Bakker XLI Redux: Measure is Still Unceasing (And a date is revealed for The Great Ordeal)

[Kalbear]

I'm not convinced of the whole "everyone is doomed" scenario. Yatwerians for example seem to be on the safe side with little effort as long as they're devout, which shouldn't be too hard given that they have little else to look forward to

Psatma is on the safe side. She also admits that Yatwer is a horrible demon and will be making playthings of everyone she can.

We also don't know how doomed sorcerers are, or whores, or inchies. As far as Inchies appear to be concerned they think they're doomed, period - and think everyone else is as well. 

No different to our own world really where, say, the Bible sets pretty strict rules for salvation and eternal damnation.

That's sort of the point, and also why it's a very nihilistic worldview. That's the central conceit of the whole book. What if the world really did have proscribed meaning in everything, just like our world? Where women were weighed less than men, certain animals were better, certain professions were better, etc? The fairly unsubtle observation is that it would suck, and it would be better to wipe out that damnation than it would to deal with it. 

[Ser Drizztos]

Yes, but our own world also has many other, more lenient and conflicting religions, as I'm sure does Earwa (or whatever the whole planet is called) but we've only glimpsed a small subset of them and from unreliable sources at that.

I shall meditate on that until tomorrow.

[Kalbear]

Yes, but our own world also has many other, more lenient and conflicting religions, as I'm sure does Earwa (or whatever the whole planet is called) but we've only glimpsed a small subset of them and from unreliable sources at that.

I shall meditate on that until tomorrow.

Per Bakker, there is only one 'right' way to do things on Earwa and that most everyone is damned. It doesn't matter that people think one thing; they're simply provably wrong. And from the False Sun, we're getting more and more glimpses that the Inchies are the most right people on Earwa. 

 

[Curethan]

Also per Bakker, the Inchoroi represent a dead end.  

We seem to be leaning heavily on Neitzche's interpretation of nihilism here - and indeed the opening Nietzsche quote and a plethora of themes found in Nietzche's work run through the series.  So I tend to view Bakker's work as echoing Nietzsche's anti-nihilist point of view.

A nihilist is a man who judges that the real world ought not to be, and that the world as it ought to be does not exist. According to this view, our existence (action, suffering, willing, feeling) has no meaning: this 'in vain' is the nihilists' pathos—an inconsistency on the part of the nihilists.

— Friedrich Nietzsche

Neatly describes the Inchoroi and also points out the flaw in their reasoning.  Their solution?  'Fix' the world and destroy or convert all opposition.

But I feel like their beliefs are perhaps more closely aligned to LaVeyan Satanism (taken to it's most ridiculous extreme) than nihilism.  In my reading their objective is to rewrite the rules in their own favour.  They don't want to disenchant the world, they want to seal off the outside and create the world as it should be. Presumably, the no-god is a means to create a new outside by rewriting the ontology of the World (see Mengedda).

The only thing the Consult are 'more right' about is the knowledge of what will happen to their eternal souls - and the form and methodology of their damnation. And if anyone deserves damnation without possibility of redemption, I think the Inchies qualify.

The obvious reason that the majority of souls seem destined for a similar fate seems related to the fact that the majority of Earwans are a bunch of bastards.  Is a meaningful world really so bad if it isn't filled with shitters trying to fuck each other over at every turn?  Well, not according to most other fantasy epics.  

Not religious myself, but as I understand it, the idea of damnation is that you get punished for choosing to do the wrong thing. Stuff like raping and murdering children, or selling out your devoted student so they get killed trying to help you.  So, it is a question of individual agency in moral choices rather than an examination of the relative fairness of transgression and punishment.

The only truly 'unfair' reasons for damnation seem to be:

• Sorcery - there's this rather obvious thing called the Mark that suggests fucking shit up with magic is not cool
• The interference of the Hundred Gods - given that big G god is quiescent and apparently not active in judgement, my thinking is that these agencies are accretions of Halaroi morality. Kind of like a safety valve that allows some leeway in what kind of acts can earn some level of redemption.  More comfortable modes of damnation, perhaps.  This idea is supported by the fact that damnation is individually tailored, according to the Damnation Archives, and that ancestors can also intervene to avoid damnation.

I think it might be better to blame the lack of mass appeal in TSA on Bakker's devotion to another of Neitzsche's ideas - that of the the Dionysian and Apollonian.

[Guest]

If the Inchies are a dead end, does that mean that their method of staving off damnation is flawed and that another method is required?  Either finding the one true faith or killing the God or something?

[The Marquis de Leech]

You can when the conclusion from a meaningful world is that everyone would be better off if it didn't have meaning. 

But nihilism isn't the doctrine that we should destroy meaning, or that meaningless is inherently better than meaning. It's simply that the world as it currently stands is meaningless*. Nietzsche said "God is Dead", not "Let's Kill God" - it's about what is, rather than what should be.

*Existentialists then suggesting that it's up to us to invent our own meaning.

[Curethan]

@ Trisk,  I believe the meaning was that Inchoroi culture is a dead end.

But yes, I think their method of staving off damnation is flawed.  What do you think they can do after they have killed everyone else and removed all trace of their existence from the world?  

That's why they made the no-god and enslaved themselves.  They are trying to substitute the world as it they believe it ought to be, with an inverted god.

But I think its like Kal said, the Consult have the best understanding of how things stand and absolutely can and will use that to fuck shit up.  The No-god works, but it's not what they think they wanted.  Cue third series.

@RBPL, Neitzsche wasn't really a nihilist.  Well, no more than Bakker advocates his 'semantic apocalypse' as something to aspire to.

[Spring Bass]

That's why they made the no-god and enslaved themselves.  They are trying to substitute the world as it they believe it ought to be, with an inverted god.

That would explain the whole "Black Heaven" aspect of it. Better a slave to a god you created and shaped rather than a bunch of demons who will torment you for all eternity. 

Of course, if you write off all existing humans as a lost cause, then other alternatives present themselves. I think it's pretty likely that Mimara somehow combines the Judging Eye and rebirth of the No-God to rewrite the rules so that all new humans (including her unborn child) are born soulless and thus free of the Outside's grasp. That doesn't do any good for the existing ensouled humans or the Inchoroi, but it's ultimately the only freedom that doesn't require genocide. 

Actually, I could totally see that appealing to Bakker. It'd be like Moses being able to look upon the promised land but never enter it, as with the Inchoroi gazing upon the promised world and the promise of liberation but never being able to grasp it. 

[Ser Drizztos]

It's been suggested that the Inchies that crashland on Earwa are but a small faction of their race, exiled or persecuted perhaps for their hedonistic "do what thou wilt" ways by the more moderate bulk of their species. Once stuck on the planet, they find themselves at odds with the inhabitants' beliefs made manifest as gods and devise a daring plan to break the circle and escape damnation.
I find this both more interesting and plausible than the other theory that says they travel from world to world, exterminating souls until they hit the jackpot with Earwa.

[.H.]

It's been suggested that the Inchies that crashland on Earwa are but a small faction of their race, exiled or persecuted perhaps for their hedonistic "do what thou wilt" ways by the more moderate bulk of their species. Once stuck on the planet, they find themselves at odds with the inhabitants' beliefs made manifest as gods and devise a daring plan to break the circle and escape damnation.
I find this both more interesting and plausible than the other theory that says they travel from world to world, exterminating souls until they hit the jackpot with Earwa.

I have, in the past (over at tSA), presented the idea that it is possible that the "initial damnation" of the Inchoroi was their amoral pursuit of self-improvment, essentially trans-Ichoroism.  Their appearance as described, with gills and all, lead me to believe they were once an aquatic species.  Probably feeling shackled by their biology, they decided to "take matters into their own hands" and advance themselves beyond the limits that held them back.  Back from what?  Who knows, exploration?  Escape?  Perhaps their homeworld was compromised, environmentally, and they could no longer live there.

What a kick in the nuts then to realize that all the work they had done to overcome the limits imposed on them by biology lead them not to salvation, but to damnation?  Now they are pot-committed, in a sense, to see it through.  They were dead if they didn't soullessly create the Tekne (not enough time), and damned because they did.  Recall Aurang's saying: “Fault, Gaörta?” the Old Father said. “The very poison we would suck from this world?”

[Spring Bass]

Someone wrote a very good argument once about how the Inchoroi may have initially been trying to become Dunyain-esque "self-moving souls", removing the "wiring" in their brains and nervous systems that they thought limited them in terms of thought and reason. The problem was that they couldn't remove all of it, and what was left afterwards - lust, aggression, desire - overwhelmed them, turning them into the monstrous "race of lovers" that they are now.

Then again, the whole bit about "being born for damnation" in TTT could mean they just figured out they were damned, and that was that.

[Kalbear]

Where did Bakker say that the inchies were a dead end?

And I think it would be clear that a nihilist who is presented with a world that has God would want to kill it.

[Ser Drizztos]

Speaking on Inchies, have you guys seen this:

http://hamelnrattenfanger.deviantart.com/art/inchoroi-Aurang-526523504

I like it much better than the semi-official artwork on the wiki.

[Rhom]

Speaking on Inchies, have you guys seen this:

http://hamelnrattenfanger.deviantart.com/art/inchoroi-Aurang-526523504

I like it much better than the semi-official artwork on the wiki.

The phallus is certainly pendulous and the face is housed within a vagina... so its perfect!

[Nuncle Stark]

Not how I imagined them, but great art.

[Curethan]

Where did Bakker say that the inchies were a dead end?

 

The Inchoroi are the flip side of the Inrithi and the Fanim. You could read them as a vision of the nihilistic implications of unrestrained desire. They are simply another dead end in the book’s thematic labyrinth.

Sauce

Note that he refers to the Inchies as the 'nihilistic implication' rather than capital N Nihilists.  Only mentioning it because the unquoted preamble to this statement covers much of the same reasoning that made Neitzsche worry about nihilism replacing religious belief.  

Whilst digging that up I found an earlier interview from wotmania that provides a quote refuting the idea that the series is intended to be nihilistic.  I thought it perhaps apropos and relevant enough to share.

But nihilism, of course, simply HAS to be wrong. There’s gotta be more than function, process, and mechanism…

And this is the central thematic question of The Prince of Nothing: What is this ‘more’? What are the shapes we give it, and how do these shapes affect the way we see the world and each other? Is it real, or is it all a gigantic racket?

Could it be both?

Sauce

[Kalbear]

Wow, reading that I have no idea how you reached the conclusion that the inchies are intended to be considered wrong, at least about damnation or how the world works. The dead end he's referring to is in that case the difference between blind faith and a total lack of faith in anything other than pure hedonism. Both are wrong.

And as it turns out that's not what the consult fully believes in, either.

[Curethan]

Sorry Kal, but I don't think I said they are flat out wrong?  Especially about damnation and how the world works.  My contention was that, like nihilism itself, their reasoning is flawed.  They screw themselves over at every turn, just like the Inrithi and Fanim.  

Maybe you just missed part of my post?

But I think its like Kal said, the Consult have the best understanding of how things stand and absolutely can and will use that to fuck shit up.  The No-god works, but it's not what they think they wanted.  Cue third series.

[Valandil]

Speaking on Inchies, have you guys seen this:

http://hamelnrattenfanger.deviantart.com/art/inchoroi-Aurang-526523504

I like it much better than the semi-official artwork on the wiki.

Hadn't seen it. Now can't unsee it.

 

[Ser Drizztos]

Hadn't seen it. Now can't unsee it.

 

WHAT DO YOU SEE?