Ajokli

  • 35 Replies
  • 16177 Views

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

What Came Before

  • *
  • Administrator
  • Emwama
  • *****
  • Posts: 0
    • View Profile
    • First Second Apocalypse
« on: June 03, 2013, 04:05:06 pm »
Quote from: Curethan
I believe there is a lot of subtle clues of Ajokli's influence throughout the AE so far, things I noted when reading that I could not quite grasp and tie together.
Sadly I'm missing a box of books containing my TJE and TDTCB from a recent move so I can't indulge a reread atm.

But here are a couple from memory;
Sarl  and the Captain for example. 
"Sometimes the dead bounce" Sarl says.  I felt that maybe he didn't just break (no weepers on the slog), that possibly he actually briefly died and was bounced back into his body. 
The Captain, who remembers Hell... did he accompany Kellhus perhaps on a jaunt outside?  Possibly to condition him for the journey to Sauglish?
As an adherent to Ajokli, would he not make and excellent 'book' for the erratic Cleric?  Trickster and assassin.
When last we leave these two, Sarl has tied the Captain's head into his beard...  four-horned brother I thought to myself - two twists of Sarl's beard tied into two twists of hair was how I pictured it.
 
The twin souled Kelmomas and his similarly endowed ancestor Celmomas;
K is the essence of a chaotic trickster and lurking assassin, we don't know whether he's working against Kellhus or Yatwer but he apparently works towards claiming his mother (who bears Gierra's symbol on her wrist...).  Perhaps this is the reason Kellhus leaves the empire to her?
C's prophecy is the fulcrum of Kellhus' Ordeal...  but who sent that vision and is it true?  Celmomas died in the field against the No-god, and the Tsuramah tasted his soul.  Only Ajokli can see the no-god; this vision of an Anasurimbor returning at the End - it really seems to hinge on the fact that the No-god is the one to cause the apocolypse.  And if the gods granted that vision to Celmomas and Kellhus (or Kelmomas) is its fruition, then WHY would they oppose him as they do?

Anyway, I'm tired and rambling.  That's enough for now.

What Came Before

  • *
  • Administrator
  • Emwama
  • *****
  • Posts: 0
    • View Profile
    • First Second Apocalypse
« Reply #1 on: June 03, 2013, 04:05:15 pm »
Quote from: Wilshire
I'll hopefully come back to this later when I'm not cramming for a test, but the prophecy only says an Anasurimbor will return at the end of the world. This is why Moe Sr war, or Kell is, the harbinger.
This isn't really the fulcrum of the Ordeal though is it? The point of the Ordeal is to shut down the consult before they resurrect Mog. Kell thinks that they are close not because of the prophecy, which I don't think he believes anyways, but because of his encounters with the consult in the first series.

What Came Before

  • *
  • Administrator
  • Emwama
  • *****
  • Posts: 0
    • View Profile
    • First Second Apocalypse
« Reply #2 on: June 03, 2013, 04:05:55 pm »
Quote from: Madness
Lol, good luck, Wilshire. Had a social psyc exam this morning - think I handled it pretty well.

I'll just add some factuals and interpretives for now, Curethan ;):

- Followers of Ajolki are the true Narindar - not to be confused with Narindar, those mortal vassals that simply kill for the Gods. The Narindar proper wear their hair long. They are ritual assassins - all aspects of that social ritual are Holy to the Narindar, observed with scriptural reverence, culminating in the momentary divinity of murder.

- "'The Four-Horned Brother ... Do you know why he is shunned by the others? Why my Cult and my Cult alone is condemned by the Tusk?' [Nameless Narindar]

'Ajolki is the Fool' [White-Luck Warrior]...

'He only seems such because he sees what the others do not see... What you do not see ... The blindness of the sighted' [Nameless Narindar]"(WLW, p574).

- "Devotion? The Brother cares not for our cares, only that we murder in His Name" [White-Luck Warrior] (p586).

I don't have TJE on me right now either having lend copies to a couple friends but there are a lot of good introspective moments from Kelmomas concerning Ajolki in AE - who I think is top pick for Ajolki's Avatar.

What Came Before

  • *
  • Administrator
  • Emwama
  • *****
  • Posts: 0
    • View Profile
    • First Second Apocalypse
« Reply #3 on: June 03, 2013, 04:06:24 pm »
Quote from: Madness
Damn, I was responding to Duskweaver's post and I had to pop back here - sometimes, before returning to a kind of cognitive baseline, I like to envision different circumstances as yielding insight by merit of their collective acknowledgement - a zeitgeist of noosphere, as it were.

Nerdanel:

Ajolki = Sil, King of the Inchoroi?

What Came Before

  • *
  • Administrator
  • Emwama
  • *****
  • Posts: 0
    • View Profile
    • First Second Apocalypse
« Reply #4 on: June 03, 2013, 04:06:32 pm »
Quote from: Triskele
I touched on this in another thread, but I wonder if we're supposed to read anything into the letters for "Loki" existing with "Ajokli." 

They're both trickster gods of some kind, right?

What Came Before

  • *
  • Administrator
  • Emwama
  • *****
  • Posts: 0
    • View Profile
    • First Second Apocalypse
« Reply #5 on: June 03, 2013, 04:06:37 pm »
Quote from: Madness
Loki reflects the Triskster archetype of Norse mythology.

My commentary in the other thread very much reflects Joseph Campbell's body of work. There are seemingly very clear archetypes, which emerge from analyzing many, many human narratives. Campbell in many ways was building off of Jung's work. For the most part, I've associated Ajolki with the classical Triskster, excepting in light of AE's evidence that he might see the No-God, which recontextualizes that entity away from the classic archetype within the context of TSA's narrative - he seems a Trickster and a Fool because he "claims" to believe in things the other Gods know don't exist.

That is, if he isn't the God who was an Inchoroi, as Wilshire and I have been searching for...

What Came Before

  • *
  • Administrator
  • Emwama
  • *****
  • Posts: 0
    • View Profile
    • First Second Apocalypse
« Reply #6 on: June 03, 2013, 04:06:45 pm »
Quote from: Curethan
Quote from: Wilshire
I'll hopefully come back to this later when I'm not cramming for a test, but the prophecy only says an Anasurimbor will return at the end of the world. This is why Moe Sr war, or Kell is, the harbinger.
This isn't really the fulcrum of the Ordeal though is it? The point of the Ordeal is to shut down the consult before they resurrect Mog. Kell thinks that they are close not because of the prophecy, which I don't think he believes anyways, but because of his encounters with the consult in the first series.

Perhaps fulcrum is not the word I was searching for. 
I meant that the prophecy is about a son of Celmomas returning to lead his people at the end of the world.  Mog is the end of the world incarnate. I son't see how the prophecy can exclude the no-god's existence.
(And Seswatha is supposed to be there to witness the end... come to think of it he was a pretty good trickster, sneaking into Golgotteroth and lying to Nau, getting off the wall, banging the emperor's wife, hiding the heron spear etc)

Quote from: Madness
Loki reflects the Triskster archetype of Norse mythology.

My commentary in the other thread very much reflects Joseph Campbell's body of work. There are seemingly very clear archetypes, which emerge from analyzing many, many human narratives. Campbell in many ways was building off of Jung's work. For the most part, I've associated Ajolki with the classical Triskster, excepting in light of AE's evidence that he might see the No-God, which recontextualizes that entity away from the classic archetype within the context of TSA's narrative - he seems a Trickster and a Fool because he "claims" to believe in things the other Gods know don't exist.

**edit:  Triskster!!!  Ajokli is Triskele!!!**

Hmm, what about Coyote and Anansi.  Trickster gods, but a lot less malevolent than Loki iirc.

I feel like the compensatory gods, or at least their realms, their powers over the objective world and their portfolios are made from the aggregated experience and PoV's of the souls they have collected.
Those like Ajokli... whether bellicose or punitive, idk... might depend on less direct metaphysical attachments.

Quote from: Madness
That is, if he isn't the God who was an Inchoroi, as Wilshire and I have been searching for...

For me, the logos as a defining trait of ensouled creatures allows some degree of choice - that is, a creature cannot be damned unless there is some choice involved in its actions (stoats and sranc can happily indulge in child rape because they cannot apprehend the logos).
Now, if humans are in the habit (or simply have a proclivity) of dedicating their souls to various dieties or otherwise leaving their subjective frames in the outside (see ancestor intervention) and the Non-men sought oblivion and a means to becoming (as opposed to persisting in the outside), what spiritual leftovers did the Inchoroi have before they dedicated themselves as a species to pursuits that would damn them all?

What Came Before

  • *
  • Administrator
  • Emwama
  • *****
  • Posts: 0
    • View Profile
    • First Second Apocalypse
« Reply #7 on: June 03, 2013, 04:06:57 pm »
Quote from: Triskele
Nau Coyote??

What Came Before

  • *
  • Administrator
  • Emwama
  • *****
  • Posts: 0
    • View Profile
    • First Second Apocalypse
« Reply #8 on: June 03, 2013, 04:07:04 pm »
Quote from: Ajokli
I thought this was about me....*sigh*

What Came Before

  • *
  • Administrator
  • Emwama
  • *****
  • Posts: 0
    • View Profile
    • First Second Apocalypse
« Reply #9 on: June 03, 2013, 04:07:11 pm »
Quote from: Madness
It's always been about you ;).

What Came Before

  • *
  • Administrator
  • Emwama
  • *****
  • Posts: 0
    • View Profile
    • First Second Apocalypse
« Reply #10 on: June 03, 2013, 04:07:19 pm »
Quote from: Duskweaver
Quote from: Triskele
Nau Coyote??
Now Coyote? New Coyote? No-Coyote? How is a coyote like a three-legged dog?

I am in an unusually whimsical mood this morning.

What Came Before

  • *
  • Administrator
  • Emwama
  • *****
  • Posts: 0
    • View Profile
    • First Second Apocalypse
« Reply #11 on: June 03, 2013, 04:07:28 pm »
Quote from: Wilshire
Quote from: Duskweaver
Quote from: Triskele
Nau Coyote??
How is a coyote like a three-legged dog?

I dunno... how?

What Came Before

  • *
  • Administrator
  • Emwama
  • *****
  • Posts: 0
    • View Profile
    • First Second Apocalypse
« Reply #12 on: June 03, 2013, 04:07:35 pm »
Quote from: Wilshire
Since we are going on about gods in this thread, I thought this was a very interesting bit from Mother-Supreme.
"Birth and War alone can seize - and seize She does!"

Maybe our God of War (who is that.. Gilgaol or something? Terrible with gods, and worse at spelling) has a much larger part to play. If he is worth mention in Psatma's rant alongside Yatwer, he must be powerful indeed.

What Came Before

  • *
  • Administrator
  • Emwama
  • *****
  • Posts: 0
    • View Profile
    • First Second Apocalypse
« Reply #13 on: June 03, 2013, 04:07:56 pm »
Quote from: Madness
You got the spelling and the name right, actually.

I think that all the most powerful of the Hundred are going to play their hand in events to come... after all, this is the first time the Cults' can exercise agency in a long time.

What Came Before

  • *
  • Administrator
  • Emwama
  • *****
  • Posts: 0
    • View Profile
    • First Second Apocalypse
« Reply #14 on: June 03, 2013, 04:08:03 pm »
Quote from: Duskweaver
Quote from: Wilshire
I dunno... how?
It was a reference to Triskele's name, which I assume is a Gene Wolfe reference. There are some correspondences, though, the most obvious ones being that both Coyote and Triskele (the three-legged dog from Wolfe's Book of the New Sun, not our Triskele AFAIK ;) ) come back from the dead and act as psychopomps and as messengers of the Absolute. A form of the triskele, the walknot, is a symbol of Odin, who is (among other things) a Trickster whose associated animal is the Raven (who is also associated with Coyote - in some First Nations myths, they're two faces of the same entity). Coyote and Triskele also share the trait of being the more 'human'/'approachable'/comprehensible representative/companion/'pet' of the Creator.

But I was just being, as I said, whimsical.

Quote
Maybe our God of War (who is that.. Gilgaol or something? Terrible with gods, and worse at spelling) has a much larger part to play.
Doesn't Kellhus claim that, "of all the Gods, Gilgaƶl burns most brightly within me", or am I misremembering?