Jump to content

Bakker XLVI: Make Eärwa Great Again


Rhom

Recommended Posts

15 minutes ago, Triskan said:

I think he was just saying that Moe only subdued SS Serwe when he could have eliminated that SS which is a tantalizing possibility though I'm tried to stop getting emotionally invested in the Moe theories due to past trauma.  

I think it's simply possible that Moe deflected/subdued their attacks because that's about all he was capable of at the time.

I get that. But, how would that constitute Cnauir walking on conditioned ground? He just simply let the SS live, nothing more.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, Michael Seswatha Jordan said:

@H, he scowls because he sees Esme's betrayal, her murdering of Maithenet and her loss of faith and hatred she has of Kellhus. So, in the end...his heart is still crashed to ruin. So another point that Kelhus's emotions affect him. 

But he had to already know about Maithenet, right?  I feel it is really improbable that he discovered it in that moment.

I'm will to concede that it does seem that emotions are a part of why he returns to Momemn, even if I do still reserve doubt that he loves Esmenet in any way I can fashion a definition for it.  Again, if we are to take Kellhus' word on the subject of his emotions, he says, flat out that "love is for lesser souls."  Does he have feelings for Esmenet?  I think yes, but love, actually genuine love?  No, I am not buying that.

In fact, I'd venture to speculate that perhaps Kellhus arrive in Momemn precisely to see Esmenet die.  Recall, in the passage I quoted a few posts ago, Kellhus admits to himself that he sacrificed Serwe to further his own aims, even to his own horror.  I'd present the idea that the passage that @unJon quoted above is perhaps about the same.  He arrived expecting to find everyone dead, everything ruined, but somehow (little Kel, Esmenet somehow acting contrary to what Kellhus thought) things aren't as they were supposed to be.

Again, I have never really doubted that Kellhus has feelings.  In fact, I feel sure he does.  I just don't quite believe that in almost every case, what he does is for some emotional reason.  In fact, the aforementioned part of TGO seems remarkable in it's uniqueness, so much so that it makes me think there is more to it somehow.  Kellhus is rational to the last drop for me, so even in his emotional explanation about the fall of Momemn, I am confident there is a rational, pragmatic reason why he chooses to do what he does.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Of course he's rational - it's just that all rationality bubbles up from a passion. No one floats along on pure rational thought (at best, it just feels like that) - that's why your computer just sits there rather than trying to do anything. Because it's purely rational - it has no care, so it is inert.

The dunyain are rather like the Inchoroi, in that both have removed a number of passions and these passions were checks and balances for other passions. The Inchoroi removed various passions so as to become better 'lovers'...once they removed some, they didn't see the need for others (like compassion) and removed them and so on.

At the moment I wonder if the left passion knows what the right passion is actually doing. That blindness was clear enough to see in Cnaiur killing Moe.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@.H., your rationalizing again to conform your biases. He chose Esme because for the exact opposite reason. Because, he knew that she could hold Momemn together long enough for him to return. How did he know Maithenet was dead? All communication between sorcerers ceased before Maithenet was killed. That's why he asks Esme, "What have you done?" (Paraphrasing) He seen all of this on her face. And his heart crashed to ruin, anyhow. Not by death, but by betrayal.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Triskan said:

My bolding.  That would be interesting in that it would quite contradict what Maithanent says to Esmi in WLW.  He suggests that she was chosen precisely because the Empire no longer mattered to Kellhus.  Which I confess I found convincing at that point in the story.  I was and am still confused by Kellhus returning to the Empire and have no idea where it's going.

@Triskan, I could give you a quote where Kellhus tells Esme she is perfect for a number of reasons, which all make her pure. Because Maithenet says it, means very little. Maithenet couldn't even live out said book. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

20 hours ago, Michael Seswatha Jordan said:

I get that. But, how would that constitute Cnauir walking on conditioned ground? He just simply let the SS live, nothing more.

Moe refrained from killing a female face wearing skin spy.

 

Moe Ignored kellhus (who is arguably the bigger threat and has just stabbed him and who is using new meta gnosis for the very first time and taking a pretty long time doing so) and instead turned all of his attention to the corridor the female face wearing skin spy was approaching from.

Which other female caused a skin spy to wear a female face? Mimara which results in a bizarre opaque conversation about prophecy. And serwe and mimara are arguably the most crucial characters in understanding the metaphysics

...

 

also this

Quote

“Tell me, Father … what is the No-God?” Moënghus stood motionless before him. “The trial broke you.” His time, Kellhus knew, was running short. He could no longer afford his father’s distractions. “If it was destroyed, if it no longer exists, how could it send me dreams?” “You confuse the madness within you for the darkness without—the same as the worldborn.” “The skin-spies—what have they told you? What is the No-God?” Though walled in by the flesh of his face, Moënghus seemed to scrutinize him. “They do not know. But then, none in this world know what they worship.” “What are the possibilities you’ve considered?” But his father would not relent. “The darkness comes before you, Kellhus—it owns you. You are one of the Conditioned. Surely you—”

Moe is stunned that kellhus asks the "what is the no god" question because the no god never existed. He is a fiction, a Noah, a common cultural belief that explains an unexplainable horror from the past so traumatic it traveled the world and penetrated the cultures of every people, aided by the mandate priests, and inrithism  promulgating this new myth. Even the skin spies don't know what it is because it never existed. The questions the no god asks all point to the idea that the no god does not exist and has never existed.

Quote

[Seswatha and Aurang] have made games of truth. They tell lies about who said what to whom, about who makes love to whomever, and so on. They do this continually, and what is more, they are at pains to act out the lies told by others, especially when they are elegant, so they might make them true. And so it goes from tongue to lip to tongue, until no distinction remains between what is a lie and what is true. Their lies become living things, and we are their battle plain. Lies that have conquered and reproduced over the centuries. Delusional world views that have divided the world between them.

Moenghus is worried about void arising for a third time, not a mythical no god. As he points out, the dunyain are wrong the world is not shut, it is open to the outside, but the outside is only a broken reflection of the inward--platos cave in other words. The arising void has to be stopped because the goal of starving the gods of souls, as the void has twice attempted, cannot work given the nature of the outside as a broken reflection. Damnation won't be affected by focusing on the apparent boundaries of the original and the reflection of the original.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Ok, after your eloquent post, I still do not understand how letting SS Serwe live is a way to have Cnauir walking on conditioned ground. Hell, Moe never even knew of SS Serwe until the encounter under Kyudea. All I'm saying is its a huge reach @lokisnow. It's the tin foil of all tin foils. Unless, SS Serwe is a production of Moe, which I think the text disproves this through Cnauir meetings with the Synthese (Aurang). Those two SS'so are basically the Consults way of keeping tabs on Cnauir and finding who the great Mallahet is. (Since they - the Consult believe the Cash to be behind the unmasking of the SS's.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

57 minutes ago, Triskan said:

Not that I'm sure about what's true in this situation, but citing what Kellhus the great manipulator says as reliable is a strange argument.  

See, I agree. Kellhus is a manipulator. But, there are times were i think he speaks truth and from the heart. I believe he felt that Esme was the one to see Momentus through the catastrophe to come. Which, she did. Although, I wish more of it would have been given credit to her, because it was do. Kellhus is an enigma, that much is true. But, he is more than just a manipulating lying, liar, who lies. That is Moe. Lol.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 hours ago, Michael Seswatha Jordan said:

Ok, after your eloquent post, I still do not understand how letting SS Serwe live is a way to have Cnauir walking on conditioned ground. Hell, Moe never even knew of SS Serwe until the encounter under Kyudea. All I'm saying is its a huge reach @lokisnow. It's the tin foil of all tin foils. Unless, SS Serwe is a production of Moe, which I think the text disproves this through Cnauir meetings with the Synthese (Aurang). Those two SS'so are basically the Consults way of keeping tabs on Cnauir and finding who the great Mallahet is. (Since they - the Consult believe the Cash to be behind the unmasking of the SS's.

Oh I think the two things are disconnected. Regarding one, im just fucking around with moe and serwe. Don't take it seriously, I dont.

one sub a would be the tenuous thought that there is an enigmatic and obfuscated through line with the two female face wearing spies but there is nothing to go on there.

regarding two, the no god does not exist, and has never existed, I think that bang on fits the series ethos. It is just viramsata being all cos played up by aurang and seswatha.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 2/25/2017 at 10:28 PM, Callan S. said:

Of course he's rational - it's just that all rationality bubbles up from a passion. No one floats along on pure rational thought (at best, it just feels like that) - that's why your computer just sits there rather than trying to do anything. Because it's purely rational - it has no care, so it is inert.

The dunyain are rather like the Inchoroi, in that both have removed a number of passions and these passions were checks and balances for other passions. The Inchoroi removed various passions so as to become better 'lovers'...once they removed some, they didn't see the need for others (like compassion) and removed them and so on.

At the moment I wonder if the left passion knows what the right passion is actually doing. That blindness was clear enough to see in Cnaiur killing Moe.

Well, yeah, in the real world.  Kellhus isn't exactly a garden-variety person though.  It's not really my hypothesis that Kellhus operates solely upon reason though, but that his passions (the Legion) are well in check of his reason (the Logos).  It has come to my mind that there is a real-world parallel to how I see Kellhus (and the Dûnyain), and that is Stoicism (which also connects to the Logos).  Indeed, the more I look at things Seneca the Younger says, the more I see something like a Dûnyain :

Quote

Emotion does not consist in being moved by the impressions that are presented to the mind, but in surrendering to these and following up such a chance movement. For if anyone supposes that pallor, falling tears, sexual excitement or a deep sigh, a sudden brightening of the eyes, and the like, are evidence of an emotion and a manifestation of the mind, he is mistaken, and fails to understand that these are just disturbances of the body.

It's not the Dûnyain don't have, or don't feel emotion.  Kellhus clearly still has passions, vestigial passions, as he terms them, my contention is that in almost every case, emotions he feels are not what is really driving him, even if they might be, in a way, guiding him (even if I doubt this is this is true in the majority of cases).  He is still rational to a T.  Consider, he realizes that Esmenet and his kids will die, something that would "crash his heart" and yet where is he?  Not in Momemn.  Not protecting her or them.  In fact, he leaves Esmenet in the direct path of danger.  And lets not even get into how far Theli has been thrown under the bus, or Inrilatis.  That is the love that drives him?  No, that is no love I can understand.  I love my wife and kids, there is a zero percent chance that I leave them in harms way, no matter what.  So, maybe he does have some weird sort of feelings for them, but it's not love, not what I can really acknowledge as such.

No, I find it far more likely that the Kellhus is looking to use the feelings he has in the same way that sacrificing Serwë was a means to an end.  He was actively seeking a ruin to his heart, because, a la Koringhus, we know that loss is sacred, suffering is holy.  Esmenet was supposed to be the second Serwë, except it didn't happen.  Not because Kellhus, but because of little Kel (and/or Ajolki, which is a whole different can of worms).

I think there is more of a difference between the Inchoroi and the Dûnyain though.  Where I think the Inchoroi deleted certain feelings, or the capacity for such, like compassion, the Dûnyain are in the business of harnessing feelings, enslaving them to rationality.  It's a subtle difference, but one that I think makes a difference.

22 hours ago, Michael Seswatha Jordan said:

@.H., your rationalizing again to conform your biases. He chose Esme because for the exact opposite reason. Because, he knew that she could hold Momemn together long enough for him to return. How did he know Maithenet was dead? All communication between sorcerers ceased before Maithenet was killed. That's why he asks Esme, "What have you done?" (Paraphrasing) He seen all of this on her face. And his heart crashed to ruin, anyhow. Not by death, but by betrayal.

We can do this until we are blue in the face man, B)

The text is ambiguous and so we are only able to start with a premise and attempt to prove it with what we have.  Since we start at very different positions, we end up in different places given what we have to guide us.  I find it hard to believe that when Kellhus cuts off contact with Momemn, he doesn't realize what is going to happen.  Indeed, he might not have anticipated what happened exactly, but he even tells us that Esmenet and the kids are supposed to die.  And yet, he still doesn't speak to them, or move to save them.  It would take all of 15 minutes maybe, to wisk Esmenet away from Momemn, if he so chose to.  But he doesn't, because, despite that fact that he feels things, his plan is still one of eminent rationality.  Momemn has to fall.  Esmenet has to die.  Kellhus' heart has to crash to ruin (because he let it happen).

Except it doesn't.  Because of little Kel.  What that means for the future though is unknown.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

20 minutes ago, Michael Seswatha Jordan said:

Ok, then why does he come back to salvage what he may? If the were supposed to die.

Well, in both cases, he would return to make tools of what was left.

In the case where he returns out of love to save Esmenet, he salvages her life from the rest of the ruin.

In the case where he returns to see her die, because he wants (for some reason) his heart to crash, he salvages what ruin he can.  Or, since things didn't go as he supposed they would (remember, he says Esmenet and the kids will die), he returns to do what he can with what he figured would be gone, but now isn't.

Like I said, the text is purposely ambiguous.  However, I simply cannot buy Kellhus, master manipulator, as a bleeding heart.  No, it's all calculated, rational, even his reactions to what he feels.  He doesn't ride a wave of emotion, he walks a path of Conditioning.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Great posts @.H.  

I do think there is ambiguity in the text, which is very par for the course for Bakker. The tone of TGO and the Kel PoV scenes read to me as showing that despite how badass ubermensch he is, he is still human. 

Consider:

Quote

And yet for all of it darkness still encircled him, the obscurity of before, the blackness of after. 

For those who worshipped him as a god, he remained a mortal man, possessing but one intellect and two hands—great, perhaps, in proportion to his innumerable slaves, but scarcely a mote on the surface of something inconceivable. He was no more a prophet than an architect or any other who wrenches his conception into labourious reality. All the futures he had raised had been the issue of his toil …

 

Reminding us that there is as much danger in overestimating Kel as underestimating Kel. 

For me, this theme carries through most consistently by reading Kel as leaving the Shortest Path when he abandons the Ordeal for Momen. 

How much he knows of what transpired there between Esmi and Maithenet, I don't know. Could see speculation both ways. 

But I think his return shows a "human failing" of the same type that led him to spare Cnauir in TWP. 

ETA: stupid quote issues

Quote

 

 
Link to comment
Share on other sites

54 minutes ago, unJon said:

I do think there is ambiguity in the text, which is very par for the course for Bakker. The tone of TGO and the Kel PoV scenes read to me as showing that despite how badass ubermensch he is, he is still human.

Well, I do actually agree with this.  TGO does show us that the vesitigal passions Kellhus "suffers" are not snuffed out, so much as muted and ensalved.  At least, that is how it comes across to me.  While Kellhus experiences emotion, I have a great deal of doubt that he lets it cloud his judgement.  He sure didn't care to help Theli, not while she was being victimized by Inrilatas, nor having a building fall around her.  That's the kind of love he has for his kids?

1 hour ago, unJon said:

Reminding us that there is as much danger in overestimating Kel as underestimating Kel. 

For me, this theme carries through most consistently by reading Kel as leaving the Shortest Path when he abandons the Ordeal for Momen. 

How much he knows of what transpired there between Esmi and Maithenet, I don't know. Could see speculation both ways. 

But I think his return shows a "human failing" of the same type that led him to spare Cnauir in TWP.

I think that is a good point.  We are prone to either overestimate Kellhus or under, rarely do we have a good bead on his exact power-level, except in comparison and yet there is no real rival to him.

That being said, popping back in to Momemn, casually dispatching Meppa, removing Fanayal and Pstama, then repurposing Malowebi doesn't seem like an ad-hoc kind of thing.  I think returning was always in the plan, starting with him grooming Proyas for disillusionment.  The question in my mind is, was Esmenet supposed to survive or not?  I can see a way that losing Esmenet, like losing Serwë, actually was the shortest path.  I can easily be wrong though.

I still don't buy that sparing Cnaiür was a mistake or a failing though.  Like you said, it may be that I am just preforming some mental gymnastics to make it fit my hypothesis and I am ready to be proven wrong at some point.  But the ambiguity of the text points to either way being possible.  Which direction plausibly point though, I can't say without bias.  I feel that my theories are based off plausible readings of the text, but I freely admit that I am biased. 

There are plenty of people who are both smarter and better readers than I am, so I am always open to revising my view.  What you pointed out in TGO has revised my thinking, but I am still not on board with Kellhus as emotion-driven, but I can consider more Kellhus as emotion-considering now, although I have a lot of doubt about why he is allowing passion to move him at all.  I think it might be a connection to what we learn in the Koringhus chapters, about loss, suffering, and so on, being holy.  Which returns us to the "Serwë as cipher" crux and so back to what I talk about above, the possibility that Kellhus actually anticipated and, in a way, wanted Esmenet to be sacrificed.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@.H. I agree with a lot of what you say. Let me just clarify my read a bit because I don't think I think is as far from yours as you paint in your post. 

I don't think Kel's flight to Momen was a spur of the moment "crime of passion."  I think it was very prepared for and calculated. 

His long preparation of Proyas highlight how long he has prepared to leave the Ordeal. And I feel comfortable speculating that, since he was planning to return to Momen, he also kept close tabs on what was happening there, through little Kelmomas maybe and also through continuing to use the fire-magic, etc. Even though Kel banned contact with the Empire, he could easily have kept the contact up himself. And it makes sense that he would do so, so as to be prepared for what he would face there. 

Thats said, the question is what purpose does Kel going to Momen serve. Is it in furtherance of collecting tools that are useful in advancing Kel's goals for TGO? Or does it actually hinder those goals, but Kel must go anyway because of the ruin in his heart? (Or, as @Kalbear suggests, is it simply driven by WLW collapsing the probability function, but let's ignore this rabbit hole.)

The Kel POVs in TGO make me believe that Kel leaving is a negative for his overall goals for TGO. He has to put in place a patchwork of Proyas and Kayutus to lead on without him. And during a very critical time post a huge battle with devastating losses. His army is bereft of food, demoralized and just saw how outgunned in weaponry they might be by the Consult nuke. And they have to now break a further taboo to turn cannibal.

He has Saubon killed off possibly just to make sure that Saubon doesn't cause a schism in leadership of the Ordeal with Proyas. These things he wouldn't need to do if Kel remained there as leader. 

All these things seem to me to put TGO at risk vs what Kel could accomplish if he remained. Now I'm guessing Kel has looked through the Probability Trance and decided that his patchwork solution in abesentia would get by. But still, how much more could work if he was there?

Or maybe Kel had to leave TGO anyway so it would get through these hard times without Kel for some reason? But even so, why go to Momen? It's a disposable empire with no further use now that TGO launched. Safer to hang out somewhere else and practice sorcery or something. 

Either something valuable to the mission needs to be rescued from Momen to outweigh the risks to the Ordeal of leaving. Or Kel has to take this less than ideal path of going to Momen because his heart would ruin otherwise. 

The text of TGO has a explicit support for the latter read. I don't see the support for the former. But I could be proven wrong by TUC. 

ETA for clarity. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

31 minutes ago, unJon said:

The Kel POVs in TGO make me believe that Kel leaving is a negative for his overall goals for TGO. He has to put in place a patchwork of Proyas and Kayutus to lead on without him. And during a very critical time post a huge battle with devastating losses. His army is bereft of food, demoralized and just saw how outgunned in weaponry they might be by the Consult nuke. And they have to now break a further taboo to turn cannibal.

I've had a hunch that the Ordeal itself is made to fail, just like the Empire.  Even pre-TGO I wondered what the point of marching all the way there really is?  What are they going to do, knock on the door of the Ark?  No, I think the Ordeal too is made to be a sacrifice, a vessel solely to deliver Mimara (who I think is really the crux of it all) to Golgotterath.

38 minutes ago, unJon said:

All these things seem to me to put TGO at risk vs what Kel could accomplish if he remained. Now I'm guessing Kel has looked through the Probability Trance and decided that his patchwork solution in abesentia would get by. But still, how much more could work if he was there?

Or maybe Kel had to leave TGO anyway so it would get through these hard times without Kel for some reason? But even so, why go to Momen? It's a disposable empire with no further use now that TGO launched. Safer to hang out somewhere else and practice sorcery or something.

I think he has to leave the Ordeal in any case.  I think repurposing Malowebi is key and he had to go do it no matter what, in addition to killing Fanayal, and collecting Meppa.  I think it is similar to how letting Akka live post-TTT seems odd, or letting Fanayal live post-TTT, both seem bizarre, but they are both important, because Akka brings Kellhus Mimara and Fanayal brings Kellhus Meppa and Malowebi.  Pstama too brings the WLW, who I think was supposed to kill Esmenet, crash Kellhus' heart and spur something deep, like Serwë's death did.  Only it didn't happen like it was supposed to.

My crackpot theory has been that The Tousandfold Thought does not follow the Principle of Before and After.  So the reason Akka walked free wasn't in the past, it was in the future.  The reason why Kellhus returns to Momemn is in the future too, probably related to Meppa and needing Zëum to be ruined.  It is still my hunch that Esmenet's death was supposed to be the catalyst for something, although what I don't know, perhaps an anguished awakening, a la Meppa to the Pshûke?

2 hours ago, unJon said:

He was no more a prophet than an architect or any other who wrenches his conception into labourious reality.

Oh and  this quote has be returning to an idea I had that the Thousandfold Thought is a super-meme, one that sets minds to exacting it, as it replicates itself.  A self-building reality of sorts?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Quote

Either something valuable to the mission needs to be rescued from Momen to outweigh the risks to the Ordeal of leaving. Or Kel has to take this less than ideal path of going to Momen because his heart would ruin otherwise. 

Or leaving TGO is part of the shortest path and absolutely necessary for it to succeed.  Him leaving TGO may have nothing to do with Momen at all.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

One thing, the WLW wasn't going to kill Esme. It was going to kill Kellhus. So, Kellhus was always going back to Momemn. And, if not for Kelmommas, Kellhus would've been killed by the WLW. 

Another thing I see everyone forgetting is that Kellhus doesn't lie, he manipualte's with truth. This is gone over and over again in PoN. And, I'll remind everyone that pre-TGO everyone said there was no way Kellhus was returning to Momemn, it says so right in the text. I said he would, that he wouldn't leave Momemn to ruin. It's was always in his plan to go back, always. This is how the WLW knew where to be. In all the WLW visions, it's always about killing Kellhus, never Esme. Kellhus was going back for Esme the whole time.

ETA: Momemn and the Empire matter, because whatever Kellhus's goals are, life goes on, the GO is holy and I assume Kellhus is too.

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...