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Judging Eye X (Re-read)


Happy Ent

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I suspect that, perhaps, the Swayal are a collection of witches who had been living on the fringe of Three Seas society pre-Kellian Empire.

OK, so “Change Appearance (level 5)” may be a non-Gnostic spell that has its root in a pre-Kellhusian magical tradition rooted in the various witchy circles rather than the Gnosis. Good.

We note that both witches we see are young, so they at least have brought up entirely in the Swayali school after its founding.

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Ohhhh…

You heard it here first: Nanny is of the Few.

How else did she recognise Eleva? She does not use sorcery, of course, since we explicitly see her touch a Chorae (“between thumb and forefinger”). She also considers sorcery blasphemous, as any good pre-Kellhusian follower of the Tusk.

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How else did she recognise Eleva? She does not use sorcery, of course, since we explicitly see her touch a Chorae (“between thumb and forefinger”). She also considers sorcery blasphemous, as any good pre-Kellhusian follower of the Tusk.
The other explanation is more obvious; she recognizes Eleva because she sees with the God's eyes and is an avatar of the God. The Few doesn't matter here any more than her ability to summon wrathful menstrual cycles does.

Note that she did not see Eleva before her grant of awesome auntie flo. Eleva remained disguised. So either she was a Few, knew Eleva was weird but didn't say anything (or didn't know how she was weird and didn't trust her instincts), or her powers have nothing to do with being Few/whatever.

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Note that she did not see Eleva before her grant of awesome auntie flo. Eleva remained disguised.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean by this. Could you be more explicit? (Also, I admit I had to use the internet to parse the slang. I'm not a native speaker.)

The exposure of Eleva is the first thing that happens at the meeting around the Stuck Table. No crimson glow eyes were yet opened, no menstrual smoke was yet seen. It’s many chapters before Nanny herself becomes fertile again.

The only mention of Eleva before that is just when everybody is seated at the table, "Eleva, in particular, seemed desperate to speak. \\ But the pall of enormity was quick to silence even her." We must assume that Nanny knows about Eleva even at this moment (one page before she is exposed), yet her narrative voice doesn't let us in on the secret yet. One page later again we are told that Nanny knows Eleva "has been dead for days. Maybe longer." This may mean that Nanny had contact with Eleva already for a few days (which would make sense given that I can't see that all the sisters arrived in Iothiah at exactly this moment. There are no airplanes and taxis, after all.) They may have spoken, and there could be all sorts of mundane explanations for why Nanny suspects her.

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[she] closed her eyes, knowing they would be globes of crimson when they snapped open.

I had forgotten about this. In the scene where Porsparian blesses Sorweel's face, Porsparian's eyes turn red too. This is from Sorweel's POV, so I do think we can conclude the Mother-Supreme's eyes literally turned red in her scene with Eleva

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That said, is it not fair to say that we are only assuming that we are going to see people as avatars of the gods?

Well, I am not assuming anything of that sort. It’s a continuum of assumed agency.

Take Nanny for example.

In one extreme, she’s just an embittered madwoman of immense charisma who finally goes completely nuts. She then grasps some kind of Thousandfold Thought that unifies the souls of Yatwerian believers. Funky stuff ensues, including the channelling of supernatural powers to people like Perry. All agency emanates ultimately from Nanny’s zeal.

In the other extreme, Yatwer herself does indeed appear and everything happens just like Nanny tells us (the Nansurian caste-noble and other bystanders are just blind to it). All agency is Yatwer’s, Nanny is her chosen Avatar.

You can even have a smörgåsbord of explanations, where you think Nanny’s POV tells us the truth about her revelation, while Kellhus’s POV lies to us. In that version, Yatwer really truly acts through Nanny, but the God does not act through Kellhus. I don’t think we have any kind of consensus about these issues.

(I happen to think that all these explanations are compatible, since my understanding is that Yatwer is identical to the collective of souls that believe in her, so the distinction between Yatwer and the communality of Cultists as focussed by Nanny is meaningless. I also think that Bakker will remain deliberately coy about this issue and never present us with a smoking gun. (I think the strongest argument against my position is the divine manipulation needed to make Kellhus recuperate on Skiotha’s grave hill.))

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And Conphas and his soldiers see Cnaiur as the embodiment of Gilgaöl, when they try to capture him. The gods have always been there and i think that both Fanimry and Inrithsm are partially correct. The gods are exceptionally powerful demons, but they are also a part of the One god, like all the other souls.

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I had forgotten about this. In the scene where Porsparian blesses Sorweel's face, Porsparian's eyes turn red too.

Very cool! Here are some quotes from that scene (Ch. XIII, p. 294-5)

The slave brought dirt to his eyes, then began slowly rocking to a muttered prayer. […Perry rocks, spasms, even convulses for a while…]

His soiled fingers still to his eyes, the old man writhed and bucked [...]

Porsparian drew aside his hands, looked to the earth with eyes like red gelatin…

Gazed at the earthen face.

[…] Not only had the slave’s eyes gone red (a trick, some kind of trick!), somehow the mouth pressed into the earth had opened.

[Perry drinks water from the earth…]

His eyes had returned to normal, […]

It’s not quite the effect Nanny imagines. No glowing orbs, just red eyes. Still, a cool effect. We note that Perry has spent quite some time rubbing dirt into his eyes, which should turn them red. Speculation: the rubbing of dirt into eyes is a standard ritual used by Yatwerian zealots like Perry. It naturally turns eyes red, purposefully mimicking Yatwer’s apparently well-known “bloody gaze.” However, I do believe that the effect described by Sorweel can not entirely be described by this natural physical reaction. Funky stuff is indeed going on, and not only with Perry’s eyes.

I wonder if Perry’s eyes would indeed glow to a Yatwerian observer of this scene. (Similarly to Serwë seeing halos around Kellhus’s hands before anybody else does.)

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I'm not sure I understand what you mean by this. Could you be more explicit? (Also, I admit I had to use the internet to parse the slang. I'm not a native speaker.)

Okay, I mean that Eleva was part of that group before this. Psatma had seen her before. Only this time does she actually act against her.

Why?

Why wait if she can see the Mark? It's not like she wasn't the leader before this; it's not like others wouldn't listen to her. The only reason to wait is because she might fear the repercussions, but (rightly) she'd assume that if she were moved on Yatwerians would revolt, so she doesn't have to fear that. My guess is that she had no idea that Eleva was a problem until she became the chosen one of Yatwer. That that allowed her to see through deception - note how this ability (to see through the glamour of the Gnosis) goes well with the shielding of Sorweel from Kellhus's glamours.

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Fantastic summation HE, keep em coming lol.

I think Razor has it right; "Because the Goddess lets me see." are Psatma's words, and they indicate that her vision and understanding have been coloured in a way that is distinct from her recollected perceptions.

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I think Razor has it right; "Because the Goddess lets me see." are Psatma's words, and they indicate that her vision and understanding have been coloured in a way that is distinct from her recollected perceptions.

I’m not against this explanation, I just don’t see the argument for it.

Eleva has been replaced less than three months ago (according to Phoracia), and more than a few days ago, or more (says Nanny). Eleva probably lives far away from Nanny (she was in Carythusal for solstice, three months ago, that’s weeks and weeks of travel time). So Nanny need not observed her for a prolongued period. I assume that the sisters have arrived in Iothiah from all over the three seas during the last few days, and Eleva has been Fake!Eleva (and visible as such to Nanny) for the whole duration of her current stay in Iothiah. I don’t see a reason for why there should have been a previous occasion where Nanny could have seen Fake!Eleva.

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Yes, both explanations are valid.

It just seems that the ability to root out such spies seems like a new ability that has arrived with Yatwer's favour - if Psatma could see the Few before this stage, I would expect that to be framed within her POV - instead it seems to be presented as though part of her newfound 'gifts'. I understand this is subjective interpretation on my part and it is not compelling evidence, but context is what gives meaning - so I'll go with that for now. ;)

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Reread The prologue, only comment is that Kosotor et al are on the Long Side during the prologue, that means they had to go around to the other side to hang around waiting for Akka.

Reread Chapter one, I think the beggar who blows the gate probably is Kellhus. Harweel's eyes are described as judging in the chapter.

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if Psatma could see the Few before this stage, I would expect that to be framed within her POV

Well, not even Kellhus’s POV tells us that he sees a “strange torsion” around Mekki in the beginning of Darkness.

There’s another aspect to this: upthread I said that the Swayali spell “Change Appearance +3” is as good as any skin spy. This is of course false since a disguised Swayali witch would have a mark. What makes the skin spies so clever is precisely the fact that they are unmarked.

This makes me rethink my pronouncement that Eleva uses sorcery unlike what we’ve seen before. Both Inrau and Acka are confronted with skin spies, and both are shocked that there is no mark. Notably, they are not shocked that this is even possible. None of them thinks “But this spell isn’t in the book!”. This leads me to believe that an appearance-changing spell is actually quite common. it’s just pretty useless in Eärwa because it would be so easy to unmask. Any of the Few would immediately see the mark.

Possibly, no Chorae-bearer would be fooled by the spell (this is speculation and easy to refute: Cnaiür, when bearing a Chorae, sees the Dragonheads produced at Kiyuth, even though he is not harmed by it. Also, it seems as if Nanny sees True!Witch only after Fake!Eleva is killed, not when she holds the Chorae).

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pg33-34

He tried to struggle, but Narsheidel was indomitable, an iron shadow that scarcely bent to his thrashing. Through the dark spiral of the tower stair, it seemed all he could see were his father's eyes, loving eyes, judging eyes, regretting a heavy hand, celebrating a tickling laugh, and watching, always watching, to be sure his second heart beat warm and safe. And if he looked close, if he dared peer at those eyes the way he might gems, he knew he would see himself, not as he was, but mirrored across the shining curve of a father's pride, a father's hope that he might live with greater grace through the fact of a son.

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Cheers, locke.

So here’s the incomplete list of judging eyes so far:

1. Harweel’s judging eye by which he measures his son. Much of Sorweel’s POV is concerned with how he appears, how he measured up to the image of a Sakarpi king that he should be (and that his father presumably, would be)

2. Yatwer‘s bloody gaze, though not explicitly described as judging.

3. Mimara’s ability to see the order of all things, explicitly called the judging eye.

4. Kellhus’s version of Bentham’s panopticon (we’ll get to that in a later chapter). No explicit reference to “judge” in this context in the text, but plenty in Foucault.

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Well, not even Kellhus’s POV tells us that he sees a “strange torsion” around Mekki in the beginning of Darkness.

Different, because Kellhus did not know what he was looking at - in this instance Psatma would have known what she was seeing and what it meant, instead she just seems to know. But yeh, Scott may be obfuscating. I don't think Psatma could spot a skin spy via my interpretation either, as they have no soul... unless she could see an absence where a person should be, but then even the chishurim couldn't see them with the 3rd sight.

How many vision powers do we have now anyway? Judging eye, the mark, the 3rd sight, percieving the onta, seeing haloes, Yatwer's visions and bloody eyes...

maybe Sorweel will develop sharingan :P

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The first Akka chapter, we begin with the dream of Seswatha's cuckolding Celmomas and Akka awakening thinking only that it was possible that Nau Cayuti was Seswatha's son. By employing a few tons of confirmation bias, I think the dream foretells the coming of Mimara, Akka's child.

and I do think she could very well be Akka's child. Akka is very good at lying to himself when hurting the ones he loves comes in to things. Whether it's denying his child to Esme and himself, or denying his culpability in Inrau's damnation, Akka doesn't like to face his biggest personal failings. If Akka is going to parallel Ses' life, it would make sense for Mimara to be his Nau Cayuti.

;)

I also think it mentions in this first chapter about how Seswatha is a second self living on in Akka's body.

Let's jump back to the first Akka chapter of TDTCB. Before we're given the first Ses dream, we're given an authorial description of Seswatha's dreams, it is described as his soul living on with every Mandate sorcerer. I'd like to hear Ent or thorston's take on how this works within what we know of the metaphysics of souls and the god so far, because I think we have enough to figure out how Ses is doing it.

The first Ses dream of the series is of the Celmomian prophecy. In this dream, Akka thinks of himself as Akka throughout, btw. And he has two other dreams that night which we do not see. The Libraries of Sauglish, which we've seen before, and a Ford of a river, which I don't remember but which we may have seen before. But it is the death of Celmomas that is the dream that wakes Akka with its power. The reader realizes that the power of the dream is strengthening because an Anasurimbor is returning, something Akka cannot know, but apparently Ses does know. It would be worthwhile to compare the date of the Akka first chapter with the date of the prologue, and try and figure out if they line up at all, though when I look this up later, it will be annoying because the prologue is rife with indications of time passing, how many days traveling something takes Kell for example and so on. The Nerdanal-esque crackpot theory is that Seswatha's oversoul is hearing Moenghus' summons to the Dunyain and is trying to warn the Mandati, but I don't think that makes a lick of sense, considering what we know of the metaphysics.

But most interesting of all, in that very first Seswatha series, is that Celmomas makes TWO prophecies. The second is that, "At the end of the world. An Anasurimbor will return." The first is that he says the gods tell him that the burden to be there at the world's end is Seswatha's. This first is probably considered satisfied by Ses being on the plains of Mengedda, but I think it goes along with the second prophecy and is referring to the second apocalypse. Celmomas is correctly prophesying that Seswatha will be living on somehow and be there at the next apocalypse.

Which makes me wonder if Shae lives on through his mummified heart being grasped by Consult/Mangaecca sorcerer's. Just like Ses.

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My guess is "no," but it's only a guess. I think it's implied somewhere (I forget if it's the appendix or the text) that Shae lives on in a more literal way than whatever Seswatha might be doing. I think it's probably related somehow to the way in which the Inchies of old gave the nonmen "immortality."

As far we know, the Inchoroi, as physicians, granted the Non-men longevity by mundane means (mind you these means were pretty impressive). On the other hand Shaeonnara (according to the appendices) was a (Gnostic) sorceror, who managed to preserve his wicked old soul, i.e. to keep his spiritual essence on earth - this is reasonably by sorcerous means. As you say, Seswatha is long dead (and no doubt damned).

@lockesnow, Mimara as Achamian's daughter? He is seriously fucked up, but I think even Bakker would stop short of this enormity.

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