The Judging Eye VI

[Acid Rainbow]

Man, there are so many things I dislike on some level about PoN writing-wise, I just love the books because the story is batshit insane and the philosophy is awesome.

Oh, I really agree about the story. "Elves with swords and magic, fighting space aliens with ray guns" sounds ridiculous, but Bakker makes it work. One of the things I like about PON is the awesome backstory, and that it had fantasy villains who actually are scary as hell.

However, I really struggled through the first book. Many of the names were incredibly off-putting, the philosophical monologues were hard to get through, and just felt like the author was pouring out everything he learned in philosophy class because he didn't know where else to put it.

And I'm not even gonna get started on the constant sexual creepiness. On the second page, a little boy gets ass-raped, and it only goes downhill from there.

[pat5150]

Brief synopsis for The White-Luck Warrior from Penguin Canada here. :)

Cheers,

Patrick

[Rhadamanth]

I really hate waiting...

[Spring Bass]

Thanks Pat.

So we can start adding to the speculation about who the White-Luck Warrior is I suppose.

I thought that was in The Judging Eye - i.e., he's the dude that the priestess of Yatwer had sex with, turning him old and her young.

I really wish we had a chapter or something from White Luck Warrior, as well as (obviously) a release date.

EDIT: Removed spoiler tags.

[unJon]

I thought that was in The Judging Eye - i.e., he's

the dude that the priestess of Yatwer had sex with, turning him old and her young.

I really wish we had a chapter or something from White Luck Warrior, as well as (obviously) a release date.

There's no reason to spoil that. This is a TJE spoilers thread.

[Happy Ent]

There's no reason to spoil that.

unJon means the opposite of what he says, of course: there is no reason to hide this information behind a spoiler warning—spoil away!

[Calibandar]

The synopsis for The White Luck Warrior is brief but still interesting. Achamian heading to Sauglish is no surprise but the synopsis does make it sound like his finds there will be worldchanging. Similarly, the reference to the White Luck Warrior as messiah as well as assasin, executing a mission as old as the world's making, is highly intriguing.

Plus of course further confirmation that the Gods in Earwa, are real.

It's hard to wait to see Kellhus' fascinating march further into the North. I love how the plot of this series can still go in so many different ways, how new concepts continue to be introduced and how you simply don't know where this is heading to.

[jurble]

To us, reading these books, we recognize Kellhus for what he is, the result of a thousands year old breeding program, so we understand his powers because we're familiar with the effects selective breeding can have. But to the people in Bakkerworld, he's god-incarnate. His powers can only be explained by The God. I'm thinking the WLW will have many of the same powers as Kellhus, but with a Divine origin.

[Nerdanel]

It's nice to see the synopsis for the next book, even if I'm going to read the book a year later than everyone else again... That said, it's marked how little that synopsis does more than confirm realistic expectations.

As Anasûrimbor Kellhus and his Great Ordeal march ever farther into the perilous wastes of the Ancient North,

Ok, what were the chances of that not happening?

Esmenet finds herself at war with not only the Gods, but her own family as well.

Esmenet was already at something approaching non-open war with more than one god. The bit about her family is more interesting. It could refer to Kelmomas's actions behind the scenes, or it could be about Kelmomas continuing trying to drive a wedge between his mother and Maithanet, even his mother and Theliopa. Though, it has been clear to me that Kelmomas wants to have Esmenet all for himself. Without Theliopa, Kelmomas would be the one to sit next to Esmenet, scanning for skin-spies.

Achamian, meanwhile, leads his own ragtag expedition to the legendary ruins of Sauglish, and to a truth he can scarce survive, let alone comprehend.

Achamian was going to Sauglish and the laws of plot construction suggested that he was going to reach it for the climax of WLW where something climactic would happen, likely involving a climactic reveal. This sentence is telling us that it will be a really, really big reveal... of some sort.

Into this tumult walks the White-Luck Warrior, assassin and messiah both, executing a mission as old as the World’s making …

We already knew about the White Luck Warrior, but the phrasing "mission as old as the World's making" sounds like it could be a significant clue to the Eärwan metaphysics, such as the reason why the World was made. Was the World made as a prison for the spirits that questioned the authority of the God? It could be argued in this case that the WLW's mission is only a continuation on stomping down on the souls that get above their station.

[lokisnow]

just so long as the synopsis isn't about the last 150 pages while the rest of the book is a travelogue of them endlessly journeying I will be happy. :)

[jurble]

The shocking truth? The Dunyain were sent to Ishual by a vision from the God. It turns out Kellhus is the God's chosen avatar.

[Nerdanel]

Maybe the shocking truth will be that the Dûnyain were sent to Ishuäl by Mekeritrig and that Cleric, the traveling companion who had saved all of their lives multiple times, is actually the very same Mekeritrig. And everything that happened in the books thus far, including the rise of Kellhus, is part of Mekeritrig's millennia-spanning nefarious plan to bring back the No-God. Oh, and Naû-Cajûti was Mekeritrig's son.

That would be pretty shocking, right? It could be too early to reveal all that, though.

Maybe the reveal could be something about the nature of the God and the metaphysics of Eärwa, setting up the God as the true main villain of the series, but I'm not sure how they could get to that in Sauglish.

[Talyn]

I can't wait either. Not much there but it still gets me excited.

[lokisnow]

I love playing the shocking truth game. ;) The shocking truth is that mek is actually an inchoroi but is actually a nonman skinspy actually the first skinspy they ever made but is actually Aurax's real body riding inside the skin spy like the aliens in Independence Day and Aurax is actually God, and Aurang is actually his gay lover Lucifer and they were thrown down to Earwa by the gay lovers Metatron and Megatron and the No-God is actually Megatron captured inside the carapace and the easter island statues and the pyramids and oh all the south american thingamijiggies big shit are all part of the no-megatron-god conspiracy that Mek captured Megatron and Mek as Aurax are going to throw down the usurpers by killing all their believers on Earwa and they should have been able to kill Metatron and Megatron but Megatron was able to escape back to the outside and now they have a long hard road back to try to throw down the heavenly usurpers again, and they need another great ordeal so they sent the dunyain to ishual and sent Mek to Kell and had Moe killed and Aurang replaced Moe as the most perfect skinspy ever built in order to get Kelly to do the second great ordeal.

[unJon]

unJon means the opposite of what he says, of course: there is no reason to hide this information behind a spoiler warning—spoil away!

Right, what HE said. No reason to cast a vote on me though, HE. <_<

[Acid Rainbow]

Maybe the shocking truth will be that the Dûnyain were sent to Ishuäl by Mekeritrig and that Cleric, the traveling companion who had saved all of their lives multiple times, is actually the very same Mekeritrig. And everything that happened in the books thus far, including the rise of Kellhus, is part of Mekeritrig's millennia-spanning nefarious plan to bring back the No-God. Oh, and Naû-Cajûti was Mekeritrig's son.

That would be pretty shocking, right? It could be too early to reveal all that, though.

Maybe the reveal could be something about the nature of the God and the metaphysics of Eärwa, setting up the God as the true main villain of the series, but I'm not sure how they could get to that in Sauglish.

Doesn't really make sense that God is the main villain. For one, is the "eternal damnation in the afterlife" even real?

Bakker doesn't believe damnation in Eärwa is real. He said in an interview that he wants to make the point that certainty is a load of shit. I agree with him - it makes no sense that the Inrithi tusk is some kind of natural law (or whatever). So it's just stupid to say "Sorcerers are damned because that's what the tusk says". Nonmen didn't believe in damnation.

Look at the Cishaurim - one side says they're evil abominations who will burn in hell, and for the other side they are the holiest of holy men.

I don't know yet what's up with Mimara's judging eye, but I don't see Mimara as an omniscient author's voice.

[Kalbear]

Nonmen didn't believe in damnation.

Nonmen most certainly believe in damnation; this is very clearly spelled out in the conversation between Cleric and the nonman king. It's very very doubtful that they believed in damnation in the same way that the Inri or the Cish do - but they certainly believe in it.

[Acid Rainbow]

What I was trying to say is that we shouldn't be certain about damnation in the afterlife of Eärwa when Bakker himself says "certainty is a crock of shit"

[jurble]

Alright, I got it, the big reveal is that the Dunyain are actually Consult agents. They intentionally released the plague in Ishual, and then setup a breeding experiment over thousands of years. Genetic engineering is good and all, but it's a blunt instrument. Sometimes certain genes work best in combinatorial fashion, and you'll never know that without a breeding program.

[Happy Ent]

Bakker doesn't believe damnation in Eärwa is real. He said in an interview that he wants to make the point that certainty is a load of shit.

Could you provide a source for this?

(We need to form some kind of committee that canonises the Word of Bakker, so we can refer to him in properly reverential way, like the gospels or Anjencis. I want to say stuff like “For behold! Did not Scott speak in Nethspace, verse 6, ‘Verily, the male children of our people will falter before porn and video games’. See also Bakker and Women XIV, #523, v. 4–5.”)

Edit: Not that I don’t believe you. I think I know which exchange you’re referring to.

Edit 2: Yes, I am also sure the Nonmen do believe in damnation. I’m also sure they weren’t damned before humanity “took over” and became the fount morality by force of numbers alone, even though they still toiled in slavery.