Quote from: H on April 25, 2016, 10:38:25 am

So, the Slog is over, probably a little earlier than we really excepted, but a pace is a pace.  This does give us plenty of time to ruminate on what we've found and a chance to reread some Atrocity Tales before TGO is out.

I think that overall, a pretty strong theme of the Gods involvement in Earwa is made clear throughout WLW, even more so than TJE.  So, does that trend continue in TGO?  Only time will tell.

I kind of think it has to.  That's one of the biggest takeaway's I've had from the Slog: the Gods are way more involved than I originally thought. 

The big thing I'm curious about is whether we'll learn anything about what the Gods are.  We have examples like the "God" who comes to Angeshrael (likely an Inchoroi) to Yatwer's viewpoint to Meppa's claim that the Hundred are Ciphrang.   Will TGO shed light on this or will it wait until TUC or even, TSTSNBN?

Pre-WLW reread, I was convinced that who Angeshraël saw was not Husyelt, but Aurang.  Now, I could see it either way, even though my money would still be on Aurang.

Thanks, H . You did great leading The Trudge after Camlost perished. And appreciate that you did WLW by chapter.

Just for the record, I voted to do all of them like that, 

The good thing is that this leaves us plenty of time to get everyone caught up on Atrocity Tales before we do a Cast about them.  Since I know I'll be doing most of the talking about 4 Revelations, it'd probably be good if someone else talked about False Sun and Knife...

My favorite character to read though might be Eleazarus. His arrogance and obsession with jnan made him so fun to read, not to mention the contradiction that he's supposed to be someone who knows what's going on behind the scenes yet he's so clearly been played.

Indeed.  Along a similar line, Aurang is my favorite character.

In the 'False Sun' appendices (or notes at the bottom, whatever), the Nail is given a Cunuroi name which means the 'Newborn' (or something like that).  That would suggest the star didn't exist before a specific time, but did after.  So, it wasn't a star that went nova (a dim star to a bright star), but rather a 'star' that didn't exist which suddenly did.  Of course, the star could have been too far from Earwa to have been visible before it went nova, thus appearing to have... appeared (ahem) out of nowhere.  I've always found it strange that this 'Newborn' star is the pivot around which all the other stars wheel.  Again with the astrophysics...

EDIT: Also, according to a google search (take that for what it's worth), at best a supernova would be visible for a few months, gradually losing the intensity of its brightness over time.  So probably not a supernova, since the nonmen observed and named it thousands of years in the past.

Yeah, point taken.  The fact that the stars revolve around it does imply that it is a pole star, at least from what I can understand of it.

Indeed, the whole "Newborn" is confusing.  For some reason, I had it in my mind that at some point Akka remarks how the Nail used to be brighter in his dreams, but I can't find it, so I must have imagined it.

I feel little doubt though that the appearance of the Nail and the coming of the Inchoroi are not somehow linked though.

Hmm, yeah, you are right.

There still is a curiosity as to what the Nail of Heaven is.  A new celestial body, that has dwindled in intensity over the years.

I have no idea why I didn't think of it before, but the Nail is a Pole star, but it is a supernova.  I've said before, what if it was the star where the Inchoroi came from?  Alternately, what does it mean that their pole star is dead?  There is something to this and I'm sure it has to do with the coming of the Inchoroi, but I just don't know what...

Chapter 15:

The hulking Nonman made a gesture that possessed the character of a shrug. "Fallen? No. Turned. In the absence of recollection my brothers have turned to tyranny... To Min-Uroikas."

Is this true?  Or a lie that the Captain told him to keep him from returning to Ishterebinth?  When Aurang speaks of it, he says they "have spies in Ishterebinth" not that the whole of it has come to them.  Why would they spy on Nin-Ciljiras if the whole of Ishterebinth was in league with them?  No, this is a lie, or a misunderstanding.  Something, but not a truth.

"Why?" he asked. "Why would you lament our death when it was Men, not the Inchoroi, who destroyed all your great mansions?"

Oh, if only they knew, as we know, that the Inchoroi are well and truly at fault for the Tusk and the enmity of Men.

Scales like overlapping shields, pale with filth and bronze.

The Dragon stirred upon its heap, raised its armoured chest on limbs crooked and knotted like hoary old treetrunks.

My theory has always been that Wracu are something of Tekne "cyborgs" of sorts, biological beings, but enhanced with "upgrades" to make them much tougher, able to withstand sorcery.

It differed from the ancient Dragons of his Dreams—no surprise given the florid diversity characteristic of the species.

This is interesting.  I wonder if they were made purposely different, like accumulations of certain grafts?

And a mane of black iron tusks flared from its brows, bloomed into chattering skirts along the back of the beast's skull.

Again, more reference to the fact that he is ensconced in metal.  No wonder they can withstand so much, he is essentially a literal tank.

"SO DOES FANCY BECOME SCRIPTURE..."
The old Wizard grappled with his anger, the urge to retort. The Coffers! he reminded himself, hearing Sarl's crazed voice as he did so. The Coffers!
"SO DOES GREED BECOME GOD."

Never quite caught this before, but foreshadowing?  Is this a reference to Kellhus?  His Thousandfold Thought is becoming scripture and while part of that is a need of the world, it is mostly his fancy, his whole plan being far more (at least in my mind) than just the defeat of the Consult.  Taken as such then, Kellhus' lust for domination, of both the Inside and Outside, the greed of power becoming a God?

"Wutteät."
Like some beast in nocturnal seas, the Wracu shrank into the darkness. Laughter like sloughing cliffsides crashed through the ancient hollows.
"He dies from the outside," Cleric said, "because Hell sustains him from within."
"CUNNING..." the Wracu groaned out from the black. "CUNNING-CUNNING ISHROI!"

Just a thought, since I have speculated that the Inverse Fire is what "powers" the Wracu, but also perhaps what allows them to breathe fire?

"I am Quya!" the Nonman King cried from places unseen. "I am Ishroi! Five of your sons and daughters have I slain!"

Hmm, fascinating.  Certainly these are Wracu whose names we do not know, at least, according to the list I had made.

"FOOL. I AM THE FIRST. MY HIDE IS BRONZE. MY BONES ARE IRON!"

OK, Wutteät, we get it, you are made of metal,   

"SUCH THINGS THAT I REMEMBER, CÛNUROI! TWISTING IN THE VOID FOR SAILING AGES! WATCHING MY MAKERS DESCEND AS LOCUSTS UPON WORLD AFTER WORLD, REDUCING EACH TO ONE HUNDRED AND FORTY-FOUR THOUSAND—AND WAILING TO FIND THEMSELVES STILL DAMNED!"

Proof that the 144,000 prophecy predates the arrival in Earwa.

Koll falls backward but somehow rolls back onto his feet. With his free hand he clutches the shaft. Pulls.
Screams.
The fingers of his face break apart, then fly open.

I totally forgot this part before this reread.

"You think me the cripple!" Nil'giccas cried. "You think Cleric the ruin of someone whole! But you are wrong, Seswatha! I am the Truth!"

Implying that Men are the cripples.

"We are Many!" the Erratic roared. "We are legion! What you call your soul is nothing but a confusion, an inability! A plurality that cannot count the moments that divide it and so calls itself One."

So, the madness of an Erratic is the truest form?

"Only when memory is stripped away!" Cleric cried out, the glow fading from his eyes. "Only then is Being revealed as pure Becoming! Only when the past dies can we shrug aside the burden that is our Soul!"

[...]

"Only then does the Darkness sing untrammelled!" Cleric cried. "Only then!"

Wow, here he is basically informing us that memory is an agent of the darkness that comes before.  That minus memory, they are actually self-moving souls, free to Become.  That Becoming is close to the Absolute?  Man, this is not as strait forward as it seemed.  Allowing the "Darkness to sing" is allowing the true essence of Being to manifest without being shaped by the Soul?  But the Soul is the Darkness, or so we were lead to believe?  Perhaps not though, what comes before the Soul then, the Darkness?

"And yet you seek memories!" the Wizard cried, at last delivered to tears.
"To be! Being is not a choice!"
"But you claim Being is deception!"
"Yes!"
"But that is nonsense! Madness!"
Again the Nonman King laughed.
"That is Becoming."

So, you have to choice but to try to remember?  No choice but to be?  But the madness, the fact that they cannot simple just be, is the path to Becoming?

But it is at one with her, the centring counterweight, the ligament that binds her to future and fate.

Again, we know that Mimara's baby must be very important, but just some textual evidence.

At last they find it, the golden map-case from Achamian's Dreams.
"It's broken," he murmurs with something resembling horror.

What is the significance of it being broken though?  The map is still intact.  But is it just a momentary foreshadowing, that of coming "Doom" since it is broken?

By some miracle an oak leaf falls before her, swinging to and fro through the air. She picks it out of emptiness. Purple lines vein the lobes of waxy green.

An allusion to the leaf that Kellhus finds in TTT?  Purple paths?  I don't quite get it.

I see where we are diverging here. What do you think the TTT is?

To me, it is (over simplifying here) Kellhus saving mankind from the Consult and whatever are the implications of that (aspiration to godhood?). And if that's the case, then the TTT isn't a lie. When Kellhus says "a lesser falsehood" I think he means convincing people that he is a prophet/living god/what have you, and NOT his war with Golgotterath.

Well, I feel like Kellhus aspiration is the Absolute.  It is, as Serwa says, being the God of Gods.  I do not believe that Kellhus is out to avert the Second Apocalypse at all.  In fact, he plans to bring it.  Just not on the Consult's terms.  The Consult version of the Apocalypse is fret with ruin, death, and the sealing of the world to the Outside.  I feel like Kellhus' is with him rewriting meaning on Earwa, it's, as Bakker always discuses on his blog, a semantic apocalypse (I admit though, that the far-reaching implications of this are kind of lost to me).  It could be that what makes Earwa special will be essentially lost to the domination of Kellhus though.

So, the Thousandfold Thought is a plan, crafted with lies but not exclusively.  Sure, some of the parts of it are truth, but the whole body of it is a goad, a lie to achieve an end.  Sure, he plans to defeat the Consult, but really because they are first, beyond his manipulation, and second, a threat to what he plans to achieve (if he becomes a God and they shut the world, he is cut off).  I don't buy the savior talk, he is doing this for selfish reasons, just so happens that part of that happens to be incidentally good for humanity (not being killed by the Consult).  The end result though, I'm not so sure is good though.

I considered that she might try to pass of Moe's baby as that of a non-man.

I have to wonder if she actually has feelings for Moe, though, or are they just banging because she likes to bang?

I think it is a very premeditated move by Serwa.  One, she is securing Moe and at the same time, purposely alienating Sorweel.  She even says:

"A son!" the Grandmistress of the Swayali called out after him, her voice mellow and bewitching. "A son. A daughter. And an enemy!"

(Emphasis is the text's.)

I think Moe is in on it, but I think he also just doesn't care much that it's his "sister."  She may well be crafting a plan to dupe a Nonman, that I don't really know, but I am pretty sure that alienating Sorweel is at least one of the main points.  She knows how he looks at her, she has to know how he felt, so she probably felt like he was getting too close, too comfortable, and he needed to be checked.

Realize what she is also saying there, they are already duping the Nonmen by sending Moe, who isn't really his son.  Last thing they want is to show up with no real enemy too.