more before you chop them down. I really don't see her as incompetant. But I think something more could have been added but perhaps wasn't because of the educational lean of the books.

[karaddin]

No thanks, bakker can stay well away from anything that could even be perceived as a trans prostitute.

[Maithanet]

No thanks, bakker can stay well away from anything that could even be perceived as a trans prostitute.

Also, fewer woman characters is NOT what PoN needs. Can you imagine if the only multi-scene woman in the entire trilogy was Serwe? Istraya doesn't count, she's a skin spy.

For the Esme-as-spy fanfic outline, I like it. And I actually think that some middle ground between the plot you've outlined and the PoN trilogy would also be possible. Esme could have an actual soft spot for Akka without being such a doe-eyed child in his presence. The spy thing would help this a lot, and give her more interesting things to do throughout the series.

[themerchant]

3. Other than "I met Esmenet because I was a spy," Achamian has no back story as a spy. None. zero. Zilch. Utterly no backstory as a spy. 100% of his backstory is devoted to being a teacher. Ultimately his role as teacher is what matters in plot/foreshadowing since he will be teaching Kellhus.

Well apart from when he was thinking about being a spy when he is thinking about what it means to give the Gnosis to Kellhus, he recalls handing a piece of paper to soemone, very innocous and some people dying (can't remember how many). I wouldn't have bothered pointing it out if there wasn't such a forceful assertion that it doesn;t exist. I''m not making any point beyond that.

I wonder what counterfactual differences there would be in the story if your adaption took place.

[lokisnow]

Yeah, I do think it'd make a good fanfic...I like it but I think the challenge is that it also escapes the oppression and brutality of patriarchy that Bakker wanted to get across.

There's also the whole idea of Kellhus as symbolic of modernity and how emancipation is allowed in so far as it serves the state/capitalists...but that was the part I think most - including myself - found hard to follow.

Well in the back story, Esmenet has managed to liberate herself from some of the brutality of the patriarchy. The dramatic irony then is that it's only by enslaving herself to Kellhus' modernity that she is once again dominated, it would be a quite literal depiction of the false promises of modernity's emancipation.

[Shryke]

re Esme: Make her the Mandate's spy, not Achamian.

1. it's stupid to waste sorcerer resources as spies.

Not at a fairly high level like Achamian is. As the Mandate you use a sorceror as a spy because they are the people you can trust completely.

2. Achamian already has a class/role, sorcerer, he 100% stops being a spy after Inrau anyway, so all the setup as *waves hands* an 'ooooooh spy' crap is utterly wasted.

3. Other than "I met Esmenet because I was a spy," Achamian has no back story as a spy. None. zero. Zilch. Utterly no backstory as a spy. 100% of his backstory is devoted to being a teacher. Ultimately his role as teacher is what matters in plot/foreshadowing since he will be teaching Kellhus.

????

He's the Mandate's spy in the Holy War. That's why he's there.

[jurble]

No thanks, bakker can stay well away from anything that could even be perceived as a trans prostitute.

Oh that makes me think, given Inrithism steals quite a few bits from Hinduism, I'm surprised Bakker didn't throw in some third-gender designation. Pakistan is full of third-gender prostitutes, and I'm fairly certain this dates well back into Hindu times. Third-genders aren't properly trans, obviously. Though in modern Pakistan, the third-gender identity is sorta dying-off (or even nearly dead) and being absorbed into a trans-woman identity.

[Sci-2]

Oh that makes me think, given Inrithism steals quite a few bits from Hinduism, I'm surprised Bakker didn't throw in some third-gender designation.

I figured Bakker only used the basic idea of the Undifferentiated Divine bringing about the lesser divinities. What other aspects of Hinduism do you think he utilizes?

Pakistan is full of third-gender prostitutes, and I'm fairly certain this dates well back into Hindu times.

I think you're right about this, though I'd need to go back and check. I do have Doniger's The Hindus, which I should probably return to reading as it has some female & LGBT perspectives from ancient India.

[jurble]

I figured Bakker only used the basic idea of the Undifferentiated Divine bringing about the lesser divinities. What other aspects of Hinduism do you think he utilizes?

Castes seem like a big one, and the sheer number of deities. There's also a reference to a 'cycle of souls' somewhere in the books, right?

[Sci-2]

Castes seem like a big one, and the sheer number of deities. There's also a reference to a 'cycle of souls' somewhere in the books, right?

Good point about the castes. Regarding the religion, it does seem to be almost a weird Catholic-Hinduism, with the Fanim feeling more like a[n] Abrahamic thing.

[Wise Fool]

Well, there's the big issue of the Dunyain monks. Trying to attain the Absolute by "yoking the legions within" and through meditation and concentration is a lot like the path of yoga as laid out by Patanjali.

[jurble]

Good point about the castes. Regarding the religion, it does seem to be almost a weird Catholic-Hinduism, with the Fanim feeling more like a[n] Abrahamic thing.

The temples, temple-prostitution, the cults all seem Mesopotamian.

[Callan S.]

Unless you had a setting without prostitutes (or one one with a highly legislated prostitution, with legislation ensuring good pay and a pension they can take early if they want to give it up), trying to both argue the books need more female characters but trying to avoid the patriarchal enforcement of roles (or more so, making her in charge of prostitutes and so stop a prostitute getting a POV in the books) seems more problematic than having fewer female roles.

Granted most books avoid taking up such POV's (or take them up only in painfully mundane stories) - so maybe Bakker oversteared in the other direction trying to make up for that.

[lokisnow]

Not at a fairly high level like Achamian is. As the Mandate you use a sorceror as a spy because they are the people you can trust completely.

????

He's the Mandate's spy in the Holy War. That's why he's there.

No one ever trusts spies completely.

As for being the Mandate's spy in the Holy war, he's a spy who doesn't gather information and he never actually reports in to disseminate his information. In the absence of any actual spy behavior, I don't think he's really acting as their spy in any way that anyone would actually recognize as a spy.

In fact he abandons his spy duties because a golden opportunity of academic scholarship arises--he's such a teacher--so when the 'title' of spy is inconvenient and something else catches his fancy, he just gleefully abandons his responsibilities to chase the new shiny thing.

[Castel]

Didn't he abandon his calling because:

1-he was guilty and uncertain

2: Kellhus was actively preventing him from doing so by making him (1)

[unJon]

If Meppa doesn't know his own identity because of amnesia, how does Meppa know something so arcane as the White Luck Warrior, and he knows it so well that he describes exactly what it is to Fanayal others who had no idea what it was. Meppa serves as te WLW info dump. Something isn't adding up.

Also in that same scene Meppa confirm he has the Third Sight and sees souls and has seen Yatwer and can see outside (he doesn't call it the Third Sight but it is exactly what Third Sight is billed as). So if Moe could see all that stuff (because Moe was master of Third Sight), then of course Moe is all over the Outside angle and how the Hundred operate. If true Kel is sorely mistaken in his assumptions during the TTT meeting with Moe.

I'm starting to come around to the theory that Moe's hand is still at work. Not sure if Moe is Meppa, but Moe's plans are still unfolding.

[jurble]

Kellhus also assumes it was Moe that discovered the skin-spies, based on incongruencies of voice. But the Cishaurim Third Sight should've made the Skin-Spies painfully obvious to begin with - incongruency between the snake vision and the Third Sight - if the Third Sight operates in the same manner as the Ciphrang-vision we receive in TTT, as it ought to.

but the problem is, doesn't the Consult also blame Moe for the disappearance of the skin-spies? The Consult has been using them for 100 years, and they were only outed after Moe arrived, right? Aurang's thinks about it at one point - that the Consult assumed it was the Cishaurim metaphysics, but then realizes it was the Dunyain.

But I also wonder about the Holy War itself. The Consult wanted the Holy War to destroy the Cishaurim, because they thought the Cishaurim were their foes. But the Holy War was instigated by Moe. So did the Consult look at it was wonderous happenstance? DId they have any other contingencies for dealing with the Cishaurim?

That reminds me, what's the deal with the walking-through-shadows that Akka does in TTT? Even if it's something he can only do to himself and one other because of the limits of his brain, what keeps Kellhus from teleporting up to Golgotterath with an invisible assasination squadron? I suppose the Consult have wards or something that detects such a thing.

[unJon]

I guess you can resolve it by saying Moe taught the Cish the Third Sight. Maybe it's some kind if meta-psukhe. That then comports with Moe outing the skin spies, and the timeline fits better with Aurang's musing that it happened "decades" ago. Rather than Kel's timeline for it (notwithstanding Shryke's unconvincing apologia that the timelines mesh because Aurang uses "decades" in the loosest possible sense).

Moe did instigate the Holy War, including I think with the guerrilla attack on the Scarlet Spires HQ. He also must have known the Consult would be watching closely or involved given his killing of the skin spies.

New topic 1: Kel's ultimate plan has to be greater than killing the Consult since that doesn't solve the underlying problem. The underlying problem is that uber powerful Sorcerors are damned so will have an incentive to close the world. Those Sorcerors at some point in the future could once again figure out how to do so. He has to have a plan for that problem. The only solutions seem to be: 1) end sorcery or 2) end damnation.