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The Unholy Consult post-release SPOILER thread III


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Will GRRM’s epic fantasy finish before Bakker’s?

For many years, this was no longer an interesting question. Clearly, Kellhus would destroy the Unholy Consult before the Stark children with their magical direwolves would finally confront the Others, or even Tyrion get his next travelogue chapter published. 

Now Bakker just made it interesting again.

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30 minutes ago, Happy Ent said:

Will GRRM’s epic fantasy finish before Bakker’s?

For many years, this was no longer an interesting question. Clearly, Kellhus would destroy the Unholy Consult before the Stark children with their magical direwolves would finally confront the Others, or even Tyrion get his next travelogue chapter published. 

Now Bakker just made it interesting again.

I pretty much gave up any and all hope for GRRM to ever finish his series once HBO passed him up.

So I still put money on Bakker.  (If he can find a publisher.)

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4 hours ago, generic said:
  • Why did Kel really go back to get Esmi? Why does turning into the god of hate make you miss your wife???

My fanwank on this: Kellhus has vestigal passions like love, and Ajokli manipulates these to further his needs. Kelllhus doesn't believe that Ajokli can manipulate him (or perhaps doesn't even think it's a possibility) so he associates these feelings with 'his darkness', because that's the only frame that he has to explain them. 

We, on the other hand, can look back at all the times his heart was moved and notice how it worked out - the 'punish the Shrial Knights' is the first super concrete example. And that doesn't make sense for the darkness to move him (which, IMO, doesn't exist) - but it does make sense if he's being manipulated and indoctrinated by Ajokli that whole time. 

4 hours ago, generic said:

As to the AMA: I agree that it really made everything worse and a lot of his answers are disappointing. Though some of the interpretations in this thread sound borderline bad faith. Where does he say he has "no plan for the next series" and "intended to end it here"? As far as I know he always stated that this is the end of his vision from when he was 18 and before he started actually writing. And I don't find it particularly alarming that he has no complete outline of the final series like he had for the last.

I tend to agree with the bad faith part. I didn't take it to mean that he has no ideas and no concept, just that things aren't nearly so neatly mapped out and he doesn't have the big grand vision. I suspect he has some strong beats planned (Eanna, Zeum, Crabicus, Serwa, Meppa, Jesus and whatever happened with Kellhus) but doesn't have the path down nearly as well. 

4 hours ago, generic said:

His answer that the gods weren't in PON because it was already too complicated was what really had me lose it. Is he really telling me that that one neat trick I'd put as the number one reason why I have faith in the future of the series was entirely by accident? OK, I guess. I hear his agent tells him to have more of an online presence. I advice the opposite.

Right. The disappointing thing to me was the revelation of the complete lack of depth in the series - either some of it is by design (the intentionality of creating ambiguity in a world expressly designed to have meaning is complete bullshit) or because it's literally the most simplistic answer possible in all places. The gods in PoN is one example; Kellhus being slowly taken over by Ajokli is another. What depth there is is created by shadows and flashes intended to imply meaning, but not having any. There are no answers to be had, and either you're looking too hard or you're being misled deliberately into thinking there will be. Neither possibility is good. The third is that Bakker is simply lying to his fans, which I'd expect if he came here given his hatred of this place, but not in reddit where most everyone there is already at TSA. 

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So I don't have the book right now but when Kelmomas thinks that Mimara can't see him and then a moment later she does do we take that as her judging eye was open and then it closed or is it just that she didn't notice him at first? Also, wasn't Kellhus in the room with them? 

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1 hour ago, Kalbear said:

Right. The disappointing thing to me was the revelation of the complete lack of depth in the series - either some of it is by design (the intentionality of creating ambiguity in a world expressly designed to have meaning is complete bullshit) or because it's literally the most simplistic answer possible in all places. The gods in PoN is one example; Kellhus being slowly taken over by Ajokli is another. What depth there is is created by shadows and flashes intended to imply meaning, but not having any. There are no answers to be had, and either you're looking too hard or you're being misled deliberately into thinking there will be. Neither possibility is good. The third is that Bakker is simply lying to his fans, which I'd expect if he came here given his hatred of this place, but not in reddit where most everyone there is already at TSA. 

I'm still not ready to go that far but it is a distinct possibility that we have a Lost situation on our hands.

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11 minutes ago, generic said:

I'm still not ready to go that far but it is a distinct possibility that we have a Lost situation on our hands.

I think it's very clear we do. Or more accurately, we have a Leftovers situation. The goal is not to have meaning or have answers, the goal is to showcase what others attempt to determine meaning is, and in that way also tweak your views of what meaning is and what you do to find it. What people do when confronted with meaning that they can't quite understand, how humans take things that aren't meaningful and turn them into meaning - that is what I think Bakker is explicitly trying to do. 

Now, with Leftovers it works in that the story isn't about the meaning of the event, it is showing the people and how they behave when confronted with something beyond their ability to process, and how they create a story around it. While that's not my cup of tea that's fascinating, and interesting, and the show at least doesn't even bother to hint that you'll ever get an answer to the event. Lost, however, did hint heavily that there were answers (when there were not), and BSG did as well, and the end result was a lack of planning and forethought that made the simplistic answers provided fairly unsatisfactory. I'm not sure whether we'll get poor answers or no answers, but I do think that the time has come to conclude that actual answers to questions we've had will not have particularly satisfactory results. 

 

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As I said that is a distinct possibility. However just looking at some of the answers to long-standing questions that were provided I'm not completely dissatisfied.

  • What was that with the Halos and prophesying the future? Pact with and possession by the demon god of deceit after the fact and time has no real meaning for gods.
  • Would be cooler if he hadn't spilt the beans in the AMA but Shae's fate is also legitimately cool.
  • Also am happy with what little Kel's deal ended up being.

Also several lines of speculation about the Dunyani I thought were a dead end and probably a continuity error are now live again with the Dunyani fusing with the Consult.

Of course since the whole point of the plot seems to be that Dunyani actually suck I'll have at least to get used to the idea that there is no big plan in the background, neither by Moe, Kel or some nameless head monk. Moe really cuts his eyes out because he had no idea, Kel got owned by Ajokli, the Survivor self destructs and the Mutilated are Consult hardware.

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Just now, generic said:

Of course since the whole point of the plot seems to be that Dunyani actually suck I'll have at least to get used to the idea that there is no big plan in the background, neither by Moe, Kel or some nameless head monk. Moe really cuts his eyes out because he had no idea, Kel got owned by Ajokli, the Survivor self destructs and the Mutilated are Consult hardware.

Still Maithanet went from nothing to Shriah in no-time and Moe managed to lead the Cish et cet, withouth any godly interference. I don't have a problem with presenting the Dûnyain as punks, but it does not square with the PoN narrative

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9 minutes ago, Galbrod said:

Still Maithanet went from nothing to Shriah in no-time and Moe managed to lead the Cish et cet, withouth any godly interference. I don't have a problem with presenting the Dûnyain as punks, but it does not square with the PoN narrative

Or...did they? DUN DUN DUNNNNNNNN

The Dunyain are not punks when it comes to people. They believe they understand human emotions and brain patterns perfectly, and are really good at reading them. They are the masters of that specific use of that hammer.

The problem is that this is all they see the world as. They view the world as a series of events that occur which lead to others. They do not see the world as fatalist (something Bakker has confirmed as being the case), which means they miss a whole lot. For Moe, the gods are a bunch of whining things in the Outside that don't violate the principle of what comes before determines what comes after - and we know for a fact that isn't the case. For Kellhus, he can't even fathom that his spirit can be possessed and ridden, because he doesn't even believe he has one. For the DunSult, they believe that there is nothing Shae could possibly do to fight them, because he's worldborn - and they also ignore their souls and their ability to be possessed. Heck, they probably think they're in control right now, even though they're just a circuit for Shae. 

Which makes the final scene in the Golden Room kind of funny - it's the Dunyain controlled by Shae talking to the Dunyain controlled by Ajokli, and neither group knows they're being controlled and neither group thinks the other is being controlled. 

So yeah, they're not punks exactly - they're just entirely unsuited for a world where your meat doesn't control everything like they think it does. Only Koringhus finds something else as an answer, and he does it by completely ignoring what the Dunyain teach him about cause and effect.

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8 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

The Dunyain are not punks when it comes to people. They believe they understand human emotions and brain patterns perfectly, and are really good at reading them. They are the masters of that specific use of that hammer.

They are basically Pratchett elves.

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1 minute ago, odium said:

What greater perspective do you think the knowledge of Dunyain fallibility gives us on Koringhus? What exactly did he realize?

He realized a few things:

  • Working on being the best 'self' is exactly the wrong thing. Being selfish, maximizing individual gains - these are precisely what damns you in the world. 
  • Thinking that what comes before determines what comes after is factually wrong. If that is wrong, then things like individual choices are something between illusion and irrelevant. 
  • Control over is also something that is wrong. Surrender, forfeiture, desire, deceit - these are things that blind. The only way you can become more is to become less, which is the trap that he had to overcome. There are too many local maxima that trap you, when those aren't the real step. 

Basically, the Dunyain are entirely a dead end from a religious perspective. There is no way to become a self-moving soul because there is no actual self. 

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2 minutes ago, Hello World said:

Kellhus doesn't believe he has a soul? 

I think he believes he has a soul - but he doesn't believe that it's anything other than something to munch on. He believes that it's some vestigal, unimportant object that doesn't matter much, that most of what causes him to move is his meat and his brain, and the soul is just along for the ride. And as he continues to sin over and over, to destroy relationships and connections and become more and more remote, his soul loses more and more strength, and that in turn leaves him vulnerable to being taken over, especially once he is god-entangled. 

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Maybe that's why Kellhus' soul disappeared after being salted. It could be the same thing with the disappearing Nonman - your soul slips past the gods and ciphrang in the Outside if it's pathetically weak and broken. 

 

 

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4 minutes ago, Darth Richard II said:

Obviously, Kellhus has hidden his soul in a hocrux.

Okay, that would be HILARIOUS.

The first series was based on the crusades, the second based on LotR. The third being aping Harry Potter would be funny as shit. Akka abandons his son with some shitty Zeumi muggles for 10 years and then invites him to join the Mandate! HIJINKS ENSUE

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