Bakker: The Great Ordeal SPOILER THREAD pt. II

[sologdin]

no doubt that JE does not cause the narrative facts that lead her to the conclusion 'whale mothers.'  i was thinking that the contamination went the other direction, that JE is not an unfallible camera nonobscura--that it provides access to narrative facts otherwise unavailable, but it is as yet still borne through a fallible perspective, which perspective features as a condition of its possibility the trauma of the childhood servitude and the trauma of the more recent crimes by the glanton gang.  JE might provide access to facts, but the ideological conclusions drawn therefrom (i.e., irrevocable damnation) need not be controlled by it.

[Rhom]

1 hour ago, Triskan said:

Yeah, Oirunas is definitely mentioned in the big TTT appendix history of the Cunoi-Inchoroi wars.  He is like one of the heroes of old along with his brother.  They were charged with The Watch on the Ark. 

I took the "this is our cannibal fate" to simply mean that the final Nonmen will destroy each other as his kind will destroy The Vile.

I am still holding out for the remote possibility that Oinaral survived the swatting.  Something about that line about how he miraculously held on to his sword seems suggestive...

I don't remember mentions of The Tall previously.  Was that something we knew about?  Or was that a new revelation?

[jurble]

We knew that some Nonmen were monstrously huge, but the Tall being an apparent sub-species or race of Nonmen was new information.

[Kalbear]

16 minutes ago, sologdin said:

no doubt that JE does not cause the narrative facts that lead her to the conclusion 'whale mothers.'  i was thinking that the contamination went the other direction, that JE is not an unfallible camera nonobscura--that it provides access to narrative facts otherwise unavailable, but it is as yet still borne through a fallible perspective, which perspective features as a condition of its possibility the trauma of the childhood servitude and the trauma of the more recent crimes by the glanton gang.  JE might provide access to facts, but the ideological conclusions drawn therefrom (i.e., irrevocable damnation) need not be controlled by it.

Again, I guess that's possible, but it's certainly not what we've seen. It's not what Akka believes, either, when talking about TJE. And again, Kellhus also apparently believes that the Dunyain are damned. As does Koringhus once he learns about everything. 

It would also be a major reversal of the general concept of the series, which is that there is an objectively right and wrong way to believe and act. If the Judging Eye isn't judging, merely viewing, that entire conceit kind of drops away. 
 

[Bastard of Godsgrace]

17 minutes ago, Triskan said:

There was some mention of it, but I can't recall if it was in the TTT appendix or elsewhere.  Whatever it was, it was ambiguous enough that we pondered whether or not to take literally what we'd seen. 

Now that the phenomenon of The Tall has been confirmed, I wonder if they grow after exposure to the womb plague or only before.

Ciögli the Mountain supposedly defeated  Wutteat with bare hands. I remember he was supposed to be about eight meter tall and still growing, but I can't find the quotation at the moment. Pehaps Scoot said it in some interview. Since Ciögli fought in Cuno-Inchoroi wars this phenomenon probably precedes the womb plague.

[sologdin]

18 minutes ago, Triskan said:

This is what I was alluding to upthread.  I had, as I'm assuming most readers also did, assumed that TJE was infallible within this universe. 

right.  some readers have assumed that it is infallible, but that's not been a falsifiable question so far.  some characters believe in it, but that's just viramsata to me.

[Kalbear]

3 minutes ago, sologdin said:

right.  some readers have assumed that it is infallible, but that's not been a falsifiable question so far.  some characters believe in it, but that's just viramsata to me.

It's not just viramsata though, as far as we can tell; it has real actual power. We have the text stating twice that she has the power to literally forgive damnable acts, as an example. We have her seeing things that she cannot have information to in other ways. 

Put it another way: what would be the point of having it be her cultural legacy that colors her interpretation of these past events? What is the narrative arc there? What is the payoff?

[sologdin]

2 minutes ago, Dickwad Poster #3784 said:

It's not just viramsata though, as far as we can tell; it has real actual power. We have the text stating twice that she has the power to literally forgive damnable acts, as an example. We have her seeing things that she cannot have information to in other ways. 

Put it another way: what would be the point of having it be her cultural legacy that colors her interpretation of these past events? What is the narrative arc there? What is the payoff?

are the claims that she can forgive damnable acts arising out of her perspective?  because she can be wrong about that.

as to what the conclusion of that arc would be, EAMD, surely?

[Kalbear]

Just now, sologdin said:

are the claims that she can forgive damnable acts arising out of her perspective?  because she can be wrong about that.

Not exactly? She's forgiven Galian and Koringhus. Galian immediately goes limp when she does it. Koringhus immediately eats some qirri and kills himself. (and it's possible that you can frame the Unholy aquatic mammal scene from the book TJE as her forgiving that, too, though I don't buy it). 

She doesn't claim that she's erased their sins. That's my projection based on the actions that are taken afterwards. 

Just now, sologdin said:

as to what the conclusion of that arc would be, EAMD, surely?

So we've spent 3 books following a person who is simply deceived by the gods into thinking that her judgment matters? There's gotta be a better payoff than that. 

Another way to say it is this: Koringhus - who spends basically an entire chapter talking about the philosophical underpinnings of the universe and is likely the Most Right - believes unerringly in what Mimara is selling. It's certainly possible that she's wrong and he is subsequently wrong (and @lokisnow would be super happy about that, given that it reinforces yet again how completely idiotic Dunyain are in overestimating their infallibility) and his suicide by forgiveness cop is simply him being really hopeful - but I think it's unlikely. 

[Kalbear]

7 minutes ago, Triskan said:

And I think that's unlikely given that Koringhus' perspective drips with recrimination of the Dunyain.  It even says something like "the rank folly of the shortest path."  Again, too many balls in the air, but I feel like the Koringhus POV chapter is laden with authorial "this is how it is, finally." 

Yeah, that's what I got, too. If Koringhus' chapter is him just philomasturbating and isn't actually describing anything about how things are, it's a massive waste of time. That again is possible, but not particularly useful other than showing how wrong Lokisnow was about TGO being better than ADWD. 

[Hello World]

2 hours ago, Triskan said:

Yeah, Oirunas is definitely mentioned in the big TTT appendix history of the Cunoi-Inchoroi wars.  He is like one of the heroes of old along with his brother.  They were charged with The Watch on the Ark. 

This reminds me that while reading TGO I realized that most of the info (or all?)  in the "Apocalypse" and "Cuno-Inchoroi Wars" in TTT glossary was revealed in this book, and the previous two. Which made me wonder why revealing all that stuff at the end of TTT was necessary to begin with. I certainly would have rathered to not have known any of it going into AE. I feel like trying to piece all the snippets together would have been more satisfying that getting a kind of timeline of the Apocalypse and CIW in TTT.

[Michael Seswatha Jordan]

39 minutes ago, Triskan said:

This is what I was alluding to upthread.  I had, as I'm assuming most readers also did, assumed that TJE was infallible within this universe. 

Yea, I think this is true. It was a neat idea, to me, that there might be another curveball. Though, I think you guys are right. Mimara is being set up for something greater with the JE. Bakker even said, in answer to my question, that morality is objective. The JE is the way to show us what is going on.

[Hello World]

Don't know man. If the entire WLW arc turned out to be filler maybe Mimara's arc is filler too.

[Darth Richard II]

Maybe the whole thing is filler and its just some kid with a snowglobe?

[sologdin]

i haven't got to the kory exposition yet.  what warrants the thesis that he is correct, considering he is a non-sorcerer atheist in this setting?

[Kalbear]

6 minutes ago, sologdin said:

i haven't got to the kory exposition yet.  what warrants the thesis that he is correct, considering he is a non-sorcerer atheist in this setting?

Oh - well, SHIT. 

Get away from this thread, you commie fuck

[Rhom]

53 minutes ago, Dickwad Poster #3784 said:

, but not particularly useful other than showing how wrong Lokisnow was about TGO being better than ADWD. 

That's not a very high bar to reach...

[Darth Richard II]

My two cents: I'd probably say TGO was better then ADWD but not nearly as good as AFFC *doges rocks*.

Yeah, the Momemn sections were boring as fuck.

[Kalbear]

1 minute ago, Triskan said:

For what it's worth, I enjoyed TGO more than ADWD.  I felt like half of ADWD was great but significant parts of it were boring.  I felt like portions of the Momemn storyline in TGO weren't great, but I quite enjoyed most of it.  I like the Ordeal portions which some apparently did not like, and I loved the Ishterebinth and Demua Mountains portions. 

I think that's fair. I didn't enjoy TGO as much. I think that both had really high highs - Ish and Theon - and both had some incredibly clumsy bits (Tyrion's meandering through Essos and Momemn). I felt more emotionally impacted by ADWD - between Theon, Jon, and Cersei there were some great beats, and I felt those were lacking for the most part.

In particular, I didn't think that TGO held up well as an actual book with a good narrative flow and arc or a typical climax and denouement. It was perfectly fine as an excerpt, but none of the chapters had the narrative arc that Theon's did or Jon's did or Cersei's did (especially if you count AFFC). The Demua mountains should have ended a chapter earlier and ending the book with Cnaiur's return and that whole plotline was not a good choice at all, IMO.  I do admit that there was a lot more revelation about what's going on than ADWD had - but at the same time, I'm not sure we actually got a lot more resolution. Akka finding Ishual didn't resolve anything, as an example. Momemn did, but in a fairly stupid way IMO. Dagliash kind of resolved stuff, and kind of didn't - but it was more of the classic setback than it was a finale. Ish was the best overall arc and had conflict  and resolution dealt with together. 

Mostly, I just disagree that it really feels like a self-contained book. It ends way too abruptly with too few narrative climaxes. Two storylines basically just stop in the middle of their story (Ishual and to a lesser extent Momemn). Compare that to what happened with Akka in WLW - where he finds Sauglish, finds Wutteat and has a fight with him and Cleric, finds the map, and heads to Ishual - and it's really no contest. Same goes with the Momemn arc - we have Esmi's plot to solve things in Momemn, her having to flee, her returning - and her eventual success at killing Maithanet as the Fanim run. (things do get resolved in Momemn, but it has nothing to do with the prior chapters). The Ordeal has their biggest fights, their biggest losses, and something changes (they eat sranc). And then we get the denouement of the next adventure for Sorweel and Serwa. 

What's the narrative arc for Akka and Mimara here? What's the narrative arc for Esmi? The best narrative - the Ordeal - is basically 'they go to a place, and the place blows up'. 

 

 

[themerchant]

7 hours ago, Dickwad Poster #3784 said:

 It's really, really hard for you to even consider the notion that Bakker got something wrong, isn't it?

Again discussing the people reading the books instead of the actual books...

No it isn't hard at all. They aren't really well explained. they have ad hoc rationalisations about why they work, in the real world regardless of how well explained they don't work. The same with whatever explanation for the current biology of female Dunyain made for breeding.

If it isn't supported in the text why was it guessable then? Quite a few folk who had read Dune predicted the "whale mothers" so some theme at least ran through the narrative. As for real life, I have no idea what the limits of biology are for a human (add in non-man genes to confuse further) . I imagine it isn't likely, the same way no matter how semantically pure your thinking and speaking is you aint contacting someone in their sleep. Surely there is room for disagreement without one person having to have some cognitive blackspot about the author. Especially considering the time spent by both of us discussing said author.

He's wrong about stone spheres with certain drawings on them turning people who say and think different things to do magic into salt, and he is wrong about being able to breed that way. Also wrong that you can walk echo of the ground, wrong that chariots can fly, wrong that when you die demons come and torment you for ever.

He's wrong about loads of things, this one just doesn't bother me. Hey maybe the problem is you instead of me? You're the one with 500,000 words on the subject of Bakker on this site alone. Maybe the extreme bias is in you and not me?