If having the wrong faith gets you damned - why no mark?

  • 27 Replies
  • 12234 Views

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

What Came Before

  • *
  • Administrator
  • Emwama
  • *****
  • Posts: 0
    • View Profile
    • First Second Apocalypse
« Reply #15 on: June 03, 2013, 03:39:35 pm »
Quote from: Callan S.
Chorae are kind of balls of condensed doubt. Probably sorcerers, even Cish, just get entangled by magic, becoming creatures of magic. And doubt dispells them - makes them an incredbily mundane substance - salt. Unless that salt actually has some strange properties, like that kid collecting some seemed to think.

The thing is, do we really know sorcerers are damned? Or maybe it's because they blow up dozens of guys with magic, and that's a bit of a murderous no no to the Earwa mechanism?

Perhaps the mark is just...a mark? An aesthetically ugly stain, but no more than that? Apart from making you fall apart in contact with Chorae?

Perhaps Kellhus offers redemption for sorcerers - which is more like just a basic clarification?

What Came Before

  • *
  • Administrator
  • Emwama
  • *****
  • Posts: 0
    • View Profile
    • First Second Apocalypse
« Reply #16 on: June 03, 2013, 03:39:41 pm »
Quote from: Triskele
Quote from: Callan S.
Chorae are kind of balls of condensed doubt. Probably sorcerers, even Cish, just get entangled by magic, becoming creatures of magic. And doubt dispells them - makes them an incredbily mundane substance - salt. Unless that salt actually has some strange properties, like that kid collecting some seemed to think.

My theory is still that salt  = chanv.  If so, Iyokus is addicted to the choraed remains of his brethren.  That guy is really, really screwed in Hell unless Kellhus saves him somehow. 

Let's remember too that unless Madness missed it there is the fascinating detail that we have no textual evidence of Cishaurim salting.  Chorae does something to them, but we don't know for sure that they salt.

What Came Before

  • *
  • Administrator
  • Emwama
  • *****
  • Posts: 0
    • View Profile
    • First Second Apocalypse
« Reply #17 on: June 03, 2013, 03:39:51 pm »
Quote from: Wilshire
I still stand by anti-sorcery. Nothing to do with damnation or marks or metaphysics (except sorcery i guess).
The Wight may have been one of the most powerful sorcerous artifacts left over from the Nonmen. Who knows, maybe they've created armies of undead wraith things. Either way, to me its just sorcery.

Though Akka did say something about chorae not working on such things, but he probably didn't know shit about wtf was going on (he took several hits to the head at that point). Akka perspective =/= truth.

Pure, unpure, damned, saved. The Aporos doesn't care. Sorcery is all that matters.

Also, I agree with Callan's suggestions. A simple mark. A simple clarification. Kellhus has given redemtion to schoolmen because he knows that they are not damned for using it, but damned for what it causes. Murder damns, and what is sorcery but the key to death? Not much...

It is possible that the Inchoroi made up that whole thing about sorcery. It was their greatest foe's greatest weapon. Why simply stop at damning false men? Would be a better plan to to kill two birds with one tusk and prevent sorcery of any kind if at all possible? Sounds good to me.

What Came Before

  • *
  • Administrator
  • Emwama
  • *****
  • Posts: 0
    • View Profile
    • First Second Apocalypse
« Reply #18 on: June 03, 2013, 03:39:59 pm »
Quote from: Callan S.
Quote from: Wilshire
It is possible that the Inchoroi made up that whole thing about sorcery. It was their greatest foe's greatest weapon. Why simply stop at damning false men? Would be a better plan to to kill two birds with one tusk and prevent sorcery of any kind if at all possible? Sounds good to me.
Nice! We only have that spilling of the beans during an inteview to know about the non men thing. Doesn't have to be the only very special addition to the tusk!

What Came Before

  • *
  • Administrator
  • Emwama
  • *****
  • Posts: 0
    • View Profile
    • First Second Apocalypse
« Reply #19 on: June 03, 2013, 03:40:05 pm »
Quote from: Madness
Quote from: Curethan
Whole nations might be damned, but Mimara's perspective reveals that redemption is for available for individuals - at least those who haven't used sorcery. (Can't see why she wouldn't share her insight with Akka otherwise...)

...

 Which lends creedence to my Ajokli = demonic Seswatha crackpot.

She hasn't yet had a chance to share her insight with Achamian. She only just had the experience with Galian at the climax of WLW.

+1 on the latter Nerdanel, never imagined that before.

Also, big +1 to Galbrod's "Music" analogy.

Love that the forum is moving beyond my capacity to keep track of it all - not that I was doing super awesome with that as it was.

Quote from: Galbrod
Would not the rational conclusion be that the effect of chorae are related to the workings of sorcery (whether damed or not), rather than being related to damnation?

I'm not sure we can assume that sorcery isn't 100% related to faith/damnation/metaphysics.

Quote from: Wilshire
It is possible that the Inchoroi made up that whole thing about sorcery. It was their greatest foe's greatest weapon. Why simply stop at damning false men? Would be a better plan to to kill two birds with one tusk and prevent sorcery of any kind if at all possible? Sounds good to me.

+1.

What Came Before

  • *
  • Administrator
  • Emwama
  • *****
  • Posts: 0
    • View Profile
    • First Second Apocalypse
« Reply #20 on: June 03, 2013, 03:40:13 pm »
Quote from: Curethan
@ Wilshire,
not disagreeing with you buddy.  Just riffing on the mark being evidence of damnation.  Chorae are made via sorcery after all, only Mimara's use of one seems to have anything to do with damnation.

As Callan says, we don't even know that sorcerers are 100% damned - Scott muddies the waters on that with Zaranthius' and Kellhus' counterclaims anyway, but then the descriptions of the mark are highly suggestive of corruption and damnation - so...

What Came Before

  • *
  • Administrator
  • Emwama
  • *****
  • Posts: 0
    • View Profile
    • First Second Apocalypse
« Reply #21 on: June 03, 2013, 03:40:19 pm »
Quote from: Wilshire
Quote from: Callan S.
Nice! We only have that spilling of the beans during an inteview to know about the non men thing. Doesn't have to be the only very special addition to the tusk!

i thought that there was something in either 4revalations or TFS that suggested the nonmen thing. though that could have just been added because its something that has already been 'revealed'.

What Came Before

  • *
  • Administrator
  • Emwama
  • *****
  • Posts: 0
    • View Profile
    • First Second Apocalypse
« Reply #22 on: June 03, 2013, 03:40:26 pm »
Quote from: lockesnow
Quote
“Only the Few can see the Few.” Sorcery was violent. To speak it was to cut the world as surely as if with a knife. But only the Few—sorcerers—could see this mutilation, and only they could see, moreover, the blood on the hands of the mutilator—the “mark,” as it was called. Only the Few could see one another and one another’s crimes. And when they met, they recognized one another as surely as common men recognized criminals by their lack of a nose.

Not so with the Cishaurim. No one knew why or how, but they worked events as grand and as devastating as any sorcery without marking the world or bearing the mark of their crime.

Bakker, R. Scott (2008-09-02). The Darkness that Comes Before (The Prince of Nothing) (p. 42). Penguin Group. Kindle Edition.

Quote
Geshrunni had seen a Chorae touch a sorcerer once, the incandescent unravelling of flesh and bone.

Bakker, R. Scott (2008-09-02). The Darkness that Comes Before (The Prince of Nothing) (p. 44). Penguin Group. Kindle Edition.

Quote
Unclean. The Chronicle of the Tusk, held by the Thousand Temples to be the very word of the God, had named them thus—those Few with the learning and the innate ability to work sorcery. “Cut from them their tongues,” the holy words said, “for their blasphemy is an abomination like no other . . .”

Bakker, R. Scott (2008-09-02). The Darkness that Comes Before (The Prince of Nothing) (p. 58). Penguin Group. Kindle Edition.

Quote
In the Three Seas, Chorae were a crucial variable in the algebra of war. In so many ways the Few were like Gods compared with the masses. Only the Chorae prevented the Schools from utterly dominating the Three Seas.

“Certainly,” Achamian replied, “but Maithanet could likewise field those men against the Cishaurim. However different the Cishaurim may be, they seem to share our vulnerabilities at least.”

Bakker, R. Scott (2008-09-02). The Darkness that Comes Before (The Prince of Nothing) (p. 60). Penguin Group. Kindle Edition.

The point of all these quotes is that I think many of these questions were addressed in the first two chapters of the book.

What Came Before

  • *
  • Administrator
  • Emwama
  • *****
  • Posts: 0
    • View Profile
    • First Second Apocalypse
« Reply #23 on: June 03, 2013, 03:40:33 pm »
Quote from: Madness
There is no textual explicit evidence for the Inchoroi inscribing the Tusk - the interview Callan mentions simply validated long standing speculation by the forumers of Three-Seas and Westeros on Bakker's part.

Though, of course, Wilshire, I, and others have discussed at some length about there being plenty of obvious speculation on Inchoroi/Halaroi interaction (for instance, Inchoroi must be one, or more, of the Kiunnat Gods, reflected by their time in Eanna during the Cuno-Inchoroi Wars and after).

Edit:

Also, lockesnow, I'm not sure that those quotes do anything more than highlight the ambiguity. We already know from Wilshire's attendence of the Ch. 3 excerpt that Bakker intends to explore how society amalgamated and evolved culturally under a prevalent religious premise, which is explicitly false (as far as Bakker revealed the Nonman aren't unilaterally damned as suggested by the Tusk - though, damned for other reasons is still much up for debate).

Sorcery is still very much topical. Is the Mark just a mark? Are faith and sorcery simply sides of a die? Are we onto something with this dissociation from God's Plan (the Music) and sorcerers? Are Kellhus' explanations in TTT valid or a method of control - when TTT was about to come out Bakker made some interesting comments about sorcerous infodrops, though obviously I still await Gnosis on Gnosis that isn't Ward to Cant.

Callan S.

  • *
  • Old Name
  • *****
  • Warrior-Profit
  • Posts: 671
    • View Profile
    • Philosopher Gamer
« Reply #24 on: June 04, 2013, 03:07:58 am »
I just thought about this and wondered if it's because you could recant your wrong faith at any point? (recant it for what, who knows?). But we don't have any accounts of a sorcerer seeing someone suddenly flash with the mark as they died (though that'd be so flaggedly cool to have had that in the story from the start, yet have had no idea what the hell it was in reference to at that time?)

Wilshire

  • *
  • Administrator
  • Old Name
  • *****
  • Enshoiya
  • Posts: 5935
  • One of the other conditions of possibility
    • View Profile
« Reply #25 on: June 04, 2013, 09:33:09 pm »
That would be really interesting. I wonder what Inrau looked like as he died? Faithful servant until just before death, than a blasphemer...
One of the other conditions of possibility.

mrganondorf

  • *
  • The Mouth of Bakker Fans
  • Old Name
  • *****
  • Nurse Leweth
  • Posts: 2002
  • PSUKHE ALL THE THINGS!
    • View Profile
    • R. Scott Bakker Fans (on Twitter)
« Reply #26 on: April 16, 2014, 11:26:13 am »
I just thought about this and wondered if it's because you could recant your wrong faith at any point? (recant it for what, who knows?). But we don't have any accounts of a sorcerer seeing someone suddenly flash with the mark as they died (though that'd be so flaggedly cool to have had that in the story from the start, yet have had no idea what the hell it was in reference to at that time?)

Like getting hit with a chorae is a 'forced recant'?  Every sorcerer killed with a chorae goes to heaven?  Cleansed?  Perhaps Kellhus is angling to get in front of Sorweel's chorae.

Wilshire

  • *
  • Administrator
  • Old Name
  • *****
  • Enshoiya
  • Posts: 5935
  • One of the other conditions of possibility
    • View Profile
« Reply #27 on: April 26, 2014, 12:05:18 am »
That would be pretty freaking ironic. I like it :)
One of the other conditions of possibility.