The Judging Eye VI

[akh]

Sorry for straying away from the discussion at hand, but does anyone know if there's any fan art around for PoN and The Judging Eye? If there was, I'd appreciate links a lot.

[Curethan]

I've seen a few people ask about such art - one boarder over at 3 seas suggested he had seen some on deviant art - but I have never found any.

[Borque]

Well there is this picture of the Evil Seal from TJE - I think it's Soma and Mimara in the foreground.

http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c384/Spectre_1/EvilSeal.jpg

[Happy Ent]

More fanart: Chorae

[Acid Rainbow]

There's a pretty good fanart picture of an Inchoroi floating around on the web...other than that, I haven't seen any.

[Shryke]

ob·jec·tive

adj.

1. Of or having to do with a material object.

2. Having actual existence or reality.

3.

a. Uninfluenced by emotions or personal prejudices: an objective critic.

b. Based on observable phenomena; presented factually: an objective appraisal.

We can discard 3a. based on the contextual usage - there are other adjectival definations relating to medicine and grammar we can ignore. 2. strikes me as the most likely literal contextual interpretation.

Based on the changing and varied metaphysical presentaion of societies in Earwa it really seems unlikely that the intent is to present a rigid and codifiable moral hypostatic system.

We have Moe's TTT which evolves into an possibly sentient entity, metaphorically explained via viramasata by Moe and accepted by Kellhus, the characters closest to having a holistic understanding of how the whole system works.

The flavour quotes from each chapter, and much of the other interwoven background material alludes to fluidity in the metaphysical systems; from the non-men's interactions with other sentient races to Ajenicus to Sejenus we are presented with rather compelling evidence of situations where the injection, acceptance and ascent of new ideas have changed the world and mutated the 'outside'. An interesting example is the cultish dieties being united as aspects of the immanent God by Inrithism and Triamis I. Despite this, the most powerful cults (like Yatwer's) seem able to resist this intergration, through a combination of the fact that they retain much of their original identity and dogged underground worship and belief.

Contrasting the apparent lack of scientific innovation over thousands of years and indeed the evidenced inability of superior alien 'hard science' to dominate the extant system (which is a thriving and contentious hotbed of warring beliefs and philosophies) appears to be a deliberate and consistent theme - the one most likely relating to the idea of "morality as an objective fact".

No, it alludes to fluidity in peoples BELIEFS.

Quite simple, Bakker has stated that Earwa is a world where some of what we would call beliefs are objective facts. Damnation is real. But so is a sort of spiritual hierchy (men > women > snake > pig > sorceror).

What I've yet to see any evidence for is that the rest of the rules are malliable if enough people believe hard enough.

If this spiritual stuff is as concrete in Earwa as Physics is here, why do you think people in Earwa can change it if they just believe hard enough anymore then we can change the speed of light if we all just believe hard enough.

[jurble]

what does everyone look like again?

Kellhus is blond hair and blue eyes, braided beard, hollow cheeks, and deep set eyes iirc. Not sure about his height or build.

I always imagine Iyokus as the Senator from the first X Men movie who turns into the pale-translucent blob thing and explodes.

Maithenet is dark-skinned and physically imposing. Not sure about anything else like hair color or eye color.

Akka is fat, darker-than-Norsirai-skinned, but I'm not sure how dark being a pick implies, could just be olive skinned.

I don't think Bakker is too descriptive on appearances. Probably keeps a lot of fan artistry at bay.

[JGP]

what does everyone look like again?

Kellhus is blond hair and blue eyes, braided beard, hollow cheeks, and deep set eyes iirc. Not sure about his height or build.

I always imagine Iyokus as the Senator from the first X Men movie who turns into the pale-translucent blob thing and explodes.

Maithenet is dark-skinned and physically imposing. Not sure about anything else like hair color or eye color.

Akka is fat, darker-than-Norsirai-skinned, but I'm not sure how dark being a pick implies, could just be olive skinned.

I don't think Bakker is too descriptive on appearances. Probably keeps a lot of fan artistry at bay.

i. Kellhus is very tall, comparitively speaking-- 6'3" would be the starting point, imo. Most like he's flirting with 6'5" 6'6"

ii. Pretty much right on with Maithanet, although he has dark hair and the piercing blue eyes

iii. Akka isn't fat anymore [come TJE] so if he used to be an olive he's now much closer to the pit

I have a bunch of PoN workups in my portfolio [[i think they're in there, been a few years] mostly various designs of the same characters, i.e. Kellhus, Esmenet, Achamian, a general Nonman. I do recall especially liking my interpretation of a sranc though. Got the dog-chested thing down.

[Curethan]

If this spiritual stuff is as concrete in Earwa as Physics is here, why do you think people in Earwa can change it if they just believe hard enough anymore then we can change the speed of light if we all just believe hard enough.

There is no suggestion that it is unchanging/concrete either. Merely that it's real. Perhaps you would like to suggest where the human's gods came from. Or what they were doing/being before humans became ascendant. Or the whole point of the Inchies trying to change their spiritual reality by closing off the outside (which is the most obvious and compelling suporting evidence for my view that I can think of atm, when there is no-one left to believe...)

Your simplistic counter equates reality as a static system and belief with wishing. Oh, and the speed of light in fact is relative and changes depending on the medium.

I don't really want or expect to change anyone's position though, just define my own. To me, Bakker's world is a place like our own but where magic and gods are an immanent fact, although are still born from the language and minds of men (and non-men). Physical reality bends and bows before the supremecy of ideas and beliefs, similtaneously engendering a fluid system that tends to stagnate as pressures balance.

[Acid Rainbow]

Oh, I'd love to see a Sranc picture. I don't know how to imagine them. When I read aabout them, I though "a supermodel's face photoshopped on an Orc's body".

The Inchoroi picture was pretty good.

Akka should be a short, swarthy middle-aged guy with a southern european look.

Maithanet is said to have "the old Norsirai look"; he's tall, black-haired and his eyes are the same blue as Kellhus'.

[Shryke]

There is no suggestion that it is unchanging/concrete either. Merely that it's real. Perhaps you would like to suggest where the human's gods came from. Or what they were doing/being before humans became ascendant. Or the whole point of the Inchies trying to change their spiritual reality by closing off the outside (which is the most obvious and compelling suporting evidence for my view that I can think of atm, when there is no-one left to believe...)

Your simplistic counter equates reality as a static system and belief with wishing. Oh, and the speed of light in fact is relative and changes depending on the medium.

I don't really want or expect to change anyone's position though, just define my own. To me, Bakker's world is a place like our own but where magic and gods are an immanent fact, although are still born from the language and minds of men (and non-men). Physical reality bends and bows before the supremecy of ideas and beliefs, similtaneously engendering a fluid system that tends to stagnate as pressures balance.

Except, again, there is absolutely no evidence that the beliefs of men effect the world.

This is like believing that the No-God is, in fact, a popsicle.

[Spring Bass]

But in his world, as in ours, the reason for damnation is, if you want, a social construction.

I don't think that follows, to be honest. Think of how Mimara can see the damnation of both Achamian and Cleric, in spite of the fact that most of the population now believes that sorcerors are not damned (due to Kellhus, "God of Gods", changing the rules of the Tusk).

Perhaps you would like to suggest where the human's gods came from. Or what they were doing/being before humans became ascendant.

Floating around the Outside, blind to the world. The anthropomorphization of them by the humans existing in-universe notwithstanding.

Or the whole point of the Inchies trying to change their spiritual reality by closing off the outside

The whole point of the Inchoroi closing off the Outside is precisely because damnation and the Outside are believed to be real in-universe on the Bakkerworld, like gravity. Hell, they treat it like a problem to be quantified - "just get the number of souls below a minimum number, and the Gods and Outside are effectively disconnected".

[Happy Ent]

I don't think that follows, to be honest. Think of how Mimara can see the damnation of both Achamian and Cleric, in spite of the fact that most of the population now believes that sorcerors are not damned (due to Kellhus, "God of Gods", changing the rules of the Tusk).

Both Akka and Cleric continue to be damned. Akka by being a wizard and anathema to Kellhus, and Cleric by being a Nonman. Kellhus’s treatise about sorcery, which is quoted in TJE makes it quite explicit that sorcery remains wicked, but can be virtuous. That doesn’t mean that all sorcerers automatically become undamned.

The interesting part is that Mimara sees many other sorcerers at Kellhus’s court as damned. What we would love to know is how Mimara sees Kellhus, or somebody like Sorweel’s instructor whose name I forget. But the book is delightfully coy about that.

Finally, does most of the populace indeed believe, strongly enough, what Kellhus has written about sorcery? Kellhus has a conversation with an Inchoroi, where both seem to agree that he would not be able to undo the damnation of the Inchoroi, not matter what he decreed. Re-education is not an option, because of the depth of their sin.

[Curethan]

Except, again, there is absolutely no evidence that the beliefs of men effect the world.

This is like believing that the No-God is, in fact, a popsicle.

Okay, so. Why is the 'outside' found in the human soul? How is it that sorcery is based upon semantic interpretation and epistimology? Why aren't animals damned/holy? Did you notice the world changing holy war in PoN (which turned out to be an instrument of the thousandfold thought)? What is the handle Kellhus uses for manipulation?

The whole conceit is that beliefs are real and can be used like tools. Kellhus can quantify and measure them. Sorcery blows shit up with them. And yet they change, they are localized, they are varied, they even possess a nascent self awareness in some cases. They are intimately and absolutely related to the world, the soul and the outside in Earwa, whereas in our world they are merely abstract - Nietsche didn't really kill god.

TJE showed that Yatwer is active in the world; the outside definitely effects change in the material plane. She moves to destroy Kellhus, a man who manipulates belief to effect massive, sudden change in the social systems of the world. Why the hell would this be if it isn't possible? His objective is to destroy the consult and save Yatwer's followers.

Enjoy your popsicle, I hope you can tell what flavour it is with your eyes shut.

___

In response to GB's points, I tend to theorise that the relationship between general beliefs and absolute reality are evolutionary in nature and take much time and some kind of units of conviction and piety to gradually effect change.

Your suggestion re: the gods is almost the same as what I believe, it suggests that the beliefs of men have shaped the nature of these powers/gods via anthromorphisation.

And re: the consult - exactly so again. By killing of sufficient believers you disconnect the system, effecting a dramatic, final change.

[Happy Ent]

I’m back with some quotes I failed to festoon earlier posts with. Forgive me for being out of context.

Here’s the interaction between Kelly and Possessed!Esmi

[Esmi:] “We,” she cooed, “are a race of lovers.”

[...]

[Kelly:] “And for this you are damned.”

[...]

“We were born for damnation’s sake. [...] Our very nature is our transgression. [... fondles Esmi’s body...] For this I am to heave and scream in lakes of fire? Because of boundaries of skin?”

[...]

“Denial is the way,” Kellhus said. “Boundaries are written into the order of thins.”

She matched his gaze in a way Esmenet never could, stared as thoug he were something pathetic and execrable. It sees what I’m trying to do.

“But you,” she said with breathless sarcasm ”you could rewrite the scripture of my doom, hmm, Prophet?” She barked with laughter.

“There is no absolution for your kind.”

She had raised her hips to the flutter of her fingers. “Oh, but there isssss…”

“So you would destroy the world?” [TTT p.246, Chap. 12]

What I gather from this is that the Inchoroi are indeed damned, and know it. There are two ways out:

1. “rewrite the scripture,” which Aurang suspects Kellhus to pretend-offer him. Apparently they both know that this won’t work. (Also, that Kellhus wouldn’t be serious.) Aurang has been thinking about these things for many centuries, and I quite expect them to have tried that path a long time ago, probably with the Nonmen. It was plan A, and has been abandoned. The Inchoroi are quite simply damned by their very nature.

2. “destroy the world,” which I gather means shutting off the outside by killing almost everybody. This is plan B.

However, for me the exchange clearly demonstrates that both Aurang and Kellhus completely understand and accept that in principle scripture can be rewritten by a prophet such as him, and that such a rewriting would indeed change the mechanism of damnation. It’s just that the the Inchoroi are too big a semantic challenge. But something smaller, like damnation implied by sorcery, can indeed be rewritten (and locally so), which is what Fane did.

Of course, both Aurang and Kelly could be wrong.

--

And here’s the Eli quote I was thinking of upthread.

“I spoke to [Kellhus] myself,” the Grandmaster interrupted, “and at quite some length… He’s a true prophet of the God, Iyokus … And you and I … well, we’re quite damned. [...] Another little joke we seem to have found ourselves on the wrong side of … ” [TTT p.42, end of Chap 2]

[Curethan]

Iyokus commanded the Daimos, and perhaps Eli too, which got me to thinking. A possible shortcut to avoid damnation might be to destroy the specific outside agencies who have claimed your soul for damnation, rather than waiting for rewritten scriptures to possibly change them.

That might explain why Kellhus has ciphrang heads. But the Inchies and the no-god would have offended every possible agency, from TTT to non-men ancestor spirits to the animistic idea of mother nature.

[gladius]

you can kill their material form when you summon them, but i doubt you can kill their spiritual form in the Outside

[unJon]

Oh, and the speed of light in fact is relative and changes depending on the medium.

That's not really true.

[Curethan]

That's not really true.

Thanks for clearing that up.

[Helian]

Hello all,

I've been following this thread or rather series of threads with growing interest - for about half a year already - and thought, just having re-read Scott's excellent blogcritics interview, this might be a good time to chime in...

Now, of course I know all the TJE regulars have read that interview, but a quick search showed that the following statement has not been quoted yet, and I deem it quite significant to the ongoing discussion:

Humans are born essentialists, which is to say, we generally think things and people are what they are by virtue of their intrinsic properties or characteristics–their ‘immutable essence.’ We think that the way things appear to us are what they are fundamentally –and given the invisibility of ignorance, we generally encounter few reasons to think otherwise. No matter how narrow, how stupid or peevish, our perspectives always strike us as exhaustive.

This (combined with the logical function of language) underwrites the intuition that words have ‘essential meanings,’ that a passage of scripture, say, has one fundamental reading (which always magically happens to be our reading). So for the longest time essentialist interpretations of language ruled the theoretical roost.

In Earwa, however, essentialism is true, words have pure meanings, significations unpolluted by the contextual vicissitudes of circumstance. The idea is that if you can speak from the all-seeing perspective of the God, then you can literally rewrite the world. [...]

How can this essentialism be reconciled with the theory that belief shapes reality? I can't think of an obvious answer...

Your simplistic counter equates reality as a static system and belief with wishing. Oh, and the speed of light in fact is relative and changes depending on the medium.

Well, this is going a bit off-topic, but I can't quite leave that uncommented on. Of course the speed of light passing through a medium varies depending on the medium, but the definition of the constant(!) c is the speed of light in vacuum, and the point is that it does not depend on the position of the observer, i.e. is not relative in Einstein's terminology. Actually, this is pretty much the foundation of the theory of special relativity...