Jump to content

Bakker XLVI: Make Eärwa Great Again


Rhom

Recommended Posts

2 minutes ago, .H. said:

I'm not so sure that Kellhus is the Bakker analogue we should really draw though.  I mean, in a way, yes, but recall that Bakker quit philosophy for a reason.  His statement about how the books grew from a D&D campaign and how being a DM has you essentially being a "dark god" makes me really feel like Ajolki is the real Bakker analogue to look at here.  Kellhus thinks he is the prime mover, but he might not be. In the same way philosophers think they are really getting at the "objective truth" of the world, but to use a Bakker-ism, all they are really doing is hitting everything with hammers and so calling it all nails.

+1, I am with @lokisnow that some unseen factor will be Kelhus's undoing. Now, it might not hurt him, it might help him. Maybe by allowing him to ascend, Ajokli  appearing and taking to the Outside, because I believe Ajokli is aiding Kellhus. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Isn't he getting his PhD in philosophy right now?

Maybe I am remembering wrong, but I thought he gave up getting it just before writing his dissertation.

In 2009 he said, "I have a BA in English and an MA in Critical Theory from the University of Western Ontario, and if I could complete my bloody dissertation, I'd have a PhD in Philosophy from Vanderbilt University."

I've never come across him saying he actually tried to finish it though.

16 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Kellhus's appearance is literally modeled after Bakker, per Bakker. Ajolki isn't. And I'm fairly certain Bakker gave an interview where he wanted to create a world where philosophers were the most powerful thing in the universe.

Hmm, I'll dig around and see what else I can find in some interviews.  I mean, I definitely could be forgetting he said that.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

19 minutes ago, Michael Seswatha Jordan said:

+1, I am with @lokisnow that some unseen factor will be Kelhus's undoing. Now, it might not hurt him, it might help him. Maybe by allowing him to ascend, Ajokli  appearing and taking to the Outside, because I believe Ajokli is aiding Kellhus. 

I would like that to be the case. I think it would be a more satisfying narrative and system arc, and I continue to believe that Kellhus is one of the great monstrous people in fiction. It would be pretty awesome. 

I am skeptical that my wants are going to be translated, especially after some of the ways that TGO went.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, Kalbear said:

I would like that to be the case. I think it would be a more satisfying narrative and system arc, and I continue to believe that Kellhus is one of the great monstrous people in fiction. It would be pretty awesome. 

I am skeptical that my wants are going to be translated, especially after some of the ways that TGO went.

Well, either up thread or the other forum, someone mentioned that Bakker said the series would end in a huge reversal. What could that be?

1. Eärwans will no longer be damned. Either by the Outside being shut or the rules being changed (I presume this would involve Mimara and her capacity to forgive).

2. The Consult aren't the bad guys, those this kinda aligns with #1.

3. Kellhus is not the infallible all-seeing walking God that many have come to think of him as. He is human, albeit not wholly through the Dûnyain breeding methods. 

And, there are many more options if I set and thought long enough. What are you're guys ideas of this "huge reversal"? I'm leaning towards 3, yet it will turn out to be exactly what Kellhus was aiming for in some round about fashion.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Michael Seswatha Jordan said:

Well, either up thread or the other forum, someone mentioned that Bakker said the series would end in a huge reversal. What could that be?

He also said Cnaiur was dead and his story was over. The book actively lies about stuff too. Nothing should be taken for granted. 

1 hour ago, Michael Seswatha Jordan said:

1. Eärwans will no longer be damned. Either by the Outside being shut or the rules being changed (I presume this would involve Mimara and her capacity to forgive).

2. The Consult aren't the bad guys, those this kinda aligns with #1.

I don't see how these align. The Consult being the good guys kind of hinges hugely on their being (unjustly) damned.

1 hour ago, Michael Seswatha Jordan said:

3. Kellhus is not the infallible all-seeing walking God that many have come to think of him as. He is human, albeit not wholly through the Dûnyain breeding methods. 

And, there are many more options if I set and thought long enough. What are you're guys ideas of this "huge reversal"? I'm leaning towards 3, yet it will turn out to be exactly what Kellhus was aiming for in some round about fashion.

I think that it is impossible for Kellhus to be anything other than the grand hero. In another author's hands, I'd doubt that, but I don't with Bakker. 

I think Kellhus might not know everything, but I think at the end of the day he truly believes that he's trying to save the world and things will be colored with that in mind, and the whole point will be to rationalize his means to get to the end. Otherwise, what's the point of things like Proyas and nuking a good chunk of his army? What's the point of him allowing Momemn to get burnt and then rescuing it whenever he chose to? 

One big reversal I can see is the idea that the first apocalypse happened the way it did or even at all. I strongly suspect the Mandate have been entirely based on lies, and I think Kellhus found this out back in the day and went along with it because it suited him. The Mandate and the Inverse Fire are simply too closely related as control mechanisms. A secondary possibility to this is that the First Apocalypse hasn't actually happened yet, and what we've seen aren't prophecies of the past - they are of the future. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

31 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

He also said Cnaiur was dead and his story was over. The book actively lies about stuff too. Nothing should be taken for granted. 

I don't see how these align. The Consult being the good guys kind of hinges hugely on their being (unjustly) damned.

I think that it is impossible for Kellhus to be anything other than the grand hero. In another author's hands, I'd doubt that, but I don't with Bakker. 

I think Kellhus might not know everything, but I think at the end of the day he truly believes that he's trying to save the world and things will be colored with that in mind, and the whole point will be to rationalize his means to get to the end. Otherwise, what's the point of things like Proyas and nuking a good chunk of his army? What's the point of him allowing Momemn to get burnt and then rescuing it whenever he chose to? 

One big reversal I can see is the idea that the first apocalypse happened the way it did or even at all. I strongly suspect the Mandate have been entirely based on lies, and I think Kellhus found this out back in the day and went along with it because it suited him. The Mandate and the Inverse Fire are simply too closely related as control mechanisms. A secondary possibility to this is that the First Apocalypse hasn't actually happened yet, and what we've seen aren't prophecies of the past - they are of the future. 

He never said Cnaüir was dead, he as said he arc was over with. And, and far as PoN is concerned, that was true. He left his self wiggle room and was tricky with his wording.

1 and 2 are not meant to align, I was suggesting different outcomes that could be considered a huge reversal. In what world, with the atrocities the Inchies have committed, could they be considered unjustly damned?

I agree with you on Kellhus, that's what the TTT is about, saving the world from the No-God and destroying the Consult. Yet, he sees farther than the initial TTT that Moe's conceived. So, who knows what else that entails. I'm assuming God hood.

I can't see the FA not have happened. Not only do we have the dreams (which I can see being altered for a purpose), but we also have the sagas, written by men who experienced the FA. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Michael Seswatha Jordan said:

He never said Cnaüir was dead, he as said he arc was over with. And, and far as PoN is concerned, that was true. He left his self wiggle room and was tricky with his wording.

I guess that's true, though it makes it not any less bullshittery. Especially since it's pretty clear that his arc didn't 'end' there, not even remotely.

1 hour ago, Michael Seswatha Jordan said:

1 and 2 are not meant to align, I was suggesting different outcomes that could be considered a huge reversal. In what world, with the atrocities the Inchies have committed, could they be considered unjustly damned?

What crimes are there when no one is left alive?

Alternately, what are they accused of doing? They first went to war with the nonmen who killed them for the crime of not being like them. Then they tried (apparently - still think this is bullshit) to actually be the doctors for the nonmen, and when that failed they got almost entirely exterminated even though they didn't try to hurt  the nonmen first.

Then they ally with humans who proceed to do all sorts of completely horrible things (though they didn't do anything) and the goal is to ensure that everyone doesn't live in a shitty afterlife for all eternity, and their crime is that they were defeated.

I don't cotton with @Happy Ent's view that they are the maximum ultra fun aliens - they are clearly missing the empathy part of that equation that makes things like disciplining children an unspeakable crime - but there's a reasonable argument to be made that in light of stopping every single being that has ever existed from suffering in eternal damnation there is no crime that the normal world has which could matter in comparison. Nothing should be considered off limits in light of that incredible torture.

1 hour ago, Michael Seswatha Jordan said:

I agree with you on Kellhus, that's what the TTT is about, saving the world from the No-God and destroying the Consult. Yet, he sees farther than the initial TTT that Moe's conceived. So, who knows what else that entails. I'm assuming God hood. 

I can't see the FA not have happened. Not only do we have the dreams (which I can see being altered for a purpose), but we also have the sagas, written by men who experienced the FA. 

We have the sagas which we already have evidence (again, Bakker, so who knows about lying) that were altered by others - and done so AFTER other events. We have had skin spies for how long? We don't know. You're saying that apocryphal documents that contradict each other and themselves are somehow reliable as far as a history goes. 

Now, I will grant that the nonmen remember them as the Vile, and it's almost certain that the nonmen-inchie wars happened. It's also clear that Seswatha existed as a person as Cleric and others remember him. But the actual first apocalypse? What actual evidence do we have past Seswatha's dreams?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, Kalbear said:

I don't cotton with @Happy Ent's view that they are the maximum ultra fun aliens - they are clearly missing the empathy part of that equation that makes things like disciplining children an unspeakable crime -

One minor disagreement (of no consequence to your argument): What the Inchoroi are missing, by their own design, is compassion. Empathy they have. But they modified themselves to get rid of compassion. Were I to transform myself into a perfect hedonist, empathy would be very important to me. No matter if I derived pleasure from pleasuring or torturing the other, I would want to be able to empathise with the recipient of my attention. Otherwise there is little point. Compassion, on the other hand, gets in the way of some of the more capricious ideas I might want to pursue. Therefore, I’d remake my species so as to maximise empathy and minimise compassion.

Even though these sentiments correlate, and are often confused, they are different. I, for instance, am very high on compassion and very low on empathy. Some kind of anti-Inchoroi.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 hours ago, Kalbear said:

We have the sagas which we already have evidence (again, Bakker, so who knows about lying) that were altered by others - and done so AFTER other events. We have had skin spies for how long? We don't know. You're saying that apocryphal documents that contradict each other and themselves are somehow reliable as far as a history goes. 

Now, I will grant that the nonmen remember them as the Vile, and it's almost certain that the nonmen-inchie wars happened. It's also clear that Seswatha existed as a person as Cleric and others remember him. But the actual first apocalypse? What actual evidence do we have past Seswatha's dreams?

What about the archeology of the world?  Very clearly the north is a vast wasteland, and they do pass through ruins.  Even if we accept that the sagas and the Ses dreams are unreliable narrators, something wiped out a huge swath of human civilization. 

Along those lines, what about the various topos?  Cil Aujus was doomed by the Non-men being Non-men, but you still have other places such as the battlefield at Mengedda.  (Is that correct?  I don't have the book in front of me and there are just so many names...)  Clearly, an apocalyptic battle happened there.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

11 hours ago, Kalbear said:

 

Now, I will grant that the nonmen remember them as the Vile, and it's almost certain that the nonmen-inchie wars happened. It's also clear that Seswatha existed as a person as Cleric and others remember him. But the actual first apocalypse? What actual evidence do we have past Seswatha's dreams?

Love the idea that Mandate is based on a lie.  Maybe Seswatha creates the Dunyain and the Mandate as separate intensive schools, one mastering the mundane world while the other masters the sorecerous.  The apocalypse / consult dreams  are designed to keep theandate uncorrupted by the other worldly powers much in the same way the Dunyain are physically isolated, with the idea of having one guy eventually unite both factions.  The Dunyain eugenics project seeks to create a superhuman being able to do more with the gnosis than any cudlip human could.

Re: evidence of the first Apocalypse that isn't from questionable documents, mandate dreams, or Bakker's extra textual stuff:

I'm sure this has been brought up before.  As far as evidence of the first Apocalypse, do the Nonmen ever mention the No-God?  The Scylvendi claim to, but it seems Tsurumah could also just be a convenient myth that lines up with a destroyer god.  

Then there's Mengedda, although perhaps the Saubon incident here and at Dagliash provides some alternate explanation for the terror the Men of the Tusk suffer in TWP.

Don't have the books with me but can anyone find any Consult references to the NG?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@bakkerfans (mg), is very, very good at stirring the pot. This bit with the dreams and Akka was to get us talking. I'm sure, the FA happened their are tons of references to it. The Wreleoth of TGO, the Topos at Mengedda, and many more others have listed and more that we haven't thought of. 

I'd say it's one of two things. Seswatha manipulated the dreams to his own ends. Maybe there not completely accurate and maybe Seswatha isn't who we think he was. Or, when Akka's dreams changed it was because of Kellhus. One way or another, Akka is being manipulated. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

From Lastborn to Sorweel:

Quote

This earned a scowling glance. “How could I not know this, Manling? I was there. I was Siqu ere the heartbreak of Eleneöt. I saw the Whirlwind walk with mine own eyes—the Sranc move of one dread will! I saw the smoke of Sauglish on the horizon, watched the fires of mighty Trysë reflected in the waters of Aumris. I saw it all … the thousands shrieking upon the piers, the raving onslaught, the mothers casting their babes against stone …”

Link to comment
Share on other sites

24 minutes ago, larrytheimp said:

Don't have the books with me but can anyone find any Consult references to the NG?

“Did you think Achamian’s stories could prepare you? What the Mandate dream is but a sliver of what I’ve lived—of what I’ve seen. I’ve walked in the No-God’s shadow. I’ve looked across the void and blotted your world by holding a fingertip before it … No, you know nothing of me or my kind.” -Aurang, speaking through Esmenet to Kellhus in TTT.

I'll try to find some more, although Aurang in his TTT soliloquy does mention being Horde-General to Mog-Pharau.

"Seswatha..." he finally repeated. "That name... I remember. When the world burned... When Mog-Pharau shouldered the clouds... He... Seswatha fought at my side... for a time." -Cleric to Akka in TJE.

Very unlikely that the No-God is a lie.  However, Seswatha's actions before, during, and after the Apocalypse are most certainly something of lies.  I'm just soaking in what he says there actually, "for a time?"  I need to go back and look at that all again, but definitely suspect of Seswatha's actual actions.

 

I'm still digging through interviews to find if Bakker ever equated himmself to Kellhus, or made Earwa a place where philosophy would be all-powerful but haven't come across anything yet, so I am going to keep digging.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 minutes ago, larrytheimp said:

We may have, at the end of TWP.

I am definitely of the mind that Aurax is the one in that scene.  There isn't much to go on, but he seems to speak different than Aurang, using the term "manling," something that only Nonmen and Wutteat have done otherwise.  Also, he is described as "mottled by black, cancerous spots" but Aurang is never described as having those.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

10 hours ago, Happy Ent said:

One minor disagreement (of no consequence to your argument): What the Inchoroi are missing, by their own design, is compassion. Empathy they have. But they modified themselves to get rid of compassion. Were I to transform myself into a perfect hedonist, empathy would be very important to me. No matter if I derived pleasure from pleasuring or torturing the other, I would want to be able to empathise with the recipient of my attention. Otherwise there is little point. Compassion, on the other hand, gets in the way of some of the more capricious ideas I might want to pursue. Therefore, I’d remake my species so as to maximise empathy and minimise compassion.

Even though these sentiments correlate, and are often confused, they are different. I, for instance, am very high on compassion and very low on empathy. Some kind of anti-Inchoroi.

As I take it, I think the Inchies didn't try to remove compassion - not initially. They just went to remove C psychology, which got in the way of their hedonism and seemed unnecessary. But without C, then O psychology also seemed in the way and unnecessary. Once O was removed, M seemed pointless and a burden...etc. Like pulling a loose thread of wool, soon enough the whole jumper falls apart. They were honey trapped into a particular pattern of editing their behavior from having edited their behavior previously, in a feedback loop.

Rather than 'Bang! Get rid of compassion!' what the Inchies wanted to initially remove might seem eminently reasonable to remove.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

11 hours ago, Happy Ent said:

One minor disagreement (of no consequence to your argument): What the Inchoroi are missing, by their own design, is compassion. Empathy they have. But they modified themselves to get rid of compassion. Were I to transform myself into a perfect hedonist, empathy would be very important to me. No matter if I derived pleasure from pleasuring or torturing the other, I would want to be able to empathise with the recipient of my attention. Otherwise there is little point. Compassion, on the other hand, gets in the way of some of the more capricious ideas I might want to pursue. Therefore, I’d remake my species so as to maximise empathy and minimise compassion.

Fair enough, and you're right. Thanks for the correction. I have plenty of empathy for conservatives; I have no compassion for them. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Michael Seswatha Jordan said:

Something that has always bothered me....why have we never seen Aurax?

I don’t think we have. So far, whenever an Inchoroi with a name has been on-screen (glamoured or not), it’s been Aurang. He does the flying, the interrogating, the steering-of-synthese, he does all the work in False Sun, he picks whathisface out of a sarcophagus. Always its the Rangster, never Raxie.

My working assumption is that Aurax is a much diminished, shivering blob of tissue and brain in a jar inside the space ship, with tubes sticking out of him that keep him barely alive.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

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

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
×
×
  • Create New...