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Bakker - A Discussion of Rectal Miracles


Francis Buck

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My name is Lord Kosoter and I'm putting together a special team, and I need me eight warriors. Eight hard ass damned warriors. Now, y'all might've heard rumors about the armada happening soon. Well, we'll be leaving a little earlier. We're gonna be dropped into Golgotterath, dressed as tentacle rape demons. And once we're in enemy territory, as a bushwhackin' guerrilla army, we're gonna be doin' one thing and one thing only... killin' Sranc. Now, I don't know about y'all, but I sure as hell didn't come down from Ishual, cross five thousand miles of woods, fight my way through half of Suskara and jump out of the fuckin' air to teach the Sranc lessons in humanity. Sranc ain't got no humanity. They're the foot soldiers of a woman-hatin', mass murderin' alien species and they need to be dee-stroyed. That's why any and every every son of a bitch we find wearin' a human skin, they're gonna die. Now, I'm the direct descendant of the mountain man Ganrelka. That means I got a little Nonman in me. And our battle plan will be that of a Nonman resistance. We will be cruel to the Inchies, and through our cruelty they will know who we are. And they will find the evidence of our cruelty in the disemboweled, dismembered, and oddly penetrated bodies of their brothers we leave behind us. And the Inchie won't not be able to help themselves but to imagine the cruelty their brothers endured at our hands, and our boot heels, and our pendulous phalluses. And the Inchie will be sickened by us, and the Inchie will talk about us, and the Inchie will fear us. And when the Inchie closes their eyes at night and they're tortured by lack of their subconscious for the evil they have done, it will be with thoughts of us they are are vaguely bothered by. Sound good?

That's what I like to hear. But I got a word of warning for all you would-be skin eaters. When you join my command, you take on debit. A debit you owe me personally. Each and every man under my command owes me one hundred Sranc scalps. And I want my scalps. And all y'all will git me one hundred Sranc scalps, taken from the heads of one hundred dead Sranc. Or you will die tryin'.
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was thinking an ayn rand/RSB merger, "this is the anasurimbor speaking," because dunyain "self-moving soul" bullshit is shared by rand's loony toons dimestore creed. but then thought her ideas are a better fit for the consult: "this is mekeretrig speaking." too much work, anyway.

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Perhaps, but I'm not sure we can say that at this point.

I guess I don't understand what you'd call a miracle then.

There [is] a defined procedure to bring about recollection, which strongly suggests the Psukhe isn't any more miraculous that regular sorcery.

You also have Titirga displaying some rudimentary recollection, accounting for his washed out Mark.

I guess you could say Fane rewrote reality to make the Psukhe possible, but everything in the text suggests otherwise. There just doesn't seem to be good reason to think what happens to Fane rewrites/transcends the natural order.

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So what are you saying? That despite what we don't know about the Psukhe that we at least know that there's something learned/invented/practiced to it otherwise how could Moe learn skyping and things like that? I guess that makes sense. But I do think that the Psukhe was "discovered" in a way that other sorceries were not. The Gnosis and the Anagogis were more like the results of advances in civilization whereas the Psukhe does not seem to fit with that arc.

To me a miracle is something that stands outside the natural order. Now you could say that Fane was given the knowledge by God, so it didn't come from a progressive understanding or natural inspiration...save for the fact we already see evidence of this recollection in Titirga. The Psukhe is an advancement akin to the discovery of calculus [or graph theory or the discovery of irrational numbers].

I suppose if you want to say the lingual/mental aspects of magic are invented, so advances in magic add Platonic Truth to the Bakkerverse, you could make the argument that Fane's invention of the Psukhe adds [fundamentally] new rules to reality. I'd considered that an arguable miracle.

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So I have no idea how it can be compared to calculus or irrational numbers. That's what the Gnosis is.

I'm just trying to think of some kind of threshold where adding new information to the universe could count as a miracle. I figured it would have to add something fundamental and objectively eternal, which is why I offered Platonic Math as something that might exist in the Bakkerverse.

ETA: That is to say that he might have "discovered" it by have a geyser of Water spontaneously explode out of his forehead when he was trying to get down with God.

So God rewards him for his devotion and gives him a new kind of magic? I'd accept the possibility if it wasn't for Titirga.

Back to the narrative, surely Kellhus has experimented with the Few and the ability to recollect? Why deny his forces the Water, a weapon that could be a true wild card the Consult doesn't have the means to deal with?

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I just reread False Sun, and I don't think there's anything in there that seems to instruct us about the Psukhe. It's said that Titirga went or was blind, but he isn't anymore. It's said he has some rinsed stain, but that doesn't tell us anything about the Cish or the Psukhe. Where did this idea come from?

I was going off the following:

Even his Stain was different, somehow muted, as if he could cut the Inward without scarring it. Even now, simply regarding him, his distinction literally glared from his image, a strange, sideways rinsing of the Stain.

The vital difference. The threat.

They said he had been blind as a child, that Noshainrau himself had found him begging in the streets. They said he went mad while Canting. They said his words seized things that should not be seized.

This all hints at an ability to alter reality without Marking his own soul as severely. It's also noted that this "vital difference" is the threat.

Seems like an evident precursor to the Psukhe to me.

eta:

Misconception. How did Titirga regain his sight?

Are there impairments to vision that are reversible? Perhaps impairments due to malnutrition?

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I don't see how since Psukhari have no stain to begin with.

You don't think a character with a past history of supposed blindness and a cleaner Mark has anything to do with the Psukhe?

Just because Fane uses the Water as a "cruder" art doesn't necessitate Mark-less recollection is dependent on that.

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I don't understand this semantic focus on whether miracles have occurred. What's the upshot of finding one? Is sorweel getting a chorae a miracle because Yatwer herself came down and gave it to him? Is the weirdo sex scene that creates the White Luck Warrior a miracle? What about Mimara with the Inverse Chorae?

To put it as Bakker might, whether something is a "miracle" depends on your frame.

Eta: other illustrative examples

1) Kel finding water in dessert (people think its a miracle. Clearly in Kel's frame it was science and deduction).

2) Kel prophesy about Shrial knights. Kel himself thinks this is a miracle.

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I don't understand this semantic focus on whether miracles have occurred. What's the upshot of finding one?

To understand how the God intervenes in the world. Our best bet for a miracle is the heart-out-of-chest scene.

Is sorweel getting a chorae a miracle because Yatwer herself came down and gave it to him?

Maybe.

Is the weirdo sex scene that creates the White Luck Warrior a miracle?

Maybe.

What about Mimara with the Inverse Chorae?

When she banishes Hell? - Yes.

When she simply looks into the pit and sees the white light? Maybe.

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To understand how the God intervenes in the world. Our best bet for a miracle is the heart-out-of-chest scene.

Maybe.

Maybe.

When she banishes Hell? - Yes.

When she simply looks into the pit and sees the white light? Maybe.

I think each if these is both a miracle and not a miracle depending on your frame. Which I take to be an overall theme in the series.
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I think each if these is both a miracle and not a miracle depending on your frame. Which I take to be an overall theme in the series.

Hmmm. When you say frame do you mean viewpoint or do you mean frames like the Wight bringing Hell's Frame to Earwa? Because I like the idea that miracles can be defined by imposition of Frames.

If Kellhus imposed his Frame on the world when he ripped Serwe's heart from his chest, could he do it again? Perhaps that's what [why] he went Outside to figure out?

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The latter Sci but they are related concepts. As a simple example what might be a miracle in Earwa may not be a miracle Outside. A likely flawed definition of a miracle in a given frame would be a phenomena that is inexplicable given the rules of a particular frame.

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The latter Sci but they are related concepts. As a simple example what might be a miracle in Earwa may not be a miracle Outside. A likely flawed definition of a miracle in a given frame would be a phenomena that is inexplicable given the rules of a particular frame.

I don't know if there can be miracles in the Outside, given the way reality is subject to the desires of the entities out there.

Which also makes me wonder about Kellhus. He apparently defeated the Decapitants in the Outside? Has anyone ever done such a thing? Did he impose his frame on their Hells?

And in the past the remains of Ciphrang go back to their home plane yes? Is that proof that Kellhus defeated the Decapitants in the Outside rather than someone [summon] them and cut off their heads?

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I don't know if there can be miracles in the Outside, given the way reality is subject to the desires of the entities out there.

that's my point.

Which also makes me wonder about Kellhus. He apparently defeated the Decapitants in the Outside? Has anyone ever done such a thing? Did he impose his frame on their Hells?

And in the past the remains of Ciphrang go back to their home plane yes? Is that proof that Kellhus defeated the Decapitants in the Outside rather than someone [summon] them and cut off their heads?

I'm not convinced those are Ciphrang heads or that he went Outside. All part of the Aspect Emporer mystique.
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Speaking of the Ciphrang heads, anyone have any theories as to why their mouths started moving when was doing his "scan" of all the high lords and such (where Sorweel realizes he's blessed by Yatwer)? That aroused my suspicion, but I've never been able to think of a reason for it.

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brought up miracles in the first place because I was curious about the 3rd miracle given that the first and second were listed in the appendix but the third was not.

the answer is plain on the face of the encyclopedia entry: the Miracle of Two Becomes Three, or 2+2=5, the image of a jackboot stomping a human face, forever.

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