Bakker XI: Spoilers for PoN and TJE

[Tears of Lys]

I would say the reason that Bakker's creations aren't best sellers, then, would be that they're not accessible to the broad audience.

All you need to do is look at who the vast majority who still buy books are. He certainly doesn't appeal to women (in general.) He doesn't even appeal to the young male demographic who like their fantasy heroes a certain way. Why, even among his fans on this board there's criticism of Akka's sad-sackness and Kellhus' problematic status as unlikeable while simultaneously being the bad-ass warrior.

I didn't have too much of a problem with the opening scenes where the bardic priest apparently molests the young Anasurimbor. Yeah, it was disturbing, but it was handled pretty subtley. The scenes that troubled me the most were the ones where the people are rounded up by the Inchori and taken back to their lair.

And I STILL have a problem with the fact that the Dunyain make a determined effort to erase the FACT of sorcery from their society.

[jurble]

A hitman.

A prostitute.

Most war crimes.

They all deconstruct into passions. A hit-man enjoys the money he makes (and mob hitmen make a lot of money), and what it affords him.

Prostitutes either enjoy their line of work, are forced into it, or do it apathetically to pay the bills. But that still deconstructs into passion. The least passionate of these examples is the apathetic pay the bills mindset, but there we have the need for cash to fulfill goals, to acquire goods, to pay student loans, what have you.

And I used the war-crimes example! But that deconstructions into passion for nation, passion for duty, whatever.

No one goes into any of these professions based on cold Vulcan logic. A Dunyain is a like a Buddha. They have no wants, no desires, they've achieved near-abouts nirvana.

Also, I still wonder what Kellhus said to Seswatha.

[TakLoufer]

Razorbeef, I think you're missing the point that, yes, PoN can be made more marketable if it were bowdlerized and lightened up, but then PoN isn't meant to appeal to the lowest common denominator; it's meant to fill a very niche market--namely, those who like their fantasy fuligin-black and embedded with Nietzschean philosophy. PoN is currently my favorite fantasy series, and things like the humorlessness and general crapsackery are part of the appeal.

And it's not completely without humor. I mean, look at Xerius' scenes.

[Kalbear]

By that token, Jurble, no one would do anything and any action is an empassioned action, any crime a crime of passion, and the only dispassionate behavior you could take would be to slowly die of starvation and thirst. That's a bit disingenuous. Clearly Kellhus and other Dunyain have 'wants' of a sort, and they aren't self-moving souls; they're just better at it than we are. In any case, let's confine it to what we'd consider a passion instead of what can be reduced to it.

Many people commit crimes without being passionate about them. Many people do so without even thinking twice about it. For a Dunyain, all is thought about. All is considered. Crimes don't exist because there's no one to judge something a crime. Crime is entirely defined by morality and social norms; if everyone is their own social norm, there's no crime that can exist save being untrue to yourself.

Hence the 'as long as men are deceived' bit. As long as you're staying true to your personal norms, you can't commit a crime and the only crime you could commit would be defined by you.

[jurble]

Dunyain aren't utterly devoid of passion, but they're far reduced than we are. For all we know, a self-moving soul WOULD just sit down and starve to death.

[Kalbear]

Razorbeef, I think you're missing the point that, yes, PoN can be made more marketable if it were bowdlerized and lightened up, but then PoN isn't meant to appeal to the lowest common denominator; it's meant to fill a very niche market--namely, those who like their fantasy fuligin-black and embedded with Nietzschean philosophy. PoN is currently my favorite fantasy series, and things like the humorlessness and general crapsackery are part of the appeal.

That's fine. I wouldn't expect or argue otherwise. People asked (including Bakker) why it's not more than a cult hit, and that's one of the big reasons why. I wouldn't expect a book about BMW motorcycle repair to have a wide appeal, but as the author I wouldn't complain about why it didn't sell as well as Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance.

[Mathis Waters]

No one goes into any of these professions based on cold Vulcan logic. A Dunyain is a like a Buddha. They have no wants, no desires, they've achieved near-abouts nirvana.

Then why do they do... things? Save the world, save their souls, breed better Dunyain? It can't just be instrumental rationality all the way down.

[Kalbear]

Dunyain aren't utterly devoid of passion, but they're far reduced than we are. For all we know, a self-moving soul WOULD just sit down and starve to death.

I think that's wrong. I don't think that Dunyain are about not having any passion; they are about understanding their passion and being able to overcome it to the point where they are not affected by it. In other words a self-moving soul would feel the need to eat or drink, but could choose to ignore it if it suited them. Normal humans could not. That doesn't mean they wouldn't choose to do so, but they would choose to do so because it suited them best.

Just like they'd rape a child without a second thought if it suited them best.

[jurble]

Then why do they do... things? Save the world, save their souls, breed better Dunyain? It can't just be instrumental rationality all the way down.

They want to achieve a Self-Moving Soul, they're nearly there, but not quite. That's the sum of their goals. A being utterly untouched by circumstance. Like, a super-buddha. What an actual self-moving soul would do, is a question mark.

[Matrim Fox Cauthon]

Alright, so either the US get the super faded out version of the cover or you just have shitty taste in cover art.

http://www.amazon.ca/Darkness-That-Comes-Before/dp/0143012800/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1284494177&sr=8-1

http://www.amazon.ca/Prince-Nothing-Book-Warrior-Prophet/dp/0143015346/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_c

http://www.amazon.ca/Thousandfold-Thought-R-Scott-Bakker/dp/0143015362/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_b

All look incredibly.

That is how the US covers look. I actually an enormous fan of the Second Apocalypse covers. They are extraordinarily tasteful and entirely avoid the bad artwork on most fantasy novel covers. I deeply wish that more fantasy novels would take this approach.

[jurble]

In other words a self-moving soul would feel the need to eat or drink, but could choose to ignore it if it suited them. Normal humans could not. That doesn't mean they wouldn't choose to do so, but they would choose to do so because it suited them best.

A Self-moving soul wouldn't feel the need to eat or drink. Those are circumstances, a self-moving soul is utterly cut-off from circumstance. It's a consciousness unbound to physical reality, to physical needs. A soul without a body, or a body that's cannot interact backwards with the soul, that is to say, the soul can affect the body, but the body cannot affect the soul. It's unbound to determinism. It can move, but it cannot be moved.

If I threw a rock at a self-moving soul, the self-moving soul would neither dodge, nor take the rock to the face, because both would be reacting to circumstance. In fact, a rock would probably never aim for a self-moving soul because, the whole Dunyain concept is that, if you master circumstance utterly, you can break free from determinism.

Basically, a self-moving soul would control reality to the degree that it was the prime mover of everything, and it would have no need to react to anything, ever. It would untouched by its own designs to such a degree that the actions that result from its actions prevent reciprocation.

A self-moving soul would be the root cause of all events in the universe, and all those events would go exactly as it wanted them to - to leave itself untouched.

[Kalbear]

That's a very odd interpretation of what a self-moving soul is. But it's clear I'm not going to convince you, so I'll drop it since I wasn't talking about self-moving souls - I was talking about the Dunyain.

[Curethan]

And I STILL have a problem with the fact that the Dunyain make a determined effort to erase the FACT of sorcery from their society.

I believe that it interferes with their teachings of cause and effect and is an extension of removing themselves from larger society. Obviously this is a considered act intended to help aprehend the logos without the distractions of external agencies. Also consider the possible consequences of failed dunyain armed with sorcerous power ... 'report to the thousand halls, kid' - BOOM!

It's possible (and to me likely) that once Dunyain training is 'complete' (i.e. subject is not a reject and not a self moving vegetable) they get inducted into the old boys club that deals with Ishual training, management and strategies going forward, thus learning of things like sorcery and the outside world in order to prevent contamination and sustain viability. Which leads to the question of exactly wth the dunyain are really playing at with the Anasurimbors.

[jurble]

You'd think that the Dunyain would have accidentally developed sorcery at some point. What with their powerful minds and exact mental semantic meaning, any random series of spoken words along side inuttered thoughtsl, and boom sorcery.

[Mathis Waters]

You'd think that the Dunyain would have accidentally developed sorcery at some point. What with their powerful minds and exact mental semantic meaning, any random series of spoken words along side inuttered thoughtsl, and boom sorcery.

Doesn't sorcery require ritual initiation from another sorcerer?

[Curethan]

You'd think that the Dunyain would have accidentally developed sorcery at some point. What with their powerful minds and exact mental semantic meaning, any random series of spoken words along side inuttered thoughtsl, and boom sorcery.

Not really. What, with every aspect of their conditioning controlled down to the slightest variant. It's like expecting computers to indepentently come up with new theories, they have the raw processing power but no way to get that ball in motion. And you gotta be one of the few, and the specific words have probably been erased/replaced in their patois by their trainers/conditioners etc etc

[Old Nan]

Doesn't sorcery require ritual initiation from another sorcerer?

No, it's just that the technique is so bizarre that it's unlikely to be discovered. Most magic systems allow for accidental usage on need or will or whatnot, but the gnosis is weird, and the Anagogic method, while easier, is more alien to the Dunyain mind – and so much more so the Psukhe, which is the most human of the lot.

There was no bypassing the metaphysics of the Gnosis, though they were as incomplete and inconclusive as any philosophy. Without some understanding of them, the Cants were little more than soul-numbing recitations. Whether Gnostic or Anagogic, sorcery depended on meanings, and meanings depended on systematic comprehension.

The Mandate School has an initiation ritual that links them to Seswatha, but that's separate.

[jurble]

Doesn't sorcery require ritual initiation from another sorcerer?

No, it seemed to only require a spoken word describing something, and a similar thought to "brace" it. The Gnosis requires a shit ton of math and logic, the Anagogis just requires poetry, it seems, since it's all based on analogy and metaphor.

Next thought - the Skin spies call themselves "Keepers of the Inverse Flame" what does that refer to? Has to be something sci-fi. Antimatter fire? A black-hole gun?

Moreover, they also call themselves the Last Children of the Inchoroi. Does that imply that the Inchoroi think they're done using the Tekne? That the Skin Spies are the pinnacle? Or does it imply that the machinery has finally broken down?

[Mathis Waters]

About a third of the way through TJE; some scattered thoughts:

• Apparently this has a reputation for being more plot-focused? So far I'm seeing mostly character development, about which I have no complaints.
  
• The fact that there seems to be less philosophy mostly seems to be a function of there being less Kellhus. This I'm also fine with, since the philosophy is great when anyone else engages in it.
  
• Bakker has improved visibly as a writer. Some have remarked on development between TWP and TTT, but I couldn't tell the difference; here the difference is striking.
  
• The early Christians Nietzschean slave morality cult is way more interesting than the rape aliens ever were, and I've seen all of ten pages of them. Hopefully the title of the upcoming book means that they'll get more screentime.
  
• I'm assuming there's some reason that Mimara's POV is present tense, but so far it's just really weird.
  

[jurble]

[*]I'm assuming there's some reason that Mimara's POV is present tense, but so far it's just really weird.

I never even noticed, no idea why that'd be.

edit: Why was Iyokus the only one using the Daimos? Why didn't the Scarlet Spires summon a shit ton of Ciphrangs and let them loose on the city?