Bakker LV - Nau's Ark

[Kalbear]

2 minutes ago, Darth Richard II said:

Right. I don't know why this keeps coming up. Bakker admitted all the stuff people pored over and over and over for threads and threads was just a bunch of meaningless bullshit. The head on a pole thing is a good example. The explanation ended up being one day Bakker saw his reflection in a  window and thought it was cool.

Well, I don't think it was trolling exactly, and that's where I disagree with @lokisnow in that I don't think there was malice. I think he wanted people to engage with the work by thinking that there was meaning, and then have the feeling of meaninglessness spread over them as they get no resolutions. Even now, when we have quotes from Bakker saying that one of his goals was to have people experience that feeling of lack of resolution we still have people saying 'but YOU HAVE TO WAIT FOR THE NEW BOOKS'. 

I think Bakker did it dishonestly through his interviews and other works, and in that he trolled - but I don't think he did it as a trolling exercise in the books themselves. Rather, I think he wrote a book where the reader is inclined to try and find meaning in basically everything, and then be disappointed.

2 minutes ago, Sci-2 said:

Sorry, but is there a quote for this? My understanding is Bakker was inspired by the reflection (in a bar I believe) but the Head on a Pole still has meaning insofar as it relates to the metaphysics of reality and how the Daimos's "Inversions" are used to cross safely into the Hells.

Honestly, it's unclear from his response. 

[.H.]

1 minute ago, Kalbear said:

Huh. I'd disagree with the bolded, too.

You misunderstood what I said.  I could have phrased it better, but what I meant was that the PoN trilogy, as opposed to tAE, was more narraitvely clear.  And that's why I like PoN over tAE in general.  I do agree with most your questions, since we have some debatable ideas on the answers to several of them.

4 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

And then there are stylistic things that we have no idea what they're about either - things like the head on the pole, or the decapitant thing, or Mimara's present tense. There's a whole lot  that is simply not explained at all - and you can happily blame Madness for being a shitty editor, but the end of the day it's Bakker's work, and it's certainly not particularly clear. Really, you can't argue both that it's a good series because it's so subjective AND it's a good series because it's so clear and defined. 

But we know about the head on a pole though and I think we managed to figure it out for the most part.  The Decapitant thing is still something of a mystery, but at least we know part of their narrative role, via Malowebi.  As for Mimara, well he discussed this in an earlier interview:

Quote

The intellectual tradition has been to assign discursive knowledge to men, and intuitive knowledge (the knowledge of angels) to women, and to insist this distinction is actually flattering to women, even as it was used to systematically exclude them from public discourse and debate. I tell Mimara in the present tense because I presume this ontological distinction obtains in my world, and that Mimara is in fact closer to the god, possessing unmediated--immediate--knowledge of good and evil.

But I wasn't saying that the series is good because it's clear, I was saying I like Prince of Nothing better because it's more clear than the Aspect Emperor books.

[Kalbear]

3 minutes ago, .H. said:

But we know about the head on a pole though and I think we managed to figure it out for the most part. 

Yeah, I don't think we do. I think that y'all can claim that it was some way to anchor Kellhus, or something like that, but I doubt you can answer simple things about it:

• whose head was it?
• Where was the pole located physically?
• Why does a subjective viewpoint of what Kellhus is experiencing matter as far as influencing the other observational frame - and if it does, why shouldn't MORE be better? Why wouldn't Kellhus have, say, a thousand heads on poles to essentially dominate the frame he was in?

3 minutes ago, .H. said:

 

But I wasn't saying that the series is good because it's clear, I was saying I like Prince of Nothing better because it's more clear than the Aspect Emperor books.

Ah, gotcha. Yeah, the first series was significantly more grounded in things, and the few things that ended up being more vague were actually just too literal (like Gilgaol coming down, etc). 

[Sci-2]

7 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Yeah, I don't think we do. I think that y'all can claim that it was some way to anchor Kellhus, or something like that, but I doubt you can answer simple things about it:

• whose head was it?
• Where was the pole located physically?
• Why does a subjective viewpoint of what Kellhus is experiencing matter as far as influencing the other observational frame - and if it does, why shouldn't MORE be better? Why wouldn't Kellhus have, say, a thousand heads on poles to essentially dominate the frame he was in?

My guesses which are probably wrong, my memories are a bit lacking here:

- It's Kellhus' own head.

- It's Kellhus's neck.

- What matters is that Kellhus is not bereft of body. His "Here" is preserved via his own body within the Inside even as he moves through the Outside.

Now there's a lot, admittedly, to sort out here and it likely depends on the metaphysics we ultimately choose to accept. But I think we can take the various clues and sort out something workable.

[Darth Richard II]

Yeah unless i missed a good long thread somewhere we still have no idea what the fuck the head on a pole thing was about. I was under the impression that it was just something Bakker through in cause he thought it was cool, but I guess you could take his quote on the matter either way.

21 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Well, I don't think it was trolling exactly, and that's where I disagree with @lokisnow in that I don't think there was malice. I think he wanted people to engage with the work by thinking that there was meaning, and then have the feeling of meaninglessness spread over them as they get no resolutions. Even now, when we have quotes from Bakker saying that one of his goals was to have people experience that feeling of lack of resolution we still have people saying 'but YOU HAVE TO WAIT FOR THE NEW BOOKS'. 

I think Bakker did it dishonestly through his interviews and other works, and in that he trolled - but I don't think he did it as a trolling exercise in the books themselves. Rather, I think he wrote a book where the reader is inclined to try and find meaning in basically everything, and then be disappointed.

This kind of baffles me still. After years of Bakker talking about how TUC was his originally intended ending and conclusion and that he hadn't changed anything since he came up with it, and also saying how he came up for the 3rd series much later, plus his statements about how he has no idea where the third series will go or what it will even be about... I understand some people are willfully ignorant but this idea that oh the next series will clear everything up is just...insane to me.

[Darth Richard II]

Does anyone have the quote where he talks about the Head on a Pole handy?

[.H.]

2 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Yeah, I don't think we do. I think that y'all can claim that it was some way to anchor Kellhus, or something like that, but I doubt you can answer simple things about it:

• whose head was it?
• Where was the pole located physically?
• Why does a subjective viewpoint of what Kellhus is experiencing matter as far as influencing the other observational frame - and if it does, why shouldn't MORE be better? Why wouldn't Kellhus have, say, a thousand heads on poles to essentially dominate the frame he was in?

This is actually a major part of what Sci and I have been discussing.

It was Kellhus' head though.  A major clue here is:

Quote

And he walks, though there is no ground. And he sees, though his eyes have rolled into his brow.

So, when Kellhus "travels" in the Outside, he is looking back inwards, behind his own head.  Which is largely what Bakker tells us in the inspiration being seeing a reflection in a reflection of your own head.  Kellhus soul is a mirror and so are his eyes.

The pole is physically located in his body, being his spine, because in "journeying" to the Outside, Kellhus has not traveled anywhere.  Which is why he keeps repeating about being "here" because he isn't anywhere else.  He is still inside his own body.

Well, I'm sure 1000 heads would be better, but Kellhus only has one soul and one body.  And no one else is suffienctly strong in the Daimos to be able to do what Kellhus can do.  That is, to be alive and be in the Outside at the same time.  This is why the Ciphrang warn him, "the living shall not haunt the dead."  In other words, the Outside is for the dead not the living.  The dead should come and haunt the living, not the reverse.  But Kellhus is fucking that up and they aren't happy.

They also can't do shit about it, because Kellhus isn't dead and they can't figure out how to break his soul from his body, because he isn't dead.  So he can mess with them and they can't seem to do anything to stop him except make him hurt (which he could care less about, because he is in a trance).

[.H.]

5 minutes ago, Darth Richard II said:

Does anyone have the quote where he talks about the Head on a Pole handy?

Quote

The image itself comes from a curious optical illusion I continually experienced while writing in this particular coffee shop. Whenever I sat in this one chair, I saw the silhouette of a severed head on a pole over my shoulder - and it just so happened that I was writing the first draft of these Kellhus sections at the time. It creeped me out, and given my old Derridean obsession with the paradoxes of the time of telling versus the time told, I thought it a cool way to evoke the omnipresence of the infernal eternal, as well as to provide yet another clue regarding the unclean entity residing within.

http://www.second-apocalypse.com/index.php?topic=2278.msg36402#msg36402

[Kalbear]

5 minutes ago, .H. said:

This is actually a major part of what Sci and I have been discussing.

It was Kellhus' head though.  A major clue here is:

So, when Kellhus "travels" in the Outside, he is looking back inwards, behind his own head.  Which is largely what Bakker tells us in the inspiration being seeing a reflection in a reflection of your own head.  Kellhus soul is a mirror and so are his eyes.

The pole is physically located in his body, being his spine, because in "journeying" to the Outside, Kellhus has not traveled anywhere.  Which is why he keeps repeating about being "here" because he isn't anywhere else.  He is still inside his own body.

That's an interesting, reasonable assumption. What makes it important?

5 minutes ago, .H. said:

 

Well, I'm sure 1000 heads would be better, but Kellhus only has one soul and one body.  And no one else is suffienctly strong in the Daimos to be able to do what Kellhus can do.  That is, to be alive and be in the Outside at the same time.  This is why the Ciphrang warn him, "the living shall not haunt the dead."  In other words, the Outside is for the dead not the living.  The dead should come and haunt the living, not the reverse.  But Kellhus is fucking that up and they aren't happy.

This doesn't make sense though. We know of many reports of people travelling to the Outside, including Moenghus. Meppa and Psatma both appear to have at least seen or experienced the Outside. Others report it as well at various places, and one can literally travel to places to cross over into the outside, body and all, and have ALL SORTS OF SHIT happen to you - like have an eyeball grow on your heart.

Like, okay, I get that it could make sense, but given all the other information I don't see how this makes any sense at all. Having a physical body doesn't appear to protect you from the Outside in any meaningful way. 

5 minutes ago, .H. said:

They also can't do shit about it, because Kellhus isn't dead and they can't figure out how to break his soul from his body, because he isn't dead.  So he can mess with them and they can't seem to do anything to stop him except make him hurt (which he could care less about, because he is in a trance).

Again, the ability for the Outside to influence the Mundane isn't just relegated to souls. Hell, we have an earthquake apparently caused by the gods. 

[Darth Richard II]

Wouldn't the unclean entity residing within just be Ajolki?

[Kalbear]

Okay, here's another example of Bakker saying things like what I was talking about:

Quote

But what can I do aside from shrug, reaffirm that I did work tremendously hard on this final book, and reassert that frustrating our meaning-making reflexes was paramount among my goals?

 

[.H.]

19 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

That's an interesting, reasonable assumption. What makes it important?

It's only thematically important in that it gives a sense of Kellhus' ability to master the Daimos.  Now, subsequently, I have no idea how that point is important.  Maybe it is for the next series.  Or then again, maybe not.  There is also a curious call back, later, when Kellhus is telling Proyas about how The God is not what Proyas imagines it is.  I think this final call to it is to remind us how Kellhus could have tred into the Outside to discover this information, as well as imply that even learning this, Kellhus could still not be broken.  Because the head on a pole is an anchor.

19 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

This doesn't make sense though. We know of many reports of people travelling to the Outside, including Moenghus. Meppa and Psatma both appear to have at least seen or experienced the Outside. Others report it as well at various places, and one can literally travel to places to cross over into the outside, body and all, and have ALL SORTS OF SHIT happen to you - like have an eyeball grow on your heart.

Like, okay, I get that it could make sense, but given all the other information I don't see how this makes any sense at all. Having a physical body doesn't appear to protect you from the Outside in any meaningful way.

I might be misremembering but I don't recall Moe or Meppa ever going to the Outside.  Moe, in fact died because he completely discounted the Outside as an important factor in the world.  Meppa on the other hand, beleives the Solitary God is real, which, if we went to the Outside, he should certainly have known it was not.  Meppa does imply he knows that the Hundred are demons.  Which is both a shrewd deduction and an actual fact.  But I don't think he knows if from direct observation.  In fact, he thinks it's becasue the Solitary God is real.  Which it isn't.

Psatma, well, I think she has actually had some experience that constitutes contact wit hthe Outside, but only through the touch of Yatwer.  In other words, I don't think Pstama "saw the Outside" rather, she was shown parts of Yatwer, as She is in the Outside, and parts of the Outside, as seen through Yatwer.  In other words, contacted by the Outside, by Yatwer.

Now, the eyeball in the chest thing.  Well, that I haven't quite figured out.  Maybe I can later, but I think that is something more about what happens when you spend too long in a topos, where things get layered over each other or something.

But having a physical body does protect you from the Outside.  It is why Shae, Aurang, Aurax and the rest of the Consult specifically do not want to die.  Because as long as they have their body, their punishment for their sins cannot be visited on their Soul.

19 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Again, the ability for the Outside to influence the Mundane isn't just relegated to souls. Hell, we have an earthquake apparently caused by the gods. 

Well, the earthquake thing is murky at best.  We actually don't really know what was up with that.  But I don't think it's as simple as "gods were mad, and made an earthquake."  If they could do that and things like it, why would Yatwer need the White Luck Warrior at all?

[Callan S.]

4 hours ago, Darth Richard II said:

I think it's cause readers want an ending that doesn't suck. Also see The Matrix Trilogy, Lost, BSG.

I think people who can't actually describe the ending they want aught not to throw stones.

If you were explicitly saying you wanted a happy ending that'd be fair. Because it just looks like that is the problem - the grim dark books didn't change from grim dark at the end. Trying to say all unhappy endings suck is just a way avoiding directly telling the author to give a happy ending....and who does it fool? As if the audience never asked for a happy ending, so when one occurs it must have been real somehow.

It's not about wrapping up plot threads - if, for example, Mimara had seen Kellhus with the judging eye, then you'd want to see some plot advancement on that. Then further plot advancement on the prior advancement. It'd just be a cycle - that would only end if a happy ending occurred. This time the cycle was broken by tragedy.

 

[Darth Richard II]

2 hours ago, Callan S. said:

I think people who can't actually describe the ending they want aught not to throw stones.

If you were explicitly saying you wanted a happy ending that'd be fair. Because it just looks like that is the problem - the grim dark books didn't change from grim dark at the end. Trying to say all unhappy endings suck is just a way avoiding directly telling the author to give a happy ending....and who does it fool? As if the audience never asked for a happy ending, so when one occurs it must have been real somehow.

It's not about wrapping up plot threads - if, for example, Mimara had seen Kellhus with the judging eye, then you'd want to see some plot advancement on that. Then further plot advancement on the prior advancement. It'd just be a cycle - that would only end if a happy ending occurred. This time the cycle was broken by tragedy.

 

Lol, still harping on about how we don't liek the ending cause it isn't happy? Cmon man, even the trolls have moved past that.

[noshowjones]

7 hours ago, Kalbear said:

Huh. I'd disagree with the bolded, too. How many people missed entirely Kelmomas didn't kill Kellhus? Or even what happened with Kellhus and Kelmomas and why? Or why Kelmomas was invisible to the gods? 

How many people missed that women are objectively less worth than men?

What happened to Koringhus?

Is Serwa alive? Is Nau-Cayuti? Why did she miss that 100th stone? 

Why is Akka dreaming of NC? 

Is Shaeonnara still in charge, or are the Dunyain? 

What was Kellhus' actual plan? Like, seriously, what was the entire point of the Great Ordeal? 

What was the Dunsult plan? Again, like, seriously, what was the entire point of the Consult? 

These are not particularly small questions, nor were they all questions that just arose recently. Things like knowing what Kellhus' actual plan was are kind of big deals, and we still have not a clue. 

 

Hey, all. I've been reading your comments. It's nice to find a forum where there is some critical discussion of these books. Like many of you, I found the conclusion of tAE to be disappointing at best, mostly because so many of the storylines and characters amounted to nothing in the end. Stylistically, the last two books were really disappointing as well. I found it nearly impossible to tell the difference between hyperbole (which he uses often) and what should be taken as a literal interpretation. 

I'll hazard a guess as to why Akka was dreaming of NC, and I think the answer can be found in the fact that Akka also dreamed as Celmommas: it was a convenient exposition device for the author.

I'd add another question @Kalbear, since you (I think) asked why Mimara's POV was present tense. Why the F was Moe Jr's POV suddenly in second person?

[Sci-2]

7 hours ago, .H. said:

It's only thematically important in that it gives a sense of Kellhus' ability to master the Daimos.  Now, subsequently, I have no idea how that point is important.  Maybe it is for the next series.  Or then again, maybe not.  There is also a curious call back, later, when Kellhus is telling Proyas about how The God is not what Proyas imagines it is.  I think this final call to it is to remind us how Kellhus could have tred into the Outside to discover this information, as well as imply that even learning this, Kellhus could still not be broken.  Because the head on a pole is an anchor.

I might be misremembering but I don't recall Moe or Meppa ever going to the Outside.  Moe, in fact died because he completely discounted the Outside as an important factor in the world.  Meppa on the other hand, beleives the Solitary God is real, which, if we went to the Outside, he should certainly have known it was not.  Meppa does imply he knows that the Hundred are demons.  Which is both a shrewd deduction and an actual fact.  But I don't think he knows if from direct observation.  In fact, he thinks it's becasue the Solitary God is real.  Which it isn't.

Psatma, well, I think she has actually had some experience that constitutes contact wit hthe Outside, but only through the touch of Yatwer.  In other words, I don't think Pstama "saw the Outside" rather, she was shown parts of Yatwer, as She is in the Outside, and parts of the Outside, as seen through Yatwer.  In other words, contacted by the Outside, by Yatwer.

Now, the eyeball in the chest thing.  Well, that I haven't quite figured out.  Maybe I can later, but I think that is something more about what happens when you spend too long in a topos, where things get layered over each other or something.

But having a physical body does protect you from the Outside.  It is why Shae, Aurang, Aurax and the rest of the Consult specifically do not want to die.  Because as long as they have their body, their punishment for their sins cannot be visited on their Soul.

 

Psatma remarks to Meppa that they've both seen, or possibly experienced, the Outside...sadly IIRC  that was in WLW and I no longer have the hardbook and have yet to buy a new digital copy...

That said I think you make the obvious case for a body within the Inside protecting one's self from the Outside's predations - why else do the Consult bother doing what they do? The slog treks into a topos and so ends up with eyeballs on their hearts, but my guess is when Kellhus enacted the Daimotic Inversions he was on Inside ground that was "solid" in the sense that the demarcation between the realm of the living versus that of the dead holds.

The body is likely not just a lens to constrain phenomenal experience of Reality to a small window, but also an image/icon that marks who is allowed to be dragged into the Hells. (It also, as per the Mark & Judging Eye, works as an icon indicating the degree of sorcerous working and/or sin.)

That quote from Bakker about the coffee shop does confuse me a bit though. The Head on the Pole is a hint to Ajokli dwelling within Kellhus..or rather that Kellhus can using his Self as a portal to the Hells an indicator of the possession?

[Larry of the Lawn]

6 hours ago, Callan S. said:

I think people who can't actually describe the ending they want aught not to throw stones.

If you were explicitly saying you wanted a happy ending that'd be fair. Because it just looks like that is the problem - the grim dark books didn't change from grim dark at the end. Trying to say all unhappy endings suck is just a way avoiding directly telling the author to give a happy ending....and who does it fool? As if the audience never asked for a happy ending, so when one occurs it must have been real somehow.

It's not about wrapping up plot threads - if, for example, Mimara had seen Kellhus with the judging eye, then you'd want to see some plot advancement on that. Then further plot advancement on the prior advancement. It'd just be a cycle - that would only end if a happy ending occurred. This time the cycle was broken by tragedy.

 

Despite people telling you over and over again that the ending not being 'happy' isn't the issue, you still think this.  This is like a broken record.  Or just keep going around ignoring everything people write and repeating this nonsense about happy endings.  

On another note, I think the thing that Bakker executed best, that was well set up but I can't remember anyone in these threads predicting, that when it happened was a real "oh shit how did we not see this" was the Dunyain commandeering the Consult.  

The Head on the Pole was really cool - but it seems like another instance where Bakker just comes up with a cool idea that doesn't really mean much in regard to text as a whole: I think it was RRL who speculated it was a reference to Onkis, and then Bakker revealed that it was just something he came up with at the coffee shop.  

I really think the metaphysics are something that we're reading more into than is actually there; Bakker just riffs in shit without having something more complex or structured worked out behind the scenes.  It's like the trappings of a system, but really it's just a Potemkin village 

 

[Sci-2]

12 minutes ago, larrytheimp said:

I really think the metaphysics are something that we're reading more into than is actually there; Bakker just riffs in shit without having something more complex or structured worked out behind the scenes.  It's like the trappings of a system, but really it's just a Potemkin village

I'm partially inclined to agree with this, but OTOH Bakker has spent his whole adult life (and arguably before) contemplating things like Causation and Consciousness, the two biggest mysteries of reality.

I think Bakker figures - and has even mentioned - that there are no good resolutions to the conjoining of Now and Eternity, that this leaves the Bakkerverse broken in some sense (or at least Absurd/Paradoxical).

But I'm not digging into metaphysical speculation to figure out what Bakker intended, I (and IMO others) are doing it b/c we are just brainstorming what kind of metaphysics could fit the things Bakker has said out of text + what he's said within the text. There's a certain fun in trying to square the circle, where our hypotheses have to be in accordance with the evidence.

[Hello World]

6 hours ago, noshowjones said:

Why the F was Moe Jr's POV suddenly in second person?

I think I've already forgotten large chunks of this book. When was this? The only time I remember second person off the top of my head was the Kellhus in hell scene.

Quote

It's not about wrapping up plot threads - if, for example, Mimara had seen Kellhus with the judging eye, then you'd want to see some plot advancement on that. Then further plot advancement on the prior advancement. It'd just be a cycle - that would only end if a happy ending occurred. This time the cycle was broken by tragedy.

Not really... her plot thread in TUC can actually end with her seeing Kellhus with the JE and that would be it. That doesn't mean that she can't play a role in the war against the No-God (whether those books are written or not.)

[.H.]

15 hours ago, Kalbear said:

Okay, here's another example of Bakker saying things like what I was talking about:

Right, I don't dispute this is a fact of what Bakker does.  However, he does mention in that line of conversation, that it is narrative meaning he is out to frustrate.  Perhaps wrongly, but what I take that to mean is that indeed the narrative is there to frustrate, because we inherently want to have closure.  It's similar (I think, I am not a literary scholar by any means) to what Cormac McCarthy often does.  The books have less of an narrative end, so much as they just stop.  Granted, I've only read a handful of his books, but in each one, I don't recall the narrative coming to a definitive conclusion, instead, it's more like the "tape ran out" and the book is over.

This is to say that I do acknowledge that Bakker did add things to the books without them being narratively meaningful in the grand sense.  But I still think that most things are meaningful in the thematic sense.

7 hours ago, Sci-2 said:

Psatma remarks to Meppa that they've both seen, or possibly experienced, the Outside...sadly IIRC  that was in WLW and I no longer have the hardbook and have yet to buy a new digital copy...

I think you are talking about this:

Quote

"You worship a demon."

The Mother-Supreme laughed with the bitter hilarity. The cackle rang across distant walls, echoed through the high crypt hollows, gelding all the humour that had come before it. Suddenly the assembled men were nothing but ridiculous boys, their pride swatted from them by the palm of a shrewd and exacting mother.

"Call her what you will!" Psatma Nannaferi exclaimed. "Demon? Yes! I worship a demon!—if it pleases you to call her such! You think we worship the Hundred because they are good? Madness governs the Outside, Snakehead, not gods or demons—or even the God! Fool! We worship them because they have power over us. And we—we Yatwerians—worship the one with the most power of all!"

Malowebi squelched another urge to call out, to urge the Fanim to spare her, to set her free, then to burn a hundred bulls in Yatwer's honour. The Mother was here! Here!

"Gods are naught but greater demons," the Cishaurim said, "hungers across the surface of eternity, wanting only to taste the clarity of our souls. Can you not see this?"

The woman's laughter trailed into a cunning smile. "Hungers indeed! The fat will be eaten, of course. But the high holy? The faithful? They shall be celebrated!"

Meppa's voice was no mean one, yet its timbre paled in the wake of the Mother-Supreme's clawing rasp. Even still he pressed, a tone of urgent sincerity the only finger he had to balance the scales. "We are a narcotic to them. They eat our smoke. They make jewellery of our thoughts and passions. They are beguiled by our torment, our ecstasy, so they collect us, pluck us like strings, make chords of nations, play the music of our anguish over endless ages.We have seen this, woman. We have seen this with our missing eyes!"

Malowebi scowled. Fanim madness... It had to be.

"Then you know," Psatma Nannaferi said in a growl that crawled across Malowebi's skin. "There will be no end to your eating, when She takes you. Your blood, your flesh—they are inexhaustible in death. Taste what little air you can breathe, Snakehead. You presume your Solitary God resembles you. You make your image the form of the One. You think you can trace lines, borders, through the Outside, like that fool, Sejenus, say what belongs to the God of Gods and what does not—errant abstractions! Hubris! The Goddess waits, Snakehead, and you are but a mote before her patience! Birth and War alone can seize—and seize She does!"

Indeed, Meppa insinuates that he has seen.  But he has seen, on the one hand part of the truth, yet not seen the bigger picture, that the Solitary God simply does not exist.  This is why he gets no where with Pstama, because it's largely irrelevant if Yatwer is a "demon" or not.  Meppa imagines his small insight is a view to The Truth, that the Solitary God is the ultimate power.  Pstama explains his insight is actually meaningless, because it's just a label on the Hundred that doesn't really do anything, and his Truth is not even a truth at all (because the Solitary God is not manifest).  I don't know that Psatma understands why the Solitary God can't exist, but that's kind of beside the point.

My point being, both have seen glimpses of the Outside, but I don't think either has actually visited.  They've suffered revelation of parts, but they don't apprehend the whole.  Indeed, consider what the Nonman envoy asks Kellhus:

Quote

"We are curious..." the Nonman said. "The Ciphrang bound about your girdle. Is it true you have walked the Outside and returned?"

He could be feigning surprise, but I don't see why.  No, I think it more likely he is legitimately surprised that Kellhus could actually visit the Outside, not just see it, and actually return with his soul.