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Bakker XIII: Spoilers for PON, TJE, and Neuropath/Disciple


Old Nan

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Got a little Christmas present for you Bakker fans! ;)My review of TWLWis now up on the Hotlist! You can read it here.There are no spoilers per se, but I do elaborate on POVs, worldbuilding, etc. So if you want to go into TWLW completely fresh, then perhaps you shouldn't read it. Old Nan: Don't read it. If the tidbits I posted here irked you, then the review will not work for you...Cheers,Patrick

Excellent review Pat. I can't wait till we can all get our hands on this book. I'm glad that at least the Akka travelogue ends well because I figured it'd be rather boring unless Bakker somehow made them hit Sauglish earlier.

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Oh, the end is very good. Not as awesome as Cil-Aujas, but very good nonetheless. It's the getting there that is extremely sluggish at times.

Every portion of the book is split into three POV chapters (New Empire, Great Ordeal, and Sauglish expedition). While there is a lot of meat to the storylines of the first two, I have a feeling that sometimes Bakker could have skipped the Sauglish thread altogether. At times, it feels like a lot of filler, just to keep the three arcs balanced.

Patrick

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2. The theoretical insights he gets from this moment he certainly uses later on. He develops a uniquely powerful sorcerous cant that exactly uses that aspect of the metaphysics: his teleportation. For a moment, all places become one, and he moves through the Outside with his entire body. This includes using it to murder people.

All places within a limited distance . . . hence the need for the multiple hops to get back to the city in TJE.

My real issue with analysis like this though, HE, is that I don't think Bakker had a fully fleshed out and consistent metaphysical/magic system in place from the beginning. e.g., There are Inrau magic moments in TDTCB that are inconsistent with Akka speeches about how magic is learned in TTT. The first teleportation by Kel in TTT seems to be over a greater distance than is implied to be allowed in TJE. I don't have confidence that you can extrapolate out from the Serwe heart incident with any specificity.

Bakker once said that he intends to keep the metaphysics fuzzy, and I think he means it. He started out kind of making it up as he went along, at least that's how it reads to me.

Also, I haven't read TWP for more than a year, but my memory is that the scene was clear that Kel was just pulling out Serwe's heart that he had secreted on his person and it only looked to the spectators that he was really pulling it from his chest. It was a sleight of hand magic trick.

ETA: Thanks for the review, Pat. Great stuff! Really looking forward to next book.

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Also, I haven't read TWP for more than a year, but my memory is that the scene was clear that Kel was just pulling out Serwe's heart that he had secreted on his person and it only looked to the spectators that he was really pulling it from his chest. It was a sleight of hand magic trick.

That was my interpretation as well, that Kellhus was simply conning everyone as a so-called magician fools a child.

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Oh, the end is very good. Not as awesome as Cil-Aujas, but very good nonetheless. It's the getting there that is extremely sluggish at times.

Every portion of the book is split into three POV chapters (New Empire, Great Ordeal, and Sauglish expedition). While there is a lot of meat to the storylines of the first two, I have a feeling that sometimes Bakker could have skipped the Sauglish thread altogether. At times, it feels like a lot of filler, just to keep the three arcs balanced.

Patrick

Well, it is a long way. And, as Akka mentions in TJE, the Great Ordeal is basically "clearing their path", meaning a potential lack of scranc encounters or other action-beats. Just yawing distance and the struggle to survive those leagues.... (?)

I can see why you compare this to TWP, as a lot of that book consists of travelogue sections peppered with battles. Unlike TWP, however, I assume TWLW won't have the majority of the POV voices periodically waxing in awe about Kellhus.

In any case, I've been re-reading TJE the last week. After ploughing through the first half, I've pretty much followed Akka's POV. In essence, it's a travelogue for all but the last chapter, when all hell breaks out (no pun intended). It's an interesting travelogue, though, in that it depicts the alien vaults of Cil-Aujas, and probably contains Bakker's most condensed and prolific philosophic sections of the entire book (Akka's musings on the Skin-Eaters, Cleric's speech about the holy dark, etc).

Pat, is it that the endless trooping through the wastelands lacks the... variety, or impact, of Cil-Aujas?

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That was my interpretation as well, that Kellhus was simply conning everyone as a so-called magician fools a child.

The scene is written from Kellhus’s point of view, so that would be strange, and not at all what a so-called magician does.

Here‘s the scene again, for reference:

Tears roared down his cheeks. With a haloed hand, he reached beneath his breast, firmly wrested the heart from his ribs. He thrust it high to the thunder of their adulation. [...]

[...]

He looked into their wasted faces, answered their fevered eyes. He brandished Serwë’s burning heart.

(I think this is the first time we are told that he sees the haloes around his hands, but I may be wrong.)

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I don't think it would be strange to have the con from the con artist's point of view. There's no reason he need to consciously think of how he's manipulating them during the scene, especially if Bakker wanted to leave it vague.

There is deception because Kellhus brandishes Serwe's heart, presenting it as his own. Confusion, because he and we are unaware how he did this - sorcery isn't consiously used or described. And despite Happy Ent's neat justification of the method used there is no way Kellhus is using sorcery conciously or otherwise because of the established rules of doing so.

Kellhus has no command/usable understanding of magic at this stage. He genuinely believes he experienced a spiritual revelation/miracle of some kind and the probability trance could not encompass the confluence of manipulations and events. It's not sorcery and it's not governed by the laws of Earwan causality. It's Kellhus' revelation that he is a tool of god, but is neccesarily amibiguous because this is still open for debate. Earwan metaphysics denies the possibilty of prophecy, yet this moment apparently confirms the Celmoman prophecy. It remains possible, however, that if Seswatha, the no-god or some other agent has manufactured or edited the Mandate dreams and influenced the events of the circumfixion that the apparent 'concious will of God' is an illusion used to manipulate Kellhus.

The scene remains obfuscated for narrative reasons beyond those subsequently revealed up to this point. It definately implies Kellhus deceiving, receiving a revelation, a bonefide miracle and evidence of manipulations conditioning the Thousandfold Thought beyond those of Moenghus and Kellhus. Whether these elements are contradictory or simultaneously correct remains debatable.

The scene where Kellhus talks to the world and recieves guidance from a twig is far more effective at this, and I maintain that the circumfixion event is overtly confusing and definately lessened my enjoyment of WP overall. I hate a climax where you can't tell if a key scene is so ambiguous and contradictory that you can't tell if its just badly edited, and this scene left me scratching my head even after rereading that passage four or five times. It's just too central to the climax to be handled this way.

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The scene where Kellhus talks to the world and recieves guidance from a twig is far more effective at this, and I maintain that the circumfixion event is overtly confusing and definately lessened my enjoyment of WP overall. I hate a climax where you can't tell if a key scene is so ambiguous and contradictory that you can't tell if its just badly edited, and this scene left me scratching my head even after rereading that passage four or five times. It's just too central to the climax to be handled this way.

For the record, I agree completely with this assessment of both scenes. (My explanation of what I think happens i the heart-brandishing scene is not an endorsement of the writing.)

Edit: a similar comment applies for the climax of Eye, where our adventurers defeat(?) a Balrog-seal. It’s annoyingly obfuscatory.

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The scene is written from Kellhus’s point of view, so that would be strange, and not at all what a so-called magician does.

Here‘s the scene again, for reference:

(I think this is the first time we are told that he sees the haloes around his hands, but I may be wrong.)

Note that it says "the heart" not "his heart". That seems to imply that he somehow stored her heart on his person (even inside his ribcage somehow?)

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Note that it says "the heart" not "his heart". That seems to imply that he somehow stored her heart on his person (even inside his ribcage somehow?)

I don't think even a Dunyain could pull off the required surgery for that. My opinion is that he had the heart on his person, and through sleight of hand and manipulating expectations (people see what they want to see) he pulled off the illusion of drawing a heart out of his own chest.

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Cnaiur's arc is pretty simple

1. Crazy

2. Has sex with the ground

3. Guards Conphas

4. Rapes Conphas

5. Becomes an Avatar of Gilgalol or whatever

6. Gets captured

7. Conphas tries to seduce him to the Dark Side

8. Freed by the Consult

9. Hijinks ensue

10. Kills Moenghus

11. Cuts his own throat.

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I wonder who the person is accompanying Achamanian and Mimara who has a POV and may not be named. Any guesses?

Yeah, it is intriguing. Who is so much more spoilerific than fact WLW has a POV? As I already mentioned, Cnaiur or Moenghus come to mind. I agree it is very unlikely any of these two is alive, though. Perhaps someone from Ishual or a member of the Consult?

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I rule out that it is Moenghus or Cnaiur, because their arcs seem done.

You'd think it would be someone who is supposed to be dead though, because that person turning up would be a major spoiler. If it's a new player, you'd think he or she could be named, same way the Zeum Emissary was.

So I guess it's someone from the Earwa past, or a major new surprising player, that Pat feels he cannot reveal before the book is actually out.

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So I guess it's someone from the Earwa past, or a major new surprising player, that Pat feels he cannot reveal before the book is actually out.

None of the above. . .

Can't elaborate, sorry. You'll understand when you read the book. . .

Patrick

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