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Bakker XXXVI: The Horror of Threads to Come


Madness

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tapatalk makes babyjesuskellhus cry, I couldn't post all weekend.


Regarding Inrau, you are all missing the point. Inrau GRASPED the heart, he most definitely Grasped the heart. It's just the heart he sorcerously grasped was the skin spy's. :D


I want to know what the fuck "Chigra" means/represents and the significance behind Seswatha having a Chigra identity/role/imprecation. I hate it's just rolled over as another name, I want to think it's signifying so much more, hiding shit in plain sight...





I think it's better for people to go into the series not knowing what they're supposed to think about Kellhus--especially not that he's the messiah, which is apparently how the series is pitched to newcomers by many readers: imagine if the messiah were an immoral bad guy.




The interesting thing about Kellhus is not that the messiah is an immoral bad guy.


The interesting thing about kellhus is that if you plop a modern character into an ancient context, the modern character is a monster.


Although the modern character things of themselves as an enlightened savior.


Progress is a bitch, watching Rossellini's dense and difficult History films last week (I couldn't resist after
) really drove that point home.




So souls are divisible. So what if the IF is really a gateway to paradise. Except the damned parts still don't get in.



Oh shit. This is amazing crackpottery.




Of such power? It was just a short range energy burst, wasn't it? The gnosis clears fields of soldiers! Not one guy (even if it is a skin spy). Didn't even kill the bird! Inrau could have just been taught something like an anagogic by Akka to account for that.



the belief that power is gradated in volume of deaths is delusional. History of warfare shows us that improvements in communications technology have always conferred the greatest advantages not improvements in weapons technology. But bigbigbangbangboomboom feels very exciting and awesomesauce the sameway a choochoo train does, just hardwired male brains overriding rational thought, zomg.


Inrau's and Moenghus' scenes seem to disprove assertions about sorcery made by achamian and Kellhus, they're interesting as anomalies relative to the received inrithi "wisdom" about sorcery.

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Why did Kellhus have to resort to tricking everyone in this way? If he grasped the god, if he genuinely performed a miracle, then why didn't he do what he made everyone think that he did? Why didn't he pull out his own heart from his chest? Because he would have died? Well, that's the thing that would have made it miraculous. If it's something that can happen--if it can be explained, as some people have explained it--then it's not a miracle as far as I'm concerned.

It’s the same pattern as with his other miracles. Everything that made the Eärwans think that he’s a prophet or a god, a lot of it was trickery from the start. Like the way he ‘looked into their souls’ using his face-reading abilities, or how he found the skin-spies, or how he defeated the Cishaurim, all of it is just what you’d expect any Dûnyain with the Gnosis to be able to accomplish. The trickery culminated with what you said was the biggest hat-trick in the series. Which is true.

The only other signs of his divinity that are not outright Dûnyain abilities are the haloes around his hands, also known as ‘the light of delusion’. The same light that Serwë sees on the skin-spy. Kellhus might have gotten people to believe in his sham divinity by fooling them with false miracles but, as someone said in a previous thread, the light casts no shadow. The ground doesn’t care.

The prophecy he made to Saubon coming true could be a coincidence or not, either way, it doesn’t make him divine. These sort of prophetic visions are actually happening all over the series, usually when someone knows something with impossible certainty or some variation of that. Like when Serwë knew with ‘inexplicable certainty’ that Kellhus would strike down the Padirajah of Kian before the Holy War even started, or how the Emperor knew with ‘impossible certainty’ that Conphas would defeat the Scylvendi even as his mother made a good case that the Scylvendi will not be defeated.

And of course, the voices. Kellhus himself doesn’t know where they come from and I see no reason to believe that God spoke to him unless you’re using some circular logic like the voice that spoke to him was god because you’ve already determined that Kellhus is divine.

Also, note that when Kellhus is arguing with Moënghus he mentions the haloes and the prophecy to Saubon [and the voices] but says nothing about what appears to be his greatest miracle--the heart in the bu...chest. He knows Moënghus wouldn’t fall for that shit.

The only problem with everything I just said is that Kellhus himself feels the immovable conviction and certainty that he is right when talking to Moënghus. So who knows... :dunno:

edit: board ate all my quotation marks...

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Inrau's and Moenghus' scenes seem to disprove assertions about sorcery made by achamian and Kellhus, they're interesting as anomalies relative to the received inrithi "wisdom" about sorcery.

This. With Inrau it very explicitly deviates from Akka warning Kel that you are marked for a long period of time (years?) before able to cast any gnosis spells that would be able to protect you. Inrau is not marked as far as we can tell but able to cast a Temple of Doom hand to heart spell. The Onkis miracle explanation could fit. Also Akka was lying could fit maybe. But does Akka lie to Kel in that state of their relationship? I think the scene is post whelming of Akka but am unsure. IIRC, Happy sent concluded that Bakker hadn't yet fully flushed out the magic system by TDTCB which seems like it could be right also.

Also @aniturimurwhatever - lol if you think that was a tantrum.

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The only problem with everything I just said is that Kellhus himself feels the immovable conviction and certainty that he is right when talking to Moënghus. So who knows... :dunno

No matter how far we go with the 'Moenghus is behind it all' theories I just can't get over the fact that Kellhus did not kill Moe outright but left him off to have whatever happened between him and Cnaiur, which he probably watched through the sorcerous light.

I've yet to see any good theories as to why he would do that. Especially from those who think that Moe planned everything up to the supposed Cnaiur to Meppa conversion (which, btw, if true, would count as a genuine miracle in my book, unlike Kellhus' circus acts ;)).

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Moënghus probably made some innovations with the Psukhe the same way Kellhus did with the Gnosis. Like the skype and opening portals. As for the blue hands, I’m not even sure if those did anything. I think Moë’s power, like Shaeönanara, came from his subtlety. The guy was able to control the Cishaurim and Kian and the Thousand Temples and condition the SS and Kellhus and Cnaiür and probably everyone else in the Holy War simply by using the elements of the Psukhe that required more subtlety than power: Scrying, Calling, and Translating Teleporting.




I've yet to see any good theories as to why he would do that. Especially from those who think that Moe planned everything up to the supposed Cnaiur to Meppa conversion (which, btw, if true, would count as a genuine miracle in my book, unlike Kellhus' circus acts ;)).




I have no idea. But I do agree that Kellhus must have done it for a reason. Assuming that Cnaiür is Meppa, which is a theory that I subscribe to, then the only thing I can think of is that Kellhus anticipated that that would happen and is planning to use Meppa.



And, yes, the god watching Cnaiür through Moë’s skull and then granting him miraculous powers after his body is healed is definitely a miracle.



Throughout PoN we’re being told that Kellhus is becoming a prophet/messiah/god, when there’s very little actual evidence that he’s anything more than a Dûnyain with the Gnosis. The actual savior is Cnaiür. Which is to say that Meppa is going to defeat the No-God in the third series. That’s my crackpot, anyway. And as I said in the last thread about the dream with the Monk and the Priest, Serwë’s ‘weight’, her metaphysical weight, (which made Kellhus divine at first) was passed from him to Cnaiür on the Circumfix. In other words, Kellhus did not become divine on the circumfix, he was divine up to that point.



From the other thread,




Podcast? I feel like I missed something here.




I didn’t answer as I assumed that Madness will jump in with a bunch of links to TSA forum, as per usual. :P But since he didn’t,



http://www.second-apocalypse.com/index.php?topic=1331.0


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the belief that power is gradated in volume of deaths is delusional. History of warfare shows us that improvements in communications technology have always conferred the greatest advantages not improvements in weapons technology. But bigbigbangbangboomboom feels very exciting and awesomesauce the sameway a choochoo train does, just hardwired male brains overriding rational thought, zomg.

Inrau's and Moenghus' scenes seem to disprove assertions about sorcery made by achamian and Kellhus, they're interesting as anomalies relative to the received inrithi "wisdom" about sorcery.

This seems orthogonal to Callan's point, which is that Inaru does not necessarily have to have a serious (or possibly any) command of the Gnosis in order to do what he does.

And from the meta-level of this being based on Bakker's old D&D campaign the point stands - burning hands is a 1st level spell.

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I didn't mean that he did it mundanely. I think it relied on the same principle that allowed the guy in Cil-aujas to grow the eye in his heart. The trick is not in how he pulled Serwe's heart from his chest, though.

Eleäzaras is right here. It's a trick in the sense that Kellhus pulled out Serwe's heart from his chest and made everyone think that it was his own--as we all know. That was his supposed miracle, that he pulled out his heart from his chest, not someone else's.

I've seen a lot of discussions about how Kellhus might have done that, but this fact seems to have been brushed over.

Why did Kellhus have to resort to tricking everyone in this way? If he grasped the god, if he genuinely performed a miracle, then why didn't he do what he made everyone think that he did? Why didn't he pull out his own heart from his chest? Because he would have died? Well, that's the thing that would have made it miraculous. If it's something that can happen--if it can be explained, as some people have explained it--then it's not a miracle as far as I'm concerned.

I think the important thing to note is that Bakker didn't make the religions of Earwa a cross between Hinduism and Abrahamic faiths for nothing. The "Messiah" is the person who is God-writ-small, which I think of [as] the person who can reach a certain level of recollection.

So, yeah, Kellhus doesn't pull out his own heart but as HE has noted he does reach an understanding of space-time that allows him to pull out Serwe's.

Note that Kellhus' innovations largely have to do with space-time -> Scrying via campfires, teleporting, using is own chest a portal to another chest. As he recognizes that there is only one here, he sees more and more in the way of the God.

edit: Think of the God as both Yaweh and the Hindu concept of Brahman.

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Crackpot: Hello World is Bakker




Also, little rant: in the closed Bakker/ebook thread, about layers of revelation, Sci mentioned layers of revelation, and this is something I've heard a lot of people mention re: Bakker, pretty sure it's even in the recurring OP



What the fuck is up with this series specifically having 'layers of revelation?" What is that exactly? Because to me it just sounds like something that any decent book has. And maybe I'm just to dense to understand but Bakker doesn't seem to me to be the only one that does use 'layers of revelation' if it means what I assume it does. Aren't layers of revelation present in pretty much most decent fiction?



Please don't confuse my confusion for anger, I just like to curse.


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To be fair it's a term readers have come to use, not clear Bakker himself sees the series that way. It refers to subsequent works adding to the knowledge of Earwa's history/metaphysics which changes how you read the previous works.



For example at least a few readers feel one of the major differences between PoN and AE is the knowledge in AE that the gods exist in some fashion. IIRC Bakker said he was surprised anyone ever thought the gods weren't real.


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To be fair it's a term readers have come to use, not clear Bakker himself sees the series that way. It refers to subsequent works adding to the knowledge of Earwa's history/metaphysics which changes how you read the previous works.

For example at least a few readers feel one of the major differences between PoN and AE is the knowledge in AE that the gods exist in some fashion. IIRC Bakker said he was surprised anyone ever thought the gods weren't real.

Yeah, that's pretty much where I'm at. Which kind of boggles- I mean I put myself into that camp, where despite evidence of divine presence in PON, it's kind of easy to miss on the first time through. Then in TJE the Yatwer stuff makes it explicit. Just wondering how this is different than reading say, pretty much any other series of books or decent long novel where on a reread or later on in the series things take on new meaning or you realize you missed something, or the cobwebs have been removed, etc. I mean I'm pretty sure I could make a decent case that Martin uses layers of revelation, so I've always just kind of wondered what the big deals was with the term and Bakker.

FWIW I am probably more excited to read TUC than anything else, just been head scratching at the LoR thing.

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Yeah, that's pretty much where I'm at. Which kind of boggles- I mean I put myself into that camp, where despite evidence of divine presence in PON, it's kind of easy to miss on the first time through. Then in TJE the Yatwer stuff makes it explicit. Just wondering how this is different than reading say, pretty much any other series of books or decent long novel where on a reread or later on in the series things take on new meaning or you realize you missed something, or the cobwebs have been removed, etc. I mean I'm pretty sure I could make a decent case that Martin uses layers of revelation, so I've always just kind of wondered what the big deals was with the term and Bakker.

FWIW I am probably more excited to read TUC than anything else, just been head scratching at the LoR thing.

It's the metaphysics I think.

At first it seems that the way Earwa works is akin to our own world with magic as an intrusion. We see Earwa through Kellhus' eyes, which are the eyes of modernity long steeped in mechanistic understanding.

As our metaphysical understanding deepens, it makes certain events and character exposition take on new light. A lot of what we take as superstition from characters (swazond, the god of disease in Caraksand, or the Battle Celebrant being possessed by the god of war) end up deserving a second look.

So yeah there's revelations related to the plot in, say, GoT, but I don't know if there's such a deepening of metaphysics that makes rereads worthwhile in other epic fantasy series? (OTOH, you could also say it's incredibly frustrating to have so little indication that Kellhus is wrong even when the PoV isn't his.)

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@Locke since I know you had a theory about this. Kel actually casts his first spell just after whelming Akka and talking to the Ses homonucleous. It's a cant of calling. Well before he sees Moe in the cave.

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larry's post made me stop and think about what I think of the "layers of revelation" theme in the threads, and off the top of my head, there are only three things that jump out, but they're all big ones.



-the gods


-the judging eye


-the wlw



Like some other readers have mentioned, I feel kind of silly having not realized that the gods could always have been made into a big deal. They were hinted at plenty in the first series, but it felt like it could have been interpreted as just the beliefs of the characters. Husyelt and Leweth, Onkis and Inrau, Gilgaol and Cnaiur...maybe Saubon or Athjeari too? Achamian and Fate. Probably some others.



In the first series it seemed like all of these could have been interpreted as just hints as to the beliefs of the believers. Not actually immanent godlings/demons being active in the world.



But the next series blows that out of the water and makes it clear that the gods are active which is a revelation in and of itself but also one that allows the first series to be interpreted in a different light. But at least we'd heard plenty about the gods in the first series.



TJE and WLW are significant enough to be the titles of the next two books and yet are not even mentioned in the first series that I can recall. With TJE, it feels like it was a revelation that confirmed that damnation is quite real; something that I think could have been seen as another bit of belief on the part of the believers in the first series. And at least there one could say that while TJE wasn't explicitly named in the first series, it's function, damnation, certainly was, so in that way it is comparable to the revelation about the gods in the first series.



WLW is one that seems to have really come out of left field both in that it wasn't hinted at for shit in the first series (that I'm aware of), and it's still not clear what it's purpose is within the narrative. On top of that, I don't understand wtf it has to do with Yatwer. The powers of the character don't in any way match up with that god.

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larry's post made me stop and think about what I think of the "layers of revelation" theme in the threads, and off the top of my head, there are only three things that jump out, but they're all big ones.

-the gods

-the judging eye

-the wlw

We could probably add the IF and Eärwa being the ‘Promised World’ to that list. And maybe some of Akka’s changed dreams like when the No-God is not killed with the HS? I’m not really sure if I get the idea either, tbh.

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Yeah, the deus ex machina sudden appearance of the inverse fire in a short story is incredibly frustrating, possibly the worst example of Layers of Revelation.



I think of Layers of Revelation in terms from the movie, "Thank You for Smoking" they're talking about how to make smoking sexy again, and the philip morris agent proposes that people in space should fuck and then smoke in the next big space blockbuster, then he says, "can't have fire in space, high oxygen enviroment, they'd explode." Hollywood agent says, "that's not a problem we'll just have a character say, "oh thank god they invented the whatever device so we can smoke." Layers of Revelation like the Inverse Fire's sudden thrust in importance is just shitty "whatever device" writing.







And from the meta-level of this being based on Bakker's old D&D campaign the point stands - burning hands is a 1st level spell.





Ah! I see my total ignorance of all things D&D has again led me down the path of baseless speculation and extrapolation, makes sense, I suppose.






@Locke since I know you had a theory about this. Kel actually casts his first spell just after whelming Akka and talking to the Ses homonucleous. It's a cant of calling. Well before he sees Moe in the cave.





Yup, I noted that when I listened to the audio book a month or two ago, I thought I posted something about how I was wrong too, but I'm not sure.


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There was that excellent analogy between the Psukhe, Anagogis, and Gnosis and how one engages with a composed piece of music. Can't recall it at the moment.

I'd like to see that too? Was it something like improvisation/inspired by, similar imitation, and verbatum?

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Why did Kellhus have to resort to tricking everyone in this way? If he grasped the god, if he genuinely performed a miracle, then why didn't he do what he made everyone think that he did? Why didn't he pull out his own heart from his chest? Because he would have died? Well, that's the thing that would have made it miraculous. If it's something that can happen--if it can be explained, as some people have explained it--then it's not a miracle as far as I'm concerned.

Well, perhaps it wasn't a trick to begin with - he just had to go with the thing everyone just dang assumed it was because otherwise *awkward!*, rather than the truth of the matter. Even miracles can be missread, not just texts.

"This is not the miracle you were looking for *hand wave*"

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Yeah, the deus ex machina sudden appearance of the inverse fire in a short story is incredibly frustrating, possibly the worst example of Layers of Revelation.

I think of Layers of Revelation in terms from the movie, "Thank You for Smoking" they're talking about how to make smoking sexy again, and the philip morris agent proposes that people in space should fuck and then smoke in the next big space blockbuster, then he says, "can't have fire in space, high oxygen enviroment, they'd explode." Hollywood agent says, "that's not a problem we'll just have a character say, "oh thank god they invented the whatever device so we can smoke." Layers of Revelation like the Inverse Fire's sudden thrust in importance is just shitty "whatever device" writing.

Yeah, but similarly people could say that about chorae simply being there to make magic schools not own everybody - Bakker grants people might think that, but he said chorae were there from the start. Their effect on politics and power is almost procedural world generation, if you take that as true.

Sure, in some works relevations simply rely on retconning something to be there, like that 'whatever device'.

Sometimes it was there from the begining. And that's a true craftsperson at work.

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