Madness Posted January 25, 2011 Share Posted January 25, 2011 I have written a shitload of speculation but I want to edit and add some more, especially as I haven't read PON or TJE recently. However, I just thought I'd add a quote from the book for you all.Where luck is the twist of events relative to mortal hope, White-Luck is the twist of events relative to divine desire. To worship it is to simply will what happens as it happens - Ars Sibbul, Six OntonomiesIt's one of the chapter openings in TJE and I think the most tantalizing and revealing piece of info about the White-Luck Warrior.There's two things that immediately strike me. The first is that this is eerily like what Kellhus is doing - except it is almost antithetic to Dunyanic principles, the Aporos to Dunyain determinism. The second is imagining the way the basic idea of this philosophic concept will translate into a character. Interesting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Old Nan Posted January 25, 2011 Share Posted January 25, 2011 I'd no more than vaguely remembered that. So the WLW is ta'veren? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curethan Posted January 25, 2011 Share Posted January 25, 2011 The Earwan 'gods' (Yatwer, Gierra, Gilgaol etc) seem like Greek dieties - cults, secret mysteries and enlarged human personalities. I think that white luck would be as capricious as the aspect that wields it, rather than following God's Great Plan or the zen path, like RJ's ta'veren seem to. Also, it says 'relative to' - so I guess a god could have bad white luck too... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ser Scot A Ellison Posted January 25, 2011 Share Posted January 25, 2011 Sologdin,I thought the publisher cut The Lord of the Rings into a trilogy and selected the names of the books not Tolkien. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cot Posted January 25, 2011 Share Posted January 25, 2011 Something wrong with The Two Towers as a title? I thought it was fine, trust good ol Pete to get the towers wrong though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Happy Ent Posted January 25, 2011 Share Posted January 25, 2011 This is a Tolkien FAQ: Which are the Two Towers? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sologdin Posted January 25, 2011 Share Posted January 25, 2011 that FAQ makes it even dumber than i thought. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shryke Posted January 25, 2011 Share Posted January 25, 2011 The Two Towers is a terrible title that confuses everyone. It was actually the movie that cleared most people up on what it referred to, from my experience and even then apparently got it wrong. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sologdin Posted January 25, 2011 Share Posted January 25, 2011 see, i always thought that it referred to orthanc and the tower at cirith ungol, since, yaknow, both of those towers actually are actually involved in the narrative of the second part in some direct way. but that makes it a stupid title because the tower of cirith ungol is more or less incidental, being merely a weigh station where some plot coupons are exchanged so that the reader may continue to accompany the protagonist to their mutual destination at the book's conclusion. good thing that i'm wrong, except that the other tower candidates don't make any sense, because they're not connected to the narrative of the second volume, except very remotely. barad-dur would make sense, given that reference to same captures the essence of the conflict in the story. reference to minas morgul is just plain stupid; reference to minas tirith is also dumb. helm's deep didn't appear to have much of a tower worthy of notice. the peak at zirak-zigal or whatever it is acts like a tower, but really isn't one, aye? that would be cool, but it's also likely too incidental to be eponymous. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aimlessgun Posted January 27, 2011 Share Posted January 27, 2011 No you shouldn't, TJE is pure sex.And it's done. You weren't lying. Maybe 90% sex. A relief from PoN in fact (not better, just different). It seemed so short though! I didn't realize there's more after TUC (really?) so I was expecting more to get resolved :tantrum: There are some insane theories in this thread. Time travel? I agree with everyone who said it doesn't seem to fit. There are definitely explorations of time though, what with the Non-men not experiencing a human time-perspective, and the Shortest Path actually reminds me of Story of Your Life. Interesting speculation on where Kellhus is going. I like the character in PoN actually. Despite his badassery, he was a bit confused and tragic. He didn't really know why his father had summoned him, what his purpose out in the world should be. He was made aware of how much more difficult (maybe impossible?) the Dunyain quest for a self-moving soul. He himself experienced emotions, weaknesses.And then Caraskand transforms him, gives him Certainty, and a real goal and identity. I think he really believes, and that he is in a sense mad. So as a thematic representation of reason or logic, I agree with Skies, he may not fit that hat. Aside on the Dunyain objective...this is a little strange to me. If their objective is what I think it is, it is either futile or grand beyond comprehension. Because to be a self-moving soul, you have to be the universe. Which either means cutting yourself off completely into a separate universe that is just you, or...well somehow encompassing the universe into your being, becoming a true God(uppercase), not the Outside-entity gods(lowercase) stomping about in Earwa.Last thing, going back to the very beginning...who the hell was that non-man Kellhus fought? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nerdanel Posted January 27, 2011 Share Posted January 27, 2011 Last thing, going back to the very beginning...who the hell was that non-man Kellhus fought?Bakker has revealed outside of the books that the Nonman was Mekeritrig.I have this theory (of which I wrote in length in a previous thread) about Mekeritrig being Cleric and the founder of the Dûnyain order who manipulated both Kellhus and Moënghus in order to cause the Second Apocalypse for the No-God. Him being an Erratic with memory problems only makes it all the more impressive. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cot Posted January 27, 2011 Share Posted January 27, 2011 It's Isengard and Barad-Dur is it not?I was always under the impression it was Orthanc and Minas Morgul as the action kinda of revolves around them - i'm sure its from one of Tolkien's letters.Although I always preferred the visual image of the the towers of minas tirith and minas morgul staring at each other across the river. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curethan Posted January 27, 2011 Share Posted January 27, 2011 Bakker has revealed outside of the books that the Nonman was Mekeritrig.Can I just say; that cloak made of people's faces has to be one of the best examples of a short description illuminating character ever. :thumbsup: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aimlessgun Posted January 27, 2011 Share Posted January 27, 2011 Yeah that sequence really stuck with me. "RUN ANASURIMBOR! I WILL REMEMBER!"Bakker has revealed outside of the books that the Nonman was Mekeritrig.I have this theory (of which I wrote in length in a previous thread) about Mekeritrig being Cleric and the founder of the Dûnyain order who manipulated both Kellhus and Moënghus in order to cause the Second Apocalypse for the No-God. Him being an Erratic with memory problems only makes it all the more impressive.Well, I don't know anything about the healing properties of non-men, but mightn't Mekeritrig have a scar on his chin from where Kellhus slashed him? And cleric is explicitly described as having a smooth jaw? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lokisnow Posted January 28, 2011 Share Posted January 28, 2011 random thought that occured to me. How did the womb plague of the nonman women work? To get as nasty as possible. I think the Inchoroi never infected a single nonman woman. I think the bio-magic they wrought when they made the nonmen immortal also wrought another little piece of sweet revenge for them. It made the nonman produce a deadly virus contained within their semen, and the semen a delivery liquid, and that would infect the nonman women causing the womb plague. Thus, the Inchoroi turn sex against the nonmen and in a vicious bit of irony, every nonman man was responsible for quite literally 'injecting' one of the women with the virus.But, you say, what about all the unmarried women and nonman children. Well as all the married nonman women die off, the remaining men begin to panic and sequester and quarantine every single female of their species. They think that they've taken care of it, only to find that their desperate attempts to breed the young ones as they come of age only result in the deaths of the remaining females. No female would be left virginal, because any one of the remaining ones not yet sick would become ever more valuable as a potential savior of the race.And it would be just like Bakker to have the nonmen be culpable in a direct way for the downfall of their females--and then the males deny their own guilt of infecting the women themselves.and let's go for the plague itself. I think it would be a fast growing cancer of the womb that would literally cause the women to die from the womb outward, first balooning as though they were pregnant, the women would get weaker until they died and it was revealed that they had nothing but a massive growth where their womb once was. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curethan Posted January 28, 2011 Share Posted January 28, 2011 *snip*Yuk. Inchie AIDS.Does anyone know if the Anasurimbor line was concieved before or after the plague? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gladius Posted January 28, 2011 Share Posted January 28, 2011 The tribes came to Earwa thousands of years after the plague. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curethan Posted January 28, 2011 Share Posted January 28, 2011 The tribes came to Earwa thousands of years after the plague.There were already humans in Earwa before then, weren't there? But I think it was during the period of the tutelage... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aimlessgun Posted January 28, 2011 Share Posted January 28, 2011 Well I think the "crimes only as long as men are deceived" lines up pretty well with their present philosophy. They (who are not deceived) clearly don't think there are crimes. And the Dunyain acting all reassuring to the kid is totally in character for them. So I don't know if we get shown enough to support them being significantly different. But for some reason I also imagined them evolving. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tears of Lys Posted January 28, 2011 Share Posted January 28, 2011 Makes me wonder whether the Dunyain trained the young Anasurimbor bastard in their techniques or just used him as a breeder.Not important, really. Lockesnow, I like that theory of yours about the Womb Plague. It seems to fit very well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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