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White-Luck Warrior IX


jurble

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Are there threads where one can read the Bakker pontificating, or were they deleted?

If you search for Women and Bakker you should be able to find them. Or try Pierce Inverarity, apparently that was his sock puppet.

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I'm almost positive that he mentions the honey-anus at least twice. Actually, I don't know that for a fact, but I'm pretty goddamn certain, mainly because I remember thinking at one point, "So, he must actually believe there's some kind of honey-smell to anuses, because otherwise there's no reason to ever use that phrase twice".

The thing is, I think it was from Kellhus's POV, so even in my head I was rationalizing it like, "Well, it's Kellhus, so maybe he smells human anuses the way dogs smell dog anuses".

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I'm almost positive that he mentions the honey-anus at least twice. Actually, I don't know that for a fact, but I'm pretty goddamn certain, mainly because I remember thinking at one point, "So, he must actually believe there's some kind of honey-smell to anuses, because otherwise there's no reason to ever use that phrase twice".

There's really no reason to use that phrase EVER.

I think I must have blocked that one out of my mind.

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Through endless dark they had climbed, higher and higher, knowing that sooner or later the

emptiness had to yield to horrors. It began with raining waste: urine, excrement, trailing from

seams, spilling in skirts they had to leap through. They passed wells that had once been corridors, where streams of slurry toppled down into endless dark.

They circled great pits of rotting flesh, where corpses—some fetal and malformed, others full‐grown—had been thrown from unknown heights. And once, they had even crossed a lake filled with brakish water—what must have been the accumulation of thousands of years of rain.....Once he'd even had occasion to speak at length with Nil‐Giccas, who had battled through the halls of this place thousands of years before. But nothing could prepare Seswatha for the horrid immensity of the Incû‐Holoinas.

I'm just gonna rehash some shit for fun:

From TTT. It's interesting to think about the size of this place, and what awaits the Ordeal. This was what it was like in Seswatha's time. What is it like now?

If it's overrun with Sranc and Bashrag, remember that even the Inchie bros don't have power of over these creatures. Yet they had enough time and space to relearn/innovate the Tekkne to make the skin spies.

eta: It's also a Topos, so Team Consult is sliding into Hell as we speak. But likely the Tekkne's instruments, systems they barely understand, are all in the Ark.

Now Aurax and Aurang were, IIRC, the only Inchies around by the time the No-God was raised. Yet it's taken all this time before they even have the hope of a resurrection, suggesting the Inchies brought at least some Ikea-style No-God parts with them when they crashed.

They those parts apparently got blown up by the Heron Spear. I suspect that whatever the No-God is, its actually incredibly fragile.

This explains why they didn't just keep the No-God hidden somewhere while the wombs birthed stillborns. They likely also had to keep feeding it souls or utilizing some other source to power it, some combination of Tekkne and Onta manipulation. (Note that if the connection to the Outside is a higher dimensional one, the Sarcophagus can be sealed with Chorae that stop the sorcery in the 3D portion of Earwa)

As such, they had to let the No-God take the field once they started losing, because once they were gone the No-God would either dissolve or they'd find some way to batter open the Sarcophagus. The Heron spear is only significant in that it made a wound bypassing the chorae.

But, if the Consult can make the No-God rise again, they'll be able to control the Sranc. Ultimately that's the major weapon in this war, not the No-God itself or it's breaking of the soul cycle.

What's odd to me is the Puskhe. It has to play a role in the end game, but what is it? I think it's clear it doesn't have anything to do with the No-God, so it must have something to do with Kellhus. Blinding isn't a necessity for recollection, we've seen that with Titirga. And if Kellhus did go Outside (proven by Nonman confirmation?), he likely has more power to recollect than Tirtiga did.

eta: I'm assuming it's this continuing recollection that gives Kellhus more and more powers like firewatching.

With the Intact Quya being thought taught the Metagnosis can Team Kellhus batter open the Sarcophagus via some other means besides the Heron Spear? Can they just fling small hills at the Whirlwind until one meteor slams through it and breaks the No-God's delicate structure?

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Through endless dark they had climbed, higher and higher, knowing that sooner or later the

emptiness had to yield to horrors. It began with raining waste: urine, excrement, trailing from

seams, spilling in skirts they had to leap through. They passed wells that had once been corridors, where streams of slurry toppled down into endless dark.

They circled great pits of rotting flesh, where corpses—some fetal and malformed, others full‐grown—had been thrown from unknown heights. And once, they had even crossed a lake filled with brakish water—what must have been the accumulation of thousands of years of rain.....Once he'd even had occasion to speak at length with Nil‐Giccas, who had battled through the halls of this place thousands of years before. But nothing could prepare Seswatha for the horrid immensity of the Incû‐Holoinas.

No one surpasses Bakker when it comes to painting a mind picture of utter horror. If Kellhus can defeat these monsters, I can forgive him much.

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Now Aurax and Aurang were, IIRC, the only Inchies around by the time the No-God was raised. Yet it's taken all this time before they even have the hope of a resurrection, suggesting the Inchies brought at least some Ikea-style No-God parts with them when they crashed.

I don’t think so. (I may be wrong.)

From my understanding, the No-God is a pretty recent invention and was never part of the original plan on conquer the world. It could be entirely Shaeönanra’s design.

After all, the Inchoroi battled for untold centuries without constructing any No-Gods. At that time, they still had a civilisation. Untold centuries later, Shaeönanra makes contact with the remaining two Inchoroi and forms the Consult. A good millennium passes, during which the Consult consist mainly of Eärwan natives. Then the No-God appears.

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We don't know that.

Hmmm. It would be interested interesting if they made No-Gods elsewhere, yet Aurang does seem concerned when Kellhus says the Inchie will also be judged when the No-God returns. If there were other uses of them [on other worlds] I feel like he Aurang wouldn't be afraid.

I see what HE is saying but I figured the No-God parts only worked on Earwa, that's what made it Earwa the Promised Land so awesome. But if the No-God's innards turn on some kind of paradox, some kind of delicate structure, it does seem to suggest Shae's mental faculties.

But this would mean Shae is able to understand the Tekkne in a way that allows him to first construct the No-God, but then later he cannot reconstruct it after its blown up. Why? It seems to me there must be some parts that were made by Inchies way smarter than Aurax and Aurang.

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ETA: Kallhus on the other hand...
And now, we see.

We see the treacherous nature of the simian charlatan. We understand the premonitions from before. Did I not say, brothers? Truth Shines. Ever are men reaching for things beyond their grasp! Ever do they wish to be better than they are! Some are born with the cacophonous urge to revel in discovery and self-improvement. Some are content to know their place.

But there are some world-born men who cannot grasp how weak they are. How ignorant they reveal themselves to be with every phoneme uttered! Those who know so little that they think themselves giants! And they know that they cannot improve as others do, nor are they content in their place. No, these men covet. They covet the life others lead, the accolades others earn, the joy others worship. They know they cannot have these things - and their only recourse is to destroy what they cannot have. For if their desire is possession and their possession is impossible, they must make it so none may enjoy either. They poison, and plot, and chide. They accuse and skulk, hiding behind false premises, using populism to give their words weight borne by countless others. They cry out 'sexism' and 'misogyny' and 'philosopher', not even knowing the damage these words cause, how these tear the fabric of the Outside like a womb. How these impact booklist sales.

Finally, we all see what I have known and have always known.. We understand. Treachery is revealed. Truth is victorious.

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The Badger and the Chimp - their natures are in opposition, but they secretly wish for union - solace from the harsh world that judges them.

Only they can see into the other's soul and find redemption. But they hesitate... and weep in their weakness. They ache in their empty, naked state, unable to cross the chasm of the other's perceived indifference.

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Through endless dark they had climbed, higher and higher, knowing that sooner or later the

emptiness had to yield to horrors. It began with raining waste: urine, excrement, trailing from

seams, spilling in skirts they had to leap through. They passed wells that had once been corridors, where streams of slurry toppled down into endless dark.

They circled great pits of rotting flesh, where corpses—some fetal and malformed, others full‐grown—had been thrown from unknown heights. And once, they had even crossed a lake filled with brakish water—what must have been the accumulation of thousands of years of rain.....Once he'd even had occasion to speak at length with Nil‐Giccas, who had battled through the halls of this place thousands of years before. But nothing could prepare Seswatha for the horrid immensity of the Incû‐Holoinas.

No one surpasses Bakker when it comes to painting a mind picture of utter horror. If Kellhus can defeat these monsters, I can forgive him much.

This is also why I wish that Bakker's next side-project would be a horror novel, rather than another failed attempt at making a thriller. The man is pretty good at crafting absolutely horrifying scenes.

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No one surpasses Bakker when it comes to painting a mind picture of utter horror. If Kellhus can defeat these monsters, I can forgive him much.

What makes me interested in the story, strangely enough, is the incompetence of "Mordor". The Inchie Bros and their Consult are essentially a bunch of horny fools driven to desperation. Their entire HQ is sliding into Hell, and their only shot at salvation is some horrifying thing they don't even have complete control over.

Aurang and Aurax are the dumbasses of their species, they aren't the guys who built the Tekkne.

I agree with HE in that in it took some humans like Shae to kick start the whole Skin Spy production.

Whatever Nonmen number among them are almost certainly Erratic, coworkers that they might have to spend eternity with if they win.

And if they win, what happens to the No-God? Can they easily shut it off? Or does it become God once the world is sealed?

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Aurang describes the No-God as some abandoned plan of the Inchoroi's. And the Nonman envoy to Seswatha and Celmomas warns that the Inchoroi were trying to summon the No-God and that the Consult were approaching its creation. Seswatha weeps for joy when the Investiture of Golgotterath begins because he managed to convince the Nosirai kings to attack Golgotterath before the No-God was summoned. It's clear the Inchoroi were trying to summon the No-God, and that Nil'Giccas knew this, but they failed. Perhaps they only figured out the key to its creation right before he blew in the doors of Min Uroikas.

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What makes me interested in the story, strangely enough, is the incompetence of "Mordor".

I don’t think they are particularly incompetent. Their project is just very difficult.

For untold millennia, they have landed on planets and exterminated all souled creatures. They have Star Trek-like technology or better, so this is relatively easy.

Finally they land on the Planet that was Promised.

Crash land, actually. For reasons we are not yet privy to.

Still, they emerge and proceed to exterminate the population. To their surprise, the indigenous population contains a species that actually matches their firepower: the Nonmen of Eärwa.

So they abandon plan A (“kill everything in battle”). Including the construction of weapon races.

Instead, they turn to plan B: biological warfare. The details are beyond us, but clearly the manage to wipe out the Nonwomen, stopping their circle of souls. Mission accomplished.

Or is it? Turns out that there are plenty of other souls around: the other sentient species, Men. Those they could have killed easily with plan A.

Plan C is now pretty clever: get the Men to kill the Nonmen. Political/religious warfare by proxy. Still, much reduced, the Inchoroi are defeated and reduced to only 2, forever imprisoned.

On to plan D: after their liberation by Nonmen and Mangaëcca I guess that Shaeönanra has another idea for stopping the circle of souls. They build a huge artificial intelligence that somehow does just that. The No-God.

It gets destroyed.

Plan E: Build a new weapon race, the Skin Spies. Then, revisit Plan D.

The Inchie Bros and their Consult are essentially a bunch of horny fools driven to desperation.

Two quibbles: First, the Consult isn’t particularly horny. They consist mainly of ancient human sorcerers rocking a circle somewhere up north and a large group of immortal but not particularly horny Nonmen. Only Aurang and presumably Aurax are horny (to the extent of having genetically self-modified their species for maximal hedonism).

Second: I’m not sure the Consult belong to the Inchoroi. In my understanding, particularly after False Sun, Mekki and Shae could easily be the brains behind it. Maybe Aurang + Mekki + Shae. (Aurax is a cipher so far.)

I agree with HE in that in it took some humans like Shae to kick start the whole Skin Spy production.
My claim was specifically about the No-God. I see no indication that the Inchoroi invaders contemplated or needed anything like the No-God during the Cuno-Inchoroi wars.
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I'm almost positive that he mentions the honey-anus at least twice. Actually, I don't know that for a fact, but I'm pretty goddamn certain, mainly because I remember thinking at one point, "So, he must actually believe there's some kind of honey-smell to anuses, because otherwise there's no reason to ever use that phrase twice".

The thing is, I think it was from Kellhus's POV, so even in my head I was rationalizing it like, "Well, it's Kellhus, so maybe he smells human anuses the way dogs smell dog anuses".

Here, sort of:

On the heights of what had once been called the Heilor,

it dashed through concentric shells of ruin, crept along

debris-choked foundations. It ignored the vista: the city

scattered like bones, the steaming marshes, the plate of

the Cerish Sea. Instead it rooted through the remains of the

scalper camp, sniffing the sweet where their anuses had

pressed against the grasses. It found the spot where the

female had made water, only to flee from the reek of her

fetus.

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The passage in TTT is Kellhus smelling the sweetness of anuses.

HE, I'm willing to accept your alphabet timeline save for the part where the Inchies don't realize men have souls. (Do animals have souls in Earwa).

My claim was specifically about the No-God. I see no indication that the Inchoroi invaders contemplated or needed anything like the No-God during the Cuno-Inchoroi wars.

True, sorry about that. But they also didn't have skin-spies either, and those are the constructions which make Akka think the resurrection of the No-God is immanent. This suggest, to me anyway, that whatever they used to build the No-God the first time required parts Aurax and Aurang weren't smart enough to make. Or maybe it was some materials not found in Earwa (unobtanium?).

eta: And now they've found a way around that?

Or likely part of the problem is after being routed after the No-God's first death, the Consult didn't have access to any sentient souls like the ones Kellhus is delivering? Is that why the Mandate had to be thinned, given we already know the Ordeal's non-Few are fodder? [As in they are meat-shields to get the mages to Golgotterath.]

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