Darth Richard II Posted July 20, 2017 Share Posted July 20, 2017 1 hour ago, Ajûrbkli said: Right, that's an argument for the ambiguities in the series being negligent rather than deliberate as Castel put it. Bakker, blinded by being the author and all, thinks the series is more straightforward than it is. This is where an editor would've come in handy, I suppose. Bakkerfans "teasers" didn't really help with some of the expectations, either, though I'm not sure who the blame for those. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WalterX Posted July 21, 2017 Share Posted July 21, 2017 I think Kalbear has it right in this quote: "Attaching a battery to the laser weapon requires that you understand 'attach' and 'battery', and when you're a rape demon that thinks mostly in terms of terrible damnation and fucking things that's probably not a concept you get very well. Nor are they designed to be particularly keen on the scientific method, or even asking questions. They're a race of fanatic rape demons." Like, Aurang does not seem to me to be someone who really gets what 'the Tekne' is, other than a mystery to be worshiped. It gives guns and bombs. Praise be. Most of his mental energy is based around finding things to stick his dick in. I imagine that the Consult, prior to the Dunyain arriving, wasn't overburdened with smarts. Mek is an Erratic, Shae's mind is tormented in the Outside, and Aurax/Aurang are mostly big dicks with brains attached. This isn't exactly a brain trust. I mean, don't get me wrong. They've pulled off some stuff. Shae, back when he was alive, was clearly a smart bronze age tribesman, and the Skin Spies are legit clever. But they are almost certainly sex dolls being put to more important usage. Their 'Inverse Fire' is a monitor. Their Golden Room is a hallway. The Dunyain are infinitely more dangerous, because given time they can master the Tekne. No greater threat has ever existed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kalbear Posted July 21, 2017 Share Posted July 21, 2017 Thanks, @WalterX. And that doesn't mean that they're stupid, exactly; they did eventually learn things like language and the ability to cast spells after all. But when they arrived they didn't even have mouths that could make sounds and had to figure out how to create those, and they did that by putting a head inside their own demonic mouth. This is a race that was designed to be commanded by Ark in probably the same way that the No-God commands Sranc and Bashrag and Wracu - via some kind of higher-order brain function. They were bred to want desperately to give in to horrible desires while simultaneously seeing the eternal pain that they would be in. They think in terms of body modification and pleasure, and everything that they are and everything that they need comes from Ark. Think about, say, someone's grandmother using a computer rather than you using an unfamiliar program as far as they go. They barely understand terms like 'mouse or keyboard', think the CD-ROM is a cup holder, think the monitor is the computer itself and have figured out a couple of really silly ways of doing things (like, going to bing and typing in 'go to google' and then going from there and typing in 'open facebook') and keep doing them that way because they at least vaguely work. So yeah, they have the grafting thing down really well; they figured out how to use that part just perfectly. But they couldn't even charge their weapons. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lokisnow Posted July 21, 2017 Share Posted July 21, 2017 yes, but the dunyain are already succumbing to the key failure that doomed the progenitors. If Aurax and Aurang are intellectually atrophied, it is because Ark took over too much cognitive load, and thus the biomass muscles simply never got used. Since the dunyain have stated their worship of the intellect of the Ark, it is reasonable to presume their cognitive abilities will atrophy the more they rely upon Ark. I don't want to confuse the progenitors with the inchoroi (weapon race) but we can probably take the inchoroi as somewhat indicative of intellectual muscle atrophy in the presence of Ark, as this is a major aspect of their overall failure, and seemingingly a fault Ark and the dunyain are blind to. *** To the above mentioned Esmenet quote. I think you're seeing temporal "three" dimensions collapsed into "two" dimensions. Mimara sees that Esmenet was a prostitute sinner, but she also sees that Esmenet will be saved. I think I posted this earlier, but Mimara sees the Dunyain as damned because of their "will to power" in the whale mother scene. "the monstrous will to become god" This, I posted, contrasts with Esmenet, who deliberately pursues a "lack-of-will to power" throughout all of the Momemn storyline. You could even argue that her hiring of the Narindar was done as a 'lack of will' approach, because as she reveals in the TUC first chapter when Kellhus asks her, she "hired" the narindar to kill kellhus, but as we know from the encounter on the page in TJE (or WLW, I forget), she hires the narindar to kill Maithanet, but apparently this is a pretext that all three understand she is actually hiring him to kill Kellhus. If you think about it, she may have come up with this idea as a way to try to hide her actions from dunyain. So if the "WILL" of the dunyain is their most damnable offense, their most heinous crime, then it stands to reason that the converse, the "lack of will" is a cornerstone of salvation. In other words, Serwe is the cipher to the series. (or Esmenet is not damned because Kelmomas wont allow it). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kalbear Posted July 21, 2017 Share Posted July 21, 2017 2 minutes ago, lokisnow said: yes, but the dunyain are already succumbing to the key failure that doomed the progenitors. If Aurax and Aurang are intellectually atrophied, it is because Ark took over too much cognitive load, and thus the biomass muscles simply never got used. Since the dunyain have stated their worship of the intellect of the Ark, it is reasonable to presume their cognitive abilities will atrophy the more they rely upon Ark. Alternately, they were just created that way. 2 minutes ago, lokisnow said: So if the "WILL" of the dunyain is their most damnable offense, their most heinous crime, then it stands to reason that the converse, the "lack of will" is a cornerstone of salvation. In other words, Serwe is the cipher to the series. (or Esmenet is not damned because Kelmomas wont allow it). This goes well with the DunSult reasoning why the progenitors were damned - because they got too close to the Absolute. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lokisnow Posted July 21, 2017 Share Posted July 21, 2017 2 minutes ago, Kalbear said: Alternately, they were just created that way. This goes well with the DunSult reasoning why the progenitors were damned - because they got too close to the Absolute. you go to fast, I edited in a thing relating to that, it is hard not to confuse the absent progenitors with the weapon race inchoroi. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WalterX Posted July 21, 2017 Share Posted July 21, 2017 I tend to think that the Progenitors 'were' the Ark. Like, they are transhuman (transnonhuman?). They could have any bodies that they want. The truest 'picture' of them is the machine they built to save their souls. It would be a typically grim outcome if the very race that the Inchoroi were striving to save had died and been damned in the crash, leaving them destroying Earwa for no reason at all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jurble Posted July 21, 2017 Share Posted July 21, 2017 Do digitized progenitors still have souls? Any society so advanced would presumably shed physical bodies. But let's say we do the whole ship-of-theseus-style brain replacement in order to preserve the continuityof consciousness as we replace our flesh-brain with an electronic one. At the end, with the robot-brain, do you still possess a soul? Do new people born entirely within the digital world possess souls? But I imagine if the Progenitors built the Ark to save their souls and designed the Inchoroi as a weapon-race, they wouldn't risk putting themselves on the Ark. They're probably still on their home-world or wherever they could be to ensure the least chance of death and damnation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gaston de Foix Posted July 21, 2017 Share Posted July 21, 2017 On 7/20/2017 at 3:04 PM, Ajûrbkli said: So, made a realization about this bit while composing a reply on the SA forum. I knew Esmenet was Saved, but I hadn't made the connection that Esmenet's only sins are those she committed as a prostitute. For some reason none of the murders or torture she committed for Kellhus counted as sins. Now, the question is why? Let's say the Ordealmen are damned because of rapey-cannibalism, so Mimara's Judging Eye won't work on them. But Kosoter was damned for killing in Kellhus' name. Except that Kosoter knew he was damned, so he might have gone above and beyond his duty in murder. But, we know not all the Ordealmen are damned - Sosering Rauchurl is Saved. So the damnation of the Ordealmen might really be restricted to just the rapey-cannibalism. So it leads to me to 3 possibilities that i can think of: 1. There are no sins when acting under the direct auspices of Kellhus. However, killing slightly more than you have to leads to damnation (Kosoter). Or doing what Kellhus implies but does not actually state to do leads to damnation (rapey-cannibalism). But this would imply Esmenet never killed more than she had to... and she burned Carythusal. 2. Intent matters. Doing something for the sake of yourself is what damns. The issue here is that the treatment of the Whale-Mothers damns the Dunyain despite Mimara saying it was absent any intent to harm, though she says their intent to attain the Absolute was also damning. Here the issue is that much of Esmenet's tyranny was driven by her own fear for her safety. 3. Ordering torture, burning and murder is not a sin. As far as I know, Esmenet never took personal participation in anything she ordered. One issue is that Mimara sees Sins in contrast to Good Deeds. So it's not innocence alone that saves - one's good deeds must outweigh one's sins. So Esmenet has to have done something good enough to outweigh her carnal sins. It wouldn't surprise me if her good deeds amounted to just 'being a wife and having kids.' I have a different interpretation of the quote. I interpret it as the carnal transgressions being committed against Esmenet, not by her. She is saved for the same reason that followers of Yatwer are saved: because they are weak; because they are victims. Also, Esmenet did not burn Carythusal. Kellhus did, because everyone of Esmenet's actions since meeting Kellhus' (including her hiring the Narindar) were caused by Kellhus' acts or omissions. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jurble Posted July 22, 2017 Share Posted July 22, 2017 Went back to confirm that Mimara's eyes were green (implying a non-Ketyai father) in TJE: Quote Save for the green irises and a slight elongation of the jaw, she was exactly as he remembered her … but.. Quote “Mimara ...” She hesitated, found herself fixed in her firstborn’s brown-eyed gaze. “I ...” Bakker, R. Scott. The Unholy Consult: Book Four of the Aspect-Emperor series (Aspect Emperor 4) (Kindle Locations 5422-5423). Little, Brown Book Group. Kindle Edition. They're brown in TUC! Author error? Or do Mimara's eyes change when the Eye opens? Hmm... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darth Richard II Posted July 22, 2017 Share Posted July 22, 2017 Pfft, editing fail. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
unJon Posted July 22, 2017 Share Posted July 22, 2017 30 minutes ago, Darth Richard II said: Pfft, editing fail. Nope. It proves that Big Moe is behind the whole thing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darth Richard II Posted July 22, 2017 Share Posted July 22, 2017 32 minutes ago, unJon said: Nope. It proves that Big Moe is behind the whole thing. *slow clap* Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PapushiSun Posted July 23, 2017 Share Posted July 23, 2017 2 hours ago, Ajûrbkli said: They're brown in TUC! Author error? Or do Mimara's eyes change when the Eye opens? Hmm... I read that as Mimara's firstborn having brown eyes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jurble Posted July 23, 2017 Share Posted July 23, 2017 Mimara hasn't given birth yet at that point. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Enk Posted July 23, 2017 Share Posted July 23, 2017 6 hours ago, Ajûrbkli said: Went back to confirm that Mimara's eyes were green (implying a non-Ketyai father) in TJE: but.. They're brown in TUC! Author error? Or do Mimara's eyes change when the Eye opens? Hmm... Could just be an outdoors-indoors sunlight/lamplight thing - human eye colour can be weird. Or the 'God of God' eye color is brown, not green - might not be light or a mistake maybe. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darth Richard II Posted July 23, 2017 Share Posted July 23, 2017 Yes heaven forbid Bakker make an actual mistake! It's obviously all a trick! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PapushiSun Posted July 23, 2017 Share Posted July 23, 2017 3 hours ago, Ajûrbkli said: Mimara hasn't given birth yet at that point. Oh right. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darth Richard II Posted July 23, 2017 Share Posted July 23, 2017 4 minutes ago, PapushiSun said: Oh right. Or HAS SHE? *inception noise* Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PapushiSun Posted July 23, 2017 Share Posted July 23, 2017 Quote Any wound, save the one that is mortal I saw this line quoted on another thread but can't find its source. Can someone tell me its provenance? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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