Jump to content

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


Kalbear

Recommended Posts

For the record, I have not read the ARC. All I’m basing my D&G speculation on is the two pre-releases, in fact the only new information is the quote from the Book of Fane that Kalbear opens this thread with. Namely, that desire is deliberate. Man is a desiring machine

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Once again invite extended to Kalbear and Trisk, when he's done, to come partake in a whole subforum for the ARC readers - and any other member here who gets a crack at Kalbear's ARC before release date.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Happy Ent said:

For the record, I have not read the ARC. All I’m basing my D&G speculation on is the two pre-releases, in fact the only new information is the quote from the Book of Fane that Kalbear opens this thread with. Namely, that desire is deliberate. Man is a desiring machine

Oh yeah, sorry HE that stuff is great. I didn't think you were drawing on the ARC. 

2 hours ago, Madness said:

Once again invite extended to Kalbear and Trisk, when he's done, to come partake in a whole subforum for the ARC readers - and any other member here who gets a crack at Kalbear's ARC before release date.

Seems like a good idea. Thanks for hosting the subform on 2nd Apocalypse!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

13 hours ago, Happy Ent said:

Due to the metaphysics of Eärwa, the No-God cannot perceive – He has to stand outside of the circle of perception and being perceived. 

[...]

Frst, I could be wrong, but I believe it is only ever said the Hundred can't see the No-God, and not the God himself.

Second, I'd argue the reverse. The God/Absolute is Being and perception is Becoming, in that through perception is the possibility of desire actualized and fulfilled. In the Buddhist concept of conditioned genesis, it is a kind of primordial ignorance or forgetting of the Absolute that, through a long process, accretes physicality/sense-apparatuses around a spark of the ineffable suchness of the dharmakaya, which is the luminous void (pretty much the Tao) from which all manifestation arises and eventually dissolves.

 

In the Book of Genesis, eating the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil is what establishes the status of Adam and Eve as subjects in a world of objects as a set-in-stone ontological condition, which is why they're suddenly ashamed of their nakedness. 

 

Whether or not the God fractures willingly or simply as some necessity as a result of what it is, I don't know.

 

But my main point is: is not a Mind that cannot perceive pretty much what the God is? It is Something, it is an Existent, no doubt about that, yet there is absolutely nothing else for which it can know itself through. It stands outside the circle of watcher/watched because it is what establishes that dynamic (and pretty much all dynamics) in the first place. There is simply nothing for it to perceive (except maybe itself? does self-perception in the absence of literally all other categories of thought and being still count as perception?). Is the God some kind of Mind that negates itself? A kind of infinitely recursive perception? Does the God fracture so he can Ever Deceive himself into sanity? 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Quote

2. The God can’t see the Sranc because they have no Soul. What is the reason for the God not seeing the No-God? (a: it stands outside the w/w-circle. b: it has no soul.) Does the No-God have a soul? (If so, why? Because it’s simply too vast an intelligence to work un-souled.) Or would the No-God be visible through the perception of others already? If so, why aren’t the Sranc visible to the God through the perception of others? 

The God - or at least the Gods - have no problem seeing Sranc or Skin spies or Bashrag. None at all. The Gods can see anything without souls; they have no problem perceiving snakes or pigs, and per the Judging Eye we even know that those things even are judged, even though they don't have souls. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 hours ago, Dickwad Poster #3784 said:

The God - or at least the Gods - have no problem seeing Sranc or Skin spies or Bashrag. None at all. The Gods can see anything without souls; they have no problem perceiving snakes or pigs, and per the Judging Eye we even know that those things even are judged, even though they don't have souls. 

OK, great. No mystery then. Sranc and Skin spies perceive, so they’re perceived by the God. Or something like that. (Possibly: “they perceive, so they close the circle of the watcher and the watched, thus becoming part of Being, thus are seen.”) The No-God, would he perceive, would be visible to the God. Hence the Consult code-monkeys designed him without perception.

Baztek: I understand the Buddhist perspective, but I don’t see it playing any role in Eärwa. Eärwa is, as far as I can tell, built on French semiotics. (This is the secret language of the Gnosis: French. Parler comme Foucault pour faire stuff blow up.)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, Triskan said:

I thought that it would take me to the weekend to finish, but I delved deeply and greedily yesterday and made a lot of progress.  Might even finish tonight.  I should be joining the ARC forum soon.  But now I want to start a reread the moment I finish.  I feel myself becoming as Gollum was.  Perhaps Kal would have to send the Nine abroad to hunt me and see the thing returned.

poor, poor Smeagol!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

So, @Dickwad Poster #3784, you had mentioned one of the parts to reread/pay attention to is Cnaiurs descriptions of swazond to serwe in TWP... (uh, guess in gonna put this in spoiler tags just in case?)

haven't got to that point yet but I've just finished the battle at mengedda where akka mentions to saubon the line from the sagas "The soul that encounters Him passes no further". Now to me that certainly stirred up recollections of Kellhus' description of swazond... Any connection? Is this any kind of revelation into the no-gods nature, or am I a stupid moron slow on the uptake relalizing topoi are just swazond on the onta

ps autocorrect fucking hates Bakker and his character names

Link to comment
Share on other sites

13 hours ago, R'hllors Red Lobster said:

So, @Dickwad Poster #3784, you had mentioned one of the parts to reread/pay attention to is Cnaiurs descriptions of swazond to serwe in TWP... (uh, guess in gonna put this in spoiler tags just in case?)

 

  Hide contents

haven't got to that point yet but I've just finished the battle at mengedda where akka mentions to saubon the line from the sagas "The soul that encounters Him passes no further". Now to me that certainly stirred up recollections of Kellhus' description of swazond... Any connection? Is this any kind of revelation into the no-gods nature, or am I a stupid moron slow on the uptake relalizing topoi are just swazond on the onta

 

ps autocorrect fucking hates Bakker and his character names

That's definitely part of it. The description to Serwe is, IMO, a bit more relevant, but all the Swazond stuff is relevant. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

IIRC the god the Scylvendi  worshipped was killed. The consult resurrected that god (sans soul) and so the Scylvendi fought for him/it.

Possibly the shift to Inrithism is what killed their god. I don't think the books ever got into how the Scylvendi god was killed.

Then their god was killed again.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, Triskan said:

I am not 100% sure about this, but I believe the Scylvendi references to worshiping a dead god are references to the No-God.  The No-God didn't replace their slain god.  The No-God was their slain god.  Anyone know for sure?

This is certainly the impression I got, and the one given by the prince of nothing wiki (http://princeofnothing.wikia.com/wiki/Scylvendi): 

Quote

During the Apocalypse, the Scylvendi fought on the side of the No-God. They continue to worship it under the name Lokung ("Dead-God")

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...