White Luck Warrior VII

[Calibandar]

What Siöl requests Siöl compels! The C n is a code of tyrants! ”

I saw that Seraphimanl asked Bakker about this. My thoughts:

C n is perhaps a reference to Cincûlic, which we know is the Nonman name for the Inchoroi tongue. There is a tie to the Inchoroi because this quote refers to Cujara’s immortality, gained via the Inchoroi. Describing their language as “code” also works.

[jurble]

So why would he hate that she is his image? I guess if she's not his at all, that would be poignant. And it ties into the line about his wife's wayward desire, which is retained in this second draft. And then, these two quotes are clearly connected, but how: The above refers to his daughter, but the below is said by his wife So, my conclusion, Nonmen women could bear children by human men , but no longer by males of their species.

Huh? The girl's father hates that his son is the image of his daughter, because his son looks like a chick. It's got nothing to do with our crazy protagonist. It's the dead Nansur girl who says that. Our Nonman friend is simply remembering something the girl said to him in regards to her brother's appearance (since that kid is about to light him on fire).

[Kalbear]

Clearly, Skafra likes big butts and cannot lie.

[jurble]

Clearly, Skafra likes big butts and cannot lie.

There is now green tea all over my monitor.

[Seraphimal]

C n is perhaps a reference to Cincûlic, which we know is the Nonman name for the Inchoroi tongue. There is a tie to the Inchoroi because this quote refers to Cujara’s immortality, gained via the Inchoroi. Describing their language as “code” also works.

That makes sense, actually. At first I thought it was a typo, or something.

Even before the coming of the Flesh Angels, the Inchoroi, they lived lives long enough for children to become strangers.

Apologies in advance if this point has already been raised and explained, but does this mean that even before Immortality the Nonmen were prone to forget things and go somewhat senile due to longevity? As in, even if they lived three centuries, they only had the memory for one or two? Does Cinial'jin specifically mean the children of Nonmen? I'd formerly thought that this hadn't been an issue until the lifespans they were cursed with by the Inchoroi.

[jurble]

I think it means they live so long that their children simply become different people to them. If you live for centuries, your adult children eventually cease being children, but just become your peers.

[Sci-2]

I took it to mean that they live so long a child can wander enough and change in ways that go beyond a parent. For humans, I think the idea is impossible - a parent who has raised a child will recognize behaviors of the child.

For Nonmen, there is enough time for other influences to shift a child's personality to the point they became unrecognizable.

[Kalbear]

I think it's more a turn of phrase - that if you live for 300 years you'll not remember some of your kids because they've drifted so far apart and you barely remember what they look like. I mean, think about all the people you were close to in middle school - how many do you remember now? Even a child becomes somewhat distant after hundreds of years apart.

[Sci-2]

I was thinking about Wutteat as well, and how he died and was "resurrected". It kind of reminds me of a controversial piece of Christian theology I was exposed in the old Catholic College days, that the idea of a soul lingering after death was a Greek thing, not a Jewish one.

The miracle of Christ is that he brings you back to life and in the interim, in accordance with the Old Testament, you are dead in the ground and your consciousness ceases to exist. The miracle is that you are still the same person despite this hole in the continuity of your being.

So taking out the miracle, I wonder if the topos in the dragon is animating the corpse, that if it had a soul that spirit is gone. On the other hand, I recall Cleric saying hell was inside the dragon, which makes me wonder if the spirit was stuck similar to the wight that Mimara banishes with the chorae.

[jurble]

My idea is that basically Wutteat is haunting his own body, like the Wight was haunting his mansion. But the how is a good question, maybe dragons slowly digest people like sarlaacs? People died inside Wutteat's gut to create a Topos? I think we'll learn more when we meet the Mangaecca, since they probably a similar situation going on - trapping their souls and haunting their own bodies.

Perhaps what makes a Topos is not suffering, but the accumulation of sin? Murder being the worst sin and what not. Murder after murder turned Wutteat into a Topos. Like Kosoter^1000000.

And perhaps it's the nature of those murders that makes Wutteat worse than say, some other dude who's killed millions. Kosoter looked worse to Mimara than Cleric did, though undoubtedly Nil'Giccas killed more people than Kosoter - but Nil'Giccas probably never killed children like Kosoter did, being a hero and what not.

[unJon]

The above refers to his daughter, but the below is said by his wife So, my conclusion, Nonmen women could bear children by human men , but no longer by males of their species.

If Nonmen women could bear human babies but not non-men babies, then there would be no "hope." The quote needs the nonman to have uncertainty about the parentage of his son. As someone pointed out above, this could point to nonmen promiscuity habits. Or it could just be a basic statement of gender differences. Until the advent of the DNA test, men never could be sure of the parentage. The strange part then is that this would be the "only" curse of the Ishroi, but that would work if the Ishroi are otherwise a totally privileged class. I'm thinking something analogous to Samaria.

Re: Wutteat, could the battle in which Wutteat died have itself generated a topos? Seems like a lot of dying happened, including Cin'whatever'leader'guy.

[jurble]

So I was just thinking:

We're told the Ark birthed the Inchoroi, so it must have artificial wombs on-board. Meaning infant Wracu must come out at the size of Aurang or Aurax, which is what? Like 10 ft? We're given Wutteat's height in TWLW, and Skafra's size can be estimated during the Apocalypse from Dreams, and then his size can probably be estimated at Black Furnace Plain from this text. So long as the growth rate between Skafra and Wutteat are the same, assuming that aspect of Wutteat's genetics wasn't tampered with when the Wracu were created, then it should be possible to create a growth-curve using Skafra, though only 3 data points, I must admit (birth = 10 ft?, Black Furnace Plain = 15 ft?, Apocalypse = 30 ft?).

You could then use this curve to estimate backwards for Wutteat to see how long the Inchoroi have been on their space-adventure.

[Seraphimal]

I remember Akka/Sejenus mentioning to Nau-Cayuti that the Ark could've possibly been a living organism at one point in time. So I was almost under the impression that, at some point in its history, the Inchoroi could have originally been like parasites in the bowels of a massive beast.

lol, I don't know if that actually makes sense at all now: I don't know how they could've evolved so much technologically if that was the case.

I might be misremembering the Ark being a living thing idea: if I find the source I'll post it.

Also, I thought that the ten foot tall form of the Inchoroi was a relatively "modern" thing? Were they initially that big? I thought the ones involved in the wars with the Cunoroi and later the Great Ordeal weren't in their original form, heavily modified and augmented and altered.

So if subsequent Inchoroi were born in the Arc, they might have been larger or smaller than the ones we actually see out on the battlefields, possibly?

[Sci-2]

I remember Akka/Sejenus mentioning to Nau-Cayuti that the Ark could've possibly been a living organism at one point in time. So I was almost under the impression that, at some point in its history, the Inchoroi could have originally been like parasites in the bowels of a massive beast.

lol, I don't know if that actually makes sense at all now: I don't know how they could've evolved so much technologically if that was the case.

I might be misremembering the Ark being a living thing idea: if I find the source I'll post it.

Also, I thought that the ten foot tall form of the Inchoroi was a relatively "modern" thing? Were they initially that big? I thought the ones involved in the wars with the Cunoroi and later the Great Ordeal weren't in their original form, heavily modified and augmented and altered.

So if subsequent Inchoroi were born in the Arc, they might have been larger or smaller than the ones we actually see out on the battlefields, possibly?

Well, Nau-Cayuti and Seswatha do discuss that the Ark is a dead womb, and I think in the same passage (in TTT) Seswatha says the Ark is the mother of the Inchies.

It might not be a size thing but Aurang mentions the continual grafting, and the one we think is Aurax in TWP is mentioned as having cancerous blots, which I took to mean grafts as well.

ETA: grammar, spelling

[Sci-2]

From a previous Pat Interview (quoting Finn quoting Bakker in another thread):

- Damnation is a recurring topic among the sorcerers. Will we see any of the mechanisms behind the judgments related to this damnation as the series progresses?

Likely not. The occult and the theological are hopelessly muddled in the real world, so in the interests of realism I intend to keep things the same in Earwa.

Curious if this still holds, given that in the latest interview Bakker tells us who is damned and not damned (I'll have to check but I think he explicitly avoided the word "saved") will be revealed.

[Brennan]

I was doing a little bit of rereading last night, and I have a question that I don't recall discussing when the book came out.

Why does the skin spy that is shadowing the Skin Eaters put on a Mimara face? I'm assuming it's the same one as Tsuor, or whichever one was The Thing Called Soma.

Normally we would think, as Akka is afraid of, that it's going to kill Mimara and replace her. But that does not seem to be the case as Soma was there to protect her. So what's the deal? Those two things are hard to reconcile.

If I remember correctly at some point it (the skin-spy) asked for her chorae to kill Cleric right? I always thought that that was of the reasons why it took her face on.

[lokisnow]

My idea is that basically Wutteat is haunting his own body, like the Wight was haunting his mansion. But the how is a good question, maybe dragons slowly digest people like sarlaacs? People died inside Wutteat's gut to create a Topos? I think we'll learn more when we meet the Mangaecca, since they probably a similar situation going on - trapping their souls and haunting their own bodies.

in the PON trilogy, Bakker uses explicitly mechanical terminology to describe the wracu, my theory has been that what men called dragons were actually flying robots of a sort. Wutteat's body is entirely mechanical, imo.

[lokisnow]

This leads me to another question though. Is it ever made really clear why Cleric is giving them Qirri? Is it only because it's straight-up necessary in order to help them continue on their mission?

I have to wonder if Cleric found the CC qirri at the CC statue he chats with in Cil Aujus. It'd be amazing if he's been carrying around CC ashes for millenia only to use them after Cil Aujus.

[jurble]

....why don't you ask him? O-o

[Sci-2]

For those interested in parsing out Nonmen psychology, this paper on Augustine by Sheri Katz might be of interest:

"

Recollection and knowledge involve repeated thought. So what

happens is that an idea is learned, not fully understood, and so

forgotten. Somehow, it is recalled, or relearned, and when it is

recognized, it seems to have been hidden. In this case,

appearance is reality. It seems to have been hidden because it

was hidden, but just because it was lost does not imply that it

was gone forever.

Forgetting has a long history of problems.

One must remember that one has forgotten in the first place

(*Conf. *10.16.24). Forgetfulness itself cannot be remembered at

all!<<16>> Since one cannot remember what one does not remember,

forgetfulness itself cannot reside in memory. Nor can the image

of forgetfulness be in memory, for the only way for an image to

get impressed on memory is for the object to be present itself--

internally or externally--in the first place (*Conf. *10.16.24-

25).

"

http://www9.georgeto...augustine/sheri