Bakker XXXIV: Waiting for Grimdark (update: it’s here!)

[Hello World]

Also, with the "true son of Ishual", I never read it like that. I mean ive heard guys all my life say "I'm a true West Virginian, born and raised!", or "He's a good ol' boy from Texas.". You get my point, that's how I read that passage.

I know that it can be read another way, the point is that Bakker must be hiding clues in PON as foreshadowing to what's going to be revealed in TUC, that could be a hidden clue. I didn't actually read it that way to begin with, only when I started contemplating theories about the absence of Dunyain women.

As for the Inchoroi, I don't think the idea that the Ark birthed them came out of ignorance as I don't expect a superstitious and ignorant people to come up with an explanation like that when they could just assume that the women are dead. The Inchoroi are a post singularity race, they don't need a male and female to have babies. They probably don't have genders at all.

[Michael Seswatha Jordan]

^I'm not saying your wrong, matter of fact you have some good ideas. Was just offering a different perspective.

[Guest]

So Bakker hasn't had a new blog post in over five weeks. Does anywhere dare hope that he's hunkering down to get over the finish line?

[Castel]

So Bakker hasn't had a new blog post in over five weeks. Does anywhere dare hope that he's hunkering down to get over the finish line?

Probably polishing an article about heuristics and BBT.

[Guest]

Probably polishing an article about heuristics and BBT.

I hate that you're probably right.

I want my Consult.

[Madness]

I dare hope, Trisk :P.

But then I usually do.

[Wise Fool]

There's a couple of instances where its suggested that all of Kellhus's genes come from Moenghus.

Moenghus says that Maithanet is not really Dunyain because he was fathered with a worldborn woman, which seems to give a fair bit of importance to the genes Kellhus took from his mother, yet by all accounts, Kellhus is just a copy of his father. Moreover, the way Moenghus phrases the following words seems a bit suspicious to me,

Once again, he doesn't mention Kellhus's mother or any Dunyain women, he only says "a true son of Ishual". No idea how they do it, but my guess is that Ishual 'birthed' the Dunyain. We know that in this series there is at least one other species that procreates in a similar way--namely, without women. Which isn't to say that the actual method of reproduction is the same one.

It could be that they have actual women, just that... the seed is strong.

In the flashbacks to Ishual and Lil Kellhus's learnings, how gender specific are the descriptions of other Dunyain? The Pragma, the younglings trying to whack the guy with the tree-master-of-space defense, the Elders, etc? IIRC, and I'm far too lazy to look it up, it was pretty nonspecific. Some or all of them could have been women.

[Callan S.]

They probably don't have genders at all.

No genders. Just cocks.

[Hello World]

It could be that they have actual women, just that... the seed is strong.

In the flashbacks to Ishual and Lil Kellhus's learnings, how gender specific are the descriptions of other Dunyain? The Pragma, the younglings trying to whack the guy with the tree-master-of-space defense, the Elders, etc? IIRC, and I'm far too lazy to look it up, it was pretty nonspecific. Some or all of them could have been women.

Nope, they were all men.

he was one of the Pragma, the senior brethren of the Dünyain, and meetings between such men and young boys usually resulted in anguish for the latter.

Pragma Uän with the older boys. Everyone knew he taught what the older boys called the ways of limb … Of battle. “What do you see?” the old man finally asked,

Even the defectives are men,

The boards themselves had been arranged in a broad circle, with each man lying fixed...

Pragma Meigon had called it the Unmasking Room. “To begin,” the old man said,

Bakker avoided any mention of Dunyain women for a reason, a reason other than 'they just didn't come up'. That much I'm certain of. And even Bakker said that there's a revelation coming regarding the 'Dunyain feminine' (note that even here he didn't use the word 'women'). So what could the revelation be? That they really run the place? Or that they're "behind it all"? I doubt that because if that were the case Bakker would have at least mentioned them, but not only did he not do that, their existence is not even alluded to, anywhere in the text. Including in places where you'd think it makes sense for them to be mentioned, like when Moe talks about worldborn women, we get 'a true son of Ishual', and in Kellhus's flashbacks where we get phrases like 'such men and young boys', and a general overuse of the word 'boys' in such short passages.

[Hello World]

By the way, did the Inchoroi write The Chronicle of the Tusk on a Tusk because it's the closest thing to a dick they could get away with? If so does that mean that humans have been kneeling to and wroshipping a cock this entire time?

Man... imagine how much the Inchoroi laughed.

[.H.]

I think there is a fair chance that all the Dunyain are essentially clones.

The question then is, how are they doing it? If they were actually breeding, well, in order to gain the "optimal" results, the females would have to undergo the same training as the males, or else your pairings will still be "random."

Since we have no evidence but the lack of evidence, I think we can only speculate and for the most part, wildly speculate.

Given what we do know, I think there is a pretty good chance that there are no such thing as Dunyain females, at least not in the sense that they are human women.

[Hello World]

Dunyain women are probably like shaes torsos in the excerpt

Actually, this seems to make the most sense. I was just looking at that excerpt, and there's the whole thing with the 'timing'.

To dream such a thing now...

What could it mean?

To suffer this Dream the very day he would at last set foot in Ishuäl. To not only see Shauriatas, but to learn the truefate of Nau-Cayûti–or something of it. What could it mean to learn the truth of one great Anasûrimbor’s death, just before discovering the truth of another, even greater Anasûrimbor’s birth?

[Gasp of Many Reeds]

It could be that they have actual women, just that... the seed is strong.

Well, we could look at the descriptions of Kellhus' children (and also Maithanet) to see whether the Dunyain heredity predominates over the non-Dunyain.

It could be inferred from the way Kellhus treats Esmenet as essentially a vessel for his seed that Dunyain genetics benefit from minimal recombination with other stock, and that the source of the monstrous births and madness is a result of the careful balance between otherwise deleterious genes achieved by Dunyain eugenics being disrupted (we know that even from their own 'pure' stock that they need to regularly cull 'defectives', so perhaps this is even more of a problem with half-Dunyain children).

[sologdin]

true son of Ishual

etymology of ishual is what? not greek, for sure. more Hebrew, like yeshua, maybe. gross.

[.H.]

I decided to reread The False Sun this morning. It's been a while and I was bored at work, plus I forgot my eBooks of the rest of the series.

We've discussed what the Inverse Fire is numerous times and with such scant information, we have naturally not figured out much about it's nature. My personal feelings are that it is called such because we often presume hell (or Hell) to be a fiery place, yet the reality the damned face in the Outside is actually it's opposite. Fire would be hot, burning, consuming. Damnation in the outside is the opposite, cold, freezing, preserving. Where fire would devour and extinguish, the coldness of damnation is is endless.

That crack-pottery isn't what struck me in the story though, it was the exchange between Shae and Titirga. Is it just me, but I actually believe that everything Shae (and Aurang) is actually true. What they see really is their damnation. I don't fee like the Inverse Fire is a device made to control, it is simply something of a window that reveals what I would term "dread knowledge."

The idea of such a thing is knowledge that does not enwisen, but rather fosters something of a guttural fear response. Indeed, what Shae and the Consult choose to do is actually rather logical, however, it is motivated by the basest and most primitive of thoughts and feelings, pleasure and self-preservation. Nothing is inherently wrong with either, but when they are exacted as pleasure for it's own sake and self-preservation at any cost that is an issue.

Titirga offers them the alternative: oblivion. The Consult rejects this though, because that base need of self-preservation, so closely linked to fear, drives them to try to achieve "salvation" at any cost.

I don't know if that makes any real sense to anyone but me, but I figured I'd just lob it out there...

[Michael Seswatha Jordan]

OK, so here is my only concern with the whole no Dunyain woman deal. If, Ishual only has men, and their just a bunch of clones, how does Moe and Kelhuss know to procreate so quickly and what to look for in a woman? And, the whole "seed is strong" deal? They knew about woman before, it wasn't some big surprise when Kelhuss met Cnauir's wives.

I don't have the time to look right now, but when Kelhuss first has a sexual encounter, it wasn't some crazy, unexpected feelings and sensations. He knew what the deal was, IIRC.

[lokisnow]

true son of Ishual

etymology of ishual is what? not greek, for sure. more Hebrew, like yeshua, maybe. gross.

Doubtful, probably Arabic like dunya.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunya

[Michael Seswatha Jordan]

I decided to reread The False Sun this morning. It's been a while and I was bored at work, plus I forgot my eBooks of the rest of the series.

We've discussed what the Inverse Fire is numerous times and with such scant information, we have naturally not figured out much about it's nature. My personal feelings are that it is called such because we often presume hell (or Hell) to be a fiery place, yet the reality the damned face in the Outside is actually it's opposite. Fire would be hot, burning, consuming. Damnation in the outside is the opposite, cold, freezing, preserving. Where fire would devour and extinguish, the coldness of damnation is is endless.

That crack-pottery isn't what struck me in the story though, it was the exchange between Shae and Titirga. Is it just me, but I actually believe that everything Shae (and Aurang) is actually true. What they see really is their damnation. I don't fee like the Inverse Fire is a device made to control, it is simply something of a window that reveals what I would term "dread knowledge."

The idea of such a thing is knowledge that does not enwisen, but rather fosters something of a guttural fear response. Indeed, what Shae and the Consult choose to do is actually rather logical, however, it is motivated by the basest and most primitive of thoughts and feelings, pleasure and self-preservation. Nothing is inherently wrong with either, but when they are exacted as pleasure for it's own sake and self-preservation at any cost that is an issue.

Titirga offers them the alternative: oblivion. The Consult rejects this though, because that base need of self-preservation, so closely linked to fear, drives them to try to achieve "salvation" at any cost.

I don't know if that makes any real sense to anyone but me, but I figured I'd just lob it out there...

Makes plenty of sense. Titirga offers oblivion, but like you said, the base needs of the Inchoiri doesn't mesh with that option. Hence, their mission of an apocalypse and perserving their souls. What's really at play, is what the hell does Kelhuss want?

I wholeheartedly believe everything they say also. I believe that's what the atrocity tales are for, to offer a window into some of the unknowns of Earwa.

[Ser Bryar Ashford]

Re Women of Ishual...

I think for one thing we can infer that the women are remote from the boys and the training. Kellhus never once mentions a single woman or girl.

This isn't a lot to go on but it leads me to a few crackpot guesses:

a] There is a breeding factory of some sort where the women are kept under lock and key and only the best males have access to them [for procreation only]

b] They have a non-woman or non-women down in the Thousand Thousand Halls somewhere in the breeding factory

c] Female Dunyain are running the whole show but never much interact with the men and boys. There are a few references to how men are subject to their lusts and females are not.

[Michael Seswatha Jordan]

I'm going with B, Ser! For a thousand!