The Second Apocalypse
Earwa => The Aspect-Emperor => The Unholy Consult => Topic started by: Madness on August 07, 2017, 02:15:30 am
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Tomorrow makes it five days until Zaudunyanicon!
It's looking to be quite intimate and I'm going to do my best to make sure - so long as Bakker consents - that his "Talk to Fanatics" and Q&A from Friday night are recorded and posted online.
To include those who can't attend I thought I'd make this thread here to field questions for the Q&A as I'm almost positive that attendance is so small that Bakker will be able to answer a question from everyone attending and then some.
Cheers.
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Thanks. I have two burning questions.
1. What is the (true) fate of Shae, or alternatively, any hints as to where I might get a hint about his fate?
2. What did Kellhus mean when he said to Proyas that at one point the Inchoroi must win?
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Awesome, I'll stick in my most recent ones I forgot to add to the AMA.
1) How did the Tall become Tall?
2) Was Sil huge and wingless, grafted differently to Aurax and Aurang?
3) Can you explain the Excutiata, is it coincidence that it's reffered to as the Inverse Fire. Though it being based on pre-Arkfall statuary...that's interesting.
4) And a silly one. Why do the Mandate and Scarlet Spires wear the same colours...isn't that confusing. (I seem to remember the Mandate having both blue and yellow robes in PON before adopting a uniform red.
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What is the purpose of the Ekkinû? Who took it from the Umbilicus and why?
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Do the Ceshaurim salt when hit by a chorae, or just die? Also, (potential spoiler) will the great hero Likaro make his appearance in The No-God?
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Also, (potential spoiler) will the great hero Likaro make his appearance in The No-God?
THIS!
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Who do the Zeumi fight in their Satakhanic warships?
What is in Atrithau to justify merchants travelling so far through Sranc infested wastes to get there?
Are all the Norsirai actually blond, or is this just a literary device?
What is the fourth original Gnostic School (after Mangaecca, Mihtrulic & Sohonc)?
Has the Celmomian Prophecy been fulfilled as of the end of The Unholy Consult?
What was the significance of the scene at the end of TTT between the child and the Synthese?
What is the Meta-God?
If he complains, tell him it's his own fault for appealing to nerds ;D
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I'm starting to think we are better off not having him answer any questions.
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If the Dunyain have remastered the basic Tekne, then have they created any new weapons races or the grafting process?
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When a person is possessed by the divine, is the end result merely an incarnation of the god wearing the person's flesh, or is the personality filtered through the human's soul/brain to form a sort of synthesis?
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As a founding remember of the Consult, at what point did Mekeritrig "ride against the No-God"?
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As a founding remember of the Consult, at what point did Mekeritrig "ride against the No-God"?
+1
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I'm starting to think we are better off not having him answer any questions.
A sober man finds solace in mystery ;)
I agree though, getting answers kind of ruins the fun.
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Bakker is far too cagey and too much of a troll to spill anything major that he has up his sleeve.
So the answers you get are going to be either very minor spoilers, deliberate misdirection, or outright made up bs.
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Lol. Apologies for being short, Likaro, but I'm wildly hungover and I have zero patience for "fair-weather readers."
Don't watch the recording of the Q&A and disregard all extratextual statements? It's really not hard...
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Alas Madness, to not watch the symposium is not an option on the benjuka plate ... ever are men tempted by the forbidden . If it is given, it will be taken!
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Lol. Such animals we are.
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Does Maithanet have any children hidden in Summa?
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Will we meet Cnaiur's other children in the No-God?
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Are souls conscious after their physical body dies? In other words, are the souls in the Hells actually aware that Ciphrang are torturing them? Or are they effectively p-zombies?
(This question was prompted by Warhammer 40K being brought up in another thread. In 40K, almost everyone is technically 'damned' - after death, their souls are ripped apart and devoured by daemons who feast on the soul's emotional content - but almost no human soul is strong-willed enough to actually retain any sense of self or anything we would call consciousness after death, so in a sense their soul's fate is irrelevant.)
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How about this one,
Ask Bakker if he shelved some revelations/things to be revealed later because of the No-God series?
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Wilshire and I will be deliberating on what questions to put forth as we drive down to London to head back to my place and then the hotel.
If you have more questions, get them in thread sharpish!
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Ask him if he has any plans to license Earwa, I need a 30 inch Golgotterath and some Nonman ishroi figurines.
Can you Skype it, so some of us far away can listen in.
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In response to my question regarding the lack of clarity in the writing, on July 28th, in this forum, Mr. Bakker stated;
That said, the only book I put more work into was TDTCB, so your sense of haste actually has no basis on the composition side. I actually went through and rewrote the ending for 'clarity's sake' no less than four times (!!) based on feedback from different beta readers, which is what makes your appraisal of the 'general reaction,' to be honest, hard to believe. The Amazon and blog reviews don't reflect it.
Given the reviews on Goodreads and Amazon I think it is becoming very apparent that lack of clarity and opacity is a common criticism of TUC. Is there any chance that future installments in the series will see you try to strike a better balance between the poetic allusiveness of the prose and the clarity of the narrative?
When did Ajokli first begin to possess Kellhus (and don't let him get away with telling you that Kellhus was always possessed because what comes after determines what comes before!)
And finally, can Mr. Bakker comment on his decision to keep the escape from Ishterebinth off-camera? Given the cliff-hanger ending of this section in TGO, I think readers were expecting to see this narrative thread wrapped up in spectacular fashion. It was frustrating that an opportunity for a spectacular large action set-piece was ignored.
Thanks for considering these questions.
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Not sure if I'm too late, but should anyone get the chance I am curious if RSB might shed some light on the suite of characters from the opening of TDTCB, particularly the Bard with one blind eye. For example, is there anything we might glean from real world mythology in regards to the nature of that character in particular, or are is that part of the narrative/timeline going to be more or less left alone from here on out?
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Follow-up here (http://www.second-apocalypse.com/index.php?topic=2363.0).
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Are souls conscious after their physical body dies? In other words, are the souls in the Hells actually aware that Ciphrang are torturing them? Or are they effectively p-zombies?
(This question was prompted by Warhammer 40K being brought up in another thread. In 40K, almost everyone is technically 'damned' - after death, their souls are ripped apart and devoured by daemons who feast on the soul's emotional content - but almost no human soul is strong-willed enough to actually retain any sense of self or anything we would call consciousness after death, so in a sense their soul's fate is irrelevant.)
I always thought Kellhus was an early version of the Holy Emprah and he was merely fighting the unification wars.
:-[
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I always thought Kellhus was an early version of the Holy Emprah and he was merely fighting the unification wars.
There are quite a few points of thematic intersection between TSA and 40K. But then there are also some between TSA and the Elder Scrolls games, and of course between TSA and Tolkien. But who can truly fathom the Darkness of cultural and philosophical influences that comes before all fictional works?
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I always thought Kellhus was an early version of the Holy Emprah and he was merely fighting the unification wars.
There are quite a few points of thematic intersection between TSA and 40K. But then there are also some between TSA and the Elder Scrolls games, and of course between TSA and Tolkien. But who can truly fathom the Darkness of cultural and philosophical influences that comes before all fictional works?
It can't be a real influence if Bakker wasn't aware of whatever that thing is, but that doesn't mean one can't make the argument that there are similarities and parallels even though Bakker didn't put them there intentionally.
Not to say he is or isn't a 40k guy or any of the rest, I don't know, but whether the parallels are there and whether or not Bakker intended them to be are entirely separate questions in my mind. I often struggle when I don't separate those two ideas.
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I think the parallels we see in the text are worth just as much as whatever the author intended to put there.
There's also something neat in that Bakker's text can be so unintentional yet hit upon so many prevalent thematic and character archetypes within Humanity's Greater Mythos.
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I think the parallels we see in the text are worth just as much as whatever the author intended to put there.
That's what I was driving at really. Which is why I separate the two, because I get lost in "but what if that wasn't the intent", rather than enjoying the connection.
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Umberto Eco in the postscript to the Name of the Rose wrote that once a book is written the author shouldn't comment on it so that he / she wouldn't get in the way of interpretations.
I wonder what Bakker thinks about this view, which in a way saves us from this obsession of what the author really meant here or there. Any work of fiction is merely a tool which generates different interpretations.
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It can't be a real influence if Bakker wasn't aware of whatever that thing is, but that doesn't mean one can't make the argument that there are similarities and parallels even though Bakker didn't put them there intentionally.
Not to say he is or isn't a 40k guy or any of the rest, I don't know, but whether the parallels are there and whether or not Bakker intended them to be are entirely separate questions in my mind. I often struggle when I don't separate those two ideas.
Warhammer, in all its incarnations, steals liberally from a variety of sources ranging from Dune's Navigators to Sumerian gods. The broad base of source material means Warhammer has similarities with a wide array of works, especially those who tap into the same source material.
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It can't be a real influence if Bakker wasn't aware of whatever that thing is, but that doesn't mean one can't make the argument that there are similarities and parallels even though Bakker didn't put them there intentionally.
Not to say he is or isn't a 40k guy or any of the rest, I don't know, but whether the parallels are there and whether or not Bakker intended them to be are entirely separate questions in my mind. I often struggle when I don't separate those two ideas.
Warhammer, in all its incarnations, steals liberally from a variety of sources ranging from Dune's Navigators to Sumerian gods. The broad base of source material means Warhammer has similarities with a wide array of works, especially those who tap into the same source material.
Makes plenty of sense. I should look into it some time.
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It can't be a real influence if Bakker wasn't aware of whatever that thing is, but that doesn't mean one can't make the argument that there are similarities and parallels even though Bakker didn't put them there intentionally.
I would argue that we are all influenced by lots of things we're not consciously aware of.
An example. A friend of mine, who likes to play elves (or the equivalent) in fantasy RPGs, always gives his characters names that sound sort of vaguely Akkadian. Now, he doesn't do this deliberately. He just thinks those sorts of names sound right for elves somehow. The reason he thinks this is because, years and years ago (in 2002), I started giving all my elf NPCs Akkadian names whenever I GMed an RPG that had elf NPCs in it. And the reason I did that in 2002 is because I heard Therion's The Siren of the Woods (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppzVo8Unors) for the first time and really liked it (it literally completely changed my taste in music). And that song is sung in Akkadian. My friend hasn't ever listened to that song as far as I know. And yet, when he fires up TES: Skyrim and picks a name for his Altmer character, he is being influenced, indirectly, by that Therion song that he's (probably) never heard.
But yeah, I agree that there are similarities and parallels that the author didn't consciously intend. And that we should consider those separately from deliberate homages.
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The most striking influences are clearly Dune and Tolkien. Like, sometimes I cringe a bit when I think how similar Dûnyain sounds to Dúnedain. Couldn't you have been slightly more inventive here Bakker 8)? Thematically, the Dûnyain are the Bene Gesserit (focus on reading emotions and physical prowess, selective breeding for the Kwisatz Haderach/Absolute)+ a bit of Tleilaxu (all male, having turned their females into Axolotl tanks/Whale Mothers). I originally started reading Bakker because I was aching for more Dune (I tried reading a bit of the 7th novel written by his hack son, but it was literally unbearably bad) and Bakker seemed to have deliciously "ripped off" some of my favorite elements from Dune. In time I come to love Bakker's series for what it is though. I've never been a huge Sword and Sorcery guy, but I was totally amazed reading about the Battle of Kiyuth, seeing sorcery being described so beautifully and destructive.
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It can't be a real influence if Bakker wasn't aware of whatever that thing is, but that doesn't mean one can't make the argument that there are similarities and parallels even though Bakker didn't put them there intentionally.
I would argue that we are all influenced by lots of things we're not consciously aware of.
Ah. By "wasn't aware of" I meant things he hadn't seen. ie if I don't know anything about Warhammer and haven't read or seen anything about it, its not an influencer of mine.
Of course, this isn't explicitly the case, we are influenced by things that influence us (clearly), and indirectly by the things that influenced those things, and on and on forever.
But yeah, I agree that there are similarities and parallels that the author didn't consciously intend. And that we should consider those separately from deliberate homages.
Right. This was my intent.
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Like, sometimes I cringe a bit when I think how similar Dûnyain sounds to Dúnedain. Couldn't you have been slightly more inventive here Bakker 8)
I always thought the similarity was deliberate, to fit with the idea that Kellhus is a kind of inversion of Aragorn. Heir of an ancient line of long-vanished northern kings, raised in a hidden valley, may well have non-human ancestry, physically and mentally greater than other men, ruler of a reunited kingdom (or new empire), the returning king who was prophesied, etc...
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The Dune-yain is how I've always pronounced it internally.
And tleilaxu, the probability trance and hyperintellect are pure Mentat, so you have to throw them in the mix, as well.
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There are a number of "obvious" parallels that we readers bring to the Amiolas that Bakker didn't intend. His choice antecedents are far more limited than ours, apparently. But that makes the comparisons no less apt or insightful, as far as my reading goes.