R Scott Bakker's :The Great Ordeal (spoilers)

[Sci-2]

Just now, Michael Seswatha Jordan said:

Has anyone thought about Koringhus's question, "Has he grasped the Absolute?"? To me, it implies that The Dunyain did indeed know about Kellhus going out into the World and he is the culmination of their goal to grasp the Absolute. It just doesn't make sense otherwise, unless we get some other explanation in the next Ishual chapter. Also, I found it funny that Bakker told Pat that this chapter contained no spoilers. Imagine what else Akka and Mimara encounter in the TTH's....

Yeah that was interesting. It suggests even Kellhus didn't know the full story of why he was sent into the world, or that he eventually made contact with Ishual after he left to let them know there's more to heaven and earth.

[Michael Seswatha Jordan]

5 minutes ago, Sci-2 said:

Yeah that was interesting. It suggests even Kellhus didn't know the full story of why he was sent into the world, or that he eventually made contact with Ishual after he left to let them know there's more to heaven and earth.

Heaven? You think there is a heaven on Earwa? Lol.

Oh, and I am eagerly on an explanation of the Chorae. When Mimara glimpse it with the JE it is white and so holy. But, she also says it's the God, and well, from Kellhus's POV we find out the God (It) doesn't seem to be so good and holy, now is it? I think theChorae have zero to do with the God, at least The one Kellhus is talking about.

 

[Callan S.]

6 hours ago, Hello World said:

I've only read it once but it did not occur to me that he was a defect. I thought he was disfigured from fighting the sranc.

I guess he could be from the 'unmasking room, the fights masking how his facial skin had been removed previously. The unmasking room was foreshadowed and the eye calling them evil is a goad (ie, prompting something that may then be regretted latter). Plus the survivor is as ugly as fuck, which in cartoon tradition makes you evil - so is he gunna be evil? I'm reminded of Mathanet.

Not sure there's any evidence of it in the story, just that a really scared face could hide a prior unmasking.

[Kalbear]

4 minutes ago, Michael Seswatha Jordan said:

But, she also says it's the God, and well, from Kellhus's POV we find out the God (It) doesn't seem to be so good and holy, now is it? I think theChorae have zero to do with the God, at least The one Kellhus is talking about.

The God is, by definition, the most Holy. What your morality is and what the objective morality is are not the same. Her view is the God's view, so naturally anything by God will be holy and sacred, just like women will be valued less. 

[Michael Seswatha Jordan]

5 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

The God is, by definition, the most Holy. What your morality is and what the objective morality is are not the same. Her view is the God's view, so naturally anything by God will be holy and sacred, just like women will be valued less. 

Besides Mimara, we haven't seen anyone who isn't damned, have we?

[Sci-2]

14 minutes ago, Michael Seswatha Jordan said:

Heaven? You think there is a heaven on Earwa? Lol.

Oh, and I am eagerly on an explanation of the Chorae. When Mimara glimpse it with the JE it is white and so holy. But, she also says it's the God, and well, from Kellhus's POV we find out the God (It) doesn't seem to be so good and holy, now is it? I think theChorae have zero to do with the God, at least The one Kellhus is talking about.

Depending on what people mean, possibly. Still not 100% clear whether humans can't summon "Angelic Ciphrang" because they don't exist or because they are unreachable due to some metaphysical structure of the Bakkerverse.

And then there's this option:

For I have seen the virtuous in Hell and the wicked in Heaven. And I swear to you, brother, the scream you hear in the one and the sigh you hear in the other sound the same.

–Anonymous

[Kalbear]

7 minutes ago, Michael Seswatha Jordan said:

Besides Mimara, we haven't seen anyone who isn't damned, have we?

Who isn't damned? Hmm. That's a good question. I don't think so. Some much more than others, but yeah - Akka is damned, Cleric is damned, everyone on the slog is damned, Kellhus is muy muy damned. 

[Spring Bass]

5 hours ago, Sci-2 said:

Depending on what people mean, possibly. Still not 100% clear whether humans can't summon "Angelic Ciphrang" because they don't exist or because they are unreachable due to some metaphysical structure of the Bakkerverse.

And then there's this option:

For I have seen the virtuous in Hell and the wicked in Heaven. And I swear to you, brother, the scream you hear in the one and the sigh you hear in the other sound the same.

–Anonymous

Darzin made a good point up-thread that the "Other Sons" might be the equivalent of angelic ciphrang/"benevolent" gods. It's just they feed off of pleasure - the "moaning" souls in the "skies made bowls" (the "heavens"?) - instead of the agony that the Lake-of-Fire Sons consume. Either way the Countless Dead are bread.

As for why they can't be summoned, maybe the only Ciphrang that can be summoned are those that find sorcerer souls tasty in the Outside. The one that Iyokus summoned was like, "FOOL! DOEST THOU NOT KNOW WHO WILL KEEP THEE?" I used to think that was just a sorcerer double-damning themself by ear-marking them for a particular demon, but maybe the demons they summon are those that are drawn to sorcerers in the first place.

[Callan S.]

4 minutes ago, Sci-2 said:

For I have seen the virtuous in Hell and the wicked in Heaven. And I swear to you, brother, the scream you hear in the one and the sigh you hear in the other sound the same.

–Anonymous

I was thinking about that the other day and whether it's actually from Kelhus and not anonymous. Ie, it's one of the declarations of the thousandfold thought, that I think Proyas is being...'impregnated' with? What was the date on that saying?

Also I think massive sexual diamorphism is probably possible in humans. Hell, if we're accept dudes who can snatch arrows out of the air, why are we getting picky now? But I'd think there'd be some side effects coming back. Or maybe the dunyain just cull all the whale boned boys at birth.

The weird thing is indeed how someone notes the straps. If the women went through the same conditioning as the men (or even something close!), then they'd become fanatics like the dunyain are and treat it all as the shortest path, etc and just do it. But they aren't even allowed the same fanatacism. F's sake! Is the will to be a god a male only thing? Or thinking on it, is that the joke? Women don't bother wanting that, because...

[Darth Richard II]

Where IS Happy Ent? DId they finally cut him down?

[Sci-2]

2 hours ago, Callan S. said:

Also I think massive sexual diamorphism is probably possible in humans. Hell, if we're accept dudes who can snatch arrows out of the air, why are we getting picky now? But I'd think there'd be some side effects coming back. Or maybe the dunyain just cull all the whale boned boys at birth.

People can cut a bb pellet in have with a sword IRL so snatching an arrow isn't a wild exaggeration. The difference between believing you can breed for speed, even that bloodlines play a role, seems quite a distance from that kind of diamorphism. I'd need to some convincing reading to think you can get an ubermensch if male and a baby factory if female starting from the stock human DNA.

But even if we accept the idea, it still seems odd that Kellhus goes out of his way to select for intelligence when choosing a mate if his idea of breeding is raping a whale mother.

If there is some kind of Inchie influence on the Dunyain perhaps they have some kind of Bios manipulation device/drug/nanotech/whatever to make smart girls whale mothers. We'll see.

It's not a setting breaking question, like Dragons and Chorae, but nevertheless it is one I hope gets resolved in TGO.

[Spring Bass]

17 minutes ago, Darth Richard II said:

Where IS Happy Ent? DId they finally cut him down?

Unfortunately, he was cut down and processed into paper for the hardback edition of The Great Ordeal.

[Kalbear]

I'd be willing to accept sexual dimorphism if it resulted in men looking super fucked up and women looking super fucked up. Instead, we get men looking completely normal (and point of fact, not only do they look normal but they look recognizable to Akka as far as seeing the Anasurimbor line in him - WTF?) and women turn into whale-womb thingys. 

So to recap: they found a way to make men have the same consistent phenotype for 2000 years to the point where a specific lineage is recognizable, but the women turn out to be recognizable as inhuman from their skeleton. 

[Callan S.]

1 hour ago, Sci-2 said:

People can cut a bb pellet in have with a sword IRL so snatching an arrow isn't a wild exaggeration. The difference between believing you can breed for speed, even that bloodlines play a role, seems quite a distance from that kind of diamorphism. I'd need to some convincing reading to think you can get an ubermensch if male and a baby factory if female starting from the stock human DNA.

But even if we accept the idea, it still seems odd that Kellhus goes out of his way to select for intelligence when choosing a mate if his idea of breeding is raping a whale mother.

If there is some kind of Inchie influence on the Dunyain perhaps they have some kind of Bios manipulation device/drug/nanotech/whatever to make smart girls whale mothers. We'll see.

Maybe they stick pins in their brains to skew the triggering of glands that control growth?

But now I'm getting a little uncomfortable in speculating.

Quote

It's not a setting breaking question, like Dragons and Chorae

Sounds like an RPG!

[Sci-2]

34 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

I'd be willing to accept sexual dimorphism if it resulted in men looking super fucked up and women looking super fucked up. Instead, we get men looking completely normal (and point of fact, not only do they look normal but they look recognizable to Akka as far as seeing the Anasurimbor line in him - WTF?) and women turn into whale-womb thingys. 

So to recap: they found a way to make men have the same consistent phenotype for 2000 years to the point where a specific lineage is recognizable, but the women turn out to be recognizable as inhuman from their skeleton. 

Well we still don't know what happened for sure.

Part of me still feels that not only was Bios manipulation involved with the whale mothers, but that there were still normal Dunyain women in Ishual.

[fowl]

The Whale Mothers are obviously Nonwomen! Sometime before the womb plague a small group of nonwomen either are exiled from a mansion or leave of their own volition and end up living in the catacombs of Ishual. Since they left before the womb plague they were never infected, either because of isolation or because the womb plague was an STD. Since they weren't infected by the plague they were not immortal, but because they were "heroes" who never stopped growing they kept increasing in size. Many years later along come the Dunyain who find a group of large exotic nonwomen in their cave and viola!

Another version would be a group of nonwomen who were infected by the womb plague but were not inseminated by a nonman, which is what caused whatever horror it was to happen. They fled one of the mansions after seeing what happened to an impregnated nonwomen with the plague and end up in Ishual. Then the Dunyain find some exotic immortal large women and decide to breed with them to further their pursuit of the Logos. This would explain why the Dunyain have longer lives, why Kellhus has abominations with most women, and why only a few Whale Mothers could serve as the breeders for the entire Dunyain colony.

[Kalbear]

Ooh, check out this speculation from 2011:

Quote

On the Consult and the Dunyain: one reason I think that this is the way it's going to work is that I think in the next book we will see an exploration of Ishual - especially through Mimara's judging eye. She's going to see the sin everywhere, the horrible neurological experiments, the culling of the weak. Akka will study it like a historian can, but she'll look at it and see all the lives they lived - and be disgusted by it. This is because this is the only way that Kellhus can convince Akka to rejoin him against the Consult. Nothing less than this will suffice. For whatever reason, it's clear that Kellhus wants Akka alive -and Kellhus seems to want Akka to meet him at Golgotterath. Take that as a given for a moment and ask:

I was wrong that it was the Consult, not Kellhus, who wiped them out (though the logic of why we didn't see any signs of sranc is still kind of odd but fair) - but this still holds reasonable. Kellhus wants Mimara to see the terrible race of the Dunyain. He already refers to them as a negative connotation, after all.

Was wrong about the rest here - that Mimara will almost certainly not look at Kellhus with TJE and think he's not damned. Then again, it appears that Kellhus is quite aware of his damnation. It looks more and more like Kellhus is fighting damnation as a concept. He no longer wants to be tasty bread. 

[Sci-2]

5 minutes ago, fowl said:

The Whale Mothers are obviously Nonwomen! Sometime before the womb plague a small group of nonwomen either are exiled from a mansion or leave of their own volition and end up living in the catacombs of Ishual. Since they left before the womb plague they were never infected, either because of isolation or because the womb plague was an STD. Since they weren't infected by the plague they were not immortal, but because they were "heroes" who never stopped growing they kept increasing in size. Many years later along come the Dunyain who find a group of large exotic nonwomen in their cave and viola!

Another version would be a group of nonwomen who were infected by the womb plague but were not inseminated by a nonman, which is what caused whatever horror it was to happen. They fled one of the mansions after seeing what happened to an impregnated nonwomen with the plague and end up in Ishual. Then the Dunyain find some exotic immortal large women and decide to breed with them to further their pursuit of the Logos. This would explain why the Dunyain have longer lives, why Kellhus has abominations with most women, and why only a few Whale Mothers could serve as the breeders for the entire Dunyain colony.

Ah now that's an interesting theory.

Nice!

[Kalbear]

13 minutes ago, Sci-2 said:

Ah now that's an interesting theory.

Nice!

And even less affecting. But at least it explains the genetic weirdness. Though it doesn't explain why their skulls are recognizable as human (nonmen skulls are decidedly and obviously inhuman). 

From more propheting of the past, in WLW Kosoter talks to Mimara:

"Princess Imprerial," it croaks, glaring from eyes of fiery tar. "Save us from damnation."

It? Like the inhuman God that Kellhus speaks of? IT?

[fowl]

5 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

And even less affecting. But at least it explains the genetic weirdness. Though it doesn't explain why their skulls are recognizable as human (nonmen skulls are decidedly and obviously inhuman). 

Are they different? Not arguing just don't remember great differences besides the lack of hair and total uniformity to the human eye. The Whale Mother skulls were just skulls at the point Akka and Mim find them right?