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Bakker XXXVI: The Horror of Threads to Come


Madness

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When I elucidated the Layers of Revelation in the past, it seems to be the case that each new volume retroactively changes the narrative that has came before. So... as FB, Wilshire, and I commented in the first TSACast, if Bakker does it right you should be able to reread the series each time a new book comes out and read it with an entirely new perspective.

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Also re: the inverse fire, I think it's mentioned in the novels when Cnaiur is traveling with the skin spies. They mutter something about it - at the time I thought it was some sort of weird religion skin spies made up because they are always pretending to be someone and are no one - so they worship an inversion. Seems it was a bigger name drop than that!



Perhaps those with the magic of kindle can search for it? Please :)


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Occasionally, Cnaiür spoke to them, learned something of their lean ways. They called themselves the Last Children of the Inchoroi, though they were loath to speak of their “Old Fathers.” They claimed to be Keepers of the Inverse Fire, though the merest question regarding either their “keeping” or their “fire” pitched them into confusion.

Chapter 9 of TTT.

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What I dislike about Bakker’s writing is that his info dumps often seem out of place and a lot of them are just unnecessary. Take, for example, this scene in TJE where Esmi keeps asking Maithanet one stupid question after the other even know she supposedly knows the answers. We're all familiar with the shitty writing technique of having two characters repeat things that they already know to each other for the benefit of the reader, but apparently Bakker has a solution to make it less shitty: just have the characters remind each other that they already know what they're saying,

"But why, Maitha?" Mother was saying. "Are they mad? Can't they see that we're their salvation?"

"But you know the answer to this, Esmi. The Cultists themselves are no more or no less..."

...

"Lord Sejenus," Maithanet was saying, "taught us to see the Gods ... and Men. You know this, Esmi."

...

"Think of your own soul," Uncle Maithanet was saying. "Think of the war within, the way the parts continually betray the whole. We are not so different from the world we live in, Esmi..."

"I know—I know all this!"


Seriously? What the hell is this? Does she really know all of that and Bakker couldn’t find a better way to info dump or are they just flattering her?

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I always thought that was a minor form of dunyain manipulation to prod home the point you want to make, one that's also used by perceptive world born men like Akka.



Either that or it's just a Bakker writing hang up, I hadn't really equated it with info dumping before. It is hugely irritating though, I agree. Although not quite as bad as when characters exclaim "Think!" in the middle of a conversation.


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That scene in particular illustrates how Maithy and Esmy interact. She asks him questions because she wants his confirmation for what she already knows, and he tells her this either to remind or obfuscate this fact (depending). Very much like the relationship between anyone and the Dunyain. I felt the exposition was handled pretty well there.


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Didn’t Bakker say that Inrau was already damned? Because that would’ve been my guess--that he was damned regardless of whether he used sorcery or not.

He just didn’t believe the right way.

Could have been 'damned' that way to begin with as well. Though Bakker said Inrau is damned - that doesn't say when the 'tagged by the eternal torture machine' event occured.

Depends on if gods are entities onto themselves or more like weather systems born from the essences of the things the represent. Like is Yatwer really an entity existing in her own right, or a complex mental "tornado" born from past/present/future representation/execution of things under "her" divine sphere of influence?

I'd take that as maybe some sort of inadvertant casting of magic (Whatever magic is), in tiny amounts, by millions of people (kinda like how the cish started with a blind man under great duress). By praying, probably. Or just wishing.

I'd wondered about whether the savagery of the 'gods' was really just a reflection of the people.

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Occasionally, Cnaiür spoke to them, learned something of their lean ways. They called themselves the Last Children of the Inchoroi, though they were loath to speak of their “Old Fathers.” They claimed to be Keepers of the Inverse Fire, though the merest question regarding either their “keeping” or their “fire” pitched them into confusion.

Chapter 9 of TTT.


Thank you, .H.! I'm pretty sure the short story showed up after TTT. That's why false sun is forwarned as having spoilers.

And it has a reference to the anti natalism of the Inchies, in the 'last children' mention as well!

I wonder if the inverse fire confuses skin spies since it really doesn't apply to them (though it's no doubt somewhat programmed into them by the old architect)?

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When I elucidated the Layers of Revelation in the past, it seems to be the case that each new volume retroactively changes the narrative that has came before. So... as FB, Wilshire, and I commented in the first TSACast, if Bakker does it right you should be able to reread the series each time a new book comes out and read it with an entirely new perspective.

Each volume? Curious, what shifts do you see? I guess I'd say:

TDTCB: Kellhus is right about these superstitious yokels. Magic is tacked on to mechanistic metaphysics.

TWP: Kellhus may or may not be a messianic figure. The Daimos confirms there are things in the Outside.

TTT: Gods are real motherfucker!!!! Also, Few recollect the God. Magic arises from the metaphysics governing the Inward/Outside.

TJE: Hell comes with a frame, but chorae - and thus perhaps the Aporetics - seem to have some kind of connection to the God.

False Sun: Inverse Fire, Titarga is a proto-Fane.

WLW: The White Luck suggest the Hundred have a very curious relationship with time.

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I often dislike Bakker's 'info dumps' as well. Like in chapter one where Achamian goes on for two paragraphs about the Chorae when all Bakker needed to do is show us that he's terrified of it--the rest will be understood in due time, like when the Chorae is actually used or if it comes up later on. If someone holds a gun to your head you're not going to be thinking "a gun, it was made in the year so and so by whoever and works by whatever...". To me it just feels forced.

I realize that POV writing is not just simply telling what the characters are consciously thinking but in this case, and many others, I would have preferred if Bakker took the route of not spelling things out.

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I really wouldn't put Bakker in a grouping of authors who "spell things out".



Oddly - or perhaps because of reading a lot of SFF, I never came from the point of view that the gods did not exist. I always assumed they did and that Kellhus was ignorant in the beginning. Basically as soon as I saw some Sorcery I just thought - "Hell yeah Sorcery is real and the gods are going to get involved".



Have read quite a bit of fantasy where gods take an active role in the world.


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I really wouldn't put Bakker in a grouping of authors who "spell things out".

It's not about grouping. That was an example.

Bakker does a lot of unnecessary 'spelling out', actually. Like when he explained the magic system in a conversation between Achamian and Kellhus in TTT... ugh. Or when he had Iyokus spell out what the Padirajah did to the Emperor's fleet while he was torturing Achamian for whatever reason. Sometimes he overdoes it to the point where it becomes quite annoying, like how many times he explained what the Emperor wanted to do with the Indenture in book one.

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Yeah I get your point it's just not something that ever occurred to me. I quite like the way Bakker infodumps and how most of the infodumps are skewed by perspective. Each to their own.



For me it was always less "layers of revelation" and more "picking up on the more subtle nuances" - especially in character interaction and motives. A re-read of PoN for me was like reading the book through another set of eyes.


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I never thought about the info dumping either. If anything, the last couple of pages of the thread have shown that he's quite skillful at it, imo. Hiding it behind teachings or philosophical conversations. There's also the ballad style sequences where he shoves whole battles into a few paragraphs. All that stuff adds to the epic feel and you've got to get it in somehow.



The Gods - In the first trilogy I assumed the Gods were just entities that inhabited the Outside and were either mindless, or alien and unrelatable, or were just living their own lives unconcerened with Earwa. So the layer of revelation for me was that the Gods actually acted as Gods, rather that that they existed.


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I often dislike Bakker's 'info dumps' as well. Like in chapter one where Achamian goes on for two paragraphs about the Chorae when all Bakker needed to do is show us that he's terrified of it--the rest will be understood in due time, like when the Chorae is actually used or if it comes up later on. If someone holds a gun to your head you're not going to be thinking "a gun, it was made in the year so and so by whoever and works by whatever...". To me it just feels forced.

I realize that POV writing is not just simply telling what the characters are consciously thinking but in this case, and many others, I would have preferred if Bakker took the route of not spelling things out.

Actually I would say that's a superb example of the good way to explain the mileau, it's particularly well done there. Coy obfuscation is much worse
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It's not "this is John Galt speaking..." or anything. But he does occasionally do a bit more "telling" than he might need to.



On the other hand, XXXVI threads and counting says that he certainly leaves a lot of things to our interpretation.


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On the other hand, XXXVI threads and counting says that he certainly leaves a lot of things to our interpretation.

Certainly, but if he wants you to know something he hammers you over the head until you get the point.

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.

By the way, do the people of Earwa, or at least those who were in Caraskand that day, think that Kellhus doesn't have a heart anymore? Or did he return it to his chest off-screen?

How come Kellhus doesn't have nicknames like the Heartless Prophet?

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