[What Came Before]

Admittedly clumsy, but here:

ETA: Sorry, added How

Who is Damned?

What actions cause Damnation (and what actions possibly allow for Salvation?)

Why are people Damned (God judges you, damnation is arbitrary like gravity is arbitrary, etc)? Also, why don't the magi put themselves into Wathi Dolls before they die?

When did Damnation begin (Because the gods arrived or were born when men achieved sentience?) Does Earwa work under natural selection or some other mechanism?

Where does Damnation happen? Is it something specific, places the gods and demons reserve for you, or does a damned soul inevitably end up in torment?

How are you Damned? (Can you dodge all the divine mansions like the Nonmen suggest, achieving oblivion in the next life? Can you sneak into Heaven by bribing your ancestors?)

[What Came Before]

taking a stab at where I'd say it happens at the soul, considering what we know of the onta and the stain I'd say they're all connected and are an objective manifestation of what in our world is a metaphysical theoretical approximation.

[What Came Before]

taking a stab at where I'd say it happens at the soul, considering what we know of the onta and the stain I'd say they're all connected and are an objective manifestation of what in our world is a metaphysical theoretical approximation.

Would you like to rephrase that? 

Anyway given what goes in Earwa, certainly many must have damned themselves beyond all hope of redemption without any use of sorcery.

No doubt, we should wait until someone like Mimara looks at Kellhus or a Cishaurim with the judging eye.  What will she see?

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Following anor's thought, I'd just add that the Dunyain, due to the cognitive and reflexive attributes of their breeding, shine in the Cishaurim's Third Sight.

It's not made exactly clear by the text what the Third Sight is, if it is the standard esoteric sight of the Cishaurim or only of Moenghus' Sect, and if it relates or not to the Judging Eye - different socially and culturally described artifacts, which are in fact one thing.

So while we're not sure what the Third Sight is, it seems, to suggest Divine Endearment of the Solitary God. The Judging Eye also claims to reflect what actually pleases the Gods. It's another level of ambiguity within the story but the Cishaurim certainly suffer fleshly death from Chorae while the Judging Eye utilizes it's supposedly sorceretic properties, religiously.

That raises another question concerning Chorae. What exactly is the Aporos? Simply another sorcery in the labyrinth or something more like the Psukhe?

[What Came Before]

I'm assuming it's a sorcery somehow based on contradiction, cognitive dissonance, etc. Not a passion based thing like Indara's Water.

[What Came Before]

What exactly is the Aporos? Simply another sorcery in the labyrinth or something more like the Psukhe?

Since it's a sorcery that turns on paradox it relates to the requirement of a soul to apprehend paradox. Going with my Earwa runs on quantum consciousness theory, it makes sense that the Chorae can lead back to the God as it does for Mimara in TJE.

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Aporos is not just based on paradox, but on negation.  That's why it was banned by Nonmen, because it was sorcery that destroyed sorcery when sorcery was their edge against the Inchoroi.  Of course that backfired by driving the school into the arms of the Inchoroi.  Oops.

[What Came Before]

Aporos is not just based on paradox, but on negation.

Scott said it was the paradox inherent to language that creates the "contradiction fields".

Specifically, here:

And much as language undoes itself in paradoxes, sorcery can likewise undo itself. The Aporos is this 'sorcery of paradox,' where the meanings that make sorcery possible are turned in on themselves to generate what might be called 'contradiction fields.'

What's interesting is paradox is the center of Penrose's ideas about consciousness (his thing is quantum consciousness). Not whether the idea is valid in RL, but how it seems to correlate with Scott's thoughts of the soul in Earwa and how, as Kellhus tells Akka, everyone on Earwa is God.

Paradox in consciousness, paradox in the Chorae, Mimara uses Chorae to see God.

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How come magi don't store their souls in Wathi dolls? Problem solved right?

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Perhaps Wathi dolls are easy to destroy.

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Well, we also know souls or at least minds of some kind are needed to keep dimensional gateways active. Seems like another eternal resting place for sorcerers.

You know, I wonder if the final series will lose its oomph if damnation is exposed at the end of TUC. But then Scott managed to transition from the largely secular PoN to the divine interference of WLW.

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During the PoN trilogy I had assumed that the Inchoroi were only damned when they reached Earwa because they were from that point subject to Earwan morality. I thought that on their homeworld they were fine and it's only because they crash landed on a planet where people considered there actions immoral that they faced damnation. Did anyone else take that from PoN?

[What Came Before]

During the PoN trilogy I had assumed that the Inchoroi were only damned when they reached Earwa because they were from that point subject to Earwan morality. I thought that on their homeworld they were fine and it's only because they crash landed on a planet where people considered there actions immoral that they faced damnation. Did anyone else take that from PoN?

Yeah, I think it was a default assumption before TWLW. I don't recall anything which would make me think otherwise before TWLW revelations.

[What Came Before]

You know, I wonder if the final series will lose its oomph if damnation is exposed

What do you mean by it being 'exposed', Saajan?

[What Came Before]

During the PoN trilogy I had assumed that the Inchoroi were only damned when they reached Earwa because they were from that point subject to Earwan morality. I thought that on their homeworld they were fine and it's only because they crash landed on a planet where people considered there actions immoral that they faced damnation. Did anyone else take that from PoN?

I thought they were traveling to find Earwa. That is why they travel the stars and head toward the very center of the galaxy. They became aware of damnation and decided to hunt down it's source.

Remember they've gone from world to world, reducing thier population to the special number that severs godly contact?