The Judging Eye VI

[Spring Bass]

Is the Gnosis more "powerful", per se? It's certainly more precise, and there's more that can be done with it (I don't see how you'd create an analogy for "teleportation" a la Kellhus, for example), but "powerful" is a rather vague category.

[Kalbear]

Is the Gnosis more "powerful", per se? It's certainly more precise, and there's more that can be done with it (I don't see how you'd create an analogy for "teleportation" a la Kellhus, for example), but "powerful" is a rather vague category.

it's more powerful by any measure you'd choose to take.

A mandate sorcerer has more powerful shields; they can take out any Anagogic sorcerer one on one and not be winded, whereas the other will be crushed. It takes multiple anagogics of high rank to take on even one Mandate shield wise. And a mandate can easily keep shields up while attacking.

A mandate can do more damage with less effort. We've seen that with other sorcerers, and being able to split damage and shielding is very powerful.

A gnostic sorcerer can do more immediately precise damaging spells; anagogics can't.

And apparently a gnostic can do things like wards that trigger when someone else does something; I don't believe we ever see evidence of this from anagogs.

In any case, it's very heavily believed that the gnosis is far more powerful than anagogic sorcery by the anagogs, and there's nothing in the books to imply that this isn't the case (and plenty of performances by Akka to imply otherwise).

[Spring Bass]

The Gnosis isn't "purer" though, it's just more powerful.

It's like trying to model a system with math and the Anagogics are stuck with Roman Numerals and basic arithmetic and the Gnosis is using Calculus. One is a much more powerful tool then the other, but neither is capable of producing a good enough model that's it's not obvious to those in the know that it doesn't completely match up.

Meanwhile the Psukhe is like the wacky artiste of the family who is painting the scene instead of trying to model it.

I like that analogy. My analogy is that it's like three groups of people trying to recall a complex, beautiful symphony. The Gnostic and Anagogic guys have a vague mental picture of the music sheet, but whereas the Gnostic guys can write down an imperfect replication in music writing a la notes and the like, the Anagogic guys are stuck trying to represent the sounds with symbolic pictures of animals, washing machines, and the like that make that sound.

Meanwhile, the Psukhe guys can't really see the sheet (or they ignore it), but they can sort of remember how the whole thing sounded, and hum it out loud. It's less precise, but possibly closer to what the actual meaning of the whole thing was.

[unJon]

I can certainly see where you and Kalbear are coming from GB - it seems logical to conclude that observing damnation can be likened to seeing with God's eyes. But that doesn't change the fact that it contradicts Kellhus' speech on sorcery. Kellhus explicitly states in TTT that the Few see the world with God's eyes.

I don't believe the theory that if Kel said it, it is true. There are two critical imbedded assumptions.

1) Kel is saying what he really believes. We already know that Kel lies to people. We know that he sees no intrinsic virtue in spreading the truth. I see no reasone to believe that his pontifications on metaphysics reflect Kel's belief as opposed to whatever Kel calculates is most likely to astound Akka into thinking Kel is awesome and keeping him obediant, etc. In other words, we have explicit textual evidence to disbelieve what Kel says.

2) Kel knows anything about metaphysics at all. We see Kel rip apart logic and other subjects, but that's all stuff that follows rules or is a matter of observatoin. Metaphysics, by its nature, is not observed. I am hard pressed to believe that even a genius like Kel can accurately intuit things like psuke means talking with the timbre of the God's voice based on...well basically zero input. Kel is a machine that takes in data and calculates varying possible outcomes. Put he isn't able to predict things out of whole cloth. He needs input, observations. He needs some darkness to come before. I don't see where any of that would be in any of the metaphysical pontifications.

[Spring Bass]

My guess is that he probably figured it out from noticing that Psukhe users left no mark, from the "wilder" nature of their magic, and from what he'd heard/discovered of his father (a respected scholar, but not a respected Psukhe user).

[Shryke]

I like that analogy. My analogy is that it's like three groups of people trying to recall a complex, beautiful symphony. The Gnostic and Anagogic guys have a vague mental picture of the music sheet, but whereas the Gnostic guys can write down an imperfect replication in music writing a la notes and the like, the Anagogic guys are stuck trying to represent the sounds with symbolic pictures of animals, washing machines, and the like that make that sound.

Meanwhile, the Psukhe guys can't really see the sheet (or they ignore it), but they can sort of remember how the whole thing sounded, and hum it out loud. It's less precise, but possibly closer to what the actual meaning of the whole thing was.

That's the best analogy yet.

It's so good, I think it's actually sorcery.

[Kalbear]

Something else that's not clear about TJE is whether or not it is only given to the Few. The implication from Akka is that it is. I don't know what that means, but I bet it's important.

[Spring Bass]

That's the best analogy yet.

It's so good, I think it's actually sorcery.

Heh. :P It did read a lot dumber the second time around.

Something else that's not clear about TJE is whether or not it is only given to the Few. The implication from Akka is that it is.

I'll need to go re-check the passage where Mimara brings it up to him. All I remember is him saying that she could "see the damnation" or the like.

I'm not sure exactly what it would mean in terms of sorcery and the like if only the Few have it, although it apparently has an effect on Aporetic Sorcery.

[unJon]

Something else that's not clear about TJE is whether or not it is only given to the Few. The implication from Akka is that it is. I don't know what that means, but I bet it's important.

That was my impression as well. I also thought the information that Akka kept from Mim about TJE is something along the lines of, something horrible always happens to those that have TJE. Maybe they go insane and chew off their fingers or something. Of course, Akka probably only has a record of people that are both Mandate and have the TJE so the bad stuff might arise from seeing your own mark and feeling TJE render judgment on yourself. So if Mim never learns sorcery, she may escape such a fate.

[Shryke]

I think it would make sense that the Judging Eye would be something only the Few could possess. It does seem to be the same sort of idea. It's like a more advanced version of the Fews ability to see the Onta.

[Kalbear]

I thought the line from Akka went "you not only see the sin, you see the damnation as well" or something like that. Which again - it's Akka, so what the fuck does he know? But it would make sense.

I also wonder why it's so binary in the world. Why only some people can use sorcery and see the mark of other sorcerers' paths and use, but how you can either have it or completely not. It's clearly some genetic thing (at least that's the implication) but the number of actually pure mendelevian genes is pretty small for humans.

[lokisnow]

I thought the line from Akka went "you not only see the sin, you see the damnation as well" or something like that. Which again - it's Akka, so what the fuck does he know? But it would make sense.

I also wonder why it's so binary in the world. Why only some people can use sorcery and see the mark of other sorcerers' paths and use, but how you can either have it or completely not. It's clearly some genetic thing (at least that's the implication) but the number of actually pure mendelevian genes is pretty small for humans.

which makes me wonder if humans (not emwamma) sorcerous ability was biochemically engineered by the Inchoroi, as a test and it later spread and dispersed throughout the population prior to the breaking of the gates.

I also wonder if the intervention of the gods led to the two human/nonmen pregnancies carried to term.

[Spring Bass]

which makes me wonder if humans (not emwamma) sorcerous ability was biochemically engineered by the Inchoroi, as a test and it later spread and dispersed throughout the population prior to the breaking of the gates.

Why would the Inchoroi want to encourage the spread of sorcerous abilities, when it was one of the primary weapons used against them by the Nonmen?

Moreover, the prohibitions on sorcery were from the Tusk (meaning that sorcery existed and was being used by humans), which was written before the Eannan Tribes even came into Earwa. The Inchoroi would have had to have been meddling extensively with the Eannan population presumably before their near-annihilation (since after that, the only time they managed to create a creature that could do sorcery was when they accidentally created a skin-spy with a soul - something they weren't able to duplicate).

I also wonder if the intervention of the gods led to the two human/nonmen pregnancies carried to term.

I suppose that's possible, although we do have mention from Achamian in TJE that human women occasionally can get pregnant by Non-men fathers (although carrying the fetus to term is another matter). It might just be a very rare occurrence, like getting a fertile mule.

[WrathOfTinyKittens]

I like that analogy. My analogy is that it's like three groups of people trying to recall a complex, beautiful symphony. The Gnostic and Anagogic guys have a vague mental picture of the music sheet, but whereas the Gnostic guys can write down an imperfect replication in music writing a la notes and the like, the Anagogic guys are stuck trying to represent the sounds with symbolic pictures of animals, washing machines, and the like that make that sound.

Meanwhile, the Psukhe guys can't really see the sheet (or they ignore it), but they can sort of remember how the whole thing sounded, and hum it out loud. It's less precise, but possibly closer to what the actual meaning of the whole thing was.

Great analogy.

[Rhadamanth]

Yeah, I love that analogy. I guess some people just hum louder than others... or maybe just get closer to the actual music. I'm picturing some guy so completely absorbed by the music he just hums and dances with his eyes closed, just oblivious to the world around him. He's not mad, just... into it.

I wonder if this is what happened to Kellhus? He got so absorbed by the music that he can almost become the melody... by now he's probably close to becoming the conductor.

[Maithanet]

This whole thing actually makes me wonder if it would be possible to practice both the Psukhe and the Gnosis at the same time. Sounds useful. And if you can, we should probably assume that Kellhus will do that very thing (even if Dunyain are weak with the Psukhe, it would be quite useful in tandem).

[Darzin]

Are Cisharuam drawn from the few because if they are it seems like it should defenititley be possible to learn both and if you used both at the same time I'm not sure what would happen maybe you could create something perfectly as the God would or maybe you would be a de-facto God. I also wonder if the reason no one has tried it is because Kel knows something crazy would happen, but can't do it himself because he's Dunyain, and doesn't trust anyone else with that power.

[jurble]

The Psukhe is nearly impossible as a Dunyain, they've had all their emotions bred out to the point that they're the equivalent of atavistic legs trapped in the flesh of a whale's body.

[Kalbear]

You can learn both, but you do things like sacrifice your eyes. That might not be as awesome as you think for doing things like, oh, learning how to cast spells. But yeah, there's no logical reason that someone couldn't learn both. There might be moralistic ones (the Cish are religious nuts after all, and the mandate are pretty strict about who learns) and for a normal human, it's probably pretty hard.

But it shouldn't be impossible. And while a Dunyain wouldn't get a lot out of the Cish side, they could likely do it fairly easily if they so desired.

ETA: Iyokus makes it clear that spellcasting can still occur without eyeballs, but I wonder how good you can be without them; there's been a lot of focus on how the Few can see the sin and how TJE can see more. Makes me wonder if that sacrifice is essential for Cish and also essentially cuts off other magic practitioning.

This seems to be implied by Moe's condition; he needed Kellhus to learn the Gnosis. Why couldn't he learn it himself? Surely he could have conned Maith into convincing a gnostic mage to come close enough to influence him, and from there learn the basics once he revealed that he's a Anasurimbor and he knew about the Consult.

[Rhadamanth]

That is the same thing that puzzled me when I read TTT. There are only two reasons I could think of:

1) Learning the Gnosis would in some way violate the principles of the Cish and would lose Moe's place in the organization. He probably needed his position to help start the Holy War and make sure it stayed on the path he needed.

2) Learning the Gnosis would make him a huge threat to his son, whom he needed to complete TTT since being blind limited his abilities. He reasoned that he would stand a better chance if he wasn't such an obvious threat. The thing that bothers me about this is in the exchange between Kel and Moe. Moe seems to believe that he is much more powerful than Kel until Kel disabuses him of that notion.