Bakker XV: Non-Man of Steel

[Kalbear]

You could always just ask Bakker or Madness.

[Kalbear]

But did humans evolve from lesser organisms on Earwa? Apparently so, but then evolution wasn't impacted at all by the objective morality written into reality?

Why would it be? It's not like damnation is a natural selector. If you make a pit of your womb you can still apparently breed. If you are of the Few you can still have kids. The Few especially is a natural selector, as the Few are much more powerful and likely to succeed in life for a variety of reasons.

Yeah, that's what I was thinking as well. Why don't humans care about the holiness of snakes? And why didn't snake's being holy affect the ecosystem?

Again, damnation and holiness doesn't affect evolutionary processes (assuming those exist; there's some indication that evolution is pretty fucked, especially given the conceit of the Dunyain). And humans appear to care about snakes being holy the same way that Hindis care about cows being holy; some people really care a lot, some people pay lip service to it and some order a beef vindaloo.

Why is the supposed objective morality of Earwa seemingly tacked on to a materialist world that, on the surface, appears to be much like ours? [Minus the magic and topos shit of course. But Earwa seems more like a D&D fantasy setting than say one of Moorcock's worlds or Bas-Lag.

Again, why wouldn't it be? If you assume that humans are the way they are entirely because of biology (which is basically Bakker's viewpoint) then they will naturally have the same or similar morality and moral failings. And if their objective morality tells them something else - as far as they can tell it's still just someone's opinion, man. Very few of them have the ability to know the truth, any more than very few humans in ancient times could understand calculus or general relativity (and those are still approximations to truth, anyway). Only the mad or the specially blessed (Judging Eye) could experience the truth - but to others, that just seems insane or heretical.

To a person living in Earwa, what is the difference between someone telling you that snakes are holy and it being true and them telling you that snakes are holy and it being a total lie?

I actually think [that] is pretty much how Earwa's sin/salvation mechanic works. It makes more sense than an objective morality that neither Nonman nor human moral compasses seem to point to.

It's an objective morality - it's a way of judging people based on their morality. It just doesn't happen to coincide with the human's morality. And why should it? Why should God be loving? Heck, why should God have any part in actually creating said morality?

What if morality - how noisy you are in damnation - is simply a product of the universe at large? That nothing created it, nothing thought it up - it just happens to be how the universe works, just like how things like half life decay and nuclear fusion work? Objective morality at that point is the same as objective gravity. It has rules and systems and can be modeled but it doesn't necessarily correspond to how everyone lives their life.

[Sci-2]

...He's got a vested interest in that worldview...That doesn't mean anything though.

Why would it be? It's not like damnation is a natural selector. If you make a pit of your womb you can still apparently breed. If you are of the Few you can still have kids. The Few especially is a natural selector, as the Few are much more powerful and likely to succeed in life for a variety of reasons.

I suppose it's even more unfair from our perspective - the moral inclinations of humanity are derived from natural selection which worked on Earwa without taking damnation into account.

If you assume that humans are the way they are entirely because of biology (which is basically Bakker's viewpoint) then they will naturally have the same or similar morality and moral failings.

Just odd to me that beings with souls that according to Akka are the Outside leaking in have no way to choose the right morality. It's written into reality but no one seems able to point to it.

And humans appear to care about snakes being holy the same way that Hindis care about cows being holy; some people really care a lot, some people pay lip service to it and some order a beef vindaloo.

Has anyone on Earwa made an attempt to venerate snakes? I honestly can't recall.

What if morality - how noisy you are in damnation - is simply a product of the universe at large? That nothing created it, nothing thought it up - it just happens to be how the universe works, just like how things like half life decay and nuclear fusion work?

Given Mimara can see virtue and sin in varied colors (or is sin always black?) that's how it seems to work. Coloring your soul with sin/virtue separates you into different flavors that gods use for different purposes.

Though if the Hundred wish to improve a soul's flavor by making them virtuous, why don't they push more people toward the morality they want? Or are they doing the best they can with limited options?

And if the Hundred want more damned to feast on, why bother trying to make anyone virtuous? Makes me wonder what the Ciphrang and gods are doing the Outside - what are their goals and conflicts?

[Calibandar]

what do you think, should I post the puzzle pieces all assembled together, or is that not fair (use)?

Fair use. Let's see it.

[Happy Ent]

I think it would damn you.

[Sci-2]

@Locksnowe:

I thought about this, and if nothing else I suspect what you're pasting would bring in readers rather than stop them from buying the books. I suspect I can read more of the book via the results of Amazon Look Inside searches.

You could always just ask Bakker....and maybe poke him about some new Earwa material....

[Francis Buck]

I'd personally like to see that lockesnow. Just finished TWP last night, and I've been looking forward to getting to the infamous Moe/Kellhus scene since I started my re-read. As others said, I'd ask Bakker, though I can't see him having a trouble with him. I can't see anyone being interested in something like that hasn't already read (and continued to speculate on) the series to begin with.

[Sci-2]

Quick lunch time notes, page 26 from the US WLW hardcover:

The School of Mandate had long eschewed the Daimotic Arts: Seswatha had believed Ciphrang too

capricious to be yoked to human intent. Still, Achamian had some understanding of the metaphysics involved.

Perhaps the Anagogic sorcery did prove more effective than the Gnosis then?

He knew that some agencies could be summoned shorn of the Outside, plucked whole as it were, while others bore their realities with them, swamping the World with porous madness. The shade of Gin'yursis, Achamian knew, had been one of the latter.

Interesting that Gin'yursis's shade possesses the abilities Yater's corpse-avatar does later in the book when She hands Sorweel the chorae.

Chorae only negated violations of the Real; they returned the world to its fundamental frame. But Gin'yursis

had come as figure and frame—a symbol wedded to the very Hell that gave it meaning...

Mimara's Chorae should have been useless.

Seems obvious the Judging Eye played a role, but why the relationship between Aporetic Sorcery and banishment[?] Or for that matter between chorae and what is apparently Divine Love:

And she sees it, a point of luminous white, a certainty, shining out from the pit that blackens her grasp. A voice rises, a voice without word or tone, drowsy with compassion, and the light grows and grows, shrinking the abyss to a rind, to the false foil that it is, burning to dust, and the glory, the magnificence, shines forth, radiant, blinding...

And she holds all...In her hand she holds it!

A Tear of God.

-The Judging Eye

[lokisnow]

it's 8290 words, so I seriously doubt you can stretch fair use that far. It's also posting, intact, an enormous part of the finale of the first series to the webs, but it's not really for us to say whether or not that brings in new users, nor does such justification matter, legally or ethically.

But I will ask Bakker about it. If I get permission, I'll probably post it here, because italics and bolding will copy and paste over from the word doc, and the other forum I'd have to go through putting in bracket-i slash bracket everywhere, which sounds exhausting.

One thing is very clear from reading it, you see precisely when Moe begins lying to Kellhus, and you see it set up and how he does it. The author also highlights the precise point where Kellhus' statements begin to go wrong. And there's a really strong, strong suggestion that the reason Moe refuses to answer Kellhus' final question (well he does answer it, obliquely, in a hope to reach Kellhus) is because Moe doesn't want to answer the No God's question, and Kellhus at that point is simply a vessel/vehicle for the No God, still trying to find an answer to WHAT AM I?. And to tell Kellhus would be tantamount to telling the No God. (and note that Kellhus doesn't teleport elegantly into the black, he topples into the black, and the next time we see him he walks the whirlwind).

[WrathOfTinyKittens]

Having read it in sequence like that, I am curious if you agree with me that the text shows us that Kell is wrong on the skin-spy timeline. Shryke makes a point in his disagreement that the timing isn't far enough off to make a difference, which could well be right.

[lokisnow]

“Then, about twelve years ago, you discovered the first of the Consult skin-spies—probably through discrepancies in their voices. The Cishaurim were thrown into an uproar, that much is certain. And even though no one knew the slightest thing about the creatures, the blame was placed on the Scarlet Spires. For only the greatest of the Schools, they thought, could dare, let alone execute, such an outrage. Infiltrate the Cishaurim?

“But you were Dûnyain, and though our brothers know nothing of the arcane, our understanding of the mundane is without peer. You realized that these things weren’t sorcerous artifacts, that they were engines of the flesh. But you couldn’t convince the others, who sought to instruct the Scarlet Spires on the perilous course they had taken. There must be consequences. So the Cishaurim assassinated the Grandmaster of the Scarlet Spires, prompting a war that will find its conclusion this very day …”

Just then, Kellhus inadvertently kicked something lying upon the graven floor. Something hollow and fibrous. A skull?

“But you,” he continued without hesitation, “kept the creatures, and over years of torment you eventually broke them down. You learned of Golgotterath, her ramparts heaped about the horns of an ancient derelict, a vessel fallen from the void in the days when Nonmen yet ruled Eärwa; of the Inchoroi and the great war they waged against long-dead Nonmen Kings. You learned how the last survivors of that fell race, Aurang and Aurax, perverted the heart of their Nonman captor, Mekeritrig, and how he corrupted Shauriatis, the Grandmaster of the Mangaecca, in his turn. You learned how this wicked cabal broke the glamour about Golgotterath, and made its horrors their own …

“You learned of the Consult.”

“These words you speak,” Moënghus said from the black, “‘wicked,’ ‘corrupted,’ ‘perverted’ … why would you use them when you know they are nothing more than mechanisms of control?”

Two paragraphs after the key mistake of 12 years/decade Kellhus stumbles across something. Mister perfect Dunyain who never falters or sets a foot wrong, inadvertently kicks something while walking. I take that as an authorial view that Kellhus is wrong.

The point to which I quote, where Moenghus says this, this is the point when Moenghus begins to manipulate Kellhus--but first he must show Kellhus the chains, so that Kellhus will be a willing partner in the deception Moenghus will begin. not long after this Moenghus starts offering Kellhus what he's been asking for--'truth'--and begins agreeing with Kellhus that the TTT is an alive thing.

And this draws out the No God, who Kellhus hears, and apparently Moenghus recognizes the 'thoughts' of the No God that Kellhus hears on Kellhus' face.

[jurble]

I don't disagree that it's the author indicating Kellhus took a mis-step, but it's a mis-step not falling down a hole. I think Bakker's indicating that the premise behind the assassination of Sasheoka is flawed.

[lokisnow]

I don't disagree that it's the author indicating Kellhus took a mis-step, but it's a mis-step not falling down a hole. I think Bakker's indicating that the premise behind the assassination of Sasheoka is flawed.

my bad, the babbling I went on about the no god there obscured the point that the author pretty much says, "kellhus took a misstep"

[Madness]

lockesnow, I'm not sure that the new SA won't keep word doc formatting - if you find it permissible to post.

Also, Wrath, the evidence put forth at SA for the Skin-Spy discrepency is that Aurang muses about them being uncovered closer to when Moenghus joins the Cishaurim - Aurang's POV says "decades," I believe, Kellhus hazards twelve years, ergo, Kellhus is wrong.

[Madness]

Bakker's latest TPB includes an update suggesting that he's two weeks from completing TUC's first draft!

[Sci-2]

Bakker's latest TPB includes an update suggesting that he's two weeks from completing TUC's first draft!

So does mean TUC next year at best, or should be [we] accept a 2015 (2016?) release date?

I wonder if we'll even get an Atrocity Tale in 2013?

[Madness]

I feel like Mith and Wert used to say a year from draft submission. Fingers crossed.

[WrathOfTinyKittens]

Madness - That was my conclusion as well (I posted the quotes a few months ago in my reread summary and also just a page or two back), but Shryke pointed out that there's not much daylight between "decades" - indicating about thirty years to me - and "about twelve". Now I agree with you, especially given how careful Bakker is, but that was the argument at hand.

Locke - thanks for that. I also caught that bit about him stumbling over the skull, but hadn't sorted my thoughts yet. During that whole sequence Kellhus seems very distracted, giving into the "darkness" much more so than normal. It's very reminiscent of his opening journey in TDTCB, down to the infamous muscular twig making a comeback. I also think there's thematically something to Kellhus descending into the cavern by going into the tree's roots - to me the roots of the tree represent the Legion.

[Shryke]

Madness - That was my conclusion as well (I posted the quotes a few months ago in my reread summary and also just a page or two back), but Shryke pointed out that there's not much daylight between "decades" - indicating about thirty years to me - and "about twelve". Now I agree with you, especially given how careful Bakker is, but that was the argument at hand.

It's not so much that either as that the timeline indicates Moenghus can't have found the Skin Spies more then 2 decades before the assassination. And likely at the most a few years less then that.

Though the discrepancy may be explained by differences in when the two people are dating their statements from.

[Madness]

If Aurang is right, mayhaps the Cishaurim, post- Moenghus, were actually persecuting a war against the Consult. The idolators of the Holy War simply were the tools of the Consult in the understanding of the Cishaurim of Moenghus' sect.

It seems so obvious to me that something else is going on with Moenghus, the Cishaurim, and Meppa... TUC flashbacks?