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Bakker XXXII: The Acts of Fane


Anatúrinbor

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So who is his Shae? Not Bush. Maybe Karl Rove?

Now to completely and deliberately politicize the Bakkake thread, I find the thought of Dick Cheney far more frightening than Shae and Big A. Consult are fucking amateurs.

I'd say Shae is Cia officer, who master minded the tortures. Behind the scene kind a guy, secretive. I dont like to discuss politics because it usually don't end well. Although, this is interesting, please amuse me with more analogies of Consult/Gitmo personalities. Love this. Hope the wife doesn't browse this.....she' is so far right and will probably start a argument, something like this...."Bush and his administration were the greatest this country has seen, there is no argument you can give me that will sway my opinion. Did you know Obama is a Muslim?" Then I'd just hit the local pub til she cools off. But please continue, I've gotten a good laugh outta this.
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Hmmm. Okay, symbolically I do like Shea as Cheney. So then Aurang is Dubya, Aurax is Bush Sr. That makes Sil Reagan. Maithanet is Obama. Titirga is Paul Wellstone. Esmenet is Hillary.

Which makes either Achamian or Kellhus Bill, Mimara is Chelsea.

I'd ask the mods to merge this with the US politics thread except that I don't think they read these threads outside of punishment.

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Akka doesn't have enough swag to be Bill.

:cheers:

I do believe Kellhus could do Ol' Billy Boy, and matter of fact there would have been none of the Impeachment hearings. He'd a turned Monica into Serwë. Bill Clinton was my favorite President, he, just went along with shit, economy boomed, and he seemed to have fun at what he was doing. I liked that as a teen....I like it now. Shouldnt take yourself too seriously, bound for some sort of disappointment. Stay level, he always did that. Yea, he made mistakes as they all do, overall, seemed the most human, though Bush was down to earth too I believe. Just surrounded by the Consult...., LOL.

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So, just read again when Synthese is flying over the carnage of the first battle of Holy War, at Mengedda, I'd say that's Aurang for sure the horde-general of the NO-GOD, for the apocalypse (via wiki). During the scene he makes a statement, that cements it for me.

Who could blame it for indulging in nostalgia? To be here again after millennia, at the place where it had almost happened, where Men and Nonmen had almost flickered out forever. Almost. Alas Soon enough. Soon enough.

So Sarcellus was dead. Unfortunate. At least the Holy War had prevailed over the Cishaurim, no less! Golgotterath would approve.

This baffles me, maybe someone could help out, why would Consult want Chisaurim/Fanimn destroyed? Is their's the true religion? Does Chisaurim have no Mark? And powerful sorcery? And also, it seems to suggest whoever (Synthese) is a little familiar w/ the feelings of the Consult.
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Consult thought that Cish were their enemies in that they could detect and destroy their skin spies. Turns out it was Moe and his Dunyain skillz. Maybe. Unless it was the Third Sight and skin spies having no soul so all or some subset of Cish could detect. There is dispute among members of this thread on this point.

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Consult thought that Cish were their enemies in that they could detect and destroy their skin spies. Turns out it was Moe and his Dunyain skillz. Maybe. Unless it was the Third Sight and skin spies having no soul so all or some subset of Cish could detect. There is dispute among members of this thread on this point.

Actually, that's a good question. Kellhus shines in the Third Sight, apparently due to his Dunyain breeding. Do the skin-spies also shine in the Third-Sight? Do we know the Cish can actively see souls or do they need to expend effort to do so?

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Is there any realistic estimate to the release date of the next book? Is 2015 at all likely?

(also where could i keep track of those things so i wouldn't have to ask here)

Don't know if there is much consensus. Things aren't looking as optimistic they were a year ago. Late 2015 or early 2016 ar best?

The TSA forum is a good place to check too.

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Superb fan map of Earwa. Those weird ring-shaped mountains and islands, which I thought were artifacts on the earlier digital maps, are confirmed be real by Bakker's original map of the continent made in 1984 (also on the same link). Interesting. Did Earwa go through a recent-ish series of meteor bombardments?



Also, Bakker has confirmed he will write the entire series, including the sequel duology/trilogy, but it will just take a hell of a lot longer if he has to get a day job.


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Actually, that's a good question. Kellhus shines in the Third Sight, apparently due to his Dunyain breeding. Do the skin-spies also shine in the Third-Sight? Do we know the Cish can actively see souls or do they need to expend effort to do so?

Maybe most people don't shine in the third sight? Kellhus is pretty spesh! Plus he seems to have hand halos for others anyway. So it's probably not a good comparison.

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Superb fan map of Earwa. Those weird ring-shaped mountains and islands, which I thought were artifacts on the earlier digital maps, are confirmed be real by Bakker's original map of the continent made in 1984 (also on the same link). Interesting. Did Earwa go through a recent-ish series of meteor bombardments?

Also, Bakker has confirmed he will write the entire series, including the sequel duology/trilogy, but it will just take a hell of a lot longer if he has to get a day job.

Well, that's good to know. I would assume that once TUC is released, we can finally get a name for TSTSNBN since it would presumably no longer be spoilerific.

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Anyone have any speculation about the craterish type circles present on the map? They seem pretty deliberate, but I'm coming up blank on any ideas of what significance they might have.

I definitely think they're going to be impact craters of some sort. The one around Golgatterath is almost certainly from the Ark crashing into the planet. As for the others, who knows? Perhaps the Ark went all Voltron and separated into multiple ships, or maybe pieces of it broke off during entry into the atmosphere. Maybe they're other spaceships from other civilizations, or even previous attempts by the Inchoroi to get to Earwa. Maybe they're simply meteor impacts.

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I had the following realization on the other forum last night.

Non men do not sculpt stone. We look at their statues all wrong. Non men sculpt the space between, which makes sense because that is what they worship. They sculpt emptiness. The stone boundaries men view as sculpture are nothing more than the boundaries that define the space between, the equivalent to a wooden frame defining the boundaries of a painting. Just as non men cannot see paintings, men cannot see non men sculptures of emptiness because both rely on species different optical illusions.

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http://www.lqs-art.com/upfile/20133191435153217425.jpg

General questions about the Nonmen......

1. Nonman Sight....

1a. What is their visual field like and how does it differ from Mens'? They cannot see paintings {2D representations of 3D}, and so must render events in 3D sculpture. How are they able to read writing, then?

Or is reading and visualizing 3D space into 2D surfaces happening in different regions of the brain?

Is their inability to be satisfied with the surface linked with their apparent damnation?

1b. Do they see in color like Humans? Or is everything they see in muted tones, grayscale, or monochrome? {Don't know if this is explicitly stated anywhere but I kind of get this impression from them}.

There's feints and hints, but there's next to nothing in the text to answer either of these questions. From the scraps, it sounds as though they have a different visual field, are subject to different optical illusions and may or may not see color at all. So like a plant at a political rally asking an extraordinarily long leading question, I think you answered your question by making it long enough to include your preferred answer to it in the first place.

2. Nonman Evolution...

2a. How do they evolve? Do they share a common ancestor with Men? Or are their superficial similarities largely incidental, with Men and Nonmen being derived from entirely different ancestors?

2b. Or are Men and Nonmen semi-present throughout the universe {Wutteat mentions genocyding several worlds with the Inchoroi before landing on Earwa}? Are Nonmen a species descended of interstellar Men that refined their genes to an insane degree {before becoming isolated on multiple worlds}, whereas Men are a species that more or less still resembles ancestral populations without excessive artificial selection?

There's utterly nothing whatsoever in the text to answer any of those, they are interesting fan wank speculations that fit within the mileau and style of the series, but these are totally unanswerable questions. My only point is that regarding 2a, evolution as a principle probably does not exist in Bakker's universe. Evolution isn't really a topic ever introduced or discussed in relation to Bakker's work, and I think this is relatively true of secondary world creations in fantasy as a rule.

3. Nonmen and the Dunyain...

3a. In TTT Kellhus, observing the Nonmen ruins in Kyudea, notes that their obsession with the living form points to their terror. What is this terror? Existential terror at the state of being alive, of being encased in mortal, breathing flesh? Terror of the possibility or certainty of damnation?

A good example of Bakker at his bad writing best, it obviously hints at something but everything is so intricately buried and deliberately obfuscated or hiding under sixteen layers of unreliable narrators that we'll never know of the usage of the word "terror" there has any relevance to anything else. At best it's disconnected from most everything else. It might be a crucial clue, like the wolf gate, but it's so deeply buried you can yank on the lever all you want, it's not going to move anything. Also see above about leading questions.

3b. Also in TTT Kellhus mentions that the Nonmen ruins distinctly remind him of Ishual's Thousand Thousand Halls... Did Nonmen build Ishual for the Anasurimbor dynasty? Or have some role in the formation of the Dunyain / Dunyain Philosophies? Cleric / Nil'Giccas' behavior in TWLW {mentioning Legion, Darkness, Becoming, etc.} seem to indicate an overlap here.

This has been noted and discussed extensively, ultimately, all the information that might fill in the puzzle has been deliberately withheld to keep it a puzzle, so it's an interesting comment comparing the two, but there's nothing we can do with it as of yet. The best guess is that NG gifted Ishual to Celmomas or that Ishual was Viri or that Ishual was Siol. or that Ishual was where the child from the rape of omindalea was sequestered and raised in order to establish the anasurimbor dynasty. Really you can pick a fan wank and run with it because there isn't remotely enough information to do much with it.

3c. In TWLW, when Kellhus meets with the Ishterebinthian Embassy, the Nonman emissary seems to be resigned to the fact of the damnation of his species. Were the Nonmen always damned? If so, why? Why would the Gods of Eannean Men have any hold over their souls? Or are the Gods/Ciphrang somehow non-essential to the process of Damnation?

Or was there a period, possibly before the Cuno-Inchoroi Wars, where they had gods of their own?

"Heaven does not know you," seems to indicate that they have never had a favorable view of any sort of afterlife {from the Psalms to Oblivion, Nin'Hilarjal}. Have they always been trying to escape damnation or paradise via Oblivion?

I hope there's an answer in your leading question, because there really is nothing in the text to suggest any of those options to the reader. the readership is not going to take the resignation of one character who exists in one scene in a 9 book series and say, "that character was very gloomy..." and then extrapolate a crucial conclusion about an entire species and their metaphysical status because of said gloominess. I mean, sure, his gloominess could be totally the key to unlocking major questions about nonmen, but if it is that is some phenomenally terrible writing.

4. Nonman Biology...

4a. What do they eat? What color is their doodoo? {I am guessing marble-esque turds, white veined in grays and blues, but could be off-base here}.

4b. What color is their semen? Black, white, or gray?

4c. Why no Black Nonmen, or distinct Nonman Races?

Even among Nine Nonman Mansions, they never appear to reach the level of the heterogeneous-ness of the Emwama or Eannean Men {who vary widely in phenotype}. Do their genes lack the potential to mutate or change over time? And is this {again} linked with their damnation?

Again, I hope your detailed leading questions have correct answers in them, as they suggest fascinating possibilities that Bakker hasn't bothered to include nor hint at in the text. it's interesting that the alimentary requirements of nonmen has never come up, it may be that is fairly significant, on the other hand, the story has close to zero mention of food from any character's perspective, so perhaps nonmen do not eat, or perhaps no characters eat? the evidence is about the same from both. No one gives a shit about nonman poo. and enough mockery has been made of bakker's black semen fetish that I'm not really interested, though it would be a potentially important datum if it is black. It would suggest a new possibility in that Esme's rapist may have been a nonman, which has never before been considered, and that sranc have black semen because Nonmen have black semen not because Inchoroir have black semen. It might even suggest that inchoroi and nonmen have a common ancester.

As for genetics, like evolution, not really a place for it in the world. and as with almost everything nonmen there is not enough information given in the text to even cause the readership to generate questions about the 'lack' of nonmen races.

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