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


Kalbear

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4 hours ago, Michael Seswatha Jordan said:

Thinking on Koringhus and the child today. What is so special about the boy that Koringhus saves him and carries him into the TTH and protects him for those long years? He is Dunyain after all, and they don't brook much sympathy for others. What makes the Dunyain that burns the brightest with the Logos, save a babe?

Someone else suggested Kor was actually a defective. One escaped from the unmasking room in the chaos.

So maybe he's a dunyain with a remnant of kindness. But Akka will see him as evil - especially as the judging eye says as much.

That or maybe his genitals were mutilated. That's not lethal, after all.

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2 hours ago, Kalbear said:

Also: how is it that things like skin-spies can recognize not only a gnostic sorcerer but can see that Chigra burns brightly in him? 

What sight does a skin-spy have that allows them to see Seswatha's soul? 

 

Their animus or whatever is that tiny shard of a soul -- stripped of identity leaving nothing but the base desires that makes such good slaves-- somehow harvested from fallen or destroyed mandati?

or similarly, said animating spark is a result of acting as some kind of fucked up horcrux for Shea?

i dunno, not really as up on the timeline as I should be

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12 minutes ago, Triskan said:

Circling back to Kal's comment on Fanayal and sin for a second:

I'm not too hung up on the idea that the Fanim maybe have found the "right" way to believe in Earwa, but consider this:

Kal was pointing out that we've been given pretty explicit textual evidence of the wrongness of sinful things like rape and torture via Mimara's Judging Eye and that Fanayal has done those things too.  But is there any possibility that those things wouldn't be judged as sinful if they were done in the name of the One True God?  I don't think that this is too likely, but part of why I'm throwing it out there is because if Earwa is supposed to be as Bakker has suggested a place like what our ancestors believed they lived in than this actually would fit quite nicely.  Conquering, raping, and pillaging when you're an Inrithi?  Sinful.  Damnation awaits you.  Conquering, raping, and pillaging in the name of the Solitary God?  Righteous.  Certainly lots of humans have believed versions of this.

It fits with God being a dick, too, and that last Kellhus POV seems to back up God being a dick. 

I dunno. Good thought and all, but I can't help but recall the idea was "there is a right way to worship" not necessarily a right thing? But most of this shit goes right over my head anyway.

wouldnt be surprised if the fanim way is the correct way, but those raping pillaging fuckers damned themselves and there is a mere fraction of fanim going to the sweet oasis in the sky, like a fucking dark twisted version of Cheers

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1 hour ago, Kalbear said:

 

I'm also starting to think that the question it asks - WHAT DO YOU SEE - is targeted towards one person only: Mimara. And her attempting to see the No-God with the Judging Eye is what ends the world. 

I posted about this once but can't find now. Basically my thoughts were that chorae introduce a contradiction that destroys sorcery. Mimara supercharges a chorae with TJE such that it's a contradiction that destroys the Outside leaking into Earwa thorugh a topoi. We know that the gods can't see the NoGod. And we know that TJE is the vision of God. So having TJE view the NoGod would create a contradiction that destroys [fill in the blank]. Didn't make the connection with WHAT DO YOU SEE?  I like that. 

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Here's something I don't understand: why the moral connotation of the Judging Eye effect if "being damned" is just synonymous for "being metaphysically tasty"? Why would a God that wants only the suffering of its creations even care about holiness, or what has greater or the lesser soul? 

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24 minutes ago, Baztek said:

Here's something I don't understand: why the moral connotation of the Judging Eye effect if "being damned" is just synonymous for "being metaphysically tasty"? Why would a God that wants only the suffering of its creations even care about holiness, or what has greater or the lesser soul? 

That was exactly why I said I thought what Mimara thinks is truly a Tear of God, isn't. Thanks, you said it more clearly.

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4 hours ago, R'hllors Red Lobster said:

Their animus or whatever is that tiny shard of a soul -- stripped of identity leaving nothing but the base desires that makes such good slaves-- somehow harvested from fallen or destroyed mandati?

or similarly, said animating spark is a result of acting as some kind of fucked up horcrux for Shea?

i dunno, not really as up on the timeline as I should be

It could be that binding the memories of Seswatha to Mandate Schoolmen changes the Schoolmen physiologically somehow, such that the Skin-spies have been engineered to detect it. 

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7 hours ago, Kalbear said:

Also: how is it that things like skin-spies can recognize not only a gnostic sorcerer but can see that Chigra burns brightly in him? 

Well according to Bakker,

Quote

The problem is that their ability to detect the 'Seswatha-within' smacks of the supernatural, which cannot be the case for the Sranc (except for a handful of rare exceptions).

So I guess the idea would be that the skin-spies, given that their ability to duplicate others requires an exquisite sensitivity to their body language, are able to detect the imprint of Seswatha in the body language of Mandate Schoolmen - that in the course of the Grasping, Achamian and the others all inherit minute but characteristic 'ticks' belonging to Seswatha.

I think he means skin-spies and not Sranc in the first paragraph...

7 hours ago, Kalbear said:

Why would going to Ishual take him home? Because duh, the Consult were there. Should have realized it then.

I think he’s talking about Golgotterath. It might have something to do with the prophecy about Mimara.

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Anyone else find discussions of the God-Thing reminiscent of Dick's anti-theistic work in the late 60s (before he reconciled with his Maker/VALIS)? Particularly thinking of the God-Things in The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch and the short story Faith of Our Fathers (though there's also plenty of weird, if less antagonistic theology in Counter-Clock World and Ubik from what I remember).

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5 hours ago, Triskan said:

This is especially confusing because we've been told that humans are bread but we've also been told that male bread is superior to female bread.  And possibly that there are superior and inferior forms of bread beliefs. 

Because men sin more, they make superior bread. Thus men are superior!

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8 hours ago, Baztek said:

Here's something I don't understand: why the moral connotation of the Judging Eye effect if "being damned" is just synonymous for "being metaphysically tasty"? Why would a God that wants only the suffering of its creations even care about holiness, or what has greater or the lesser soul? 

Becaus there is one more layer of the onion left to peel. You think it Truth that men are just bread and tasty damnation treats. But it's not so. Mimara saw through the chorae the false foil of damnation fall away and felt the truth of the love and peace of God. 

Can I get an Amen?

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The only way it makes any sense to me, is if Moe was right. The God sleeps. What Kellhus seen in the Outside was not the God, it was the 100. 

We have that quote at the beginning of the excerpt from the Book of Fane, "Let there be deceit, desire.". Maybe Fanim are worshipping the "right" way. Maybe the Solitary God and the God of Gods are the same thing. Its just that It sleeps, and the 100 are getting most of worship and what they want is suffering and damnation, so they can feast on souls. The 100 are demon and Chiprang and have taken control over the Outside because Earwa is such a shitty fucking place. Not enough holy, good souls, so the God sleeps.

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8 hours ago, Hello World said:

 

I think he’s talking about Golgotterath. It might have something to do with the prophecy about Mimara.

Right. He's talking about golgotterath. Why would akka questing to find the coffers and then ishual lead him to golgotterath?

Because the consult has already been there.

I'm saying that it was a clue that we missed and it was clear that the consult had destroyed it.

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22 minutes ago, Triskan said:

If there 100 were "splintered" from the God one one could go back far enough in time was there a splintering event?

 

Random aside question on definitions:  Would you guys say that metaphysical is virtually synonymous with supernatural?

On the first - yes. That was the eshatological beginning of the story. The metaphysical big bang. The end would imply the reunification. 

And I thing we now know the it part of the metaphysical whodunnit. Who fragmented the God? Who created desire and deceit? Who saw the grain and invented bread?

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44 minutes ago, Triskan said:

 

Random aside question on definitions:  Would you guys say that metaphysical is virtually synonymous with supernatural?

No. Bakker would never make this mistake. Metaphysical has a distinct philosophical meaning within that discipline. Metaphysical within fantasy fiction has somewhat become a shorthand term for "rules that govern the supernatural," but that is not how Bakker means it.

 

***

i kind of wish Bakker delivered his story like dickens, one chapter a week, we mine so greedily and so deep from each chapter!

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41 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

On the first - yes. That was the eshatological beginning of the story. The metaphysical big bang. The end would imply the reunification. 

And I thing we now know the it part of the metaphysical whodunnit. Who fragmented the God? Who created desire and deceit? Who saw the grain and invented bread?

You think its the Nonmen? Could this be something to do with the Nail of Heaven? If it was the Nonmen it makes sense that after they splintered the God, they realized they screwed up and started worshipping the spaces between the Gods......to no avail.

ETA: Or maybe something to do with the Breaking of the Gates? Right after that we have men encountering the Gods, Angrashaël and so on. Or maybe the "Gods" were just the Inchies? 

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22 minutes ago, Triskan said:

So I'm glad that I asked, but could you elaborate?  What is the distinction?  I am tempted to equate "physical" with "natural" and therefor "metaphysical" and "supernatural" both being that which goes beyond physical/natural.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaphysics
 

Basically, you know Einstein wants a unified theory? Metaphysics in philosophy is the unified theory of how the physical and the non physical (such as consciousness) operate under the same ruleset, iirc.

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