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The Unholy Consult Post-Release SPOILER THREAD


Werthead

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25 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Yes - this was also the conclusion that Koringhus reached (for instance, he felt his son's hand get tickled through his own palm), an observation that Esmi reached, etc. It seems clear that this is one of the ways that souls are linked.

What is decidedly unclear is whether or not souls and gods are the same thing, or the zero-god that Koringhus refers to is the same thing as the God that was split into the 100 gods.

We don't honestly know, but Bakker has said repeatedly that the God split the God into the gods.

This is the Inrithi interpretation of the One God.  So since I have no idea what this means exactly I defer to a Yatwer High Priestess who has no qualms about calling Yatwer herself a Demon.

27 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

First off, you can absolutely observe a black hole, and we do it quite often now in a variety of ways. Just FYI :)

The only god we have that has any evidence of it doing anything about the No-God and the Consult is Ajokli, and it is also the only god that appears to have worked with anyone like Kellhus. 

The trick with the gods is that they know everything that exists which was created by God. Everything that exists via the God they can perceive, and they can perceive it throughout the entire timeline at any point (and in fact this is how they do see it). However, the No-God exists beyond them, as it is either the limit of their life or (my theory) exists beyond their life.

The gods start from an assumption that there exists nothing outside of their viewpoint. Why would they think otherwise? When people pleaded with them to save them from the No-God the first time, the gods confusedly answered in bizarre talk that basically said 'what?' As far as they could tell the humans were delusional. Only Ajokli was said to see further; only Ajokli was said to be able to take the reasoning leap that just because it could not see something did not mean it wasn't in existence.

"Scientists can't directly observe black holes with telescopes that detect x-rays, light, or other forms of electromagnetic radiation. We can, however, infer the presence of black holes and study them by detecting their effect on other matter nearby." (http://archive.ncsa.illinois.edu/Cyberia/NumRel/BlackHoleHowSee.htmlThis is the same kind of logic that Ajokli would have used to deduce the existence of the No-God.  Note also that Kellhus implies that more than one agency in the outside has deduced as much.

I was arguing that an Outside Kellhus could have been a god all along and could have been conditioning his own ground this entire time.  The counterargument was that the gods weren't rational and were embodiments of desire and impulse.  I'm not exactly sure how your response is relevant to what we were discussing.  Having said that your theory is interesting but, to go even further afield, what of the Inchoroi?  They're quite damned and presumably the gods would have no trouble gobbling them up.

34 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Yet Cnaiur burns differently than anyone else Mimara has looked at. Even Kosoter - who has likely been far, far worse - didn't look like Cnaiur did. 

Cnaiur is destined to become a demon.  He's specifically called a Prince of Hell.  In TUC, he's stated to have killed more men than any Scylvendi that ever existed and the Judging Eye even says his hatred dwarfs that of Kosoter.  By contrast, Kosoter is probably going to be some one's lunch.

44 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Chorae do not send sorcerers where they belong; if that's what it did, Kosoter could not carry a chorae. There's a whole lot of talk about chorae and what they do and why, but 'send to hell' is not part of their direct function. 

In any case, there's no evidence that a god being touched by a chorae would salt or go to hell, and plenty of evidence against it. In particular here's the biggest deal: chorae simply do not work against things that fit within Earwa's maximally objective framework. They work on contradiction and meaning. Gods walking the earth is so common in Earwa that it's written about as not even that special. Cnaiur even wore a chorae while being ridden by Gilgaol in TTT. 

I'm not talking about Battle Celebrant style possession.  I'm talking about legitimate Ciphrang loosed on the world.  Iyokus calling on his demon for example.  There are stories of people going to the outside and then Ciphrang coming back under their guise.  That's another example. 

Chorae eliminate contradictions right?  Ok so by eliminating sorcerers from the world they contradict, they are taken to the world that they do not contradict.  I say that's where they belong because they don't contradict it as compared to Earwa which they do contradict.  We also have the flip side of the coin.  Chorae doesn't expose any contradictions when they touch a denizen of hell that is actually in hell.  No contradiction there because everything is in agreement.

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42 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

We are disagreeing about one important thing, however - why sorcerers get salted.

They don't get salted because sorcery belongs in hell and something which uses sorcery but exists in Earwa is a contradiction. We have ample counterexamples for this: Cishaurim (the Psukhe existing doesn't mark them, doesn't cause any issues and belongs on Earwa), god-magic, most arcane objects other than Emilidis' creations, the stopping of actual sorcerous behavior (it doesn't send a Meppa Cataract to hell). 

Chorae don't send things to hell. They assert that what is happening in the maximally objective world of Earwa is what should be expected, and assert the contradiction of the meaning of sorcery. Sorcery says 'I want to shoot this dragonhead here', and the chorae say 'hey now, reality says there aren't dragonheads here, what's up', and that feedback causes the sorcery to stop working. Sorcerers carry around a Mark of all the sorcery they've done, so the chorae unravels them quite quickly as they shouldn't have a record of what they did (as it is impossible), but they did it. Oops.

Because this works on meaning, this protects from Cishaurim as well; while they do something that recalls the precise word of God in creation, it isn't what God actually did. 

With Topoi and the wight, this doesn't work because the frame is 'correct'. The chorae checks the checksum of the place and time, notices that 'yep, hell is here, this is fine' and checks out. What Mimara does (I think) is allow the power of the Judging Eye to assert the actual Earwan frame regardless of Topoi and other. So yeah, you're right - because the Wight brings hell with it, it cannot be a contradiction. Now, use that implication for all the stuff we've ever seen of gods. 

Gods come to Earwa of their own volition. They do so naturally; they are not summoned. Things that have been touched by gods bear no mark or stain of sorcery. They can use chorae happily afterwards. And they do so far from topoi or anything else. This implies one of two things: that gods either always can bring hell with them into the world at any point, or (my theory) gods are a natural part of the world process and are doing nothing that a chorae would consider out of place.

The why of Chorae isn't relevant to what I'm arguing though.  I just care what it does.  If you dislike the phrase I use when I say it sends them where they belong then we can use some other phrase.  Chorae send Sorcerors to where they don't contradict anything.  Am I actually saying anything you disagree with?  I never claimed to be an expert on the metaphysics of the world.  On the contrary, I repeatedly point out that I have no clue.  I'm just observing what happens.

As for the gods... do we have examples?  The Tusk says they walked the Earth but what does that prove?  I know that it's stated that Ajokli actually wants to dominate the mundane world but can't for whatever reason.  That implies he can't just manifest here with no restriction. 

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Just now, MisterGuyMan said:

This is the Inrithi interpretation of the One God.  So since I have no idea what this means exactly I defer to a Yatwer High Priestess who has no qualms about calling Yatwer herself a Demon.

She doesn't care what you call Yatwer, only that Yatwer has power. And no, it's not the Inrithi interpretation; it's what Bakker stated. 

Just now, MisterGuyMan said:

"Scientists can't directly observe black holes with telescopes that detect x-rays, light, or other forms of electromagnetic radiation. We can, however, infer the presence of black holes and study them by detecting their effect on other matter nearby." (http://archive.ncsa.illinois.edu/Cyberia/NumRel/BlackHoleHowSee.html

Old news. Here's us looking at a black hole. In addition, we have now observed gravitational waves. So you're right - we can't use electromagnetic bouncing off of it, but the accretion disks, event horizon radiation and gravity waves give us lots of observation that is direct. This isn't the case, exactly, for Ajokli. 

Just now, MisterGuyMan said:

This is the same kind of logic that Ajokli would have used to deduce the existence of the No-God.  Note also that Kellhus implies that more than one agency in the outside has deduced as much.

That's true, though I'm not sure what it means yet, especially with the Narindar conversation in WLW saying otherwise.

Just now, MisterGuyMan said:

I was arguing that an Outside Kellhus could have been a god all along and could have been conditioning his own ground this entire time.  The counterargument was that the gods weren't rational and were embodiments of desire and impulse.  I'm not exactly sure how your response is relevant to what we were discussing.  Having said that your theory is interesting but, to go even further afield, what of the Inchoroi?  They're quite damned and presumably the gods would have no trouble gobbling them up. 
 

But conditioning his own ground requires a whole lot of reasoning and whatnot that we haven't really seen. Heck, even with the most powerful thing we've seen - WLW - that gods use outside of topoi, there is no reasoning and even no actual conscious thought; there isn't even anything alive there. 

This also doesn't really answer why Ajokli would behave as it does - the whole notion of it denying victory at the moment of triumph for shits and giggles doesn't sound very Kellhusian, does it?

As to the Inchoroi, remember that (from TUC) apparently all of Golgotterath is invisible to the gods. That wasn't how I had originally thought about it before, but it appears to be the case. The other neat thing about the Inchoroi is that in theory they are damned, but they also may not exist for gods at all. They likely exist outside the causal frame of the world (unlike other creations, like sranc and bashrag, which were born here) and it's possible that they can't be seen by Earwan gods. Heck, it's possible that each world has its own pantheon of gods, and the 144k is the thing that shuts down the pantheon but not the damnation. 

Just now, MisterGuyMan said:

Cnaiur is destined to become a demon. 

Citation needed. That's what you want to be true, but there's still no specific clear statement that souls can become demons.

Just now, MisterGuyMan said:

He's specifically called a Prince of Hell.  In TUC, he's stated to have killed more men than any Scylvendi that ever existed and the Judging Eye even says his hatred dwarfs that of Kosoter.  By contrast, Kosoter is probably going to be some one's lunch.

Kosoter apparently slaughtered thousands, but okay. My point is simply that his swazonds look different under TJE, in a way that no one else has ever looked, and they specifically looked horrible. She didn't just see the sin, she saw the souls contained in Cnaiur. 

Just now, MisterGuyMan said:

I'm not talking about Battle Celebrant style possession.  I'm talking about legitimate Ciphrang loosed on the world.  Iyokus calling on his demon for example.  There are stories of people going to the outside and then Ciphrang coming back under their guise.  That's another example. 

I don't understand why battle celebrant manifestation is different. It is literally the god walking among the people. 

Just now, MisterGuyMan said:

Chorae eliminate contradictions right?  Ok so by eliminating sorcerers from the world they contradict, they are taken to the world that they do not contradict.  I say that's where they belong because they don't contradict it as compared to Earwa which they do contradict.  We also have the flip side of the coin.  Chorae doesn't expose any contradictions when they touch a denizen of hell that is actually in hell.  No contradiction there because everything is in agreement.

Chorae don't eliminate contradictions; they create them. Per Bakker, what they do is they obliterate meaning by introducing the contradiction. Furthermore, there is no reason to think that sorcerers 'belong' in hell because sorcerous power belongs there; again, why does Emilidis' artifacts work while being hit by chorae, then? He was marked like no one else, but his creations were not

And again, follow your own logic: chorae don't expose any contradictions when they touch something that is god-entangled which is on Earwa because everything is in agreement; gods entangled on Earwa is perfectly natural.

6 minutes ago, MisterGuyMan said:

The why of Chorae isn't relevant to what I'm arguing though.  I just care what it does.  If you dislike the phrase I use when I say it sends them where they belong then we can use some other phrase.  Chorae send Sorcerors to where they don't contradict anything.  Am I actually saying anything you disagree with? 

Yes, you're saying chorae send things somewhere. I disagree with that.

6 minutes ago, MisterGuyMan said:

I never claimed to be an expert on the metaphysics of the world.  On the contrary, I repeatedly point out that I have no clue.  I'm just observing what happens.

You're saying that sorcerers get 'sent to hell', but that's an interpretation, not an observation. An observation is that sorcerers get turned into statues of salt, and cishaurim get turned into a flash of light. What happens to their souls afterwards is entirely unobserved.

6 minutes ago, MisterGuyMan said:

As for the gods... do we have examples?  The Tusk says they walked the Earth but what does that prove?  I know that it's stated that Ajokli actually wants to dominate the mundane world but can't for whatever reason.  That implies he can't just manifest here with no restriction. 

Well, we have the Angeshrael creation myth, who met Husyelt who told him to go to Earwa from Eanna. There's the story in Grimdark about the random dude who gets ridden by Gilgaol, though I've not read it personally.

As to Ajokli not manifesting, that's true; there's a passage somewhere about how if a god does manifest in a time and place they spread themselves thin throughout the rest of time and space, but that also implies that this has happened at some point

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1 hour ago, Damned with the Wind said:

Well, I think the Bakker-stated goal is to examine a world where an Old Testament-style sin and damnation are literal truth.  Earwa is only non-deterministic when it's fatalistic.  But fatalism is just backwards determinism.   Were Earwa not determinisitc/fatalistic, then becoming The Absolute, a Self-Moving Soul, would cease to be a goal for the Dunyain.  But it remains the goal for both Kellhus and the DunSult.

Can you expand on the sentence i've bolded, I have no idea what you mean by that.

As for the final sentence I don't think that's true anymore. The Dunsults primary motivation is to escape damnation by closing the outside and Kellhus' stated motivation seems to be to amass as much power as he can, neither mention the Absolute.

Only Koringhus tried to reach the Absolute and he did that through a Blind Leap of Faith which i thought was incompatible with determinism, but then i've never studied philosophy.

 

52 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

What baffled Kellhus and Koringhus isn't that it's a non-deterministic universe; it's that it's a universe which already has happened and a universe that has actual meaning and intent....

 

I agree with everything you said. However I'm assuming that because the gods and the Outside can interfere with  events  whenever they want, and even the fact that humans on Earwa have souls that do something, it means that Earwa is not a deterministic world.

In one of his AMA's i asked Bakker how it was that Sourcery was a non-deterministic system - because I assumed if it was the Dunyain forbears wouldn't have suppressed knowledge of it - and he didn't give me any kind of answer. I assumed it was an important plot point.

 

40 minutes ago, Hello World said:

Right, something that I didn't get. When Kellhus asks the Dunyain why they would create a no-god instead of killing everyone with other means, their answer was that they can't reduce the population to 144k without the No-God, or that the No-God was necessary even if they could reduce the population to 144k?

 

I understood it to mean the latter.

 

30 minutes ago, WalterX said:

'Souls' are just shards of the one oversoul, right?  They are POV for the God.  2 of them from one place might somehow clarify its gaze?  Like 2 eyes focus vision, or like 2 sentences at once make sorcery happen?

 

Wow this is a really nice theory. Which sucks because these books have killed so many nice theories.

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Just now, Sheep the Evicted said:

Can you expand on the sentence i've bolded, I have no idea what you mean by that.

My interpretation: the universe of Earwa is a book, already written. You can jump from page to page and read it, you can read it sequentially, you can read it backwards. Fatalism simply means that humans have free will but everything is pre-ordained anyway, so the same things will happen no matter what you do. 

Just now, Sheep the Evicted said:

I agree with everything you said. However I'm assuming that because the gods and the Outside can interfere with  events  whenever they want, and even the fact that humans on Earwa have souls that do something, it means that Earwa is not a deterministic world.

Counterpoint: soul movement to and from the Outside is a natural process, as natural as entropy and gravity. A soul becoming damned by doing bad things and then going to get feasted on is as natural as hot air rising. It doesn't imply that things aren't deterministic; if anything, the Judging Eye implies that things are hugely deterministic, and you can't be saved at all.

Why does it imply this? Because Mimara is always holy. Even before she's pregnant, she's always holy. If things weren't deterministic, how could she be holy? She shouldn't be holy until she is pregnant with the Zero-God baby or whatever it ends up being, yet she is. She shouldn't be holy because she's a whore, yet she is. 

The gods do things because that's how it always happened and always will happen, and the reason it happened that way is because if it happened another way things wouldn't have happened. The No-God has to awaken because otherwise the gods would be able to see the No-God. There has to be an end to the world, because otherwise the No-God would be visible. From the perspective of humans the gods can and do interfere, but these things happen on page 110 and if you go back and re-read page 110 it won't have changed. It's only from the sequential reader viewpoint of humanity that it looks like there is any kind of free will. 

Just now, Sheep the Evicted said:

In one of his AMA's i asked Bakker how it was that Sourcery was a non-deterministic system - because I assumed if it was the Dunyain forbears wouldn't have suppressed knowledge of it - and he didn't give me any kind of answer. I assumed it was an important plot point.

The Dunyain actively ignoring sorcery, gods, the outside, all of that constantly bugs me, but the only thing I can think of is that they came into more power when the No-God was actually walking around and that changed their views of what the world would be like. 

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42 minutes ago, Sheep the Evicted said:

Can you expand on the sentence i've bolded, I have no idea what you mean by that.

As for the final sentence I don't think that's true anymore. The Dunsults primary motivation is to escape damnation by closing the outside and Kellhus' stated motivation seems to be to amass as much power as he can, neither mention the Absolute.

 

Basically, determinism is what happens before determines what happens after, whereas fatalism (the fate is decreed and everything occurs to reach that fate) is what happens after determines what comes before (this is straight up stated in the WLW's PoV).  From a Dunyainic point of view, fatalism (if you know the fate) leads to as predictable a sequence of events as determinism.  E.g. if Kellhus knew Kelmomas was invisible to the Gods, he could surmise Kelmomas is the No-God and then he could work out the series of events backwards.

And as to Kellhus and the DunSult still having the goal of the reaching the Absolute, reread their conversation.  Kellhus states by fusing with Ajokli he is the Absolute (clearly not)  Both parties, Kellhus and the Dunsult make it clear it's still their goal.  And Malowebi astutely observes that the Dunyain and the Inchoroi are the same. Just as the Inchoroi are bred to be a race that heaps damnation on itself, the Dunyain are bred to seek the Absolute.

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9 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

She doesn't care what you call Yatwer, only that Yatwer has power. And no, it's not the Inrithi interpretation; it's what Bakker stated.

Meppa says Yatwer is a demon.  Psatma says she worships a demon if you want to call her that.  Then Meppa states that the gods are just greater demons that also hunger.  Psatma doesn't deny that Yatwer is a demon and agrees that she indeed is a hunger.  So we have one side saying the gods are just bigger demons.  The opposing side at least doesn't correct him and heavily implies that he's right.  At the very least she seems to believe the difference isn't important.  All she's concerned about is that Yatwer is the strongest of all and the biggest of the hungers.

9 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Old news. Here's us looking at a black hole. In addition, we have now observed gravitational waves. So you're right - we can't use electromagnetic bouncing off of it, but the accretion disks, event horizon radiation and gravity waves give us lots of observation that is direct. This isn't the case, exactly, for Ajokli.

That's true, though I'm not sure what it means yet, especially with the Narindar conversation in WLW saying otherwise.

The black hole itself is a absence.  It affects lots of stuff around it but we can't actually see the black hole itself.  This is exactly the same thing the Gods would see with the No-God.  There's lots of commotion but they can't see the cause.  So if one can deduce that something exists based on its effects then that's reasoning.  The original point was to argue that something like this is a form of reasoning.  If we start with the assumption that some gods deduce the existence of the No-God, and that's what Kellhus states, then what exactly do you think they're making deductions from?  We don't even have to know but there's some clue they're using.

20 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

But conditioning his own ground requires a whole lot of reasoning and whatnot that we haven't really seen. Heck, even with the most powerful thing we've seen - WLW - that gods use outside of topoi, there is no reasoning and even no actual conscious thought; there isn't even anything alive there. 

This also doesn't really answer why Ajokli would behave as it does - the whole notion of it denying victory at the moment of triumph for shits and giggles doesn't sound very Kellhusian, does it?

I start with the premise that a salted Kellhus would make his way into the outside as a hunger.  What does that look like?  It would logically follow that Outside Kellhus would seek to dominate circumstance and he's always had the entirety of history to do so.  If we also assume that Kellhus is salted then Outside Kellhus would naturally know about it.  In the Outside, everything has already happened.  From this perspective, Kellhus has to be salted because he's always been salted and he needs to be salted to be the Ciphrang (I believe a god) he always was.  Recall Proyas and how he was used as a tool utterly.  Why would Outside Kellhus not use own mortal self as a tool?  He has to start with the premise that he gets salted at some point and becomes Ciphrang so if he needs to trick himself to make that happen he would.  We can interchange cause and effect.

As for not seeing it I believe there's possible hints littered around:

I war not with Men, it says, but with the God.

Yet no one but Men die," the Aspect-Emperor replies.

The fields must burn to drive Him forth from the Ground.

"But I tend the fields."

The dark figure stands beneath the tree, beings walking toward him.  I seems the clinging stars should hook and carry him in the void, but he is like the truth of iron-impervious and immovable.

It stands before him, regards him-as it has so many times-with his face and his eyes.  No halo gilds his leonine mane.

Then who better to burn them?

That doesn't sound like the Ajokli "Hell on Earth" plan.  This strategy to fight the God seems to actually necessitate a second Apocalypse.  There's also Kellhus' statements about how he doesn't know where this voice he's speaking to comes from.  He'd know who Ajokli is so there's some other voice in play.  Then there's Kelmomas.  In the obvious narrative, where the gods can't see him because he's the No-God, Ajokli wouldn't be able to actually see him either.  I believe Sammi is some outside voice manipulating him so I therefore must look for some other outside voice if I go with the common narrative.  One could argue that he's White-Lucked out but his interactions in the critical encounters look nothing like the WLW/Sorweel interactions.  On top of that Kellhus has purported to have been in talk with the No-God as well.

1 hour ago, Kalbear said:

As to the Inchoroi, remember that (from TUC) apparently all of Golgotterath is invisible to the gods. That wasn't how I had originally thought about it before, but it appears to be the case. The other neat thing about the Inchoroi is that in theory they are damned, but they also may not exist for gods at all. They likely exist outside the causal frame of the world (unlike other creations, like sranc and bashrag, which were born here) and it's possible that they can't be seen by Earwan gods. Heck, it's possible that each world has its own pantheon of gods, and the 144k is the thing that shuts down the pantheon but not the damnation. 

Ok so you believe the Inchoroi are damned but it's a different damnation since they're from another planet.  I don't really have anything to add or comment since I have no clue.  I just wanted to acknowledge the point since it's an interesting take.

1 hour ago, Kalbear said:

I don't understand why battle celebrant manifestation is different. It is literally the god walking among the people.

First of all can we even confirm it's literal god walking among the people?  It's only in subsequent readings that the possibility opens up and I'm still not sure either way.  Second if Gilaol possesses Cnaiur that's different than Iyokis summong an actual demon or a wight existing in a hell bubble.

1 hour ago, Kalbear said:

Citation needed. That's what you want to be true, but there's still no specific clear statement that souls can become demons.

Kosoter apparently slaughtered thousands, but okay. My point is simply that his swazonds look different under TJE, in a way that no one else has ever looked, and they specifically looked horrible. She didn't just see the sin, she saw the souls contained in Cnaiur.

This is what I was referring to:

The Scylvendi demon grins.  It is like staring into a furnace, watching him.  Heat pinches her cheeks.  She squints against the blowing of the unseen sparks.  The sins of the Wizard-grievous though they may be-are but trifles compared to the atrocities wrought by this one man.

And she sees it, a flicker bound to the back of flickers, a myriad of criminal glimpses.  Babes caught on sword-point.  Mothers raped and strangled....

....And hatred, unlike any she had ever witnessed, dwarfing even that of Lord Kosotor, who never heard the anguish of those he killed...

....The great figure regards him, horned and smoking, living and yet already a Prince of Hell."

My point is that she saw his damnation even before the swazond lines.  I don't see why the swazond killing is the big deal over the raping which TJE also condemned.  The Swazonds aren't the only thing TJE sees.  There's a lot in there.  It's all one big heap of damnation.  The reasons really don't matter to me.  I just use this excerpt to show that humans can become demons.

1 hour ago, Kalbear said:

You're saying that sorcerers get 'sent to hell', but that's an interpretation, not an observation. An observation is that sorcerers get turned into statues of salt, and cishaurim get turned into a flash of light. What happens to their souls afterwards is entirely unobserved.

Iyokus' demon tells us that he'll feast on Iyokus' soul in the after life.  The conversation between Meppa and Psatma also tell us that sorcerers are a delicacy for the Gods.  Then there's the various statements that tell us that sorcerers are damned.  Salting means death.  Death for Sorcerers mean damnation.  A few conversations tell us that damnation for sorcerers is an eternity of being munched on. 

1 hour ago, Kalbear said:

Well, we have the Angeshrael creation myth, who met Husyelt who told him to go to Earwa from Eanna. There's the story in Grimdark about the random dude who gets ridden by Gilgaol, though I've not read it personally.

As to Ajokli not manifesting, that's true; there's a passage somewhere about how if a god does manifest in a time and place they spread themselves thin throughout the rest of time and space, but that also implies that this has happened at some point

I've never put a lot of stock in the myths since they're oral traditions IIRC.  I'm already on record as to saying I don't view the Tusk as all that great a source.  I'm honestly not even trying to argue anything here.  I simply don't believe we know anything.  I believe the original argument was simply that a chorae to a manifested god wouldn't lead to salting.  I don't know that for sure but I also don't remember all the entries either.  Chorae on a sorcerer on Earwa leads to salting.  Chorae on a wight in hell, doesn't.  Chorae on a God on Earwa as far as I'm concerned is unknown.

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I think Bakker made a mistake by harping on the idea that TUC was supposed to be the end of the story when he first conceived it, because that gave a lot of readers some false expectations. I've seen comments here saying that in case the last two books aren't published TUC should be enough of a resolution to the whole series... how exactly would that be done? I mean, I haven't seen anyone saying that in case the 7th book in ASOIAF doesn't get published TWOW should be enough of an ending to satisfy fans.

 

George's mid-series plan was that ASoIaF would consist of two trilogies separated by a five-year gap, with ASoS concluding the first sub-series. That's the comparison I would draw with TUC: there is still More To Come, but if the story ended there you could make an sort-of argument for it. The story isn't over, but it is "plateaued".

The next book could pick up immediately after TUC, with Team Akka on the run; 20 years later, with Mimara's kid grown up, the No-God having obliterated the Three Seas and about to invade Zeum; or even later, with the human race already reduced to 144,000 and we find out what that means.

The third series is still supposed to be a duology (with the possibility of it becoming a trilogy, so Bakker seems to be thinking he can wrap up the entire story more quickly than he could either PoN or TAE.

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2 hours ago, MisterGuyMan said:

Iyokus' demon tells us that he'll feast on Iyokus' soul in the after life.  The conversation between Meppa and Psatma also tell us that sorcerers are a delicacy for the Gods.  Then there's the various statements that tell us that sorcerers are damned.  Salting means death.  Death for Sorcerers mean damnation.  A few conversations tell us that damnation for sorcerers is an eternity of being munched on. 

Well, the thing is that a Chorae isn't a vehicle though.  When you are dead, you go wherever your soul is marked to go.  We know Sorcerers are Marked for Damnation, so it's clear where they go.  It is a heck of a lot less clear where Cishaurim go, because they are not Marked.  In fact, we don't even know if the Psûhke would damn you, or not.  Yet, the Chorae aren't really any less effective versus them.

Bakker has said the key to Chorae is that they enforce negative semantics:

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The Aporos possesses a contradictory, or negative, semantics, and as such is able only to undo the positive semantics of things like the Gnosis, Psukhe, Anagogis - even the Daimos.

Aporetic Cants have no other effect. Salting is actually a kind of side effect. I would rather wait until TTT comes out before discussing the metaphysics - it has to do with the Mark.

So, the negative semantics, that is, the negation of meaning, is what is really killing you, but for a Marked individuals, it also reconciles that Mark and that's what turns you to salt.  Indeed, I think that is supposed to be a reference to evoke God's judgement for disobeying His command to Lot's wife to not look back to Sodom.

For Cishaurim, it is different, but no less effective:

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They're almost as fatal to the Cishaurim as well, though the mechanics differ. The Inrithi would be in a whole heap of trouble otherwise.

I've actually structured the different sorceries of Earwa along the lines of different philosophical theories of language. For the Cishaurim, it's the THOUGHT, and not the utterance that is key, as it is in traditional sorcery. The Chorae are each inscribed with
metaphysical contradictions, impossible propositions, that undo thoughts as readily as they undo utterances

So, it still functions the same versus Cishaurim, it kills via the negation of meaning, but since the Psûhke doesn't Mark you, you simply cease to be rather than be salted.

A guess for how Emilidis' creations can be resistant to Chorae is that somehow he created meaning that has no opposite.  That is, something positive that has no negative inverse, or something to undeniably true it cannot be otherwise.

Or, like the Barricades, something that is existent, yet not existent.  So, in place and yet, no place at all.

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1 hour ago, Werthead said:

The third series is still supposed to be a duology (with the possibility of it becoming a trilogy, so Bakker seems to be thinking he can wrap up the entire story more quickly than he could either PoN or TAE.

Bakker has also stated that PoN and TAE would be one book each, or one book in total (IIRC). Who knows how many books the 3rd series will ultimately consist of? I'm not sure even Bakker himself knows.

What I can observe is that PoN seems a fairly tight three books, while TAE grew, in the telling, beyond the three books structure.

 

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Finished book. Read a couple pages of this thread but haven't finished yet. I want to get down some thoughts before I forget. 

1) I may need to reread the last Cnauir scene because I didn't think he died. I thought he completed his transformation into a Ciphrang/Gilgoal/Ajokli 2.0.

2) To a point @Kalbear made (which is where I stopped reading), I don't think Ciphrang salt from chorea. My recollection from TTT is that the Magic binding them to Earwa salts (which may include the corporeal body there) and the Ciphrang ends up back in the Outside not really worse for wear. 

3) I have mixed feelings about the book. Similar to what has been said in this thread. I was disappointed that 5 Dunyain took over the Consult and that the Consult turned out to be weak sauce. Disappointed in how little Akka/Mim/Esmi contributed to the climax. Loved Serwa, Sorweel, Kelmomas as No God, Kellhus as Ajokli. Proyas ending crushed me. So ruthless. 

4) I think Kellhus is currently descending through Hell with a hunger. He will probably take over a large chunk of the Outside through the next series. This was actually a thematic prediction some made after TTT and before TAE started. I think it works.

5) Hate the ambiguity of whether Kellhus was saving the world or just himself. I go back and forth. Was he going to honor a deal with Ajokli or pull a trick to save world even from Ajokli?

6) Don't love any of the explanations for the hologram Kellhus so far. Feels like ex post fan wanking for Bakker trying to upend fan expectations back and forth at the end. 

7) Need to do more thinking to see how the following pieces fit together: Head on a Pole, Kellhus visions about burning he fields, Akka dream changes, inverted chorae trick (that was a Checkov gun that never fired). 

8) Why is Esmi saved? Grandmother of savior feels like a weak answer. I think the first time Mimara sees her Esmi's status is unclear. There is both damnation from carnal acts and some righteousness swirling around. (Aside: what about the ruthless murdering she has ordered done in last 20 years?) Later it's all just the righteousness. So it feels like something was changing with Esmi.

9) So the No God is just like a piece of hardware from the Ark? And the instruction manual is "insert proper soul battery here", but the Consult spent thousands of years looking for the right soul battery? Otherwise the No God was all ready to go?? Seems strange. And why wasn't the Consult constantly kidnapping people after the First apocalypse to try to find another soul that would work? 

10) The conversation at end of TTT with and Kel was a nice full circle to the TUC info dump with the 5 Dunyain. That the Dunyain would embrace the Consult was a called shot from that first conversation. 

Ok going to go back to reading thread now. 

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To speak on the point of Earwa's deterministic nature:


I think it is...until it isn't, if that makes any sense.

Like, for the most part, it definitely is.  The whole thing where people can have each other's experiences, the line from Koringhus about how we are one 'in every sense', the bits where Kellhus speaks other people's words along with them... It all kind of gibes.

The White-Luck itself is also an example of this.  The Unerring Grace is only possible because destiny works that way.  The WLW is a spear flung into the future, unerringly striking down those the Gods disdain.

Most particularly, Kellhus's speech to Proyas, where he explains that the Gods assassins inhabited a universe where they were ALWAYS GOING TO SUCCEED is calling it out.  Similarly his explanation that the Inchoroi's victory is foredained (can tell because No-God is eschaton, ergo they are going to win someday), is pretty exactly telling the reader this.

BUT, the WLW's FAIL.  And when they do the world skips a track and settles into a new foredained path.  The world is rewritten, and the Gods as well, and they are blind to the rewriting.  Fate can be changed, and when it is it is changed without mark or sign, leaving you in a world where the it was ALWAYS going to be the way that you'd expect.

This explains why Kellhus strives against the Inchoroi, even though he knows that their project must, according to destiny, succeed.  He is hoping something will rewrite destiny (He never realizes that the thing doing this, protecting him from the WLW is his own son, the No-God), to move the world from a state where they were always going to win to one where they were always going to lose.

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13 hours ago, Damned with the Wind said:

RE: Hologram or Timeline, rereading found another line for Hologram

He flickered >_>.

Oh, some more:

He went all Obi-wan-from-R2 for a bit.

Not sure if anyone else has pointed it out, but the hologram hides the Sarcophagus:

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“What is it?” Anasûrimbor Kellhus says, though he is nowhere to be seen. “What ails thee, Mimara?”

A sarcophagus, iridescent black, hovering where her stepfather stands robed in shining white ...

His leonine image smiling ...

The Judging Eye, I guess, somehow breaks the illusion, or it has run it's course and it is in the midst of being dropped (the former seems more likely).

As for the timeline, well, it's explained by Malowebi himself:

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The Aspect-Emperor was dead.

Never had Malowebi been so immobile, so windless within. To be bodiless and still is to cease to exist.

Memory retrieved him, hoisted him on the back of images across indeterminate cavities.

It is him recalling what just happened, after the fact.  So, we learn about it after the fact.  It is Malowebi recalling it to himself and so to the reader, that whole part seems to be in the past tense.

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The Judging Eye, I guess, somehow breaks the illusion, or it has run it's course and it is in the midst of being dropped (the former seems more likely).

In theory Mimara/the Eye could have just seen...nothing, no damnation or salvation, and that would be disconcerting enough to explain her reaction.

The thing is: the timeline is maddeningly unclear. It's unclear if she sees the Sarcophagus before the illusion is dropped, or before Akka, or if Akka is even responding to the illusion being dropped and not the No-God asking his standard question.

Or maybe I just prefer to believe that the Judging Eye can't see the No-God and am ignoring the obvious explanation, I dunno.

 

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1 hour ago, Castel said:

In theory Mimara/the Eye could have just seen...nothing, no damnation or salvation, and that would be disconcerting enough to explain her reaction.

The thing is: the timeline is maddeningly unclear. It's unclear if she sees the Sarcophagus before the illusion is dropped, or before Akka, or if Akka is even responding to the illusion being dropped and not the No-God asking his standard question.

Or maybe I just prefer to believe that the Judging Eye can't see the No-God and am ignoring the obvious explanation, I dunno.

 That's a fair point, I mean, she does seem to be stunned silent before Akka speaks, so perhaps the illusion is already dissipating/at it's limit.

She might well have seen it was the Carapace from the get go, but was just too stunned to say so.

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30 minutes ago, .H. said:

 That's a fair point, I mean, she does seem to be stunned silent before Akka speaks, so perhaps the illusion is already dissipating/at it's limit.

She might well have seen it was the Carapace from the get go, but was just too stunned to say so.

That seems likely.

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On 7/8/2017 at 1:07 AM, Werthead said:

I'm thinking Imimorul ties into this somehow: he may have been the 100th god who chose to abandon godhood and fled to the World and birthed the Nonmen.

The No-God is a firewall between the World and the Outside: it goes up and nothing can then get in or out. Which itself is intriguing as it suggests that souls enter the world from the Outside: reincarnation of a kind, perhaps? Then the firewall's antivirus software kicks in and starts scouring the virus of life from the World, which is obscuring the source code for reality. Once the number of life forms fall below 144,000, the source code is fully accessible and the No-God can reboot the computer of reality from scratch, this time omitting the pesky damnation dump file which really shouldn't have been there in the first place.

Or, more simply, The Second Apocalypse is a delayed response to a really shitty time Scott had in upgrading his computer to Windows 95 back in the day.

I think the twin Apocalypses being described as "System Initiation" and "System Resumption" are extremely significant.

Or rather, a response to his annoying 8 year old nephew messing everything up.

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So I've just spent basically the whole day re-reading parts of the series, feel like I have alot to talk about. But first..

So honestly my whole un-derterministic line was pretty thoughtless, i'd just assumed thats the way things were without reflection but now we've discussed it I think its actually right, mainly because of this....

 

2 hours ago, WalterX said:

BUT, the WLW's FAIL.  And when they do the world skips a track and settles into a new foredained path.  The world is rewritten, and the Gods as well, and they are blind to the rewriting.  Fate can be changed, and when it is it is changed without mark or sign, leaving you in a world where the it was ALWAYS going to be the way that you'd expect.

This explains why Kellhus strives against the Inchoroi, even though he knows that their project must, according to destiny, succeed.  He is hoping something will rewrite destiny (He never realizes that the thing doing this, protecting him from the WLW is his own son, the No-God), to move the world from a state where they were always going to win to one where they were always going to lose.

 

we have evidence of people breaking cause and effect. Because that's all indeterminism is, the ability to be unpredictable no matter your computing power.

And its not just with the gods, i was rereading Proyas' rev/iolation scene again and i noticed that even when Kellhus focused all his unnatural intellect on Proyas, with a further 20 years of experience with the man - as close as you can get to a Laplacian Demon - he was still surprised when Proyas asked him if the God loved. Also remember those righteous few in The Great Ordeal that refused to be cannibals when even Kayutas failed. I think this is a sign that the world is indeterminate even in the small scale, that the souls somehow weigh in, that men in Earwa actually have some measure of free will.

Two arguments i can see against this is

1) Cants of compulsion seem to be highly effective, even sorcerers in Earwa think men don't have free will, also the efficacy of neuro-puncture. I have no real counter to this.

Actually as a side-note what ever happened to the Cants of Compulsion ? I have been waiting to see their effect, leading to mind-blowing twists for like 7 books now. My pet theory was that Sami was just Kellhus putting a metagonistic cant of compulsion on Kel.

2) That this unpredictability isn't a flaw with the system but just a lack of knowledge. If the Gods had been able to perceive the arc they could predict everything perfectly. But I counter that they can't and they NEVER will. Same way that Koringhus couldn't predict Mim because he can never get Knowledge of the God. Same as in our world, where if some type of knowledge is permanently closed to you then you have to accept that the system is indeterminate. Kakoli calls the soul that which is orthogonal to reality. It's workings are outside the scope of cause and effect.

But having said all that im not sure how we got into this debate or why it matters.

8 hours ago, Damned with the Wind said:

And as to Kellhus and the DunSult still having the goal of the reaching the Absolute, reread their conversation.  Kellhus states by fusing with Ajokli he is the Absolute (clearly not)  Both parties, Kellhus and the Dunsult make it clear it's still their goal.  And Malowebi astutely observes that the Dunyain and the Inchoroi are the same. Just as the Inchoroi are bred to be a race that heaps damnation on itself, the Dunyain are bred to seek the Absolute.

 

No, Aojokli, not Kellhsu, brags that He is the Absolute and that the Dunyain should worship him. Meanwhile the Dunyain have reinterpreted the Absolute to mean closing the world and earning their salvation - very convenient. Also very different from how Koringhus -their most prodigal son - saw it. 

After rereading I realised I have a very poor understanding of the Absolute and I have no idea what philosophical principle Bakker based it on. So much of this series relies on it for it be to understood to poorly. Probably what i'm going to have to ask Bakker about in his next AMA.

 

3 hours ago, unJon said:

1) I may need to reread the last Cnauir scene because I didn't think he died. I thought he completed his transformation into a Ciphrang/Gilgoal/Ajokli 2.0.

5) Hate the ambiguity of whether Kellhus was saving the world or just himself. I go back and forth. Was he going to honor a deal with Ajokli or pull a trick to save world even from Ajokli?

8) Why is Esmi saved?

9) So the No God is just like a piece of hardware from the Ark? And the instruction manual is "insert proper soul battery here"....

 

1) After rereading that scene again after having been confused the first time it seems clear to me now that Aojokili possessed the nearest mortal he could find (ala The Matrix), probably because Cnauirs heart was so full of hate, so that he could take his revenge on Kellhus or at the least understand what happned. Remember he was blind to Kell, he thought Kellhus had cheated him out of their bargain somehow. I think its also extremely significant that Aojokili  used alot of his power to come back to the World - he couldn't find Kellhus in hell !

 

5) Read Kellhus confession to Proyas again - like he said he was stepping off the Shortest Path and he had no reason to lie - everything we want to know about the world as Kellhus understands it we can see in this scene. He says it is entirely his intention to save the world. He WAS the messiah all along.

 

8) I agree, the fact that she is saved left a bad taste in my mouth. Not only was she a whore, which is fine there are scriptural stories in our world of whores finding salvation through extremely good deeds, but she also had power and abused it when she executed thousands in her anger. Hell even Serwe who never had a single good thing happen to her seems to be damned according to Kellhus. But the fact it grates is probably an important clue, Bakker said who is saved and who is damned is a cypher for the series.

 

9) Yep that seems to be our interpretation so far. But your right that if that's the case then "why didnt the Consult just keep feeding people to the machine" seems to be a pretty big hole and probably a sign that we are missing something important.

Also Shae was the greatest prodigy of his age after all these millennia how was he unable to get the Ark/No-God up and running ? To my mind Shae was the only real threat in the consult and I kept wondering what a genius like him had been doing for the last few thousand years and the answer now really does seem to be nothing, which is even more unforgivable than his defeat.

Oh and another thing, to borrow a WOTism where are all the Black Ajah ? Why haven't legions of sorcerers gone over to the Consult to try and save their souls, they all seem to be fairly convinced of their damnation so that's not an excuse. The more I think about it the less i like how weak and scarce they had become.

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Yeah, the thing about Esmi being saved is a bit baffling. Kellhus implies that he saved her from damnation by taking her sins unto himself by deceiving and manipulating her but then why isn't Proyas or anyone he possessed throughout the series saved? It seems like a Bakkerian move for sure but it's hard to parse. 

It's not cause of the changes he made to the canon wrt whores since sorcerers are still damned. 

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Why haven't legions of sorcerers gone over to the Consult to try and save their souls, they all seem to be fairly convinced of their damnation so that's not an excuse. 

At least when Kellhus shows up he claims that sorcerers are no longer damned. He's lying of course but people tend to believe his lies. Only the Judging Eye really proves that he's full of shit.

Before that the Consult had apparently disappeared for three hundred years.

Quote

 

5) Read Kellhus confession to Proyas again - like he said he was stepping off the Shortest Path and he had no reason to lie - everything we want to know about the world as Kellhus understands it we can see in this scene. He says it is entirely his intention to save the world. He WAS the messiah all along.

 

Whose Messiah? He seems to want to save the world...so he and Ajokli could do to it what the Inchoroi would love to do. 

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"Let there be deceit. Let there be desire"

alright folks. please iterate all instances of gods other than Ajokli and Yatwer interfering with the world.

also, to reiterate, I think Ajokli = Gilgaol, the simplest explanation is that there is only one four horned brother. That the "glory of war" is a lie from the prince of hate.

If we take the idea that there are two fundamental warring principals, we have this opening statement setting Deceit and Desire into a binary opposition. These two principals, these two hungers, manifest in the story as Ajokli and Yatwer, respectively.

Additionally, we should consider that Yatwer wars against Ajokli, not against Kellhus specifically, and all of her actions are done within the context of her opposition to Ajokli.

But, to again reiterate a point I made earlier, Ajokli harvested Kellhus at maximum point of Kellhus' triumph -- exactly as all Earwa fairy tales say that Ajokli always behaves. This is why I think Kellhus is dead and done, Ajokli simply acted out his nature and was allowing Kellhus to ripen fully before harvesting him.

Simplest explanation is Kellhus was harvested by Ajokli.

***

sort of beside the point, as it doesn't necessarily fit with the above is this: 

one thought to consider, if Golgotteranth itself is invisible to the Gods, then Ajokli NEEDED Kellhus to get inside Golgotteranth, he could not do so otherwise, as it was 'barricaded' so to speak against his kind. This is possibly why Ajokli is so triumphant acting within the Golden Room, because he finally has bypassed their defenses.

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