Bakker LV - Nau's Ark

[Kalbear]

13 minutes ago, Consigliere said:

Yeah. IIRC, it was Celmomas who was said to be twin souled and not NC. 

Besides that, Bakker did mention in that AMA that what enables the Carapace is the ability of the person's brain to functionally emulate that of an original insertant. So nothing to do with bloodline or being twin souled. 

And there's the random bits where Nau-Cayuti might not actually be an Anasurimbor by blood, so all of that doesn't matter anyway. 

[noshowjones]

8 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

And there's the random bits where Nau-Cayuti might not actually be an Anasurimbor by blood, so all of that doesn't matter anyway. 

Akka specifically reflects on how much Kellhus looks like NC in TTT (I think). It’s unlikely NC is Seswatha’s son. 

 

[lokisnow]

49 minutes ago, noshowjones said:

Akka specifically reflects on how much Kellhus looks like NC in TTT (I think). It’s unlikely NC is Seswatha’s son. 

 

only if Earwa genetics are scientific rather than metaphysical. what is to say that adoption, if it were to have magical characteristics, could easily create a genetic change to make adoption physically, genetically true, not just rhetorically true.

[noshowjones]

23 minutes ago, lokisnow said:

only if Earwa genetics are scientific rather than metaphysical. what is to say that adoption, if it were to have magical characteristics, could easily create a genetic change to make adoption physically, genetically true, not just rhetorically true.

Were that the case, would not Moe Jr’s hair Be blonde?

[Kalbear]

1 hour ago, lokisnow said:

only if Earwa genetics are scientific rather than metaphysical. what is to say that adoption, if it were to have magical characteristics, could easily create a genetic change to make adoption physically, genetically true, not just rhetorically true.

And this was an excuse given for the bullshit genetic garbage about the Whale Mothers - that they were shaped by intent and desire as much as, if not more than, actual genetic stuff. 

1 hour ago, noshowjones said:

Were that the case, would not Moe Jr’s hair Be blonde?

Nope! Because Moe Jr wasn't ever desired to be one of Kellhus'. He always wanted him to be apart from Kellhus and the rest of the family, always wanted him to be the pet of his real kids. He wanted to other him, so he did. 

[noshowjones]

56 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

And this was an excuse given for the bullshit genetic garbage about the Whale Mothers - that they were shaped by intent and desire as much as, if not more than, actual genetic stuff. 

Nope! Because Moe Jr wasn't ever desired to be one of Kellhus'. He always wanted him to be apart from Kellhus and the rest of the family, always wanted him to be the pet of his real kids. He wanted to other him, so he did. 

Ok, so if this is the case, what is the narrative purpose of NC being Seswatha’s son?

I think all indications are that NC is Celmommas’s son not Seswatha’s. Certainly we know Ses had an affair with NC’s mother, but we don’t know when that was in the timeline. He could have very well slept with her after she passed childbearing age. Or the affair could have ended years before NC was conceived. Given the resemblence between NC and Kellhus and that possibility not probability points to Seswatha being NC’s father, it seems likely that NC is a true Anasurimbor.  

 

Edit - I realize there were a lot of aspects of the series without narrative purpose. 

[Sci-2]

1 hour ago, Kalbear said:

And this was an excuse given for the bullshit genetic garbage about the Whale Mothers - that they were shaped by intent and desire as much as, if not more than, actual genetic stuff.

Is this something assumed by readers or something Bakker has said?

[Kalbear]

It wasn't in the AMA, it was elsewhere. Might have been here even. In any case it was a Bakker statement to the effect that it was plausible because things happen the way people want them to, and also insects and fish have huge sexual dimorphism so it's okay, and you were just SO TRIGGERED you had to pick nits. 

It was around when the TGO preview chapters came out. 

[Callan S.]

I'd read that somewhere. But given things like the Pshuke rely on basically just really wanting something badly, it doesn't seem like biomancy is somehow way out of left field to consider. Especially because in a way the Dunyain are as blind as fuck. But while necromancy is like old hat, maybe biomancy is still an uncomfortable thing.

Earwa is basically partially like the 'outside' of Earwa, where desire dictates reality - possibly if the Dunyain had tried to breed on anarcane ground there would be no whale mothers. Possibly also they wouldn't be super men in a mere two thousand years...indeed perhaps we should question the plausibility of the arrow catching Dunyain from a mere 2k of breeding? But that's the thing - arrow catching is fucking cool! It being cool is the expression of a desire. Desire dictates reality. But desire dictating reality has a bad side, because da da daaah, your desires are all bad and you should stop smoking and get more exercise.

[Consigliere]

5 hours ago, Kalbear said:

It wasn't in the AMA, it was elsewhere. Might have been here even. In any case it was a Bakker statement to the effect that it was plausible because things happen the way people want them to, and also insects and fish have huge sexual dimorphism so it's okay, and you were just SO TRIGGERED you had to pick nits. 

It was around when the TGO preview chapters came out. 

It was on his blog and some of the quotes were posted on here I believe.

 

Quote

I get the idea of big picture credibility arguments, but these kind of disputes in fantasy fiction often strike me as opportunistic. You could argue the natural impossibility of any number of things in ALL fantastic narratives, so the question has to be why this one thing? If people buy skin-spies, why do they draw the line at whale-mothers?

I suppose I could just cook up a rationale: The Dunyain possess an artificially selected genetic mutation that only cues whale-mother dimorphism in the presence of estrogen in certain concentrations. After all, gender dimorphism is a characteristic of all species possessing gender (mammals included), in many cases far more radically than suggested here. 

There’s better things to argue about, if you ask me. Such as the role played by the Logos, for one.

 

Quote

But why should anyone on earth care about this outside of hard SF? The easiest counterargument to make is an imperative: Relax! Try to enjoy a narrative that goes far greater lengths to be believeable than most any other epic fantasy out there. All this is interesting in its own right, but as a criticism it simply misses the point… the whole genre, you could say. 

Either way, the assumptions simply do not hold. I’m sure in a purely causal universe very little about the Dunyain is ‘scientifically creditable.’ But as it turns out, intentionality objectively exists in the World. Wanting something to happen actually influences outcomes.

 

[noshowjones]

That rationale seems like him spit-balling more than an actual commentary on the biology of his world. I still say there’s no reason to believe NC is Seswatha’s kid. Possible? Sure. But not probable. 

 

Edit - spelling

[Sci-2]

I thought we'd long held there was an aspect of Telos to the biology of Earwa, and this affected the production of Dunyain men - as Callan notes - as much as women.

Honestly I was far more miffed about what I felt was the spitballed answer to the Question of Questions, aka "Why don't Dragons wear Chorae?"

[Hello World]

23 minutes ago, Triskele said:

Did we really not ever learn one way or the other whether NC was Seswatha's?  If not, that's another kind of baffling unresolved issue that seemed built up to be answered.   

I think he said these sort of mysteries add to the realism of the backstory so I don't think it's meant to have an answer.

[unJon]

1 hour ago, Hello World said:

I think he said these sort of mysteries add to the realism of the backstory so I don't think it's meant to have an answer.

And he specifically said that it was common back in the day for there to be uncertainties around paternity.*

*Unclear if Bakker meant this to also show his feminist bona fires. 

[Darth Richard II]

I was just thinking maybe we ARE a bit unfair to Bakker then someone brings up the whale mothers...

[Consigliere]

15 hours ago, Triskele said:

Did we really not ever learn one way or the other whether NC was Seswatha's?  If not, that's another kind of baffling unresolved issue that seemed built up to be answered.   

I'm more disappointed that Bakker just didn't bother addressing/further fleshing out Akka's dreams in TUC. It felt like Bakker was building up to something with that but then completely drops the plot point in TUC. Like so many things in this series, it turned out to be just a big nothing. 

[Sci-2]

On 10/27/2018 at 6:29 PM, Darth Richard II said:

I was just thinking maybe we ARE a bit unfair to Bakker then someone brings up the whale mothers...

I think in some ways the metaphysics was thought out and in other ways Bakker figured he'd just get by on science-fantasy ideas.

And, to be fair, I think we do let people coast on things like re-sleeving across bodies without a serious argument for how your mind can be stored on a computer. Or how light-speed travel could work, or how worm-holes (if they could ever work) don't crush anyone trying to pass through into the size of an atom.

[Callan S.]

3 hours ago, Sci-2 said:

And, to be fair, I think we do let people coast on things like re-sleeving across bodies without a serious argument for how your mind can be stored on a computer. Or how light-speed travel could work, or how worm-holes (if they could ever work) don't crush anyone trying to pass through into the size of an atom.

Yup. It's just none of those actually touch on any moral nerves - it's not morally wrong to want to go to light speed. In fact it seems pretty cool. So it slides. But if something is morally dysfunctional, suddenly the scrutiny is intense. It reminds me of magic in the setting - with Pshuke if something is very passionate then it is indistinguishable from gods own work because it does what god wants to do. So the Pshuke gets no scrutiny. But with the other schools because they work off of technical principles rather than raw passion, they are scrutinised/receive the mark.

[Darth Richard II]

3 hours ago, Sci-2 said:

I think in some ways the metaphysics was thought out and in other ways Bakker figured he'd just get by on science-fantasy ideas.

And, to be fair, I think we do let people coast on things like re-sleeving across bodies without a serious argument for how your mind can be stored on a computer. Or how light-speed travel could work, or how worm-holes (if they could ever work) don't crush anyone trying to pass through into the size of an atom.

Well, I was more referring to Bakker's "sledged" misogynist tendencies.

[noshowjones]

2 hours ago, Callan S. said:

Yup. It's just none of those actually touch on any moral nerves - it's not morally wrong to want to go to light speed. In fact it seems pretty cool. So it slides. But if something is morally dysfunctional, suddenly the scrutiny is intense. It reminds me of magic in the setting - with Pshuke if something is very passionate then it is indistinguishable from gods own work because it does what god wants to do. So the Pshuke gets no scrutiny. But with the other schools because they work off of technical principles rather than raw passion, they are scrutinised/receive the mark.

No. I found a lot of Altered Carbon implausible.