White-Luck Warrior X: X Marks the Slog

[Lord of Oop North]

i'm doing my reread for madness' site now, and up to 1/3 the way through TTT, have not literally encountered EAMD yet in the series.

you think y'all might've exaggerated it's iterability a bit?

He knows the truth! ..... and death came swirling down ....

[Kalbear]

I like the notion that Bakker would be a better writer if he wrote for an established universe like...Halo.

[Castel]

i'm doing my reread for madness' site now, and up to 1/3 the way through TTT, have not literally encountered EAMD yet in the series.

you think y'all might've exaggerated it's iterability a bit?

This. I looked through the ebooks and I didn't find that many. Maybe a few "Ever do men X" and "Men are ever X".

Maybe it's just my impression but he seems to reuse "shimmering/incandescent geometries" or dazzling lines or whatever.

I like the notion that Bakker would be a better writer if he wrote for an established universe like...Halo.

He might learn something from esteemed writers like Karen Traviss *pukes* I hope not

[Sci-2]

Wow, does everyone fall for Solo's sales pitch so easily? Did anyone take the pervasiveness of the words in EAMD literally? :shocked:

It was a statement serving as a stand in for all the sentences devoted to the deception of men, not four words that should be searched for in the text. :bang:

:P

[Marcus Cicero]

i'm doing my reread for madness' site now, and up to 1/3 the way through TTT, have not literally encountered EAMD yet in the series.

you think y'all might've exaggerated it's iterability a bit?

I think it's the sentiment, not the exact wording, that counts.

[sologdin]

all the sentences devoted to the deception of men

aren't those statements local to several characters, rather than general propositions fairly imputable to the writer? i.e., we need to separate author from text.

[Shryke]

I like the notion that Bakker would be a better writer if he wrote for an established universe like...Halo.

Considering Earwa is like 1000x more interesting then any of the worlds tie-in fiction settings mentioned, the idea seems ludicrous to me.

[Shryke]

On another note: Am I the only one that's sad that Kellhus can read Nonmen? Maybe I'm used to more traditional SFF where age makes a creature stronger but here everyone is a slave to the Dunyain, regardless of their age, race or creed. Younger is somehow much deadlier. I'd have liked for there to be at least one resistant faction.

Cnauir and the bird-man have a very interesting conversation about this in TTT.

Bird-man talks about how ancient they are and how age is power and yada yada yada and Cnaiur laughs at him and tells him the Dunyain will swallow them up as they do everything else.

The Dunyain, Cnauir thinks/says, are "perpetually new". A force unlike any that has existed before.

No - he knows that's what Kellhus told him. Now, we know that that happens to be true (and completely stupid), but Akka has no reason to believe that it's a lie or the truth, and really should be suspicious of anything Kellhus ever told him.

And yeah, he has no real plan. Get to Ishual through hundreds of miles of wilderness from a map that may not exist. in order to...what? It's a quest with rationalizations as the reasons for doing it. He walks on conditioned ground, and his hatred for Kellhus blinds him to seeing how obviously stupid his quest is.

Kellhus' statement that he knew nothing of sorcery is backed up fairly well by evidence Achamian has though. Not perfectly air-tight, but it's not like Akka is thinking things through superhard here or anything.

And there's no reason the Dunyain should be aware of sorcery. There first act was to purge all knowledge of it before sealing themselves off from the world. And it's not the kind of thing they'd stumble on by accident.

[Happy Ent]

The Dûnyain absolutely have no idea about sorcery. They immediately removed the sorcerous runes and texts when arriving to Ishual. After one generation nobody knew what it was. (Remember that the repudiate history.)

Really strange cult, the Dûnyain. The preserve and develop knowledge (say, about neuropuncture) but don’t keep track of what came before. The only thing they must store is pedigree, because of their breeding programme. That’s why Kellhus knows his last name. (Unless they’re all called Anasûrimbor, of cause. Maybe Anasûrimbor just means “level 5” in their Kuniüri argot, or maybe it just means “dude”.)

[Kalbear]

I'm not saying the Dunyain do know anything - I'm saying there's no way that Akka can know this for a certainty. Or even trust what Kellhus has ever said; after all, Kellhus was manipulating Akka to give him the gnosis, and it worked by playing on Akka's need to be a teacher. That doesn't fly if Kellhus knows about magic. Who doesn't want a pupil who doesn't know anything about a subject but thanks to you becomes a master of it?

We also don't know about if the really high ups in Dunyainia know about magic or not. Kellhus did mention that he had heard legends about it but thought them to be myths and fantasies, so the notion of them hasn't been erased from their existence - just the practical 'this is it and this is how it worked' bit.

I don't think they knew anything useful about sorcery because if they had they would be ruling the world and/or wiping out the rest of creation to seal it from the Outside. That they didn't is evidence enough.

[jurble]

I was just thinking of the Consult vs. the Others, and how Bakker's been able to maintain the "Oh shit" factor of the Consult's threat to the world, while explaining their motivations pretty well. It bothers me that 5 books in, we still don't know the motivating factor for the Others.

I wonder if Jon Snow will ever have to steal into the Heart of Winter/Golgotterath and rescue the Heron Spear/Lightbringer (gosh, I kept typing Ashbringer - a connection I never made before - what are the odds that Blizz stole Ashbringer from ASoIaF? Oh shit, what if the Others have Frostmourne!? That's how they've been raising zombies.)

Anway, Melisandre is Seswatha in this analogy. Which means that I predict that Jon Snow ends up getting poisoned, taken for dead (again?), beaten, raped, and submitted to the Other version of the Golden Room. Of course, it's possible that Jon Snow's current death is his equivalent to Nau-cayuti's death, in which case he's going to get the Nau-Cayuti/Theon treatment.... from Melisandre?

But I think the analogy works, what with the whole idea of your typical - Jon Snow and Nau-Cayuti are your archetypical heroes. But both GRRM and Bakker are intentionally subverting the traditional monomyth story, (and the hero's rebirth is a pretty common theme) but whereas Nau-Cayuti's story ends in horror, where will GRRM take Jon Snow?

If your traditional stories all follow the same general arc, is it possible that all subversions follow the same arc? Jon Snow will be beaten, broken, and presumably chewed up by sorcery and machinery? One can only hope.

[Castel]

If Martin is subverting the traditional hero story arc he's either being very subtle or saving the best till last. Jon Snow has had a pretty traditional arc.

I'm not saying the Dunyain do know anything - I'm saying there's no way that Akka can know this for a certainty. Or even trust what Kellhus has ever said; after all, Kellhus was manipulating Akka to give him the gnosis, and it worked by playing on Akka's need to be a teacher. That doesn't fly if Kellhus knows about magic. Who doesn't want a pupil who doesn't know anything about a subject but thanks to you becomes a master of it?

We also don't know about if the really high ups in Dunyainia know about magic or not. Kellhus did mention that he had heard legends about it but thought them to be myths and fantasies, so the notion of them hasn't been erased from their existence - just the practical 'this is it and this is how it worked' bit.

I don't think they knew anything useful about sorcery because if they had they would be ruling the world and/or wiping out the rest of creation to seal it from the Outside. That they didn't is evidence enough.

Even with all this, there's another issue.Achaiman is not going to destroy Ishual immediately. Yet he doesn't seem prepared to take any real precautions like Cnaiur. Even after twenty years he hasn't looked at the situation and Kellhus' uncanny ability to read him and extrapolate it to the Dunyain and plan. I guess he thinks that he understands the way the Dunyain will try to play him? And like Cnaiur he's probably survive the first few skirmishes but that unlike the barbarian I doubt that Achaiman truly understands how little the Dunyain care. Anger is just as much a tool for them as love. And even Cnaiur, who knew, was overwhelmed (Achaiman should know this, as he saw the man hang around a creature he clearly despised and help him in every way)

[lokisnow]

Mimara is the new Nau Cayuti, it is known, DA is the ringbearer that brings her to Mt Doom, just as Seswatha ring bore NC in.

Only when Gollum throws Mim into the pit of obscenities, she forgives him, and forgives the pit and everything else.

Then everything goes pear shaped

Also falling whales.

Pot of flowers.

instead of a No God of the Apocalypse we get a reborn God of Forgiveness who brings a New Covenent.

AK may not be able to rewrite scripture, and his new scripture has not the weight of old, but he is a dude, and penis and phallus obviously prevent a proper writing of scripture, amiright? OTOH, a woman can both rewrite and write new--as she is not impaired by the penile tissue--she can give birth to the New World.

Alternatively, he problem with NC in the NG--the problem that caused the human womb plague--was that by having a dude in the NG it meant the NG had no womb, thus there could be no babies. Put Mim into the NG and Mim has a womb and thus there can be babies even as the dread No-Goddess walks, mankind will not know the difference.

[Kalbear]

while explaining their motivations pretty well.

Actually no; I think their motivations have been largely glossed over and make almost no sense when looking at them critically in any way. There's a reason we refer to them as the telephone sanitizers and objectivists; their plans have largely been idiotic or hugely short-sighted. Their motivations for doing it here and shutting out the Outside when they appear to have functional immortality is likewise confusing as fuck. Their core motivation - the 'race of lovers' as they say - doesn't make sense on its face either, given their absurd predilection for maleness.

As an example: the easiest way to solve the problem of someone being able to see skin spies is to withdraw all the skin spies. Wipe people out later if you need. If you are indeed summoning the No-God again, the only thing you need is time. That's it. There's no need to be desperate or bold or provoke any kind of war. Simply chill out. They've forgotten the greatest trick the Devil ever played.

And before you say 'but you don't understand why they did it, there could be a reason' - you're right, I don't understand. And that right there explains why their motivations haven't been particularly well-illustrated. My thought that their hedonistic fundamentalists has some merit, but it still makes them fundamentally stupid opponents time and time again and only explains their incompetence by requiring them to be hugely irrational in order to satisfy those godly urges...for some reason. We don't know their religion, their history, their capabilities, their reasoning power. We know they hate life, but we only have an insane dragon's words as to why. We now have some bizarre notion of false and real prophecies that they've been planting and following - who was the prophet? Why do they care? We understand their motivations the way someone who follows the Kardashian's tweets understands women.

[Sci-2]

As an example: the easiest way to solve the problem of someone being able to see skin spies is to withdraw all the skin spies. Wipe people out later if you need. If you are indeed summoning the No-God again, the only thing you need is time. That's it. There's no need to be desperate or bold or provoke any kind of war. Simply chill out. They've forgotten the greatest trick the Devil ever played.

I think they always wanted humans to come to Golgotterath or some other sacrificial site, but not with a Dunyain leading them. Given the flashbacks in WLW, it seems a massive number of people (souls?) are necessary to make the No God.

As such, they the Consult needed to infiltrate the Three Seas to an extent that [they] didn't even manage with the skin spies before Kellhus came along.

[Kalbear]

Maybe that's true, but we certainly don't know that. We have no idea if that's their motivation. We know that they could wage secret and not-so-secret wars via their proxies of the skin spies. They could have waged a huge war or 'revealed' themselves to head to Golgotterath if they wanted to at some point. Why not do it earlier? Why worry about the Dunyain?

Heck, we don't even know for certain if they are raising the No-God again. Not a clue. That seems like the obvious decision, but it's not one confirmed by the text.

[red snow]

EAMD on the EAMD? :P

[Shryke]

Actually no; I think their motivations have been largely glossed over and make almost no sense when looking at them critically in any way. There's a reason we refer to them as the telephone sanitizers and objectivists; their plans have largely been idiotic or hugely short-sighted. Their motivations for doing it here and shutting out the Outside when they appear to have functional immortality is likewise confusing as fuck. Their core motivation - the 'race of lovers' as they say - doesn't make sense on its face either, given their absurd predilection for maleness.

As an example: the easiest way to solve the problem of someone being able to see skin spies is to withdraw all the skin spies. Wipe people out later if you need. If you are indeed summoning the No-God again, the only thing you need is time. That's it. There's no need to be desperate or bold or provoke any kind of war. Simply chill out. They've forgotten the greatest trick the Devil ever played.

Uh, that kinda defeats the purpose of spies.

And before you say 'but you don't understand why they did it, there could be a reason' - you're right, I don't understand. And that right there explains why their motivations haven't been particularly well-illustrated. My thought that their hedonistic fundamentalists has some merit, but it still makes them fundamentally stupid opponents time and time again and only explains their incompetence by requiring them to be hugely irrational in order to satisfy those godly urges...for some reason. We don't know their religion, their history, their capabilities, their reasoning power. We know they hate life, but we only have an insane dragon's words as to why. We now have some bizarre notion of false and real prophecies that they've been planting and following - who was the prophet? Why do they care? We understand their motivations the way someone who follows the Kardashian's tweets understands women.

What incompetence and stupidity are you referring to here?

[Sci-2]

Really, if the only thing the Consult needs to do is summon the No-God, and they can do that from the safety of Golgotterath....well, Bakker then made some of the stupidest villains in SFF history. If turtling can actually result in victory, then you should turtle.

But I get the feeling that more is required for their victory than stopping the cycle of souls. Or the No-God needs some kind of maintenance, otherwise why not have it float in the middle of the ocean until the population drops significantly enough?

[sologdin]

all of the soul-talk makes me wonder why we take inchoroi theology so seriously. it's just another religion, after all, of which the novels take exacting measure in general.