Bakker: The Great Ordeal SPOILER THREAD

[Michael Seswatha Jordan]

Ok, ok, first five posts, gotcha!

[Michael Seswatha Jordan]

Kelmommas/Ajokli

Well, when Kel met with the librarian, we learned the nature of Ajokli. Upon a sacrifice (the beetle) Ajokli will grant Unerring Grace, as he did with Kel. Though later on Ajokli will then take what you hold dear to your demise. When Kelmommas seen the WLW involved in Thelli's death and later when he seen the WLW was going to kill Kellhus, the WLW was what Kelmommas held dear, hence him wanting to help. Though, you could say that Esme is dead and the result of the White-Luck being broken via the earthquake was a side effect of the earthquake being used by Ajokli to kill Esme (i think Esme alive). In any event is say yes, kel being a "agent" of Ajokli is indeed what broke the White-Luck, to take what Kelmommas holds dear.

[Michael Seswatha Jordan]

Kelhuss

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What made Kellhus change his mind and head to Momemn?

The same thing I've been saying on here some, but at SA and on the podcast I didknows re and more human emotion is what is moving Kellhus. It began with him hanging next to Serwe on the Circumfix and it "broke" him. Broken meaning that he is becoming more human, letting emotions affect his mission. It says so in the books when Kellhus tells Esme He can back to salvage what he could. Remember, everyone said that Kellhus has forgotten about Momemn and was dooming them, that was the consensus from everyone here. I never thought that, always thought he had some plan. His meeting with Moe and when Moe remarked about Esme and Kellhus said to himself, "what are these feeling?". There have been clues throughout that him being mad as a Dunyain, is merely him gaining emotion.

She thinks Kellhus is going to be evil; Akka has to know. My bet is that Kellhus is shown to be holy. 

My feelings also. As per Bakker, no one even Mimara knows "who" is looking through the TJE. We now know the haloes are not of sorcerous nature. They are not of delusion, we learn this through Malowebi, who would see a Mark and isn't a believer. Kellhus is the Savior, and the end of the world, the 100's world/Outside

[Kalbear]

I think that this series - maybe not the whole one, but this one - revolves around Kellhus and whether he is holy or damned.

What I think will happen is that, like mimara, Kellhus will be seen as holy. In spite of sins or actions taken before, his ends will justify every other atrocity. This is also the only real justification I can think of for raping proyas - to illustrate how truly horrible actions are still not enough to overcome his divinity.

Why Kellhus is holy is more confusing. My suspicion is that he will end up either being the initial source of the breaking of the God, and by doing so will also be its creator. Causality is weird in earwa. Or, Kellhus will end up defeating the No God and thus saving everyone. 

A third option is that Kellhus will be seen as hugely damned - and mimara will forgive him. This has major squick problems but makes some thematic sense.

What I want to have happen is for Kellhus to ask for forgiveness and mimara refuse. Because she doesn't see the sins as being justified. She can see why Galian had to do things. She can see that when koringhus truly had choices he tried to do noble things, like saving his defective. But Kellhus? He has done everything to help himself, and deluded himself into thinking that he was doing it for the greater good. 

[lokisnow]

Spoiler

Regarding the halos as Malo Web I informs us they are not sorcerous nor a delusion. To interpret this, we have to bring in information from ishterebinth and akkas final dream. .

First from ishterebinth,  the phrase "god entangled", and that nonmen can identify that sorweel is in such a state.

Second, from akkas dream as celmomas, he sees a four horned god give celmomas a vision of kellhus.  This suggests that kellhus is god entangled, and this entanglement is the source of the halos.

Given that it is a fatalist universe, not deterministic, once kellhus meets serwe, she has to be the one who will be sacrificed, fatalism, and once she has to be sacrificed, kellhus has to be the one in the vision, and thus the halos have to begin to appear. As the events accrete toward the ever more inevitable circumfix, the halos become more apparent.

As for the skin spy. The gods can't tell the difference they just know they cannot possibly be wrong but are ignorant of skin spies because they keep the inverse fire and are invisible like the no god. So if they think kellhus has halos, then observe skin spy kellhus the halos are temporarily applied because the god assumes it is must be kellhus.

From the consult pov, the whole point of inventing the skin spies is to be able to deceive and misdirect the gods. We just happen to see an accidental example of there true purpose in that scene with halos on kellhus skin spy.

 

[LuckyCharms]

I think Bakker is too much of a troll to permit us Mimara determining Kellhus' objective moral value.  She will never get a chance to see him with the Judging Eye. 

Now, if the No-God exists in the Eschaton, the very limit of The God's perception, what happens if Mimara looks upon the No-God with the Judging Eye?  O.o  What happens if what is categorically unseeable by God is seen by God?—does the universe implode?

[Kalbear]

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Second, from akkas dream as celmomas, he sees a four horned god give celmomas a vision of kellhus.  This suggests that kellhus is god entangled, and this entanglement is the source of the halos.

It suggests that Celmomas is God-entangled. It's not clear if Kellhus is. Though I thought it was supposed to be Gilgaol that entangles Celmomas, but that description sounds more like Ajokli. 

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As for the skin spy. The gods can't tell the difference they just know they cannot possibly be wrong but are ignorant of skin spies because they keep the inverse fire and are invisible like the no god. So if they think kellhus has halos, then observe skin spy kellhus the halos are temporarily applied because the god assumes it is must be kellhus.

Yeah, I'm still confused on what the Gods see or don't see. I know that they can't see through things without souls - but I had always thought that they could still witness the actual things that are soulless. They can perceive through the eyes of the people as an example. The WLW sees all the events that are going to happen, and most of those have little to do with other people and more to do with things - the notch on a sword, the stickiness of an orange. Also note that keeping the inverse fire doesn't have anything to do with being invisible; the rest of the Consult is perfectly visible to the Gods, and they've all experienced the IF. 

[Werthead]

I meant the first five posts of the entire thread, you don't need spoiler tags now we are on the second page

Interested to see what people make of Nau-Cayuti being the No-God - or part of it. Is it significant that Nau-Cayuti was in there somewhere? Also, I'm guessing that was the Inverse Fire they all had to pass under before they were fed into the Carapace. They had to be automaticallly damned before they could be consumed?

And is this maybe the fate of the Great Ordeal? Hundreds of thousands of sranc-addicted, fanatical warriors just waiting to be fed into a new No-God?

Do we think Sorweel and Serwa died or did they survive somehow?

And how are Mimara and Akka going to cross the Leash? It might be there are Sranc tunnels under the straits, which is possible as we know there are massive tunnels all undernear the Occlusion and Black Furnace Plain, or maybe someone has a way of going backwards and forwards.

Interesting timeline issue: Momemn and Ishterebinth are both taking place slightly later in the timeline than the Mimara and Ordeal storylines. Significant? It indicates that No-God #2 hasn't awoken by the time of the Momemn earthquake and it gives Kellhus the time to get back, but beyond that I'm wondering what else it means.

[Kalbear]

20 minutes ago, LuckyCharms said:

I think Bakker is too much of a troll to permit us Mimara determining Kellhus' objective moral value.  She will never get a chance to see him with the Judging Eye. 

Now, if the No-God exists in the Eschaton, the very limit of The God's perception, what happens if Mimara looks upon the No-God with the Judging Eye?  O.o  What happens if what is categorically unseeable by God is seen by God?—does the universe implode?

One crackpot: the reason the No-God asks is because it is Kellhus trapped in the sarcophagus, and his final thought is asking Mimara to tell him what she sees with the Judging Eye. 

I had thought that once Mimara witnesses the No-God you will get the creation myth, essentially. The No-God cannot be seen by the Gods because it exists at the limits of the Eschaton, and Gods can't see past it. But Mimara looks at it with the all-seeing, all judging eye. It judges something that shouldn't exist. Paradox occurs, and paradox cannot exist for the soulless (for bad plot related reasons). Therefore, No-God gets a soul. 

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Do we think Sorweel and Serwa died or did they survive somehow?

My take on the final scene - and it was more than a bit ambiguous too - is that Sorweel had his helmet ripped off (he was ripped in two), carried up by the Tall guy whose name escapes me, who proceeds to rip the hell out of the leadership. Sorweel is in his hand and throws a chorae against the Agonic collar, freeing Serwa. Who then sings and kills everything there, in a scene reminiscent of Akka escaping the Scarlet spires. I think they're alive and are going to be headed with the few erratics that can be trusted to go kick some ass in Golgotterath, showing up to smash things like the Ents at the White Tower. 

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And how are Mimara and Akka going to cross the Leash? It might be there are Sranc tunnels under the straits, which is possible as we know there are massive tunnels all undernear the Occlusion and Black Furnace Plain, or maybe someone has a way of going backwards and forwards.

Since we're doing random pulling 20 year plots out of ass, I figure that the fleet that the Kianene wiped out during TWP will miraculously show up and give Akka a ride, led by Inrau and the kid from the end of TTT. 

(alternately they'll just run into Serwa at that point and she'll just teleport everyone across). 

[Darth Richard II]

*pops in*

The godfather of grimdark? really? REALLY? Who writes these things anyway?

Good to see he changed that author photo though.

 

*pops out*

[Madness]

It says "one of the godfathers" - I saw an ARC for all of half hour super hungover - but for what it matters I protested too, DR.

[Darth Richard II]

I honestly don't consider Bakker grimdark when it comes down to it. Its much more just dark fantasy. It's missing that black humor I think you need to have grimdark. But we can(and have!) argue over the meaning of grim dark for pages and pages.

Also every time I sit down to read this thing the cat knocks something over.

[Madness]

Nope, neither do I, though Wilshire keeps trying to swing me round.

Abercrombie had a great bit on the Grim Tidings podcast about how he made his Twitter handle to "take the piss out of" the Grimdark label and how he might have inadvertently legitimized it.

I subscribe to the Abercrombie/Lawrence view that if someone buys their book because they think it's Grimdark, great, but they would never market themselves as exclusively Grimdark.

I likewise think it was a poor decision on the part of Overlook and Bakker's publicist to do so.

[Darth Richard II]

I should pop out of here before I spoil myself, but man, the opening what has come before section is the most Tolkien thing i have read since Tolkien. I mean that in a good way.

[Kalbear]

Also, I have to say now - the image of thousands of men ripping off their armor and clothing to go eat and fuck the sranc bodies was really absurdly funny. I had this weird idea of the riders or Rohan coming down the hill and proceeding to fuck various orc corpses to death while the lotr soundtrack swelled in the background. 

Did Kellhus know about the effects? It's hard for me to think he wouldn't experiment some, know how to cook it or even if it was poisonous.

[lokisnow]

Of course Kell knew about the effects. It inoculates the ordeal, is my guess,  makes them as unsuitable for resurrecting the no god as sranc are.

[lokisnow]

My take was serwa sings mundanely. Why Kill Everyone When oirunas Has just Taken care of the enemies?. And the non men have all just switched sides as a result of the leadership change.

Therefore, serwa sings mundanely, note that sorweels perspective reinforces constantly that song was utterly omnipresent in non man daily life. Obviously,  this total penetration of song into every iota of life is why all non cishaurim sorcery is done in song. Because non men invented sorcery and non men sang everything.

But since the eradication of the women, songs are incomplete and cannot be tolerated.  Serwa returns a female voice to them, singing the songs of daily life. She has no need to sorcery them her Dunya in inflected singing is far more powerful and furthers her goals better than destruction.  She's spent months singing to condition the mansion, now that conditioning is about to pay off.

As for the agonic collar, it is fashioned by emilidis, and all his artifacts are immune to chorae, is my gues, sorweel catches the chorae and saves her life. I imagine the agonice collar works on the same principle as the glamour around golgotteranth, every spell directed out or at the collar simply misses and is redirected back at the sorcerer,  likewe a math thesis point spell should dispel the collar

[Kalbear]

Good catch on the collar being fashioned by emidilis. I wonder if his artifacts are essentially the artifact equivalent of the cishaurim - so well crafted that they reflect god. 

That said, I bet a chorae disables it but doesn't destroy it.

On inoculation via sranc - don't buy it. Sranc can't be used most likely because they have no souls. Shae is best at soul trapping and manipulation, and the no God is likely needing souls too, some kind of critical mass of souls ever swirling down. Unless sranc meat removes souls (and Saubon getting claimed by ciphrang likely belies that) I don't see how it'd inoculate anyone.

Also, another small detail confirmed - the idea that Kellhus can rewrite damnation rules is total bullshit.

[Hello World]

So what is the explanation for the dream on the circumfix with the monk and the priest and the what do you see? 

[Kalbear]

Here's the heart in the butt monologue:

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And it seemed there was nothing, no dwarfing frame, that could restrict him to this place, to any place… He was all things, and all things were his… He was one of the Conditioned. Dunyain. He was the Warrior-Prophet. Tears roared down his cheeks. With a haloed hand, he reached beneath his breast, firmly wrested the heart from his ribs. He thrust it high to the thunder of their adulation. Beads of blood seemed to crack the stone at his feet… He glimpsed Sarcellus’s uncoiled face

Notice how similar this is to what Koringhus points out when he points out about how everyone is at the same place, and how he feels when he feels the leaf tickling his son's palm through his own. God is a place, and in this moment, Kellhus is in that place. This goes with what Happy Ent said a while back (I won't link him since it'll give him a notification) but he was right on the money. 

Again, what I don't get is how this coincides with the chicanery statement that Bakker made recently about it.