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Bakker XXXVI: The Horror of Threads to Come


Madness

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Weak personality, Kalbear.

what can I say? When I see someone whose ego is so overblown while being so very assured of their righteousness, I can't resist goading them into missteps. Like, say, personal attacks on this forum that get them banned.
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If the Axlotl tanks theory about Dûnyain women is correct, which is to say that they are similar to Shaeönanra’s form in the TUC dream (as the ‘timing’ issue and the rest of the evidence seem to suggest), then it does bring up the question of where the Dûnyain got the idea, from Shae himself?


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If the Axlotl tanks theory about Dûnyain women is correct, which is to say that they are similar to Shaeönanra’s form in the TUC dream (as the ‘timing’ issue and the rest of the evidence seem to suggest), then it does bring up the question of where the Dûnyain got the idea, from Shae himself?
It'd be pretty crazy to think that Bakker's endgame where he wants everyone to wait and see about how an enlightened feminist he is ended up being a whole bunch of women whose souls are trapped and are being used exclusively as broodmares.


I'm not saying that it's wrong, mind you - just that it would take a particularly odd sort of person to think that that somehow would vindicate the entire rest of the series with respect to his and its views on women.



Anyway, I don't think Shae's form is particularly special. Akka recognizes it instantly as an old, horrible magic but one that's fairly easy to do, if not completely hideous and offensive. It's not a surprise to him - his reaction is more of a 'of course, that makes sense' kind of thing. The binding of souls and use of souls is from what Akka says a fairly basic magic with a lot of knowledge behind it. That personally makes me wonder why the use of souls in automata and other artifacts hasn't advanced much in 2000 years and appears to be barely used save in antiquity and in odd toys like the Wathi doll. Why aren't there more crypts guarded by horribly Marked doors that are powered by souls? Why haven't more of the other mages used things like the circle Shae uses to stay alive in some horrible way? There has to be some cost or drawback to it since the knowledge hasn't been lost.

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In terms of genre tropes, the layers of revelation trope is probably my least favorite. To me, it indicates fundamental weakness of ideas/story/character if all must be withheld for 6000 pages before by poorly shat out in the final volume. It kind of wreaked Tad Williams books, and makes me loath to reread Robin Hobb.

the strategy of revealing nothing has left books four and five of ASOIAF meaningless and narratively crippled, it's profoundly irritating in Bakker's books, and from what I hear about other series, such as Wheel of Time, it can be even worse than many of the aforementioned examples, or in garbage like Lost.

Thankfully, the TV Show Game of Thrones has to actually tell a story, and because they have to actually put content up and arrive at a defined end on schedule, the cocktease bad writing nonsense that this genre trope embodies isn't really present on the show.

Leaving behind the striptease aesthetic approach will probably be one of the defining characteristics in the next evolution of epic fantasy as a genre.

But hey, some people love Korean TV romances where narrative progress and character arcs are measured in milimeters, so undoubtedly, this crap style will always have its niche. I just hope that the TV series is influential enough to basically drive it to extinction.

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In terms of genre tropes, the layers of revelation trope is probably my least favorite. To me, it indicates fundamental weakness of ideas/story/character if all must be withheld for 6000 pages before by poorly shat out in the final volume. It kind of wreaked Tad Williams books, and makes me loath to reread Robin Hobb.

the strategy of revealing nothing has left books four and five of ASOIAF meaningless and narratively crippled, it's profoundly irritating in Bakker's books, and from what I hear about other series, such as Wheel of Time, it can be even worse than many of the aforementioned examples, or in garbage like Lost.

Thankfully, the TV Show Game of Thrones has to actually tell a story, and because they have to actually put content up and arrive at a defined end on schedule, the cocktease bad writing nonsense that this genre trope embodies isn't really present on the show.

Leaving behind the striptease aesthetic approach will probably be one of the defining characteristics in the next evolution of epic fantasy as a genre.

But hey, some people love Korean TV romances where narrative progress and character arcs are measured in milimeters, so undoubtedly, this crap style will always have its niche. I just hope that the TV series is influential enough to basically drive it to extinction.

It depends on if it is poorly shat out in the final book or done well. The problem is in when it ends up being too much packed with mystery or giving too little information that the reveal it was supposed to make can't be done in any other way but poorly(like, as I heard, in Lost). Almost all genres have to have some type of mystery, of 'layers of revelation' thing in them for the book/movie/series to be good - in a romance novel, for example, the simple mystery is who is the other partner and what are the facets of his personality; in a crime novel, who is the killer or the kidnapper. You either can't know that at the start or at the middle, or it is revealed at that point because it serves some other purpose which has yet to be revealed.

I just don't think I can agree that discarding 'layers of revelation' is a good thing. I agree that too many layers are a bad thing, but getting rid of most/all would be equally so.

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Anyhoo - on the plying of Madness for data.



So now we know a couple of nice things that are basically confirmed. We know thanks to an earlier slip that the Dunyain and their story feature heavily in the next book. We also know, thanks to the latest slip, that the first three books were significantly important in setting up the events of this one - that a lesser author could have done the work in just this series and been fine, but we get to see the whole thing - that it's important that we did.



To me, this implies the following:



-Moe has been jerking Kellhus (and everyone else) around for a while. This fan theory has been better and better with Locke's analysis of it, but I think this is the final confirmation that we've needed - that Moe's infodump was entirely bullshit, that Kellhus was totally duped. It also even fits well with one last thing - the thing that Maithanet was wanting Esme to tell Kellhus before he died.


-This also implies another interesting thing - that Kellhus is not the endgame. The vision of his death at the hands of the WLW probably does happen - but it also probably doesn't matter nearly as much as we might have thought it would.


-Obviously we're going to get a lot more about the Dunyain. Given that the Akka chapter is FAR too revealing for newcomers and readers alike (thanks again, Madness!), that likely means that it isn't Kellhus that tells us anything much (just like he hasn't yet) - it's Akka that discovers them again. Possibly that sign of the axolotl women that folks fear. More likely Akka finds them whole and ready for him, and we start finding out how long the Dunyain have been preparing for the second apocalypse and what they're doing.



Anything else I missed from that?


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http://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/d%C3%BCnya

Found this interesting. So it would seem that the Dûnyain are Men of the World. I would have to assume they know (as Kalbear said) of the second apocalypse and are gonna fight for the good of men. But, what exactly is that? Shut out the Gods or destroy the Consult? I'm going with my previous post, and Seswatha is behind the Dûnyain and they'll be his weapon to destroy the Consult for good.

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Anyhoo - on the plying of Madness for data.

So now we know a couple of nice things that are basically confirmed. We know thanks to an earlier slip that the Dunyain and their story feature heavily in the next book. We also know, thanks to the latest slip, that the first three books were significantly important in setting up the events of this one - that a lesser author could have done the work in just this series and been fine, but we get to see the whole thing - that it's important that we did.

To me, this implies the following:

-Moe has been jerking Kellhus (and everyone else) around for a while. This fan theory has been better and better with Locke's analysis of it, but I think this is the final confirmation that we've needed - that Moe's infodump was entirely bullshit, that Kellhus was totally duped. It also even fits well with one last thing - the thing that Maithanet was wanting Esme to tell Kellhus before he died.

I sure hope this isn't the case, given there's almost no evidence of Moe in the text for books 4/5, and I liked the twist that the omniscient daddy figure/so-called puppet master of PON had actually fucked up on his way to total supremacy, resulting in a knife to the stomach followed by a chorae'd bitch-slap by a former lover. Bakker's gonna have his work cut out for him for the "moe is alive" theory to actually hold weight.

Now, on the other hand, the other Dunyain kicking around and manipulating events... that might actually be interesting, rather than the snidely whiplash "hahaha I've been here all along" cliche.

Seriously, when is this book coming out? I guess I shouldn't complain. I could be a Rothfuss fan, after all...

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Seriously, when is this book coming out? I guess I shouldn't complain. I could be a Rothfuss fan, after all...

Or a GRRM fan...

:leaving:

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I'm not sure you need Moe to be alive for the "moe is fucking with y'all' theory to hold water.



Consider instead that what Moe tells Kellhus is exactly what Kellhus is expecting to hear - that Moe limited himself by the Cish path, that he needed Kellhus (such flattery!) to be the chosen one because he couldn't do it himself, that all of this was set up for Kellhus to become the fight against the Consult.



But that wasn't Moe's plan. That was the Dunyain plan. To use Kellhus - a defective in some ways - to unite the three seas and lead them in a false war against the Consult. Or maybe a true war; for these purposes it doesn't matter all that much. Moe knows how he can manipulate Kellhus - he can simply allow Kellhus to come to fairly reasonable yet totally false conclusions and encourage this by stroking Kellhus' ego. He doesn't have to do more than that. Kellhus will be pushed to make the choices he does even after Moe's death.



But that isn't the Dunyain plan. Kellhus being sent out after Moe was sent out was a carefully calculated plan. They specifically incubated Kellhus against the world, against knowledge that they didn't want him to get. They withheld things specifically to confuse him when he would first encounter them - things like magical knowledge, like basic food knowledge, like knowledge of sranc and humans and anything that would give him an inkling of his true purpose. They made his path as clear and choiceless as possible.



Now, you could also say that they did the same thing for Moe - it's possible that he wasn't in on it either - but my suspicion is that this isn't true simply because of how manipulative Moe is to Kellhus. Moe is pretty obviously manipulating Kellhus when he talks to him - and Kellhus buys it. Why would Moe manipulate? Why would Moe encourage Kellhus to believe that Kellhus is the chosen one? Either Moe truly believes that - which is very suspect - or Moe knows more about what is going on.



And if you think about it, think about how much more Moe accomplishes than Kellhus. Moe installs his own progeny as the head of the church. He controls the most powerful nation on the planet. He provokes a war with the Cish and the scarlet spires that becomes a key part of the impetus to go to war. He teaches and guides Conphas as well. He manipulates everything to this choke point, and all Kellhus does is the predictable, basic thing at every turn. Moe's world was the tractless one - the one where so many choices had to be made, guided, sent to the specific thing that would make Kellhus into what he is. Kellhus simply follows all the bread crumbs at every turn. Was this hard for Kellhus to do? Kinda; he screws up quite a few times, gets lucky on occasion and simply doesn't even know why his shit works at times. But that's nothing compared to the magnitude that Moe does - all while remaining secret.



Kellhus was picked because he was imperfect, an emotional Dunyain that would believe in his own grandeur.



Now why that is? I have a guess.


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So the next question: why would Moe do this? Why would the Dunyain do this?



The answer is brutally simple: their goal is to disenchant the world. Not in the way that the Consult does; they understand that removing the ability for the Outside to connect would make their ability to be a self-moving soul a fraud. There is a connection with the Outside for each and every soul. They know this and understand it. Simply cutting that connection or diluting it makes them nothing more than meat with an echo of what self-moving entity they are. That isn't the answer.



The answer is as others have thought here - to become God. But in order to do that, they need some help. Specifically, they need a major distraction.



While Kellhus is going off on the Great Ordeal, all of the gods in the world are paying attention to him. The Consult is as well, and that's good. (after all, the last book is called The Unholy Consult; stands to reason they'll factor in there too). The important thing is that they aren't paying attention to the rest of the Dunyain. Kellhus is a scape goat here. Maybe Kellhus can do more - like hurt the gods. Maybe he can help awaken the No-God in this way, and that's part of the big plan. I don't know and haven't figured out what that is yet, but doesn't that feel like the scope we're talking about - about the Dunyain manipulating events like this for 40 years, and Kellhus was just a pawn?



Again, this also jives well with what we've already seen in this series. That we have Kellhus dying. If Kellhus dies, so what? What do the Dunyain care, especially if their goal was to get the attention of the gods looking in the wrong place?


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I agree with most of this, but, I can't be sure what the Dûnyain plan is. If the Dûnyain have been secluded for all these millennia, then they have to have someone over top of them watching events and knowing when the times right.

Why I go back to Seswatha in Akka's dreams. I'd have to say that the most reliable narrator throughout the story is Akka. Yes, everyone thinks him weak and whiny and blah, blah, blah. Its what Bakker wants, wants his side to be ignored. Its where this Layers of Revelation comes into play. During PoN your not sure if Akka is just a jealous cuckold or if he SHOULD hate Kellhus. The Lunatic (Cnaüir), the Cuckold (Akka), and a guy that lived 2000 years ago (Akka's dreams during TAE), are where your ultimately gonna find the answers and hidden clues. Exactly the places you wouldn't trust in "real-life".

And, Seswatha is the only figure in play still that has any knowledge whatsoever of Ishual. We learn that in Akka's dreams. Akka dreams in PoN, total bullshit, shit Ses has been feeding the Mandate just so he has a pawn in play when needed. Akka's dreams in TAE, Ses moving that pawn.

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