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Bakker XXV: A Few Questions


SilentRoamer

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So, nobody is willing to consider the possibility that Kellhus really did go insane during his terrible ordeal and that everything that came afterwards (i.e., "oneness") are just the scattered and imagined thoughts of a lunatic?



I feel not enough conversation has been devoted to the author actually telling us that Kellhus went mad in the summation of the story preceding the beginning of the last book. It seems that information has either been ignored, explained away by rendering a complicated and irregular definition of "mad," or incorporated in a fashion so as to not do too much damage to what our preconceived notions about Kellhus were before The White Luck Warrior came out.


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So, nobody is willing to consider the possibility that Kellhus really did go insane during his terrible ordeal and that everything that came afterwards (i.e., "oneness") are just the scattered and imagined thoughts of a lunatic?

I feel not enough conversation has been devoted to the author actually telling us that Kellhus went mad in the summation of the story preceding the beginning of the last book. It seems that information has either been ignored, explained away by rendering a complicated and irregular definition of "mad," or incorporated in a fashion so as to not do too much damage to what our preconceived notions about Kellhus were before The White Luck Warrior came out.

The problem is we seem to have confirmation of his acts during that moment that imply something crazy was happening with him.

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So, nobody is willing to consider the possibility that Kellhus really did go insane during his terrible ordeal and that everything that came afterwards (i.e., "oneness") are just the scattered and imagined thoughts of a lunatic?

I feel not enough conversation has been devoted to the author actually telling us that Kellhus went mad in the summation of the story preceding the beginning of the last book. It seems that information has either been ignored, explained away by rendering a complicated and irregular definition of "mad," or incorporated in a fashion so as to not do too much damage to what our preconceived notions about Kellhus were before The White Luck Warrior came out.

I'm always willing to consider any possibility. However, the evidence doesn't seem to be very strong for Kellhus being an insane lunatic madman. He seems very much in possession of his mental faculties. Inrilatas fits the bill much better. But then it would kind of depend on how you're defining insanity, what its symptoms would be.

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I'm always willing to consider any possibility. However, the evidence doesn't seem to be very strong for Kellhus being an insane lunatic madman. He seems very much in possession of his mental faculties. Inrilatas fits the bill much better. But then it would kind of depend on how you're defining insanity, what its symptoms would be.

Not necessarily an 'insane lunatic madman', only that he was deluded at that moment...

He seems to be deluded about removing the damnation of sorcerers, or lying.

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So A: If as you say the outside is not truely supernatural, how is that explained then?

Something like this wouldn't be supernatural, would it?

Previously I argued that the God corresponds to an emergent super-consciousness, resulting from the interaction between human consciousness, belief, perception and reality. But the human mind is a multi-layered thing, not a homogeneous structure. In the Jungian model of the psyche, complexes appear as functional units of the mind just the same way as organs appear as functional units of the body, and these appear on the deeper level of the collective unconscious as archetypes. A mind layered this way would not only give rise to a super-consciousness, the God, but also to 'super-complexes' - the gods.

I also like this idea because it seems to explain how the Inchoroi think they can end damnation by reducing the population of Earwa, which is what's creating the outside in the first place.

I'm just curious about how you take it when you take the outside as not supernatural (I too am thinking it isn't) but how you reconcile that with an 'objective' morality?

Well, how do you reconcile them then? :) Or do you not? And what's your explanation for how the outside isn't supernatural?

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Does anyone at any point tell Kellhus what the dreams of the No-God entail? I suppose Achamian would have told him about them, but unless he told him that he says exactly "WHAT DO YOU SEE? TELL ME WHAT YOU SEE?" then how does madness explain these voices? And the same goes for the haloed hands seen by more than one person, clearly madness doesn't explain everything. If he's mad, something must be going on as well.

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Of course Kelhus is mad. It's crystal clear from the text and a non-crazy Dunyain opined as much. The question is whether being mad makes him wrong.

He was wrong about the damnation of sorcerers according to the JE.

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He was wrong about the damnation of sorcerers according to the JE.

Wrong or lying? Or telling something of a half truth? We certainly can't know for sure just yet.

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So, nobody is willing to consider the possibility that Kellhus really did go insane during his terrible ordeal and that everything that came afterwards (i.e., "oneness") are just the scattered and imagined thoughts of a lunatic?

I feel not enough conversation has been devoted to the author actually telling us that Kellhus went mad in the summation of the story preceding the beginning of the last book. It seems that information has either been ignored, explained away by rendering a complicated and irregular definition of "mad," or incorporated in a fashion so as to not do too much damage to what our preconceived notions about Kellhus were before The White Luck Warrior came out.

I agree, Kellhus is mad, despite reader-flattering elaborate theories discrediting the authorial voice of the what has come before.

now, to work up some new crackpot me-flattering elaborate theories of the usual nonsense sort. *wanders away muttering*

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Wrong or lying? Or telling something of a half truth? We certainly can't know for sure just yet.

If we're going off that theory that he is actually mad, then he isn't lying, only deluded into thinking he is telling the truth.

I'm always willing to consider any possibility. However, the evidence doesn't seem to be very strong for Kellhus being an insane lunatic madman. He seems very much in possession of his mental faculties. Inrilatas fits the bill much better. But then it would kind of depend on how you're defining insanity, what its symptoms would be.

No, I agree, he is in possession of his mental faculties. When I refer to his madness, I speak only of the belief that he is any way holy, that he is an instrument or reflection of something divine and sacred. There are many who argue that he is, or that he is lying about being so, whereas the argument about him being mad posits that neither is the case. He isn't divine but he nevertheless believes this to be the case. Not only are his followers deluded, he is as well.

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But if that's all we're attributing to his madness, it's hard to see the narrative function of his insanity. He seems to have repealed his opinion that he's holy and believes the Gods are against him (I'm assuming being holy and the Gods being against you are incompatible). So his madness explains a brief ego massage, but other than that he's right about everything?

It seems like it only serves to wrong foot us all, taking a character who lies all the time, then throwing madness into the mix to leave us pretty much incapable of gathering evidence to form theories.

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What does divinity even mean if all conscious entities are part of the God who resides in the "Here"? If Psatma accepts Yatwer as demon, it seems to me divinity is simply the ability to alter reality and master space & time.



Kellhus seems to have accomplished all of that, to an extent, save perhaps for the mastery of time.


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So his madness explains a brief ego massage, but other than that he's right about everything?

No, the opposite actually. Under this specific proposal, he is mad and, therefore, he is wrong about everything (i.e., damnation, his role, etc.).

If only for the purpose of trying to foster new discussion on this topic, I'm bringing up the possibility that Kellhus is a puppet, not a puppet master. Too many are fixated on the latter as the only possibility.

This may very well be be a big mistake and the wrong conception of the story. Just because we see Kellhus habitually toying with others does not preclude the possibility that he is an instrument of someone else.

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If we're going off that theory that he is actually mad, then he isn't lying, only deluded into thinking he is telling the truth.

No, I agree, he is in possession of his mental faculties. When I refer to his madness, I speak only of the belief that he is any way holy, that he is an instrument or reflection of something divine and sacred. There are many who argue that he is, or that he is lying about being so, whereas the argument about him being mad posits that neither is the case. He isn't divine but he nevertheless believes this to be the case. Not only are his followers deluded, he is as well.

But do we know that he believes himself holy, or that he is an instrument of something divine or sacred? He wants to come before, after all, not to come after. That would include not just everyone in Earwa, but in the Outside too. The Circumfixion seems to be the event that let him understand that there even was an Outside, or gods and No-God. Perhaps Moe thinks Kellhus is mad only because Moe has not had such an experience, and doesn't believe there are gods.

He might well think himself is damned, but only by the rules of the God, who he wants to become. To usurp. To actually rewrite the Tusk. He's not there yet, just like he wasn't a prophet by the time he was planning to become one - it's a lie, but it could become true in the game of many-breaths, if he succeeds.

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Moe knows that there are gods. He just believes them to be nothing special - other entities similar to ciphrang. This appears to be a correct belief from what we've seen; both Psatma and Meppa view it this way.



What he doesn't believe is that there is an immanent god. Kellhus appears to.


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