Bakker の Pacific Rim Job

[Sci-2]

I find it hard to buy that he was just planning on selling salt because I don't understand the purpose of the scene otherwise. What is the secret that the Synthese is going to tell him?

Maybe it's a throwaway scene, but I just don't know what to make of it otherwise.

Aurang wants to satisfy his hunger so he's luring the boy somewhere. At which point the usual will occur. The point is to show the Consult is still a threat and to show the Inchies are sexual hunger unchained from morality. (Remember, the Inchies are human males post Semantic Apocalypse.)

I suppose Aurang is [possibly] going to have the boy become a local chanv dealer in Shimeh but that seems like too much effort for the Consult for a small amount of gain.

[Madness]

I was just refering to the evidence, that Inchoroi are described as having translucent skin and that is separately a property of taking chanv.

Also, salt is a hot commodity historically. It'd be something like finding your fortune, though I think something else is going on in that scene.

Dune Spoiler:

Sci, Inchoroi are the male Honoured Matres.

Edit: Sorry Sci, nice rhymes btw.

[Sci-2]

Sci, Inchoroi are the male Honoured Matres.

I ain't read Dune son so stop spoiling that shit,

If you ain't talking 'bout Bakker?

Why the fuck you droppin' in on this clique?

Madness U B driving me crazy - going off on tangents,

I'm busy trying school Trisket on Apocalyptic Semantics....

[Francis Buck]

Interesting. Chanv being the salt of sorcerers would make sense, and it certainly wouldn't surprise me if Iyokus knew he was eating his brothers just to reap the benefits (how freaking old is that guy supposed to be? Gotta be over a hundred, right?).

I too wondered if something fishy was going on with Aurang at the end of TTT, but as Sci said, I basically just assumed it was to show that after all this whole crazy war came to a close, the Consult are still alive and kicking, mostly unaffected.

This brings up another question about TTT I meant to ask before: How did Achamian survive the Ciphrang? It seemed like one minute he's being clutched in its talons, soaring over the air, and then suddenly he's waking up with the peasants taking care of him.

I also never knew the Jekki were supposed to be Xiuhianni (though I did notice the name of the one Jekki kid in the Scions seemed sort of East Asian-inspired). I've long wondered if we'll ever find out what's going on beyond the Kayarsus. It would be interesting if there was a whole nother empire over there. Seems like there must be a decent population of humans. We don't really know anything about that area right? It'd be kinda weird if Bakker never elaborated on it at all. Maybe they'll end up coming around towards the end of the series, bolstering the human population.

[Sci-2]

Edit: Sorry Sci, nice rhymes btw.

Oh, hah, I wasn't being serious!

I was playing off our old plan on the Second Apocalypse board of having a rap battle some day.

[lokisnow]

i've always liked the idea that Chanv is Inchoroi scat. Isn't there a rumor that it's the guano of a giant winged bat. Wonder if that's an inchoroi imprisoned on the other side of the mountains by the tribe that didn't emigrate and they trade the scat they harvest to the silly Earwans

[Shryke]

This brings up another question about TTT I meant to ask before: How did Achamian survive the Ciphrang? It seemed like one minute he's being clutched in its talons, soaring over the air, and then suddenly he's waking up with the peasants taking care of him.

Bakker admits he was a little too coy about this part but if you read carefully, the description of the Ciphrang involves it trailing alot of blood.

Basically, Akka injures it badly and puts up a skin-ward, the thing takes him off and then dies and drops him in the sea, where he's swept back on to the beach. That's as I remember anyway.

[Sci-2]

i've always liked the idea that Chanv is Inchoroi scat. Isn't there a rumor that it's the guano of a giant winged bat. Wonder if that's an inchoroi imprisoned on the other side of the mountains by the tribe that didn't emigrate and they trade the scat they harvest to the silly Earwans

Reference to it [from] TDTCB (no mention of a giant bat there):

Despite the disturbing aesthetics of addiction, Eleäzaras himself might have succumbed to the drug’s lure, particularly because of the way it reputedly sharpened the intellect. Perhaps the only aspect of chanv that had prevented him from slipping into that wan and strangely narcissistic love affair—addicts rarely married or produced live children—was the unsettling fact that no one knew its source. For Eleäzaras, this was intolerable. Throughout his vicious, steep climb to the pinnacle he’d now reached, he had always refused to act in ignorance of crucial facts.

Seems like the drug negates the ability to produce children? Could the majority [of] ash from the No God [being destroyed by the Heron Spear] have ended up in Jekhia?

[Though there is the Indigo Plague, need to look up the symptoms.]

Or could it be a third Inchie Brother.

It also causes irises to turn red apparently (TTT):

At no time did the chanv addict, Iyokus, attend any of these meetings, nor was he mentioned— small mercies for which Achamian was thankful. As much as he hated the man, as much as he had wanted to kill him that night in the Apple Garden, he could do no more than exact a fraction of what he was owed. When the Hundred Pillars had taken the knife to his red‐irised eyes, Iyokus

had suddenly seemed a hapless stranger ... an innocent.

[Guest Francis_Buck]

The red eyes are just supposed to be due to a reduction of melanin, I think (like an albino).

[WrathOfTinyKittens]

Yeah what FB says.

I think Qirri and chanv will end up being the same thing (or something similar, like the ashes of lesser Nonmen or some such). I don't see any reason to believe it has anything to do with the bodies of sorcerers... for one thing there aren't near enough of the Few to produce a commercially viable supply, which Jekkhia very much has if the greater part of the tens of thousands of Ainoni nobles are addicts.

Though I take issue with that as well, for all that it comes from the text - despite Eli saying that, we see not a single other addict that I can recall among the dozens of Ainoni knights and nobles that appear on-screen.

[Madness]

Iyokus certainly doesn't display Achamian's strictly physical prowess in WLW throughout the Holy War though, Wrath. Nor does Achamian exhibit increased intellect because of qirri.

Bandaid, admittedly, but Eleazaras does muse that Iyokus is a pariah for denying the customary make-ups to cover their addictions. Though it would have been damn cool to read that the Ainoni's eyes were blood red from Fanim perspective (unless we missed this tidbit).

[Shryke]

Is anyone wondering where all this corpse-eating is gonna go? It's suddenly become a big thing in this second series.

[Sci-2]

Iyokus certainly doesn't display Achamian's strictly physical prowess in WLW throughout the Holy War though, Wrath. Nor does Achamian exhibit increased intellect because of qirri.

I don't have my hardcover on me but Mimara notes it makes her more clever.

Something about it quickening more than her steps.

[WrathOfTinyKittens]

Fair enough, Madness. We will see what happens when they start to eat the Sranc - perhaps chanv is Sranc ashes. Jekkhia looks like it would have Sranc country in its northern climes.

Like I said even if they aren't totally the same thing the similarities are too much to ignore. Maybe the difference is that Qirri comes from great heroes and chanv from normal Nonmen or, again, Sranc.

[koudoulis]

whoever mentioned Blood Meridian and sent my mind back should burn in earth..

oh my ... there goes what was left of my sunday

[Madness]

Lol - I still have yet to find and read Blood Meridian.

Wrath, if your hypothesis are born out, then I would guess that chanv/qirri are byproduct of the Tekne. My question would then become: Did the practice of eating burnt heroes exist among the Nonmen before the Womb Plague?

[Sci-2]

Lol - I still have yet to find and read Blood Meridian.

Wrath, if your hypothesis are born out, then I would guess that chanv/qirri are byproduct of the Tekne. My question would then become: Did the practice of eating burnt heroes exist among the Nonmen before the Womb Plague?

I think the biggest challenge for chanv being related to Inchies or Nonmen is the amount of it that seems to be produced.

Wrath's idea of it being related to the Sranc makes the most sense, though I feel like there must be Scylvendi tribes that were forced to survive on Sranc at some point. Did no one see the effects on these folk?

[Happy Ent]

I don’t get の, even after consulting the eponymous Wiktionary page. Please explain.

[Francis Buck]

Question: Why do some people think Nau-Cayuti became the No-God when Akka dreamed of his murder by his wife?

Speaking of which, I find it interesting that Bakker apparently claimed the title of the next series is a spoiler. Assuming there's an internal logic with the naming of the series (in that they refer to Kellhus and his "rank"), it would be reasonable to assume that the third series may be titled after him ascending to some kind of God-hood. The obvious guess would be the No-God, though I'm skeptical of that theory (the No-God doesn't seem to be something that Kellhus would strive for based on Dunyain ideals, though of course he might be also be insane -- and then we just don't know enough about what the No-God really is).

Though there is a certain poetry to the Prince of Nothing eventually becoming the No-God, which itself is somewhat thematically related to "nothingness" in various ways.

[Sci-2]

Question: Why do some people think Nau-Cayuti became the No-God when Akka dreamed of his murder by his wife?

In WLW Nau-Cayuti is shown in chains marching toward a room. I think his soul was used to fuel the No-God, but I'm unclear on the size of the Carapace.

Is it incredibly large, or man-sized?