The White-Luck Warrior II (spoilers)

[Kalbear]

Hypothesis: The Gods are blind to the No-God. The No-God is blind to himself. QED: The No-God is actually a God.

I think it's more interesting to note what being outside of the God's sight means.

[Sci-2]

Interesting idea, but why would Kellhus do that? The prevailing theory about him wanting the New Empire to fail is so that it will distract Yatwer, et al. Why would he want it to fail if he doesn't really need to distract Yatwer? If he doesn't then it would seem that he would be indifferent to the New Empire's fortunes.

Hmmm...good point. However, having the New Empire conquered amounts to a conquest by Zeum more than Fayanal. This brings the greatest nation of men besides the NE AND the last (supposedly) Cish in proximity to those already conditioned by Kellhus. If the No-God walks, and Men are united (because all this time Kellhus has been telling them this is what would happen and he will proven true) it allows for him to then only have to deal with the ruler(s) of Zeum to steer mankind against the Consult. And Kellhus will have been, to an extent, discredited because he told his people that if the No-God rises they lose. They believe on a religious level while the Zeumi will fight due to the presence of the No-God, instead of believing "Kellhus the Prophet lost and now none shall prevail".

Makes sense why Kellhus had begun to threaten Zeum by putting up (repairing?) fortresses along the border - he wants Zeum to come help Fayanal conquer the NE.

The No-God's rise is a near certainty. In fact, the Ordeal seems like the last mad throw of a gambler's dice...not something Kellhus would pin all his hopes on. That Maitha can see beyond the No-God's rise, can see a battle taking place between Mankind and the Consult, means Kellhus can as well. Which IMO means the Thousandfold Thought extends into those probabilities. So even if the No-God walks the earth there is a chance that with Zeum allying with the remnants of the NE the Consult can be defeated, especially since the No-God was forced to take the field due to heavy losses the last time around - it seems to imply that it had a vested interest in not having its servants routed. And the Consult must have known the Heron Spear might be at large, so even with the No-God they had to take a huge risk on the day of its defeat, a risk that saw to their defeat.

I think perhaps Kellhus wishes for Proyas to understand the TTT, to be one of the first non-Dunyain to grasp it. Because even after the Ordeal perishes, someone has to rally all of humankind (and possibly non-men kind) against the Consult. Kellhus will either be dead or discredited by then, or will have gone off to his next phase...whatever that is.

[jurble]

The Carapace is studded with chorae, and seems pretty thick, so a laser gun would work. But so would like a sufficiently fast projectile weapon - a rail gun or coil, or a very high-powered rifle. I mean, I bet the carapace couldn't withstand an artillery shell.

It just had to pierce the carapace, and can't be magical. Anything mundane would work.

[generic]

Makes sense why Kellhus had begun to threaten Zeum by putting up (repairing?) fortresses along the border - he wants Zeum to come help Fayanal conquer the NE.

Also he is working on the Zeümi successor.

The Carapace is studded with chorae, and seems pretty thick, so a laser gun would work. But so would like a sufficiently fast projectile weapon - a rail gun or coil, or a very high-powered rifle. I mean, I bet the carapace couldn't withstand an artillery shell.

It just had to pierce the carapace, and can't be magical. Anything mundane would work.

Or maybe something accelerated by sorcery? Momentum is not magical. On the other hand the No-God could be something completely different this time. Something should be in that carapace.

[WrathOfTinyKittens]

The Carapace is studded with chorae, and seems pretty thick, so a laser gun would work. But so would like a sufficiently fast projectile weapon - a rail gun or coil, or a very high-powered rifle. I mean, I bet the carapace couldn't withstand an artillery shell.

It just had to pierce the carapace, and can't be magical. Anything mundane would work.

The problem with this is the whirlwind. You'd have to have a projectile powerful beyond the (witnessed) ability of the Three Seas to make it through the wind with enough momentum to damage the Carapace.

Here's my question: what happened to the Carapace, and how big is it? I always pictured it as enormous, but it's entirely possible (especially if the Nau-Cayuti theory is true) that it's just the size of a regular casket. Does the Consult even still have the ability to manufacture a new one?

Or maybe something accelerated by sorcery? Momentum is not magical. On the other hand the No-God could be something completely different this time. Something should be in that carapace.

This is an interesting avenue to explore regardless of whether or not it would work in this case. At what point does sorcery become mundane? The scene in TDTCB where Cnaiur survives the immolation by the Dragonheads at Kiyuth always bothered me, because even though the magic wouldn't touch him, a presumably large area of dry grass was just lit ablaze and he's right in the middle. We also know from Shimeh that magically-powered objects can stop Chorae without noticeable effect.

So... maybe you've got something there. Kellhus et al could power a million pebbles and bits of rubble (or, to be dramatic, Bashrag) at blazing speeds into the side of the Carapace. Home by Christmas.

[lokisnow]

"I’m more keen on embracing the conventions than breaking them - the twisting seems to happen of its own accord. The biggie, the one that spans The Second Apocalypse in its entirety, is eschatology - no surprise there. What does it mean to live in a world with an objective narrative structure (which is to say, a world with a climax and an end)? And conversely, what does it mean to live in a world that doesn’t? The others, I think, are pretty obvious."

Ahh, so the world has a climax, when Celmomas says "At the end of the world." he really means the end of the world. I do not think we're going to see the forestalling of the end of the world at the end of the series, I think the world is going to end. That's what the Consult may be doing, they've been looking for the world that ends the universe. The world where the eschatological climax of existence happens--where the inverse-Big Bang occurs. And then after the world ends? Is it like the End of Never Ending Story, with nothing but Darkness all around... And Kellhus coming before it. And the ending then ends with a Bang, a Big Bang, and the ending is that in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God... ;)

and now we have a new trilogy that makes us wonder if some of those supposed false beliefs are part of objective reality no matter how illogical they are. makes me think Kellhus will disenchant the world to make it more orderly.

I don't think he can disenchant the world without ending it and making a new world. I wonder if that squares with what the infamous TTT twig.

I noticed this too, and had no idea what it was. anyway, I was skimming through the glossary in TTT when I came across the entry for it.

This still isn't so clear to me. What does it mean to be a world historical individual? I thought about this and wondered if Achamian might become Kahiht. Mimara does call him a prophet of the past in TJE. Does this have anything to do with the movement of historical events? Or would being Kahiht not jive with Achamian's damnation?

Would being a Kahiht explain Kellhus' halos in TWP? Would it also explain Mimara's halos in WLW? That might make sense.

It makes me wonder if the Yatwerian cult is being goaded by Kellhus himself, that their revelations are largely nonsense. Yes they possess some form of arcana that allows them to create the WLW, but there is no goddess in direct communication with them. Kellhus has used cants of compulsion, dream sending, and illusion to make them see a goddess, but nothing Yatwer has done beyond the making of the WLW is outside the realm of sorcery if memory serves.

I think they're definitely being goaded by Kellhus, their powerbase is threatened by the diminishment of slavery the elevation of women and an era with increased opportunity. The last thing a Yatwer wants is an economy on the horizon that might me more capitalistic and less feudal. It may well be that Yatwer's enemy is not so much Kellhus, particularly if he's way off the board in the north, not influencing events around human population centers, but that Yatwer's enemy is the empire itself that has changed slave laws and changed the status of women.

[unJon]

I think it's more interesting to note what being outside of the God's sight means.

Hmm...

Let's take this in two directions and see if either is fruitful:

1) Per Kellhus (or maybe Serwa?), the gods can't see the No God because of their view from the cliff on which they look (I'm paraphrasing from memory). It appears that the way the gods see is time all happening at once (see TJE explanation, WLW perceptions and other comments about Yatwer). So if your view of looking at things is time all at once, what is it that you wouldn't be able to see from that cliff? Something outside of time? Weak stuff. Anyone have anything better on this?

2) Unsouled creatures cannot comprehend a paradox (per Mimara's skin-spy riddle test). Is the No-God a paradox for the gods? This feeds into past speculation from Kal and I about the No-God being a chorae for the gods analogy or the No-God being the absence of gods. This avenue of thought seems more likely. Corollary question: Would Yatwer pass Mimara's skin-spy riddle test? I feel like this is a chapter from Godel Escher Bach. Various stages of paradox, everything "hi-def" enough has a frequency it can play that would break itself, every sufficiently complicated logical system has unprovable true theorems, etc.

Level a - a paradox cannot be grasped by a non-souled sentience.

Level b - a chorae is a special paradox that magic cannot grasp

Level c - the No-God is a special paradox that the gods cannot grasp

[lokisnow]

Love your three levels of paradoxes, fascinating. I wonder what sort of chorae Kellhus could have constructed if he hadn't used sorcery? Might be a good use for the Dunyain, get them manufacturing super-chorae or inverse chorae that protect the wearer from chorae. Lol.

Hmm...

Let's take this in two directions and see if either is fruitful:

1) Per Kellhus (or maybe Serwa?), the gods can't see the No God because of their view from the cliff on which they look (I'm paraphrasing from memory). It appears that the way the gods see is time all happening at once (see TJE explanation, WLW perceptions and other comments about Yatwer). So if your view of looking at things is time all at once, what is it that you wouldn't be able to see from that cliff? Something outside of time? Weak stuff. Anyone have anything better on this?

Rather than thinking of "outside time" which I agree is weak, how about "beyond eschatological climax"? The Gods are blind to the No-God because the No-God is beyond the end. The gods see time all happening at once, but can they see beyond the end, beyond the climax? Is the no-god outside the structure of the universe itself, it doesn't belong to the Earwa universe the gods are a part of. The universe that has a beginning middle and end.

[unJon]

Rather than thinking of "outside time" which I agree is weak, how about "beyond eschatological climax"? The Gods are blind to the No-God because the No-God is beyond the end. The gods see time all happening at once, but can they see beyond the end, beyond the climax? Is the no-god outside the structure of the universe itself, it doesn't belong to the Earwa universe the gods are a part of. The universe that has a beginning middle and end.

Oh, I rather like this. The gods always drag their frame with them. Think Wright-in-the-Mountain and the reason that a chorae should not have banished him. The No-God is outside of the frame of the gods. Since the gods are always dragging their frame with them, they cannot perceive the no-god.

[jurble]

In other news, the world is going to end on May 21st apparently. I bet the No-God will be summoned.

Wait.

Wait.

Doesn't the TTT Appendix say the No-God was summoned, or called? It doesn't say created, does it? Doesn't that imply that the No-God existed before it walked the Earth.

[Curethan]

Doesn't the TTT Appendix say the No-God was summoned, or called? It doesn't say created, does it? Doesn't that imply that the No-God existed before it walked the Earth.

He might just be hanging about in a quantum state, like Shrodinger's [sp?] pussy.

[Darzin]

I think the key is to pierce the carapace, which would be really hard without some form of gun as its metal and the No-God isn’t going to just sit there when you chuck rocks at it, it be like trying to peirce a tank with a bunch of catapults. Someone (I think it was Kalbear), Theorized that the No-God cannot be seen by the God and thus cannot be defined by the God breaking the cycle of watcher and watched. So something of a paradox a being that cannot be perceived. I think that achieving this would make the God not a God as he can no longer define the universe, hence the name No-God , and I’ll bet that once the No –God exists the Judging eye would no longer show holiness or damnation as no one can be judged. The Name Black Heavens makes sense to as the No-God now takes all souls rather than the lesser Gods themselves.

I think this book has pretty much shown the Lesser Gods are just powerful Ciprang that can influence the outside enough to benefit their followers Psatma even says as much to Meppa when he says she worships a demon she laughs and says that whatever Yatwer is she has power and so she is worshipped.

I also found it interesting that the Cishaurim can see into the outside they see the Gods where souls go and they think the Gods are demons for what they do with souls ie snacking on them. Yet Meppa doesn’t dispute Psatma when she talks about her salvation through Yatwer, he just see’s it as a morally wrong way of achieving salvation. I do think the solitary God does exist and he is what defines the morality that the Judging eye see’s.

[Kalbear]

Oh, I rather like this. The gods always drag their frame with them. Think Wright-in-the-Mountain and the reason that a chorae should not have banished him. The No-God is outside of the frame of the gods. Since the gods are always dragging their frame with them, they cannot perceive the no-god.

That's how I referred to it before: that the no god exists outside of the causal frame that the Gods exist in, and thus cannot be perceived.

I also stated that it is something of a schrodinger's box in that it is not perceived by anything, and thus does not fully exist or not exist. In this case, not being seen by a god means that its metaphysical wave function never collapses, and thus it exists and does not exist everywhere at once. Including metaquantum tunneling places, like outside the end of the world. That rang well with why the Heron Spear 'killed' the No-God - once the carapace was pierced the metaquantum wave function collapsed and the No-god had definite spacetime position, and thus was wiped out.

Which is interesting; the No-God in that case dies like a paradox, right? Like a chorae reacting to a sorcerer. As soon as reality seeps in the No-God's paradoxical nature is revealed, and it is destroyed. Perhaps that's the real paradox; the No-god exists in time in multiple places at once (dare I say it - it is created in the future) which creates a temporal paradox that cannot be answered in the God's causal space, since to them it was never created and thus could not exist...

Ah. There we go.

1. God creates everything. Once created, God tracks that thing and sees its entire causal history, as God knows all variables.

2. The No-God is not created by God or anything of God. There is no change tracking on the No-God.

3. Therefore, the No-God is outside of the God's tracking, yet it exists on the world where everything that exists must have been created by God. Therefore, paradox.

[Curethan]

So the no-god exists out of time?

Does this suggest the solitary aspect of god encompasses everything that can/will happen with no reference to time passing, and the 'shards' of god's subjective reference form the 100 gods and humans via souls experiencing time in a diminishing fashion (i.e. increasingly limited causal frames of perception)? And then the no-god is the manifestation of the end of god's subjective experience of his creation (i.e. the end of time) - the ultimate contradiction - which would make it so that god/s never existed at all.

That'd be cool.

[lokisnow]

well just because God ends or the world/universe ends doesn't mean time itself ends. the atomic weight of uranium doesn't end just because there's no uranium left. ;) (I wish we had a bigger winky face).

speaking of frames as well, the Isuphyris says: "And they forged counterfeits from our frame, creatures vile and obscene, who hungered only for violent congress... They are not our Sons. And you are not our Brothers. I doubt men are the creation of the Inchoroi, but I suppose it's possible that the Emwamma:humans::nonmen:sranc

Funny how a word like frame will suddenly jump out at you when flipping pages.

random off topic question, they use ponies on the Great Ordeal, any historical precedent for that? it's a fascinating and obvious concept, taking less glamorous beasts for more efficient and effective beasts, but it's almost never a tradeoff human militaries make.

flipping through pages looking for the Psatma Meppa debate, this caught my eye, pg 67: "A shudder passed through the old Wizard and it seemed he heard a voice whisper,the heart of a great tree does not burn..."

that sort of makes me think Kellhus and his twig. If Akka is the kihuit (new word we haven't typed it enough for me to grok bakker's latest made up word) thingamajigger from TTT appendix woudl this be the world talking to him. :)

Just after this we get the fascinating stuff on tree burial. Makes me want to go revisit the Mengedda stuff in TWP in light of all the tree info dump here.

The problem with this damn book is you can't flip through it without finding something interesting.

Akka found the Ishual map broken and what do we know is inscribed on the case holding the map? "Doom. Should you find me broken."

Finally went back and found the "you are the eye that offends, Mimara, context matters. I don't think Kellhus has said this to Mimara, yet:

She dreams of her stepfather, wakes with the frowning confusion that accompanies dreams too stick with significance. With every blink she seem him: the Aspect-Emperor, not as he is but as he would be were hethe shade that haunted teh accursed deeps of Cil-Aujus...

Not a man but an emblem. A living Seal, rising on tides of hellish unreality.

"You are the eyd that offends, Mimara..."

...

"The eye that must be plucked."

I pulled out a longish paragraph on the divination of dreams (can't be trusted, in that separate the italics quote. it's a bit late to offer a full commentary, but I'll some up in the form of a question: Foreshadowing much, Scott?

[Kalbear]

random off topic question, they use ponies on the Great Ordeal, any historical precedent for that? it's a fascinating and obvious concept, taking less glamorous beasts for more efficient and effective beasts, but it's almost never a tradeoff human militaries make.

it was modeled after the Scylvendi who were modeled after the Mongols. The Mongols did so to allow for fast cavalry archers as well as essentially mobile infantry. And for similar reasons mentioned in the book - because they required far less feed than horses and could graze off the land efficiently.

[Curethan]

well just because God ends or the world/universe ends doesn't mean time itself ends. the atomic weight of uranium doesn't end just because there's no uranium left. ;) (I wish we had a bigger winky face).

Well, not time, just the perception of it that the god uses to experience itself. Y'know, souls, the watcher and the watched and all that. Only souled critters can aprehend paradox, because all paradox is, by nature, self referential.

[Happy Ent]

Only souled critters can aprehend paradox, because all paradox is, by nature, self referential.

Hm… OK, I can buy that.

As somebody who understands Gödel’s theorems pretty well, I was really annoyed with Mimara’s interrogation of the skin spy. A very naive interpretation of the “mechanical systems are by necessity incomplete” idea.

Your explanation makes it better.

[Madness]

Lol. I love Bakker's writing. I wanted to add some things to add to the conversation awhile ago, and while I may revisit it, I'd add my two cents to the evolving discussion.

Kal broke it down really well in one of his latest posts, and read a certain way, it actually gives some credence to my idea that the last series will focus on events during the First Apocalypse. Perhaps, in Earwa such an event can only happen once a la Time Tombs in Hyperion.

My wanking aside, a few things to consider in the latest No-God deconstruction.

1. We've contextualized that Ajolki can likely see the No-God.

2. Despite the enormous fiction that we've built around the nature of the No-God, much of what we talk about, while philosophically relevant and sound, has no real textual basis beyond our connotations of Bakker's education.

- No-God's "remains" were recovered from Mengaedda, whether that was just the Carapace remains, we don't know. Bakker could just have some random a single Hero walk out or a congealed mob of melted people with Kayutas face shrieking out of it.

I found a couple other things but I gotta get to class. Quicktimes.

Someone above when they pointed out the TTT entry for Kahiht (there's also one for World Soul, I think,) I remembered that when Esmenet first finds Akka's fire in TWP she defines those assembled there, Kellhus, Serwe, Cnaiur, Xinemus, Proyas, I think, as Kahiht, World Souls, around whose actions the Wheel of the World turns.

The scene in TDTCB where Cnaiur survives the immolation by the Dragonheads at Kiyuth always bothered me, because even though the magic wouldn't touch him, a presumably large area of dry grass was just lit ablaze and he's right in the middle. We also know from Shimeh that magically-powered objects can stop Chorae without noticeable effect.

There have been plenty of references in my reads that suggest that anything that catches sorcerous fire burns different than flame. Cnaiur has a Chorae in that scene.

Peace.

[Sci-2]

My mind exploded last night reading the great posts above. Love the levels of paradox, frames, the No God beyond time or the eschatological climax (thinking Christianity's Salvation History, after which my Dante professor said prophecy runs out and anything can happen), and quantum perception/entanglement ideas.

So many great posts right after another.

Going from what Anjecis says, and the idea of perception defining reality, perhaps the Outside is more malleable because of the spaces between, the void that separates the realities hanging off the world. Since the world is made by the perceptions of sentient (and non-sentient?) beings that comprise the God of Gods, that is why it is more, in a sense, "solid". The Ciphrang torture souls for a similar reason the Non-Men Erratics do - because perception in suffering is more focused, more capable of solidifying the demons' realities.

Also, taking a page from Kult RPG, happy souls might realize their own power to sculpt reality and become gods/demons themselves. If there are heavens, the gods likely induce drugged stupors. Or one could perpetually rest on the precipice of orgasm - might feel good but you are still unable to fathom your own divinity.

I remember the Cnauir saying the humans who sided with Seswatha killed the Scylvendi's god who they called Lokung. I'm assuming this is just their name for the No-God? Because I swear thinking the No-God is an undead deity. Perhaps more importantly is this passage from TTT:

"Each man, he explained, was a kind of hole in existence, a point where the Outside penetrated the world. He tapped one of the beads with his finger. It broke, staining the

surrounding parchment. When the trials of the world broke men, he explained, the Outside

leaked into the world.

This, he had said, was madness."

So the stillborn are because the Outside cannot penetrate the world, and seeing as Kellhus says the God is the sum of minds, perhaps when the No-God wakes the God is also inhibited from acting in the world. This jagged cut in the world-mind might also explain why everyone in the whole world feels the No-God's presence. Of course, what has always surprised me was that the Heron Spear could so easily break the Carapace and that Seswatha would know this was the key to defeating the being.