Bakker XXVIII: A Hiding Place Soon to be Discovered

[sologdin]

no disrespect at all to herr/frau madness, but we obviously need to run volume VI through a dozen or so threads here before we can conclude whether it answers or generates questions.

[Sci-2]

Bakker's woven such a dense web that I do think answering certain questions will leave us with as many questions as answers.

Bakker tells us, via Anonymous's epigraph before False Sun, that a soul in Heaven or Hell sounds exactly the same...and that goes all the way back to Plato's Apology, IIRC, where Socrates notes in the mind - versus the realm of matter - pleasure and pain can be occupy the same space despite being contradictory. Would be a nice ode to Bakker's discipline if he brought that fact to bear in relation to the Outside, a place where no brute fact of reality seems to hold without a Mind's whim to keep it in place.

Whether this means salvation and damnation are the same is something he might hint at again. And the presence of a reincarnated soul would also throw things off considerably as it suggest damnation is less brute fact than a result of ignorance. We know there's a "right way to believe", but this might be less faith in a particular religion and more a way of understanding the Outside. In our modern world we trust in laws of nature as brute facts** but certain medieval Islamic philosophers believed in Occasionalism, that God preserves the order of the world from moment to moment; and there were the Scholastics who believed that souls are Forms giving shape to prime matter as Aristotle and Aquinas suggested.

Maybe believing the "right way" is about picturing reality the right way, so that when you fall into the Outside you can better navigate yourself to safety. Would also be like Bakker to have good philosophy be the key to saving yourself from being a Ciphrang's "butt floss" as Kal so eloquently puts it.

**Though there's more questioning of that now:

Frozen Accidents: Can the Laws of Physics be Explained?

Is the Search for Immutable Laws of Nature a Wild-Goose Chase?

[Diziet]

Bakker's woven such a dense web that I do think answering certain questions will leave us with as many questions as answers.

Bakker tells us, via Anonymous's epigraph before False Sun, that a soul in Heaven or Hell sounds exactly the same...and that goes all the way back to Plato's Apology, IIRC, where Socrates notes in the mind - versus the realm of matter - pleasure and pain can be occupy the same space despite being contradictory. Would be a nice ode to Bakker's discipline if he brought that fact to bear in relation to the Outside, a place where no brute fact of reality seems to hold without a Mind's whim to keep it in place.

Whether this means salvation and damnation are the same is something he might hint at again. And the presence of a reincarnated soul would also throw things off considerably as it suggest damnation is less brute fact than a result of ignorance. We know there's a "right way to believe", but this might be less faith in a particular religion and more a way of understanding the Outside. In our modern world we trust in laws of nature as brute facts* but certain medieval Islamic philosophers believed in Occasionalism, that God preserves the order of the world from moment to moment; and there were the Scholastics who believed that souls are Forms giving shape to prime matter as Aristotle and Aquinas suggested.

Maybe believing the "right way" is about picturing reality the right way, so that when you fall into the Outside you can better navigate yourself to safety. Would also be like Bakker to have good philosophy be the key to saving yourself from being a Ciphrang's "butt floss" as Kal so eloquently puts it.

*Though there's more questioning of that now:

Frozen Accidents: Can the Laws of Physics be Explained?

Is the Search for Immutable Laws of Nature a Wild-Goose Chase?

This post raises more questions in my head than the entire TSA series... :)

[Sci-2]

This post raises more questions in my head than the entire TSA series... :)

Thanks!

Request to Ruiner - Could you put the following in the OP:

Link to Earwa shorts by Bakker:

False Sun

The Four Revelations of Cinial’jin

[Rhom]

Thanks!

Request to Ruiner - Could you put the following in the OP:

Link to Earwa shorts by Bakker:

False Sun

The Four Revelations of Cinial’jin

Those would certainly be good links to include in the now mandatory first post of a new Bakker thread.

[jurble]

Last I heard from Scott, the second sample was still a go. But he had just turned in the manuscript to his editors on both sides of the pond and he wanted to wait till the whole thing was edited before providing a new extract.

So I'm pretty sure it will happen. As to when, however, your guess is as good as mine. . .

Patrick

What happened to your old account?

[Larry of the Lawn]

My guess is HBO bought the rights to TSA and he's been real busy.

[unJon]

Can you imagine a huge HBO "EAMD" campaign like the "Winter is Coming" one?

TSA has to be one of the most unfilmable series ever. Hard to imagine Kel's schtick working on TV.

[Bolivar]

One of the posts said he was on vacation... seems like a long time though.

[Larry of the Lawn]

TSA has to be one of the most unfilmable series ever. Hard to imagine Kel's schtick working on TV.

Oh come on the CGI from the Da Vinci code could be.used to light.up.facial muscles that would.match a sequence on a viewing guide so the.viewer would pretty much be Dunyain. Easy peasey japanesey.

[Callan S.]

Anyone have any theories on the radio silence on the blog? Like all men, I am deceived into believing that which is most flattering: that he's busy finalizing whatever he needs with his editors and the Unholiest of Unholies will be announced very soon.

But of course that could be wrong.

Just on holiday and then got back and there was a dog with a curly tail outside, so he had to chase it.

He works on multiple posts at once, as I understand it - he may have wrapped them all up before the holiday and now various posts are forming in draft format, at a guess. Also possibly going through a give up the blog mood like he did in the past.

[Callan S.]

Oh come on the CGI from the Da Vinci code could be.used to light.up.facial muscles that would.match a sequence on a viewing guide so the.viewer would pretty much be Dunyain. Easy peasey japanesey.

I find it kind of cheesy to have a voice over describing each muscle - but it'd be hard to do any sort of intuitive contextual feeling in the medium.

[Kalbear]

And besides, Bakker said outright that TUC will answer most of the questions raised already, and that if he dies it will be a satisfying ending to the series.

Since the only person who has read it and talked about it disagrees with this, I'm not sure that his opinion is particularly valid.

I would buy the war on men thing if it didn't completely get contradicted by major events in the books - things like the womb plague, for instance. It would also be some of the least foreshadowed bullshit ever. If your narrative gotchas revolve mostly around the peculiarities of idiomatic English, you are going to be totally and completely fucked when it comes to translating it in other languages. it's more likely in my mind that his misogynistic heel turn is going to be revolving around the importance of Mimara being the true hero of the current series and potentially the success of Esme.

[Anatúrinbor]

Request to Ruiner - Could you put the following in the OP:

Link to Earwa shorts by Bakker:

False Sun

The Four Revelations of Cinial’jin

Done.

He works on multiple posts at once, as I understand it - he may have wrapped them all up before the holiday and now various posts are forming in draft format, at a guess.

Ah. Well, that explains how he used to pop them out daily.

As for an HBO adaptation. I can't help but think that the magic scenes will look laughable on TV. And again, what's most intriguing [for me at least] is how the magic works (utteral/inutterals,) and the various branches of magic. Not the actual battles (which I usually skim over to be honest.) For instance, take one of the great scenes in the series,

Kellhus stepped back, focused his eyes on a point the size of a thumbnail held at arms length. What was one became many. What was soul became place.

Here.

Calling out from bones of things.

With three voices he sang, one utteral pitched to the world and two inutterals directed to the ground. What had been an ancient Cant of Calling became something far, far more ... A Cant of Transposing.

I doubt they would do a voice over in a scene like this, it would be ridiculous after all. A TV viewer would see Kellhus disappear and then go "Huh?"

Would HBO spend an appropriate amount of time explaining the magic system or the metaphysics anyway? And would the viewers care? I'm not sure.

But then again, I'm sure objections such as these were raised before ASOIAF was adapted. TSA remains fundamentally different in that it is extremely high in magic while ASOIAF is on the other side of the spectrum, but who knows. :dunno:

@Kalbear, that theory is actually not "contradicted" by the Womb-Plague, and it does not rely entirely on the peculiarities of the English language, but, as I said, on the fact that all the details concerning the Womb-Plague came from one source with doubtful authenticity. Which isn't to say that it didn't happen, it clearly did, but the idea that not every single woman died is not far-fetched but expected. The WP wasn't perfect after all, killing some men but not all. In fact most would consider it a big fuck up. And then there is the fact that both the Nonmen and women achieved immortality before the Womb-Plague struck.

As for likeliness, I think it's very unlikely. But posting a theory like this is a risk vs rewards issue. If I'm wrong ... no big deal. But on the off-chance that I'm right ... I'd say some bragging is in order. :)

Since the only person who has read it and talked about it disagrees with this, I'm not sure that his opinion is particularly valid.

To be fair, they have both read it.

[Happy Ent]

TSA has to be one of the most unfilmable series ever. Hard to imagine Kel's schtick working on TV.

No, that would be extremely cool. Think how Sherlock solves the problems of visualising Holmes’s inferences. Combine that with CSI-like close-ups of muscles, tear ducts or sweat glands, and maybe an explanatory voice-over or Pragma flashback—it would be a defining visual identity/gimmick.

[Diziet]

But Kellhus's mental gymnastics barely work in the text. On TV they wouldn't work at all. And then there are scenes where he's just there and people are floored by his "presence" or his voice.

But I'd like for an adaptation to happen though, only because it would give Bakker the monetary boost needed to finish the series.

Since the only person who has read it and talked about it disagrees with this, I'm not sure that his opinion is particularly valid.

The only two people who have read it have expressed different opinions, not sure why Madness's is valid but Bakker's is not.

[Anatúrinbor]

But I'd like for an adaptation to happen though, only because it would give Bakker the monetary boost needed to finish the series.

I'd like to see that First Apocalypse stand-alone, or better, a Cûno-Inchoroi Wars stand-alone, or better still, a sci-fi book set on the Ark or the Inchoroi homeworld. If a TV/movie adaptation means that, then I'm all for it. But IIRC, Bakker once said that someone was planning to turn it into a TV series but it didn't happen of course, supposedly because of the financial crisis.

[Diziet]

a sci-fi book set on the Ark or the Inchoroi homeworld.

I would have taken that over Disciple of The Dog. But hopefully he dropped the idea of writing a DotD sequel which might give him a chance to do something else.

By the way, does Bakker have a degree in neuroscience and is that the subject of the Phd that he's working on at the moment.

[DaveSumm]

TSA has to be one of the most unfilmable series ever. Hard to imagine Kel's schtick working on TV.

I thought about this quite a lot when reading tDtCB last (I tend to think about it for most books I read, seeing as reading and picturing the scenes in your mind is a very similar process to imagining an adaption, I often find) and I initially thought there's no way Kellhus's abilities could be translated to screen. But then I had an idea that I initially thought was shit, but has weirdly grown on me; a House of Cards esque fourth-wall breaking character. If Kellhus were to physically turn to to the camera and explain what he was doing I think it could work. In an ideal world, I might have five 60 (or if we're being greedy, 90?) minute episodes that loosely corresponded to the 5 parts of tDtCB: The Sorceror, The Emperor, The Harlot etc. You could break up all of Kellhus's prologue into smaller parts that acted as the prologue to each episode, so that the first would have Kellhus and then Achamian as the fourth-wall breaking character, the second Kellhus then the Emperor etc. By the fifth (and possibly for future books/series) you'd probably have to break the rule and have everyone (Cnaiur, Esmenet, Emperor, Kellhus, Achamian) turning to camera.

Also, reading through the first book, it's only Achamian's dreams that would be particularly expensive to film (huge groups of people as the Holy War amasses would be a must, but that's bread and butter CGI these days I'd have thought?). You could pour a hefty portion of your budget into one almighty No-God-decimating-armies scene, then dine out on that for most of the time. Imagine the very first second of the first episode dropping the audience straight into that scene, it'd be pretty immediate for the audience I'd say.

[Larry of the Lawn]

Yeah I was being irreverent about it translating to screen. If anyone could do that I'd be very impressed.