The Unholy Consult post-release SPOILER thread III

[Rhom]

I have been very frustrated since reading the AMA, but I will say that I enjoyed the book more than most seem to.  My feelings seem to run along with @Ghjhero  If the series were to end, I can accept the ending as the Mega Sad ending.

I will also say that I've not heard anyone else bring this up... but did anyone else feel bad for Lil Kel (shitbird that he is...) when the scene was described where they were putting him in the sarcophagus and he screamed out for his Mommy?  Yes, he is a despicable little murderer... but that moment still made me cringe a bit in paternal sympathy.

 

[redeagl]

12 hours ago, Darth Richard II said:

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.

DRII saying something good about Bakker?!  Pretty sure that his account was hacked.

[Kalbear]

And I thought the book itself was good. It was a major boring slog early, but was pretty good once sorweel got back to the ordeal. 

I think the book and the AMA makes the series as a whole worse. 

[Michael Seswatha Jordan]

51 minutes ago, Rhom said:

I have been very frustrated since reading the AMA, but I will say that I enjoyed the book more than most seem to.  My feelings seem to run along with @Ghjhero  If the series were to end, I can accept the ending as the Mega Sad ending.

I will also say that I've not heard anyone else bring this up... but did anyone else feel bad for Lil Kel (shitbird that he is...) when the scene was described where they were putting him in the sarcophagus and he screamed out for his Mommy?  Yes, he is a despicable little murderer... but that moment still made me cringe a bit in paternal sympathy.

 

Sums up pretty much exactly how I feel. But, it's not the ending! It'll pick up a few weeks later with the likes of Akka, Esme, Mimara, Meppa, Crabicus, I assume a certain amount also escaped from the Ordeal and Moe Jr.. Im sure I missed some, but we're likely to get more answers, but probably not all we want. 

[unJon]

18 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

And I thought the book itself was good. It was a major boring slog early, but was pretty good once sorweel got back to the ordeal. 

I think the book and the AMA makes the series as a whole worse. 

Same here. @Rhom

I was pretty cool with the book (though had issues with lack of Akka/Mim contributing meaningfully to climax) until I read the AMA. 

Maybe the final series will rock. But I think the AMA will likely strangle the 37 threads on this website that otherwise would have happened as we all wildly speculated about what will come after. 

[Darth Richard II]

4 hours ago, redeagl said:

DRII saying something good about Bakker?!  Pretty sure that his account was hacked.

Heh, you know, I was actually writing something positive about the BOOK when the AMA went down and I scrapped it and have remained grumpy since, but what kal said, after the first 100 pages or so its pretty good. Not GREAT, but its decent.

3 hours ago, unJon said:

Same here. @Rhom

I was pretty cool with the book (though had issues with lack of Akka/Mim contributing meaningfully to climax) until I read the AMA. 

Maybe the final series will rock. But I think the AMA will likely strangle the 37 threads on this website that otherwise would have happened as we all wildly speculated about what will come after. 

Yeah, the whole idea that all the deeper meaning and hints and what were not even intended kind of kills the speculation huh?

[Darth Richard II]

7 hours ago, odium said:

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. 

Yeah that's it EXACTLY.

[lokisnow]

yeah, I rather liked the book a lot before the AMA. i mean it sucked he skipped ishterebinth. and it was worse that he wrote a hundred pages of cannibal fuckery, but the rest of the book was pretty good, and I was pretty happy with an ending that had the fellowship of the ring fail.

then we got this:

Bakker does not play dice with the universe; He plays an ineffable game of His own devising, which might be compared, from the perspective of any of the other players [i.e. everybody], to being involved in an obscure and complex variant of poker in a pitch-dark room, with blank cards, for infinite stakes, with a Dealer who won't tell you the rules, and who scowls all the time.

[Kalbear]

Well, it's more of an old parlour trick that psychics and astrologists do. Make things vague enough and let your audience provide the answers, and you'll all of a sudden seem wise and clairvoyant when you're really just letting their pattern matching do the work. 

So yeah, the old enemy that the Consult was fighting could refer to the gods. Or...it could refer to another alien race in the future. Or it could refer to Seswatha. Or it could refer to the Anasurimbor. Any - and all - of these things are both true and false, depending on what you want to think at the time, but none are intentional. 

[Galbrod]

Making sweet music out of nonsense... makes me think of Nik Kershaw..."The riddle"

[Hello World]

Reminds me of True Detective. 

[Faint]

1 hour ago, Darth Richard II said:

Yeah that's it EXACTLY.

It does seem to be a constant refrain in epic fantasy that the story is never as complicated or as layered as many readers want it to be. 

Although, in the present case, I do think readers went overboard thinking that everything was always part of the Anasûrimbor master plan, which is the genesis of a lot of this "deeper stuff that was never there." 

Personally, I never understood this viewpoint; I thought Kellhus was fucked from the start. For me, the possibility of him "winning" was roughly equivalent to Jon Snow preventing the Wall from coming down. It just does not make any sense in the context of the story. 

[Rhom]

1 hour ago, Darth Richard II said:

Heh, you know, I was actually writing something positive about the BOOK when the AMA went down and I scrapped it and have remained grumpy since, but what kal said, after the first 100 pages or so its pretty good. Not GREAT, but its decent.

Exactly.  I was a bit late to finish the book, so as I went through the first couple of spoiler threads, I was blown away by speculation already cropping up here.  Then I started reading all the "Guys, Bakker is answering questions at _____" posts and then they turned to "This f'ing sucks..."

Quote

the whole idea that all the deeper meaning and hints and what were not even intended kind of kills the speculation huh?

Yeah.  It's like the years and years of posts over at Theoryland and wotmania... then the series ends and there's nothing.

Bakker could have pulled the elusive trick of closing his series and still leaving discussion alive!  Then he went and killed it all himself.

@lokisnow has the right of it I think.  Bakker says he added four chapters after the split and most of us agree it was likely the necrophilia.

How much better would the book have been had it opened with the escape from Ishteribinth (the universally accepted best parts of TGO) and then give us one chapter of depravity to visualize the depths the ordeal has come to.  Then hit the good parts of this book with the assault on the Ark.

Yes, the book would still scream out for the pointlessness of Akka and Mim; but I don't think you would see the same distaste.  (And of course... stay off AMA.)

 

[Darth Richard II]

Heh, yeah this reminds me a LOT of what happened when Wheel Of Time ended.

[Kalbear]

20 minutes ago, Hello World said:

Reminds me of True Detective. 

That was what I compared it to with @lokisnow before, yeah. Too bad he hadn't seen it. 

Quote

 

Although, in the present case, I do think readers went overboard thinking that everything was always part of the Anasûrimbor master plan, which is the genesis of a lot of this "deeper stuff that was never there." 

Personally, I never understood this viewpoint; I thought Kellhus was fucked from the start. For me, the possibility of him "winning" was roughly equivalent to Jon Snow preventing the Wall from coming down. It just does not make any sense in the context of the story. 

 

Part of it is the 'did Kellhus plan this' - but part of it is so much implied intentionality when none existed. Not just with Kellhus, either - with all sorts of aspects. As an example ,the tapestry that Mimara finds in TUC that shows Mimara - this wasn't put in (apparently) with any meaning other than 'yep, she's destined', but it implies so very much more. 

I also think fantasy lends itself to the desire of intentionality, and some of the very best works are those that are rife with it - including LotR, which has a crazy amount of layers and meaning in even small things. ASOIAF was brilliant at this as well (at least through ASOS), combining huge surprises with great leadups to said surprises that rewarded looking back at the small details which implied it. It's what the genre wants. When you invert this by using the tropes and then rewarding it with nothing, it's going to get a backlash; when you do so while stating that you're wanting to write a story about deep meaning, you directly hurt the messages you're attempting to get across. 

[Callan S.]

10 hours ago, Consigliere said:

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.

Yeah, but is that just determinism Scott refers to? The same thing that runs a white luck warrior down the perfect set of actions?

It doesn't make sense to say the gods can't see the No-god and that's why they can't see Kel - it doesn't explain why they can't see the no god to begin with beyond 'they just can't'. It's just 'A wizard did it' at that point.

[Callan S.]

9 hours ago, Rhom said:

I have been very frustrated since reading the AMA, but I will say that I enjoyed the book more than most seem to.  My feelings seem to run along with @Ghjhero  If the series were to end, I can accept the ending as the Mega Sad ending.

I will also say that I've not heard anyone else bring this up... but did anyone else feel bad for Lil Kel (shitbird that he is...) when the scene was described where they were putting him in the sarcophagus and he screamed out for his Mommy?  Yes, he is a despicable little murderer... but that moment still made me cringe a bit in paternal sympathy.

 

Yep, me too. Part of the heaving, shaking apart moral crash space thing Scott was shooting for, I think.

Also felt cut at the injustice when he saves Kellhus from Sorweel, even though I'm pretty much done with Kellhus and I like Sorweel (though in either time line he dies either way, sadly)

[Callan S.]

4 hours ago, lokisnow said:

then we got this:

Bakker does not play dice with the universe; He plays an ineffable game of His own devising, which might be compared, from the perspective of any of the other players [i.e. everybody], to being involved in an obscure and complex variant of poker in a pitch-dark room, with blank cards, for infinite stakes, with a Dealer who won't tell you the rules, and who scowls all the time.

Where's that from? It's a shame TPB seems abandoned right now - I think he'd like that description!

[Darth Richard II]

25 minutes ago, Callan S. said:

Yeah, but is that just determinism Scott refers to? The same thing that runs a white luck warrior down the perfect set of actions?

It doesn't make sense to say the gods can't see the No-god and that's why they can't see Kel - it doesn't explain why they can't see the no god to begin with beyond 'they just can't'. It's just 'A wizard did it' at that point.

I thought it was because the gods cant see past the tme were they cease to exist, and at some point the no god wins.

[Kalbear]

8 minutes ago, Darth Richard II said:

I thought it was because the gods cant see past the tme were they cease to exist, and at some point the no god wins.

That's right.

The gods are blind to anything outside of their created universe. Not only are they blind, they functionally cannot believe that it exists, because they believe they are part of all of creation, and therefore there is nothing outside of it. This is why they cannot see the No-God in any iteration, nor can they functionally perceive the meaning of Ark - because it at least partially exists beyond the end of the world - the phrase in the book used is something like 'the limit of the eschaton' - and therefore does not exist for them. 

Not only can they not see the No-God, the mere thought of it confuses them. 

The analogy I use here is a book. The gods can flip to any page they want, and read it, in any order they want to. The book is written already, so even if you read something on page 110 it doesn't change what happened on page 330. The No-God is akin to an entirely different book written by another author about the first book. If you don't have that book, you don't even understand those references. You don't know that new book exists, so all you have is that first book, and you're convinced that the first book is all there is and all there ever could be. You aren't just physically blind to the second book, you are theologically blind; you cannot even conceive that you are missing something.

But perhaps you're a bit more clever, and while you can't see the second book, there are enough weird things in the first book that aren't totally explained that make you think 'huh, maybe there's a sequel'. You don't have the sequel and don't even have proof it exists, but it kind of makes sense so you go with it. That's Ajokli.