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Bakker XIV: Star Trek into Darkness that Comes Before


Happy Ent

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Children instinctively read faces. I imagine genetics just mean Kellhus' children are much better at it.

Kellhus himself just got training to perfect his art. I imagine he's taught some of his children some of it too.

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I agree, but it's also a matter of degrees. All his children have certain gifts, but they are always inferior to Kellhus' own Dunyain skills. I just assumed that the face reading was part genetic and partially learned, and that is part of the reason why the children cannot be as good as a true Dunyain. Even in areas where their Dunyain skills are very strong, they are nonetheless untrained.

I can get behind this. Probably it's important to differentiate among Kellhus's children. Inrilatas and Kelmomas seem to be the two most interested in reading and manipulating people for its own sake. Whether this is a result of nature or nurture I can't tell.

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Go back and read the passages of Kellhus 'reading' faces

He almost always prefaces the 'reading' by describing musculastructure and ending the description with SOUL.

Such as, 'Kellhus looked through the muscles of her face to her soul.' or 'Kellhus looked past his face and into the thoughts written on his soul'

Bakker has given us a scientific explanation but pretty much every time he has married the scientific with a theological/metaphysical explanation as well.

We readers latch on to what WE know, the scientific, and use that as a crutch that simply MUST explain the unknown. And in so doing we ignore the metaphysic, the supernatural, what is impossible in our world must be equally impossible in a world where the author has repeatedly stated and shown that they are possible.

Kellhus may be deluding himself that he can read faces, because the text equally implies that he reads souls.

And if you want to know why the children have his skills without his training, presumably we should start from the possibility that they see souls as Kellhus does and this is not necessarily a skill that requires training.

Like science, it takes skill and training to see and understand the physical, on the other hand perhaps it takes instinct and intuition to see the metaphysical.

If the latter is the case, then Serwe was the first to grasp the Metaphysical-equivalent-of-The-Logos.

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I agree with all of that.

Another thing I've been thinking...

Inrilatus, Theliopa, Serwa, Kayûtas, and Kelmomas are all born with various gifts. Chief among these is the ability to see through faces. I can buy most of their gifts, like Kayûtas's ability with languages, as the result of the superior Dunyain intellect genes. But seeing through faces was a gift that not even Kellhus was born with. He studied extensively in Ishuäl to learn the muscles and everything, and there is no indication at all that he trained his children in any way (perhaps Theliopa and Kayûtas, but definitely not Kelmomas or Inrilatus). So I find it a bit frustrating.

I don't know if this will help clear things up any. I am now in the midst of a reread of the entire series and am currently on WLW and remembered reading this. Page 250, paperback.

"The ability to re-read passions is largely native," Theliopa said, "and save for father-father, none can see so deep as Inrilatas. Inferring thoughts requires training, Uncle, a measure of which Father pro-provided."

This comes from an Esme chapter were she and Theliopa are sitting with Maithanet trying to convince him to let Inrilatas read him.

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Thanks Toadkiller! That pretty much works with what we were thinking - a native ability with some children receiving training.

I still think Kelmomas and Inrilatus have abilities too advanced for genetics alone, so their lack of training stretches credulity a bit. But it's much less of an annoyance with textual confirmation that Kellhus indeed provided some guidance.

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Earlier Esme stated how Kellhus trained Inrilatas in order to help him master himself.

Something that I did catch this read that I missed before was that Kel was thankful that his father is gone. Not because it only allows Esme to spend more time with him, but because apparently when they reach a certain age or get older enough, Kellhus takes all his children and hits them with his full Dunyain scrutiny. Kel's time was coming and he knew that when Kellhus sat with him he was going to see whatever he had going on in his head and it was going to be game over for him.

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so, vivisection chambers for face-reading school, or no?

Possible, but I wonder if Kellhus could actually hide such a thing from his councilors. It's possible he teleported his kids to some hidden chamber, but wouldn't somebody find out?

Also, Kellhus has sorcery so he could probably just use glamors to show his kids the different facial expressions.

Kellhus takes all his children and hits them with his full Dunyain scrutiny. Kel's time was coming and he knew that when Kellhus sat with him he was going to see whatever he had going on in his head and it was going to be game over for him.

I wonder if this is just Lil' Kel deluding himself. Kellhus likely had a good idea about what Lil' Kel was before the Ordeal departed the empire.

Did we speculate about Dunyain cannibalism before? It would make a certain amount of sense, if there were no livestock.

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My theory was always that the Dunyain used their defectives as slave labor. The reasoning is that:

1. Dunyain have metal tools and weapons of high quality. While Dunyain are no doubt capable of smithing, they had to acquire the iron somehow. Defective slaves as miners and possibly metalworkers.

2. The face room defectives all seemed to be adults, and the training would require a constant population of them. These both imply an existing population to draw from (although one can also see Dunyain meticulously planning rates of replacement and whatnot).

3. Growing food, maintaining Ishuäl, cleaning, etc, all seem like tasks below the intellectually-focused Dunyain. It makes sense to have a population of subjugated defectives for these tasks.

Of course, it's all speculation.... there is nothing specific to suggest a working population of non-Dunyain at Ishuäl in the few glimpses we get of it.

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would be awesome if ishual were destroyed by an uprising of the vivisected slaves against their dunyain masters. after totally exterminating the scum slaveowners, the defectives launch a preemptive assault against the world. there's the new apocalypse. they preach the gospel of slave liberation on agongorea and liberate the minds of the sranc, and together extirpate new empire, inchies, consult, sorcery from the earth and live in a vivisection/lustmurder paradise. happy ending!

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Kellhus disseminates enough knowledge in his immediate circles that Mimara knows to recognize Soma.

Also, Bakker's suggested that their time in Ishual is closed in Ch. 1... I think, lockesnow and Borric suggested that they'll find the Heron Spear there.

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Kellhus disseminates enough knowledge in his immediate circles that Mimara knows to recognize Soma.

Also, Bakker's suggested that their time in Ishual is closed in Ch. 1... I think, lockesnow and Borric suggested that they'll find the Heron Spear there.

But not that Stone Hag, and not Soma until she saw him fighting inhumanly.

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would be awesome if ishual were destroyed by an uprising of the vivisected slaves against their dunyain masters. after totally exterminating the scum slaveowners, the defectives launch a preemptive assault against the world. there's the new apocalypse. they preach the gospel of slave liberation on agongorea and liberate the minds of the sranc, and together extirpate new empire, inchies, consult, sorcery from the earth and live in a vivisection/lustmurder paradise. happy ending!

And team up with the women of Earwa, and Bakker will publish all the 'Bakker and Women' web discussions in a fuzzy, feel good memoirs.

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Hey guys!

Just heard back from Scott this afternoon. He says he's labouring on the final two chapters of TUC and that the book is getting ridiculously big. And at this point, he has no sense of what the rewrite will entail. Scott explains that he will have to get back to me regarding the second part of the extract that was posted a while back, for it's been months since he last looked at that chapter.

So there you have it! Our last update. . . :)

Patrick

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Just heard back from Scott this afternoon. He says he's labouring on the final two chapters of TUC and that the book is getting ridiculously big

Like. A lot.

And at this point, he has no sense of what the rewrite will entail

Don't like.

So, in short, Scott is working hard on the book and nearly has the main draft finished. But we actually still don't have an idea of when it could be out, because there will/could then be a rewrite of indeterminable depth and length.

Come on Scott, finish it while you're on a roll! :)

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So, in short, Scott is working hard on the book and nearly has the main draft finished. But we actually still don't have an idea of when it could be out, because there will/could then be a rewrite of indeterminable depth and length.

I take this to mean it's going to be a decade or so until the saga begun in TDTCB is complete.

Was flipping through WLW and noticed Mimara recalling an artist making mandalas who was put to death because he used concentric circles instead of squares to represent reality, and left the center of his mandala empty.

I'll have to find the page number later today, it seemed significant.

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I'm a little more optimistic than that; while rewrites will take a while because it's not super popular it doesn't need the same kind of detailed work that, say, GRRM will. It'll probably not come out quickly after the rewrite but sometime in 2014 is totally reasonable.

But I wouldn't expect another book for a long, long time.

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Thanks a lot, Pat.

I agree that it's mixed news. I do want the book to kick ass when it arrives, and the longer, usually, the better. But it would seem that the rewrite is going to be a slog in and of itself, and we're not to the rewrite yet.

2015 at best.

THE SLOG OF SLOGS!!!!

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I'm a little more optimistic than that; while rewrites will take a while because it's not super popular it doesn't need the same kind of detailed work that, say, GRRM will. It'll probably not come out quickly after the rewrite but sometime in 2014 is totally reasonable.

But I wouldn't expect another book for a long, long time.

As long as there's closure and not a big cliff hanger, I'm okay with that.

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