Bakker's the Great Ordeal excerpts III: Barthes to Balzac(spoilers)

[Sci-2]

I think it's at the point where people discussing the ARC should make their own thread. Thanks.

Interesting stuff Baztek. I'll probably have to reread it a few times to really understand what's going on.

 

 

[Hello World]

New review from GdM, spoilers included though... https://grimdarkmagazine.com/blogs/news/review-the-great-ordeal-by-r-scott-bakke

 

[all swedes are racist]

9 hours ago, Sci-2 said:

I think it's at the point where people discussing the ARC should make their own thread. Thanks.

Interesting stuff Baztek. I'll probably have to reread it a few times to really understand what's going on.

 

 

Heh. "Trapped in the bowels of the golden ARC"

[JGP]

 

11 minutes ago, Hello World said:

New review from GdM, spoilers included though... https://grimdarkmagazine.com/blogs/news/review-the-great-ordeal-by-r-scott-bakke

 

 

So... the White Luck is still wandering around the capitol instead of chasing down Kellhus? Kind of a dangerous gamble on Yatwer's part, no?

[Kalbear]

1 hour ago, JEORDHl said:

 

 

So... the White Luck is still wandering around the capitol instead of chasing down Kellhus? Kind of a dangerous gamble on Yatwer's part, no?

The white luck is the ultimate gamble that always pays off.

[lokisnow]

It is accomplished. 

The most stunning thing for me is that it is a complete novel and not a third of a book like AFFC or ADWD. I was so worried TGO was another publishing disaster like those two failures.

I think this might wind up being many people's favorite of the series it might be mine. It is certainly the most satisfying read of the entire series. And for the first time Bakker seems to have made it up to Martin's level as a writer.

 

[Calibandar]

On 14-6-2016 at 10:41 PM, Werthead said:

I think I found it, along with some other tidbits:

 

Men only tried to enter Earwa through the Northern Kayarsus, though no one knows why. The Cunuroi have no record of having to defend the gates from any race other than Men.

• Originally, among the Men of Eanna, magic was the monopoly of the Shamans. They were of the Few, their souls recalling the God of Gods in near-perfect proportion, and were also considered holy, with a direct line to the will of the divine. They were Prophets and Sorcerers in one (to the point that this distinction was meaningless then).

   

• At some point (still in Eanna, long before the Tusk), individuals arose who claimed to represent the Gods as Prophets, but who were not of the Few, and whose souls did not have any special recollection of the God of Gods. This perhaps gave the Gods a means of bypassing the God of Gods' influence and interfering in the World themselves, each with their own individual agenda.

   

• Probably the Gods gave their Prophets 'magical' powers (miracles/thaumaturgy), but these remained under the control/will of the Gods, not of the Prophets themselves.

   

• There was eventually a conflict (initially political/philosohical, but eventually violent) between the Shamans and the Prophets. The Prophets won and outlawed/condemned Sorcery.

   

• The Prophets monopolised the claim of representing the divine. This was the beginning of recognisable Kiunnat beliefs, with the Gods and their laws as pre-eminent and the God of Gods as an impotent 'placeholder' to represent the Gods as a collective.

   

• The Few were driven into the shadows, near-universally believed damned as witches and forced to pass on their knowledge of Sorcery in secret, disguised as herbalism or harmless folk magic. Knowledge of magical healing was entirely lost.

   

• The condemnation of Sorcery was thus already widely accepted in Eanna when the Inchoroi compiled the beliefs of the Five Tribes into the Tusk. Likewise, Shamans (Sorcerer-Prophets) were a distant memory, already a myth to most. They got a brief mention in the Tusk but nothing more. The same with healing magic.

   

• During or after the Breaking of the Gates, the Men of the Four Tribes began to realise that theyneeded Sorcery. A few miracles handed out to Prophets by the Gods just didn't cut it against Quya mages. Sorcerers began to assemble into Schools and formalise their oral traditions into the Anagogis.

   

• Under the Nonmen Tutelage, the Nonmen demonstrate to Norsirai Sorcerers the conceptual leaps necessary to adapt the Anagogis into the Gnosis. The God's thoughts can be represented more accurately as Gnostic theorems than as mere analogies. It is akin to representing fundamental particles as mathematical formulae rather than as tiny billiard balls bouncing around in space.

   

• Inri Sejenus and Fane each tried to bring back the idea of the God of Gods as pre-eminent. Fane also combined the roles of Prophet and Sorcerer. Were one or both of these individuals true Shamans?

 

 

The non-bulleted points are from Scott direct, the bulleted ones I think are a summary of some discussion with Scott on the old three-seas forum.

 

Some fascinating stuff in that summary. Especially on the "battle" between the Hundred Gods and The God of Gods, both of which are entities we now know pretty much for certain, existin this world. The comments about shamans and Fane combining the roles like the shamans of old does bring me back to Scott's interview answer of years back, indicating that one of the belief systems is correct ( clearly Fanimry is correct in their belief in a One God). Then again the Inrithi may also be proven partially correct.

To recall the entries from TTT glossary for the two faiths:

Fanimry:

Fanimry is a monotheistic faith founded upon the revelations of the Prophet Fane.

The central tenets of Fanimry deal with the solitary nature and trascendence of the God, the falseness of the Hundred Gods (who are considered demons by the Fanim), the repudiation of the Tusk as unholy, and the prohibition of all representations of the God.[1]

The symbol and primary holy device of Fanimry is Two Scimitars (Twin Scimitars), symbolizing the “Cutting Eyes” of the Solitary God: “one for the Unbeliever Eye, and one for the Unseeing Eye.

Inrithism:

Inrithism is the faith founded upon the revelations of Inri Sejenus, the Latter Prophet, which synthesizes elements of both monotheism and polytheism. The central tenents of Inrithism deal with the immanence of the God in historical events, the unity of the individual deities of the Cults as Aspects of the God, and the role of the Thousand Temples as the very expression of the God in the world.

Interesting to see references to Unbeliever Eyes and Unseeing Eyes, cosnidering we have the Judginbg Eye. I'm sure this has been discussed in the past.

Questions:

1) What is meant by "the immanence of the God in historical events" precisely?

2) What is meant precisely by Fanimry opposing all representations of the God? They dislike any and all idols, even if they are of the God of Gods?

[Kalbear]

37 minutes ago, Calibandar said:

Some fascinating stuff in that summary. Especially on the "battle" between the Hundred Gods and The God of Gods, both of which are entities we now know pretty much for certain, existin this world. The comments about shamans and Fane combining the roles like the shamans of old does bring me back to Scott's interview answer of years back, indicating that one of the belief systems is correct ( clearly Fanimry is correct in their belief in a One God). Then again the Inrithi may also be proven partially correct.

There's a lot of misinterpretation here. 

The Shamen could recall the God of Gods in perfect proportion - like sorcerers can. But that doesn't mean that the God of Gods is a person or an entity at all. Furthermore, the Shamen didn't battle as the representative of the God of Gods. They had power. That doesn't mean that they fought as proxies. 

And Fane assumes that the solitary God exists and is Transcendent. But we've had no evidence of that at all. (though this would be tough to do)

Also, don't assume that because people have power that their belief system is correct. 

As to Immanence - this means that Inrithism assumes that the God exists and actually manifests in various supernatural ways in the World. Things like miracles, purposeful actions, prophets being talked to - those are examples of Immanence. Inri being able to heal would be taken as a sign of Immanence. Compare this to Transcendent God (the Fane one) - a God that is beyond the physical plane and is beyond comprehension of us.

Because Fane and Fanimry believe that God cannot be understood by anyone, representations of God are naturally blasphemous. God cannot be contained by simple words or sculpture or symbols, and to do so is an affront to what God is. (this happens to be what Kellhus has told Proyas God is; whether or not Kellhus is a lying liar is up to the observer). 

 

[Hello World]

The comment section on Bakker's blog is getting weird again...

[Baztek]

Grimdark review is hype. TGO sounds metal as fuck

[Baztek]

34 minutes ago, Triskan said:

He said

He wrote "EAMD!"

I could be wrong and hope i don't offend anyone, nor is this actually something to boast about, but I think I might have started the acronymization=shorthand of EAMD. 

Bakker has a wonderful vocabulary but he does repeat words a bit. At this point it's just friendly ribbing with how good the books are

[Kalbear]

18 minutes ago, Triskan said:

He said

He wrote "EAMD!"

I could be wrong and hope i don't offend anyone, nor is this actually something to boast about, but I think I might have started the acronymization=shorthand of EAMD. 

I think you're right, though gods, it's gotta be a long time ago. Close to the end of the Bakker and Women thread era, no?

On the Bakker thread and my appearance there: to whoever Aloha is, I'm glad that my discussion helps some. 

I'll talk to a couple of the non-personal points though, especially to @Callan S., who either hasn't read the ARC or skimmed it entirely:

There really are a tremendous amount of dicks mentioned in the book. A lot of that is really by design, mind you, and much like other critiques of Bakker the idea that this is somehow a slight on Bakker when it's very obviously intentional is ludicrous. This book - more than any of Bakker's previous books in any genre, including Disciple of the Dog - deals with male sexuality, or at least how Bakker perceives it. It has the connections of violence to sexuality, of desire to specifically male desire, the uncontrollable urges and lusts and wants. We saw a bit of that in the excerpts that have been released - the Dunyain pumping away at the Whale Mothers, devoid of desire for congress and full of desire for the Absolute. And we saw it with the hinting with the soldiers after eating Sranc. The other two storylines have it as well, though the Momemn one has less of it that I can recall - but it is very much a theme of the storyline, or at least it seemed far too obvious to not be considered one. Huh, and now I think of it Kelmomas has it in spades too, and much of his line is about his male desire to dominate and to control. 

This isn't really me cherry picking anything. If @lokisnow wanted to chime in, that'd be appreciated. It's funny to occasionally mention that phalli are pendulous, but this novel goes far beyond that. To me, the idea that you'd just miss this is kind of like arguing that women aren't objectively inferior in the books. The question isn't  that there's a lot of phalli - the question should be instead why Bakker chose to do it. I think it's to emphasize the male desire, as well as make his male readers uncomfortable. Curious what others think. 

Was thinking about it earlier but didn't have a real good place to put it - I think the comparison of TGO with ADWD is pretty reasonable. One of the storylines is much like Theon in ADWD, and is by far the best thing Bakker has ever written, at least that I've read. It's poignant, poetic, alien and massively dense, and is most comparable to something that Mieville might write. And much like Theon's story it kind of ends, but ends on something of a grand 'what now' vibe. Another storyline does finish, but the ending isn't particularly satisfying (or at least wasn't to me - obviously YMMV, and I think Loki liked it a lot more than I did). Another storyline ends similarly to Stannis being stuck in a snowstorm. And yet another kind of meanders around for a while, talking about some cool things but not actually establishing much, and ends just as it starts getting some narrative speed. 

 

[lokisnow]

I don't know how kal got to all that or why it's popping up here if it began elsewhere, but I thought TGO had a normal-for-Bakker amount of male sex organs in the text. 

i typed out all the aphorisms into my list, interesting note for collectors the formatting is inconsistent on several of them, very minor stuff, but sometimes the authors name is listed first sometimes last, sometimes the caps lock is on for authors name, sometimes not. All other five books were very consistent, so I imagine that will be a change to note in the final publication.

overall impressions:

the book should be read in order. The ishterebinth chapters could be read sequentially with the least amount of damage but do not read the momemn, ordeal and achamian/mimara chapters out of order. Whether or not events do or do not coincide, themes coincide and parallel, beautifully, and the reader gets the better of the characters because things learned in one chapter might help the reader understand events that occur in the next chapter that the characters don't really understand, this holds true across all four threads, which is why ishterebinth shouldn't be read sequentially.

i really liked all of it, each part I liked about equally. My least favorite part? The prologue, which I re read and think it's quite good, just not up to par with the rest of the book. Continually excellent, a storm of swords is a good comparison point, in my opinion.

[Sci-2]

It's actually a bit...odd...how what we write here gets meta-commented on by the commenters on Three Pound Brain...

If I was a new reader and saw the author's blog or an old causal looking for TUC updates...well assuming I could find the posts that have anything to do with his fiction writing I'd probably wonder what the hell was going on...

[Callan S.]

1 hour ago, lokisnow said:

popping up

Well played >:)

[Calibandar]

12 hours ago, Kalbear said:

 

As to Immanence - this means that Inrithism assumes that the God exists and actually manifests in various supernatural ways in the World. Things like miracles, purposeful actions, prophets being talked to - those are examples of Immanence. Inri being able to heal would be taken as a sign of Immanence. Compare this to Transcendent God (the Fane one) - a God that is beyond the physical plane and is beyond comprehension of us.

Because Fane and Fanimry believe that God cannot be understood by anyone, representations of God are naturally blasphemous. God cannot be contained by simple words or sculpture or symbols, and to do so is an affront to what God is. (this happens to be what Kellhus has told Proyas God is; whether or not Kellhus is a lying liar is up to the observer). 

 

Thanks, I kind of grappled with the term immanence, makes more sense now.

Following from this I would conclude that at this point we don't know yet who is more or less right in their belief system, though it will be very interesting to find out ( and please do not tell me in case TGO enlightens us on this  ) 

12 hours ago, Kalbear said:

 

The Shamen could recall the God of Gods in perfect proportion - like sorcerers can. But that doesn't mean that the God of Gods is a person or an entity at all. Furthermore, the Shamen didn't battle as the representative of the God of Gods. They had power. That doesn't mean that they fought as proxies. 

And Fane assumes that the solitary God exists and is Transcendent. But we've had no evidence of that at all. (though this would be tough to do)

 

The existence of the shamans and sorcerers and how they have near-perfect recollection of the God of Gods ( even if in a minor way) does suggest to me that there is such a thing as a God of Gods in this world,  a "million souled" entity that may be an It. I am also very much intrigued by the idea the Hundred are "Aspects of the God" , or if they are not Aspects of him. That was what I referred to when I said it seemed like in the old days, there was a battle. I did not mean that the Shamans represented the God of Gods in that battle, but rather that The Hundred actively tried to suppress and replace The God of Gods, through prophets/miracle workers.

[Madness]

I hadn't realized until now but those bulletpoints are actually a post quoted from the original incarnation of SA by a user Duskweaver, who has been absent for some time, attempting an abbreviated version of what Wert is doing now with the histories.

4 hours ago, Sci-2 said:

It's actually a bit...odd...how what we write here gets meta-commented on by the commenters on Three Pound Brain...

If I was a new reader and saw the author's blog or an old causal looking for TUC updates...well assuming I could find the posts that have anything to do with his fiction writing I'd probably wonder what the hell was going on...

The posts on which those comments exist aren't hosting the usual fare of TPB regulars. And the "meta-commentary" seems to pervade these three online mediums of SA, Westeros, and TPB, doesn't it?

Anyhow, I actually don't want to derail any conversation. Carry on.

[Kalbear]

7 hours ago, lokisnow said:

I don't know how kal got to all that or why it's popping up here if it began elsewhere, but I thought TGO had a normal-for-Bakker amount of male sex organs in the text. 

I'll talk to you about it offline. It's entirely possible I simply fixated on said mentions of dicks, but I don't think I did. 

Quote

The existence of the shamans and sorcerers and how they have near-perfect recollection of the God of Gods ( even if in a minor way) does suggest to me that there is such a thing as a God of Gods in this world,  a "million souled" entity that may be an It. I am also very much intrigued by the idea the Hundred are "Aspects of the God" , or if they are not Aspects of him. That was what I referred to when I said it seemed like in the old days, there was a battle. I did not mean that the Shamans represented the God of Gods in that battle, but rather that The Hundred actively tried to suppress and replace The God of Gods, through prophets/miracle workers.

It is a fairly cool idea that the Gods are fighting against the God,trying to suppress It. It does spin it differently what Yatwer is trying to do against Kellhus, for instance. 

[Werthead]

Part 3 of The History, focusing on the Apocalypse.

This one required a speed-reading of the entire series to date, which kind of hurt my brain.

Interesting tidbit from The Judging Eye though: Seswatha and Celmomas were discussing the No-God before it ever showed up (quite a long time before), so the Nonmen had not only warned them of shit going down, but what form it would take.

Which begs the question: how did the Nonmen know?

[lokisnow]

@Triskan is all https://i.ytimg.com/vi/8uRNhBKDJpM/maxresdefault.jpg right now