The Unholy Consult post-release SPOILER thread III

[Callan S.]

1 hour ago, Darth Richard II said:

Lol classic story telling. How much does Bakker pay you?

I thought I was laying into him a little there, comparing it to tropes and frankly kinda simple storytelling ("A guy manipulates - then he gets manipulated! MESSAGE! MORAL!"). I guess if I liked Kellhus, I wouldn't like to see him manipulated in the end. 

[Darth Richard II]

31 minutes ago, Callan S. said:

I thought I was laying into him a little there, comparing it to tropes and frankly kinda simple storytelling ("A guy manipulates - then he gets manipulated! MESSAGE! MORAL!"). I guess if I liked Kellhus, I wouldn't like to see him manipulated in the end. 

Ha, ok, sorry. I'm on edge lately because the state of the world is falling apart.

 

(Does anyone actually LIKE Kellhus?)

[unJon]

51 minutes ago, Darth Richard II said:

 

(Does anyone actually LIKE Kellhus?)

Kellhus is the salt of the earth. What's not to like?

#BeHereAllWeek

[Darth Richard II]

Ha.

 

Well, i guess I meant, are the readers supposed to? I'd always assumed he was meant to be an unlikable shitbag but after that AMA i'm not sure about anything anymore.

[karaddin]

I genuinely think he was meant to read as a utilitarian, saving the world justifies all sorts of fuckery, something does indeed have to be eaten kinda point of view. And then the bit at the end with Ajokli taking over reads as entirely out of character, which is OK because that IS out of character - that's an evil god taking over that he was completely blind to, its all OK up to that point...

But that it wasn't going anywhere/its pointless/he lost, thats the end of it, theres no plan from here? That would be pointless and shit writing. You don't make a statement on utilitarianism by having it fail...that simply means it wasn't utilitarian enough, it doesn't actually settle the argument. If Kell had actually been playing a long con to burn the Outside and free humanity from damnation? You're making a solid argument for utilitarianism there. If he'd been truly doing it just to oppose the consult etc? I'm joining Kalbear on team consult. This steaming turd that Bakker revealed with the AMA? Fucking hell, I'm not going to read the next series to find out. Especially if its some rambling disjointed series of shorter stories rather than a proper narrative.

And while we're on the subject of characters not doing anything...So we have Kellhus fail, Mimara and Esme seem pointless and Akka's does nothing too. Can we have our characters actually achieve *something*? PoN was a really enjoyable trilogy, and TJE and WLW had some of the best set pieces I've read in Cil Aujas and the coffers, but the series crashed hard with TGO and TUC.

[Darth Richard II]

Yeah, although the decent into Ishenwhatever i cant type these names in TGO was pretty damn awesome.

 

And, weirdly, TUC had the only moment where I actually laughed at something in a Bakker book when I think it was supposed to be actually funny. The part at the end where Ajolki is taking about how the DunSult will be his five angels and then one mouths off and he's like "Ok...Four Angels". That made me laugh.

[jurble]

The common criticism that the series has no likeable characters never resonated with me since I've never really disliked any character in the manner I dislike Catelyn.  The only character I really liked was Conphas.  But the fact I don't like any of the characters has never harmed my enjoyment of the series, since the explosions and monsters and stuff are entertaining on their own.

[Latan]

What do you mean Esme was pointless?  She literally gave birth to the No-God and a new prophet, she authored the chain of events that led to the Second Apocalypse. People are speaking about a lack of closure for some arcs, i think that a lot of these questions were left unanswered because this is the cliffhanger.  Mimara and Akka,  Moenghus,  koringhus junior, Meppa they are all going to be important for the next series. The first series was about the Holy war and it wrapped at Shimeh,  this series was about the great ordeal and it's failure,  now all of the narrative threads from the first two all merge in the third. 

But one thing that confuses me is all this talk about the ama, I read it and some of your responses to it seems really strange.  Exactly what about it was so troubling? 

[Darth Richard II]

Too tired and grumpy to reply in proper, but the main point is it ISN'T supposed to be a cliffhanger.

[Darth Richard II]

57 minutes ago, Ajûrbkli said:

The common criticism that the series has no likeable characters never resonated with me since I've never really disliked any character in the manner I dislike Catelyn.  The only character I really liked was Conphas.  But the fact I don't like any of the characters has never harmed my enjoyment of the series, since the explosions and monsters and stuff are entertaining on their own.

Yeah I;ve never needed to like characters to enjoy a book. I mean I read KJ Parker, ffs.

[Callan S.]

1 hour ago, karaddin said:

I genuinely think he was meant to read as a utilitarian, saving the world justifies all sorts of fuckery, something does indeed have to be eaten kinda point of view. And then the bit at the end with Ajokli taking over reads as entirely out of character, which is OK because that IS out of character - that's an evil god taking over that he was completely blind to, its all OK up to that point...

But that it wasn't going anywhere/its pointless/he lost, thats the end of it, theres no plan from here? That would be pointless and shit writing. You don't make a statement on utilitarianism by having it fail...that simply means it wasn't utilitarian enough, it doesn't actually settle the argument. If Kell had actually been playing a long con to burn the Outside and free humanity from damnation? You're making a solid argument for utilitarianism there.

Why doesn't it just make the statement that you can do all this utilitarianism and lose - and you have to face what you did and have ended up a loser at the same time? You can't just bet the rent money and think it'll work out.

Someone suggested Serwa helped saved the empress - in contrast, Serwa is not just doing things that require you to win in order to come out vindicated. Perhaps because she is the only female Dunyain to have been allowed (Thelli...can I say she didn't count, in terms of emotion?)

Quote

I'm joining Kalbear on team consult.

Wha? Kal 'It is objective morality!' bear?

[Darth Richard II]

All hail lord kalbear

[Spring Bass]

I'm going to keep reading, even if it's just ass-pulling extensions going forward. The setting is interesting, anything with the Nonmen is interesting, I want to find out what the hell is going on with Eanna and Zeum, and I might as well see if Mimara ever pans out to something beyond "gave birth to the last living child before the No-God returned". Plus I like Achamian as a character, and mostly always have. 

[karaddin]

2 hours ago, Darth Richard II said:

Yeah, although the decent into Ishenwhatever i cant type these names in TGO was pretty damn awesome.

I didn't say the entire book was bad, but it was a marked decline in quality compared to PoN - I think the high points of CA and the coffers were high enough I wouldn't say the same of them, bearing in mind that I think PoN was really good.

Callan - I don't think it's making that statement because the counter to it is simply "but he just wasn't good enough". We didn't find out if the ends justified the means, because we didn't get the ends anyway so his problem can be dismissed as failing not his methods. The criticism is getting the ends and finding that they do not justify the means. Alternatively you could make the argument that in the end, in the face of the Apocalypse, the cost of the souls of TGO and the unification of The Three Seas was an acceptable price to pay in order to defeat the Consult. Both of those are at least making an argument. But just "Kellhus, like his Dad before him, was ultimately a punk loser whose loss doesn't tell us anything" about this. I guess I could have completely misunderstood the story and its actually a 7 book modern treatise on hubris, that no matter how far we rise, how good we are, there will always be someone or something else out there to fuck us up and tear us down. That's not the story that the books signalled themselves as telling though, so they leave me feeling as though the whole thing was meaningless, and his commentary doesn't help change that.

Bakker is a major troll though, and he was certainly drawing on the Homeric tradition in the PoN so perhaps hubris was the point. If so I again think it was poorly executed though, denying us the Kellhus POV detracts too much from that particular aspect of the story and I think Akka's POV in particular also works against it.

[lokisnow]

7 hours ago, Callan S. said:

 

We go through books of Kellhus manipulating others - the idea of him being manipulated surely must come to mind? It's almost a trope! Classic story telling.

 

After that, the gods can't see Kelmomas for some reason (twin souled?), so Ajokli cannot apprehend Kelmomas when he turns up and this disrupts the possession. Kellhus is suddenly confused, for a change - the chorae lock down is lost because Ajokli has left the house and a skin spy manages to salt Kellhus.

 

I mean I've spent something like a decade harping continually on two forums that kellhus was being manipulated.

i just made the mistake of thinking it was moenghus like many others because this was the only agency in the series that could fit the evidence. that the author don't bother to include the sauron equivalent  because the series was already too complicated is either subverting the narrative or bad writing, a bit of both I think.

so.

heres an interesting factoid.

in TTT there is a synthese POV where he's either just talked to kellhus or just talked to cnaiur. And he is furious because he has just realized he is facing something new, this dunyain and he wonders how such an ancient enemy could resurface.

 

ive posted here before about this contradiction, I even posed it directly to Bakker on the last forum and he left it unanswered. How can the syntheses who describe themselves as "impossibly ancient" simultaneously be worried about the newness of the funyain and his also declare that an ancient threat has resurfaced?

here, I believe I said that I thought this meant that an additional, unknown to the readers, ancient antagonist to the consult was the only logical interpretation of the text, but that given the novelty of the item, it was likely just careless purple prose.

well, if it wasn't bad writing, it means that at the point that the synthese has that point of view, the consult KNOWS that kellhus is possessed by Ajokli. 

and from this point forward we can assume that they were preparing for ajokli, not for kellhus.

He was deeper than all this, older than their blasted stone.

"But the plate had changed all too quickly. To realize that the Cishaurim were but a mask for a far more ancient foe. To come so very close, only to discover their sublime deceptions subverted by something deeper. Something new. The Dûnyain. There was more to this than a son hunting for his father—far more."

its all there, but the troll writing style hides it, deliberately leading the reader into thinking the dunyain are subverting the deceptions of the consult.  What the consult is acutally thinking here is that ajokli is subverting their sublime deceptions, ajokli wearing a mask. Ajokli using something new. Ajokli using the dunyain. 

means no one ever thinks who the consult wars against.

[lokisnow]

Funnily enough I marked a pair of queer passages from TTT about kellhus a few years ago, they make sense now.

Come and see.

But Kellhus was something different. A doorway. A mighty gate.

Kellhus laughed. He seemed to shine about the pit of the Chorae. “Much like your opinions.”

 

 

[Callan S.]

4 hours ago, karaddin said:

I didn't say the entire book was bad, but it was a marked decline in quality compared to PoN - I think the high points of CA and the coffers were high enough I wouldn't say the same of them, bearing in mind that I think PoN was really good.

Callan - I don't think it's making that statement because the counter to it is simply "but he just wasn't good enough". We didn't find out if the ends justified the means, because we didn't get the ends anyway so his problem can be dismissed as failing not his methods. The criticism is getting the ends and finding that they do not justify the means. Alternatively you could make the argument that in the end, in the face of the Apocalypse, the cost of the souls of TGO and the unification of The Three Seas was an acceptable price to pay in order to defeat the Consult. Both of those are at least making an argument. But just "Kellhus, like his Dad before him, was ultimately a punk loser whose loss doesn't tell us anything" about this. I guess I could have completely misunderstood the story and its actually a 7 book modern treatise on hubris, that no matter how far we rise, how good we are, there will always be someone or something else out there to fuck us up and tear us down. That's not the story that the books signalled themselves as telling though, so they leave me feeling as though the whole thing was meaningless, and his commentary doesn't help change that.

Bakker is a major troll though, and he was certainly drawing on the Homeric tradition in the PoN so perhaps hubris was the point. If so I again think it was poorly executed though, denying us the Kellhus POV detracts too much from that particular aspect of the story and I think Akka's POV in particular also works against it.

How do you mean, 'wasn't good enough'. What else is there but playing number sticks? The only thing further than that is to step perfectly in something absolutely wedded to exactly how the universe moves - the same as a white luck warrior. Surely it says something about utilitarianism if the very concept takes it there's a 'good enough' that goes from number sticks to absolute.

[odium]

Good catches Lokisnow, I remember reading your theory about a different ancient threat analyzing that passage and thinking you were onto something. Despite that, Bakker's answers and track record make me wonder if those hints were ever intentional or if they were, as you described, careless purple prose, or worse sti, examples of apparently deeper meaning where none was intended. That, more than anything, is the development that fucks with my appreciation of TSA. 

[Consigliere]

13 hours ago, Callan S. said:

After that, the gods can't see Kelmomas for some reason (twin souled?),

I don't think it has anything to do with being twin souled. In the AMA, Bakker mentioned that Kelmomas was always the No-God which means that he was always invisible to the gods.

[Kalbear]

Yes. It is just like mimara and the judging eye, where she always had it even when she wasn't pregnant and after she has her babies. Mimaras soul was always going to have the judging eye, and kelmomas soul was always going to exist past the eschaton.