Bakker: The Great Ordeal SPOILER THREAD pt. II

[Grizzly Mormont]

15 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

No one actually knows. Seriously. We think that another earthquake hit, masonry fell, a chorae might have come close to Kellhus, Esmi might have died.

Fuck i have no idea why i love this series. I understand approximately 12% of each book. 

[Darth Richard II]

4 minutes ago, Grizzly Mormont said:

Fuck i have no idea why i love this series. I understand approximately 12% of each book. 

That's more than I understand.

[Hello World]

Re: how much should the reader be able to guess before the reveal.

Bakker says that the series is a metaphysical 'whodunnit'. I'm not quite sure what he means by that. Does it only apply to one final mystery or many of the important questions in the series like Kellhus's intentions, the No-God, the Hundred, etc? Because according to wikipedia a whodunnit is,

Quote

a complex, plot-driven variety of the detective story in which the audience is given the opportunity to engage in the same process of deduction as the protagonist throughout the investigation of a crime. The reader or viewer is provided with the clues from which the identity of the perpetrator may be deduced before the story provides the revelation itself at its climax.

Note that a critical element in a whodunnit story is that the reader should not only be able to randomly guess the perpetrator's identity, but to deduce how and why the crime was committed and so on. Otherwise the writer is just trolling, or the story isn't a whodunnit.

What Bakker does is "layers of revelation", which is the opposite of that. It's almost like writing ASOIAF and only showing the Tower of Joy scene in book 7 and only giving flase information before that besides the occasional one-liner that can only be understood in hindsight - only after the reveal has been made, which is what layers of revelation is all about.

[WrathOfTinyKittens]

9 hours ago, Grizzly Mormont said:

So can someone give me a brief summary of the sequence of events in the throne room in Momemn between narindar, esmenet, kelhus and kelmomas?

 

Ok, it's like this:

Kelmomas is following the WLW around the ruined palace.  On the way to the throne room, Esmi sees the WLW and follows him to the throne room, not knowing that Kelmomas is following.  She finds Kellhus waiting in the Audience Hall, and he seems to discern that she wants herself, him, or both dead.  

Then we switch to the WLW's POV, and he sees himself sneak in behind Esmi, hide next to a column, and take advantage of an earthquake caused by Yatwer - he thinks to himself "Mother claps the rug of the world..." and "Mother stamps her foot upon the earth" - to kill Kellhus.  There is a little bit of fuckery here, because the WLW POV makes it sound like a Chorae just spontaneously appears, but actually it is embedded in the ceiling, as mentioned by Esmi earlier in the book.  Kellhus is barely able to dodge the Chorae, but the WLW's sword pierces his throat - not his heart, as was predicted in earlier books - and he dies.  Esmi is not seen to be killed.

However, none of that actually happened.  Kelmomas, in an effort to aid the WLW, calls out to distract Kellhus, and breaks the causal chain of the Unerring Grace.  Kellhus moves to the throne, the earthquake strikes, and the WLW is crushed beneath a collapsing prayer tower.  

There's no indication as to whether Esmi lives or dies.  The tower is written to have struck just where Kellhus was standing, but he had moved away from Esmi a moment before.  It is plausible that when he stepped back, he moved back far enough that the collapse didn't kill her.

Personally, I think that Bakker would be monumentally dumb to have her die without so much as a mention, especially since it all happens from Kelmomas' POV, and Esmi is more or less the only thing he cares about.

[Michael Seswatha Jordan]

@Hello World, I couldve swore that Bakker said in a interview that it's a metaphysical whodunit that we might not get a direct answer to. 

[lokisnow]

It is not a whodunnit if not one single reader knows what the fucking question is. Or what the fucking alleged crime is.  Right now there is nothing substantive to indicate it is a whodunnit. 

[matt b]

45 minutes ago, WrathOfTinyKittens said:

 There is a little bit of fuckery here, because the WLW POV makes it sound like a Chorae just spontaneously appears, but actually it is embedded in the ceiling, as mentioned by Esmi earlier in the book. 

Thank you! I felt I had a pretty good understanding of the scene but I had no idea where the Chorae came from.

[jurble]

3 minutes ago, lokisnow said:

It is not a whodunnit if not one single reader knows what the fucking question is. Or what the fucking alleged crime is.  Right now there is nothing substantive to indicate it is a whodunnit. 

Isn't the crime the breaking of God?

[lokisnow]

52 minutes ago, Damned with the Wind said:

Isn't the crime the breaking of God?

Maybe? We didn't even know that was a possible thing until the end of book six, though.

[sologdin]

the crime is the apocalypse, surely? first time as tragedy, second as farce, though.

ETA--

the apocalyptic has a nice equivocation in it.  the greek is simply revelation, whereas we have by metonymic association through the revelation of st. john turned it into end of the world - more properly the subject of eschatology, or soteriology, if there's banking concepts such as redemption/salvation involved.

[maarsen]

2 hours ago, lokisnow said:

It is not a whodunnit if not one single reader knows what the fucking question is. Or what the fucking alleged crime is.  Right now there is nothing substantive to indicate it is a whodunnit. 

Ever watch Peter Greenway's The Draughtsman's Contract? 

[lokisnow]

I'm surprisingly not versed in greenways films, but he's on my list of holes to fill.

 

[Kalnestk Oblast]

30 minutes ago, lokisnow said:

I'm surprisingly not versed in greenways films, but he's on my list of holes to fill.

 

That's what aurang said

[lokisnow]

2 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

That's what aurang said

Walked right into that one

[Kalnestk Oblast]

4 minutes ago, lokisnow said:

Walked right into that one

Would have been funnier if I had said Kellhus instead of Aurang. Alas. 

And thanks for the detailed breakdown of the throne room. It's still remarkable at how...unclear it still is. 

[sologdin]

34 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Would have been funnier if I had said Kellhus instead of Aurang. Alas. 

hole-filling kellhus as excavator (or would it be incavator?) of proyas/dagliash.  latter gives birth to nuke; former gives birth to?

[lokisnow]

I still think kellhus did proyas because it's important he doesn't believe in kellhus. Saubon FINALLY believes in kellhus only at the very end, worshipping him amidst the carnage of dagliash, and is promptly sent to hell for finally believing. Kellhus, by raping proyas is probably trying to save his soul. Bakker is awful, rape will save, oy.

[lokisnow]

Not sure which thread had the mimara Mariam thing, but bakers response that he doesn't remember seems suspect, as it is almost the same as his response on whether platos timaeus is the source for the terms chorae and topos. Could be true or could be him trying to defuse.

[Kalnestk Oblast]

5 minutes ago, lokisnow said:

I still think kellhus did proyas because it's important he doesn't believe in kellhus. Saubon FINALLY believes in kellhus only at the very end, worshipping him amidst the carnage of dagliash, and is promptly sent to hell for finally believing. Kellhus, by raping proyas is probably trying to save his soul. Bakker is awful, rape will save, oy.

Huh. Shouldn't Kellhus be raping a whole lot more people then? What is special about Proyas that necessitates his personal butthole be the one saved?

[sologdin]

isn't there language in the AK perspective prior thereto that he hadn't had time during the religious genocides and whatnot that followed his coronation to undertake individualized study?