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The Judging Eye VII


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See I would expect Zeum to be seafaring (look at the natural awesome harbor their capital is in) in a "hug the coasts" manner of sea exploration. Even though the coast to the north is sranc infested lands I think expeditions north would be likely. Considering all the streams that flow west to the sea there's probably a lot of opportunities to set up minor harbors and exploit the areas for various possible riches (such as mining, and fishing, for example).

I wouldn't rule out the fishing, but they'd have to set up outposts in the middle of the Sranc-infested wilderness for anything more than that. We also don't know what the weather conditions would be along the coast - they might be pretty rough.

If any people were going to make contact with Ishterebinth it'd be the Zeumi.

They could try . . . assuming they know where Ishterebinth is, and if the latter wants to keep contact with them (the last surviving Nonmen mansion might be a little wary of visitors after the whole Cil-Aujas ordeal and the expulsion after the Nonmen Tutelage).

I think the Zeumi prince is likely to stay with the outpost left in Sakarpus when the Ordeal moves north to Tryse, and I think when Akka and company reach Sakarpus, they'll find the prince examining the coffers they seek.

You mean Sauglish, right? Achamian and Company were trying to avoid the Ordeal (hence why they went around through Cil-Aujas rather than going straight up through Galeoth), so it's doubtful they would stop in Sakarpus.

then after Akka and company leave Ishual near the end of the third book, the Zeumi prince will direct them towards Ishterebinth, where they can seek shelter and await a ship from his father.

We don't know that the Zeumis know where Ishterebinth is, or that the Zeumis have contact with them. And I think it's likely that by the time he gets to Sauglish, all that will be left of Achamian's group is himself, Mimara, Cleric, and possibly Lord Kosoter (maybe Sarl, too, since he's lucky).

of course, more likely is that Incariol will suggest they flee Ishual to Ishterebinth, though he may not much want to go himself (if he's one of NinJanjin's sons, or Nin himself.)

I agree - if they go to Ishterebinth, it will probably be because Cleric suggested they go there after Sauglish.

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Does anyone have any clue who the Vokalati are or what their about? Their listed in the Judging Eye Apendice, I find it odd that all we know about one of the major schools is their name.

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No idea, but I'm wondering if the Vokalati are the same as the Circle of Nibel, which is mentioned as one of the Major Schools in the Three Seas in the TTT Glossary under "Schools". Maybe they live in Kutnarmu (the southern continent area south of the Three Seas) or the like.

It's weird that mention of one of the Major Schools wouldn't come up.

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No idea, but I'm wondering if the Vokalati are the same as the Circle of Nibel

Hmm, Maybe they are someone should ask Bakker about them in an interview or something, the Vokaliti have to be somewhere outside of Kellhus control or else we would have heard of them so that eliminates Kutnarmu. Maybe their a nonmen school although I'm hoping not because I think a human school outside of Kellhus control would make things more interesting. I guess that their a Zeumi school simply because thats the last real nation not controled by Kellhus, that said do we know if the zeumi belive sorcerers are damned?

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On the subject of Zeüm, I've been thinking about Mimara's father.

Mimara looks just like Esmenet save for green eyes and a lighter skin. This is an interesting combination. Zeümi have green eyes and black skin. Scylvendi and Norsirai have light skin but no green eyes. Therefore, Mimara's father would have looked like a Zeümi/Scylvendi crossbreed or a Zeümi/Norsirai crossbreed. This would have been highly unusual, and we know that Esmenet has an excellent memory. Oh, and just for completeness's sake, a Zeümi/Nonman crossbreed or something with Emwama ancestry (since we don't know what the Emwama looked like) could also fit.

(By the way, genetics doesn't appear to work the same way in Eärwa as in the real world. I'm not sure if dominant and recessive genes exist at all. The people of Eärwa think that the child's appearance has to do with the comparative strengths of its parents' bloods, and our admittedly-limited empirical evidence seems to bear this out. For example, Kellhus's children are all blonde.)

Therefore, I'm thinking that Mimara's birth, which presumably defied a whore's shell, has something highly unusual and important about it. I'm thinking that Mimara was a virgin birth, except, you know, the virgin part. I'm also thinking that Mimara could be the Anasûrimbor who was prophesied to come, his biological father just maybe being Anasûrimbor Celmomas II (do we know his eye color?) and his adopted father being Anasûrimbor Kellhus, making her Anasûrimbor Mimara.

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On the subject of Zeüm, I've been thinking about Mimara's father.

Mimara looks just like Esmenet save for green eyes and a lighter skin. This is an interesting combination. Zeümi have green eyes and black skin. Scylvendi and Norsirai have light skin but no green eyes. Therefore, Mimara's father would have looked like a Zeümi/Scylvendi crossbreed or a Zeümi/Norsirai crossbreed. This would have been highly unusual, and we know that Esmenet has an excellent memory. Oh, and just for completeness's sake, a Zeümi/Nonman crossbreed or something with Emwama ancestry (since we don't know what the Emwama looked like) could also fit.

(By the way, genetics doesn't appear to work the same way in Eärwa as in the real world. I'm not sure if dominant and recessive genes exist at all. The people of Eärwa think that the child's appearance has to do with the comparative strengths of its parents' bloods, and our admittedly-limited empirical evidence seems to bear this out. For example, Kellhus's children are all blonde.)

Therefore, I'm thinking that Mimara's birth, which presumably defied a whore's shell, has something highly unusual and important about it. I'm thinking that Mimara was a virgin birth, except, you know, the virgin part. I'm also thinking that Mimara could be the Anasûrimbor who was prophesied to come, his biological father just maybe being Anasûrimbor Celmomas II (do we know his eye color?) and his adopted father being Anasûrimbor Kellhus, making her Anasûrimbor Mimara.

You think that Mimara's father was a king who had died two thousand years before her mother was born?

You have officially crossed the line from mildly entertaining troll spouting ridiculous theories into full-blown nutjob.

Second of all, while I suppose it is not totally out of the realm of possibility that Mimara's father was Zeumi, everything points to Zeumi being extremely rare, perhaps unheard of, in the Three Seas, and if it were true Mimara would have darker skin, not lighter skin, that Esmenet.

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You think that Mimara's father was a king who had died two thousand years before her mother was born?

I was merely mentioning a possibility. Chances are, Mimara's father was something uncommon. She might even be the daughter of a god.

You have officially crossed the line from mildly entertaining troll spouting ridiculous theories into full-blown nutjob.

Come on.

Second of all, while I suppose it is not totally out of the realm of possibility that Mimara's father was Zeumi, everything points to Zeumi being extremely rare, perhaps unheard of, in the Three Seas, and if it were true Mimara would have darker skin, not lighter skin, that Esmenet.

I know that. The skin color issue was even a major point in my post. There is simply no known ethnic group in Eärwa that combines green eyes with light skin. A crossbreed is a possibility, but then Esmenet would have found that particular customer very memorable indeed, particularly as she had an interest for distant lands and he would have looked decidedly foreign in Sumna.

Something strange is definitely going on here.

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I was merely mentioning a possibility. Chances are, Mimara's father was something uncommon. She might even be the daughter of a god.

My current theory is Mimara's father is my dog. I mean, lets look at the facts...

1) Something strange is going on with her hair.

2) My dog is strange.

3) It is more plausible than a 2000 year old king.

After all, it's just a possibility.

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We don't know that the Zeumis know where Ishterebinth is, or that the Zeumis have contact with them. And I think it's likely that by the time he gets to Sauglish, all that will be left of Achamian's group is himself, Mimara, Cleric, and possibly Lord Kosoter (maybe Sarl, too, since he's lucky a skin spy).

Fixed. ;)

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If Mimara had been conceived in the mundane manner, we'd be looking for a green-eyed, light-skinned man (as per the laws of Eärwan genetics), who was likely a half-Zeümi sorcerer spy or something, and who used sorcery to make Esmenet not notice how unusual he looked or to make her forget about him. And then Esmenet's whore's shell somehow failed to function, or maybe the half-Zeümi sorcerer spy had a fertility fetish and he made Esmenet take her shell off and then wiped her memory of that, or maybe Esmenet wasn't a whore yet but a virgin with no reason to own a whore's shell.

When that's the baseline, Mimara being the daughter of a god doesn't sound so unlikely, especially given her special powers. We have Mimara as Jesus to Esmenet's inverted Virgin Mary. Since we know that the gods and the Outside are real and that the Bible is among Bakker's influences, this shouldn't be too far-fetched.

This leaves the question of which god or similar entity is the one to be Mimara's father. There isn't much information, but the possibility that Mimara is the fulfillment of a prophecy is intriguing. The only such prophecy in the story requires her to be of the blood of Anasûrimbor Celmomas II. Since I don't think there is a fundamental difference between gods, demons, and the souls of the dead in the Outside, it's not too implausible that Celmomas was Mimara's divine father, possibly acting with the help of more powerful spirits.

As a Norsirai, Celmomas would have had light skin. I don't know if his eye color was mentioned anywhere or if it was unusual.

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If Mimara had been conceived in the mundane manner, we'd be looking for a green-eyed, light-skinned man (as per the laws of Eärwan genetics), who was likely a half-Zeümi sorcerer spy or something, and who used sorcery to make Esmenet not notice how unusual he looked or to make her forget about him. And then Esmenet's whore's shell somehow failed to function, or maybe the half-Zeümi sorcerer spy had a fertility fetish and he made Esmenet take her shell off and then wiped her memory of that, or maybe Esmenet wasn't a whore yet but a virgin with no reason to own a whore's shell.

When that's the baseline, Mimara being the daughter of a god doesn't sound so unlikely, especially given her special powers. We have Mimara as Jesus to Esmenet's inverted Virgin Mary. Since we know that the gods and the Outside are real and that the Bible is among Bakker's influences, this shouldn't be too far-fetched.

This leaves the question of which god or similar entity is the one to be Mimara's father. There isn't much information, but the possibility that Mimara is the fulfillment of a prophecy is intriguing. The only such prophecy in the story requires her to be of the blood of Anasûrimbor Celmomas II. Since I don't think there is a fundamental difference between gods, demons, and the souls of the dead in the Outside, it's not too implausible that Celmomas was Mimara's divine father, possibly acting with the help of more powerful spirits.

As a Norsirai, Celmomas would have had light skin. I don't know if his eye color was mentioned anywhere or if it was unusual.

I am greatly anticipating the Akaa/Kellhus battle on top of the horns of Golgotteranth where Akka vehemently yells at Kellhus (after Kell cuts Akka's hand off), "I'll never join you! You killed my father!" only to have kellhus reply, "No. I am your father." To which akka screams in response "Noooooooooooooo!" and falls into the abyss of Golgotteranth below them.
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Regarding inheritance of eye color - even in our world, it's quite complicated. Especially if you throw green and gray eyes into the mix.

So, until we get more information on how Eärwan genetics work here, Mimara's green eyes really do not indicate anything special about her parentage.

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I am greatly anticipating the Akaa/Kellhus battle on top of the horns of Golgotteranth where Akka vehemently yells at Kellhus (after Kell cuts Akka's hand off), "I'll never join you! You killed my father!" only to have kellhus reply, "No. I am your father." To which akka screams in response "Noooooooooooooo!" and falls into the abyss of Golgotteranth below them.

Now that would be completely implausible. The timeline is way off, with Achamian being older than Kellhus and all. And that's only the most damning point. I could go on.

You have a lot to learn about making crackpot theories, Nerdanel-style. The idea is not to be as impossible as possible. The idea is to be as plausible as possible while going into unexpected directions. If you yourself don't think your idea is at least somewhat possible, then it won't work. Bakker is a good author for that kind of theoretizing since he puts a ton of subtle foreshadowing into his works. For example, when I reread TDTCB, I could see how Bakker was planting hints about Istriya's skin-spy status throughout the narrative, but of course that's easy to miss the first time through since we only learn about skin-spies at the end of that book. I missed the hints too, initially. If you apply close reading to Bakker you can try to detect hints about things that haven't been revealed yet.

Re: genetics,

even if hair color in this situation is determined only by a single gene and Esmenet has a recessive blonde gene despite being a Ketyai, there would still have been only 1/2^5 chance of all the five living children of Kellhus and Esmenet being blonde like their father. That's about 3%. Then you'd need to take into account the chances that the children got light skin and blue eyes too. That's really very unlikely. And then we have other examples of Eärwan genetics in action too... The situation is looking to me like the normal laws of genetics don't apply and that the Eärwan are right about the strength of the blood being the important factor. Kellhus as a Dûnyain has strong blood and therefore his children look like him.

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I think that eye color is more complex than "Zeumi=green, Scylvendi=blue" and the like. Sure, MOST Zeumi might have green eyes, like MOST Scylvendi might have blue eyes. Still, just as in real life, I'm guessing that there's a lot of inter-ethnic-group sex happens in Earwa. So, we'd get to see, for instance, Ketyai with green eyes and blue eyes, the descendants of some Zeumi or Scylvendi or Norsirai ancestor from way back when. They might not be common, but they wouldn't be all that rare, either. In fact, Nerdanel's theory is just this: Mimara's father is not Ketyai. Why could Mimara's non-Ketyai ancestry be farther back in the family tree, then? Why should that be unusual?

That said, I am curious as to who Mimara's father is, crackpot and non-crackpot theories aside. Part of me would like it to not matter at all, but then, a "destined from birth due to ancestry"-type plot might be interesting as well. Still, my money is on that her father is a normal, not-unusual Sumna resident.

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even if hair color in this situation is determined only by a single gene and Esmenet has a recessive blonde gene despite being a Ketyai...

Yes, but - again assuming hair color is controlled by one gene - you still don't really need to assume that genetics work differently in Eärwa. For example, Kellhus's DNA could contain a Dûnyain-specific, dominant, "super-blonde" allele. If his DNA contains two copies of that allele, you get 100% probability of blonde children without throwing genetics as we know it out of the window.

Moënghus would have one copy of this allele and one regular blond allele, which explains Maithanet's dark hair.

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Yes, but - again assuming hair color is controlled by one gene - you still don't really need to assume that genetics work differently in Eärwa. For example, Kellhus's DNA could contain a Dûnyain-specific, dominant, "super-blonde" allele. If his DNA contains two copies of that allele, you get 100% probability of blonde children without throwing genetics as we know it out of the window.

Moënghus would have one copy of this allele and one regular blond allele, which explains Maithanet's dark hair.

But do the Dûnyain also possess a super blue eye allele and a super light skin allele? These would all be contrary to real-world genetics anyway, as in the real world all of those things are recessive since they imply a lack of pigment instead of the presence of white/blue pigment. Pigment + pigment = pigment. Pigment + no pigment = pigment.

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