The Second Apocalypse

Earwa => The Great Ordeal => The Aspect-Emperor => TGO ARC Discussion => Topic started by: MSJ on July 07, 2016, 09:50:20 pm

Title: [TGO SPOILERS] The Gods
Post by: MSJ on July 07, 2016, 09:50:20 pm
I'm beginning to believe there is whole lot more going on with Onkis and Ajokli. Particularly, that Ajokli is more like a Loki figure, manipulating the Gods and Men to his own purpose. Maybe he is trying to take control of the Outside, but take a closer look at his entry in the glossary.

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Ajokli—The God of thievery and deception. Though listed among the primary Gods in The Chronicle of the Tusk, there is no true Cult of Ajokli, but rather an informal network of devotees scattered across the great cities of the Three Seas. Ajokli is oft mentioned in the secondary scriptures of the different Cults, sometimes as a mischievous companion of the Gods, other times as a cruel or malicious competitor. In the Mar’eddat, he is the faithless husband of Gierra.

Take note of the bolded, sometimes described as a companion of the Gods? I just believe there is more here and would love your thoughts. Here is Onkis's entry and her obvious connection to TDTCB and Nonmen.

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Onkis—The Goddess of hope and aspiration. One of the so-called Compensatory Gods, who reward devotion in life with paradise in the afterlife, Onkis draws followers from all walks of life, though rarely in great numbers. She is only mentioned twice in the Higarata, and in the (likely apocryphal) Parnishtas she is portrayed as a prophetess, not of the future, but of the motivations of Men. The so-called “shakers” belong to an extreme branch of the Cult, where the devotees ritually strive to be “possessed” by the Goddess. Her symbol is the Copper Tree (which also happens to be the device of the legendary Nonman Mansion of Siol, though no link has been established.)

The bolded brought me to flip through and see what the glossary had to say about Nonmen, here is the part that is intriguing.


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Nonmen—At one time the pre-eminent race of Eärwa, but now much reduced. The Nonmen call themselves ji’cûnû roi, “the People of Dawn,” for reasons they can no longer remember.

The People of Dawn and they can no longer remember why they call themselves that, huh. The dawn of the Gods? Is Ajokli some great Nonman whom ascended to God-Hood and is manipulating them to try and avoid damnation for him and his brethren? I think Locke nailed the Onkis part of the equation, but what about Ajokli? What makes him so damn special?


Title: Re: The Gods
Post by: locke on July 08, 2016, 06:44:09 am
just want to throw in these from the false sun first:

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Now that he had seen.

“Very well,” Shaeönanra conceded, bowing in the shallow, cursive way of the Umeri. He turned to the attendant. “Summon our…” He paused as if at the humour of the word Onkhis had delivered to him. “Our guest.”

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A flush of horror. Shaeönanra tensed against the sudden loosening in his bowel, not quite believing that the Inchoroi had dared name it aloud. Xir’kirimakra. The Inverse Fire. For a heartbeat he found his Voice divided between mere fear and what mattered. What? Did Aurang seek to seduce the Sohonc Archideme? Could he not see that Titirga was not one to suffer rivals, that Shaeönanra himself would be doomed were he to embrace their Holy Consult?

But these were vain questions. They fell away as quickly as Onkhis offered them up, so flimsy were the concerns that moved them. All that mattered, the Ground’s only consequential thing, was what he had seen…

Damnation.

Title: Re: The Gods
Post by: locke on July 08, 2016, 06:52:18 am
Now TDTCB:

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Onkis...beloved.

God has a thousand faces," Sejenus had said, "but men only one heart." Every great faith was a labyrinth possessed of innumerable small grottoes, half-secret places where the abstractions fell away and where the objects of worship became small enough to comfort daily anxieties, familiar enough to weep openly about petty things. Inrau had found his grotto in the shrine of Onkis, the Singer-in-the-Dark, the Aspect who stood at the heart of all men, moving them to forever grasp far more than they could hold.

He knelt. Sobs wracked him.

If only he could have forgotten... forgotten what the Mandate had taught him. If he could've done that, then this last heartbreaking revelation would have been meaningless to him. If only Achamian had not come. the price was too high.

Onkis. Could she forgive him for returning to the Mandate?

The idol was worked in white marble, eyes closed with the sunken look of the dead. At first glance she appeared to be the severed head of a woman, beautiful yet vaguely common, mounted on a pole. Anything more than a glance, however, revealed the pole to be a miniature tree, like those cultivated by the ancient Norsirai, only worked in bronze. Branches poked through her parted lips and swept across her face--nature reborn through human lips. Other branches reached behind to break through her frozen hair. Her image never failed to stir something within him, and this is why he always returned to her: she was this stirring, the dark place where the flurries of his thought arose. She came before him.

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Onkis, the Singer-in-the-Dark, the Aspect who stood at the heart of all men, moving them to forever grasp... she was this stirring, the dark place where the flurries of his thought arose. She came before him.


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She came before him.

Onkis is the goddess of the darkness that comes before.
Title: Re: The Gods
Post by: Madness on July 11, 2016, 03:58:21 pm
Yeah, since we long ago broke down that it seems Onkis speaks to Inrau in TDTCB, I've always found those descriptions interesting in the context of the Dunyain and their relationship with Onkis (unbeknownst to them).

EDIT: (We specifically being locke, I, and others in the Almanac threads for The Darkness That Comes Before.)
Title: Re: The Gods
Post by: MisterGuyMan on July 11, 2016, 06:47:17 pm
Is this the head on a pole the is referenced in the Kellhus POV chapters?

Would Kellhus be an avatar/servant or enemy of Onkis?  TTT's glossary says thus:
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The Goddess of hope and aspiration,  One of the so-called compensatory Gods, who reward devotion in life with paradise in the afterlife....She is only mentioned twice in the (likely apocryphal) Parnishtas she is not portrayed as a prophetess, not of the future, but of the motivations of Men.
If she were a Bellicose god, a god who sees worship as sycophantic and rewards followers that strive against her, then Kellhus striving to come before her would actually be no big deal.  She's a compensatory god though so she rewards followers not rivals.
Title: Re: The Gods
Post by: Madness on July 11, 2016, 10:54:26 pm
It's difficult at this point to parse what her relationship is with the Dunyain, MisterGuyMan.

In other threads, ARC readers have suggested that she might be the "head on a pole behind you."
Title: Re: The Gods
Post by: Wic on July 12, 2016, 01:27:13 am
Oh man, I love the idea of Ajokli being not quite one of the gods. I believe RSB mentioned in one of his answers on here that ciphrang are the ascension of the more remarkable souls.  Stands to reason that at least one or two men/nonmen may have achieved something greater.

I was wondering recently if anyone - inchoroi in particular - benefit from having the god shattered into a million warring splinters, and how that lines up with their arrival in Earwa. Maintaining that schism leaves the god in a weakened, inattentive state, and might be of interest to those who war with the connection to the Outside.

Maybe Ajokli has something similar in mind.
Title: The Gods
Post by: locke on July 12, 2016, 08:13:00 am
Ok.
So the head on the pole scene. Human hell is a lake of fire as we well know, and this is what kellhus sees, the sons, crocodilian in a lake of fire imbibing souls.

Then he FLIPS it to other skies other sons, and here it is a sky of fire that feeds and sustains the equally ravenous sons.

He comes to the shore that is here, always here, gazes without sight across waters that are fire, and sees the Sons swimming, lolling and bloated and bestial, raising babes as wineskins, and drinking deep their shrieks.

So he seizes the lake and the thousand babes and the void and the massing-descending Sons and the lamentations-that-are-honey, and he rips them about the pole, transforms here into here, this-place-inside-where-you-sitnow, where he has always hidden, always watched, where Other Sons, recline, drinking from bowls that are skies, savouring the moaning broth of the Countless, bloating for the sake of bloat, slaking hungers like chasms, pits that eternity had rendered Holy …

Now. Look at what the boatmans songs tell us about the sky of fire and the no men fear of damnation.

O’ Siöl! What love hath thou remaining? What fury hath thou loosed? What destruction? We who know the ground, plot in its bones, Prepare to grapple the endless, Eating Sky!

Facing the sun, there Imimorûl dug a great well, And bid his children enter. In the bone of the world, there he conjured song and light, And his children feared no more the starving Sky.

 Here! Here Imimorûl drew down the face of the mountain, Bid us seize the halls of the House Primordial—here! Here lies a home that cleaves the tempest asunder, A home that breaks the shining beak of the dawn.

And the rest of the song repeatedly refers to the sky as the "Starving" as does I think the black cauldron soul occasionally refer to the Sky as the Starving.

This makes sense if the nonmen view hell as a sky of fire, rather than a lake, and the "principle" of the denizens of hell is one of Starving, a starving that seeks their souls out to munch upon for eternity.

Nameless gods howling like wolves at a silent gate or some such similar quote. And my long unfulfilled promise to examine the boding text of the wolf gate in cil aujis. Is reminded.

The nonmen seek to barricade themselves away in oblivion, both the figurative we know so well and in the literal delving that drives them into a subterranean existence of hiding.

And note the idea here that immorul invents sorcery in the passage, and this is seen as a source of Salvation, a way to fight back against the denizens of hell a way to tear the tempest asunder, a way to no longer fear damnation of the starving Sky.






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Title: Re: The Gods
Post by: H on July 12, 2016, 10:16:48 am
This makes sense if the nonmen view hell as a sky of fire, rather than a lake, and the "principle" of the denizens of hell is one of Starving, a starving that seeks their souls out to munch upon for eternity.

This coincidences with the Nonmen in Akka's last dream looking upwards into the fire in the Golden Room and weeping.
Title: Re: The Gods
Post by: themerchant on July 12, 2016, 02:54:12 pm
Ok.
So the head on the pole scene. Human hell is a lake of fire as we well know, and this is what kellhus sees, the sons, crocodilian in a lake of fire imbibing souls.

Then he FLIPS it to other skies other sons, and here it is a sky of fire that feeds and sustains the equally ravenous sons.

He comes to the shore that is here, always here, gazes without sight across waters that are fire, and sees the Sons swimming, lolling and bloated and bestial, raising babes as wineskins, and drinking deep their shrieks.

So he seizes the lake and the thousand babes and the void and the massing-descending Sons and the lamentations-that-are-honey, and he rips them about the pole, transforms here into here, this-place-inside-where-you-sitnow, where he has always hidden, always watched, where Other Sons, recline, drinking from bowls that are skies, savouring the moaning broth of the Countless, bloating for the sake of bloat, slaking hungers like chasms, pits that eternity had rendered Holy …

Now. Look at what the boatmans songs tell us about the sky of fire and the no men fear of damnation.

O’ Siöl! What love hath thou remaining? What fury hath thou loosed? What destruction? We who know the ground, plot in its bones, Prepare to grapple the endless, Eating Sky!

Facing the sun, there Imimorûl dug a great well, And bid his children enter. In the bone of the world, there he conjured song and light, And his children feared no more the starving Sky.

 Here! Here Imimorûl drew down the face of the mountain, Bid us seize the halls of the House Primordial—here! Here lies a home that cleaves the tempest asunder, A home that breaks the shining beak of the dawn.

And the rest of the song repeatedly refers to the sky as the "Starving" as does I think the black cauldron soul occasionally refer to the Sky as the Starving.

This makes sense if the nonmen view hell as a sky of fire, rather than a lake, and the "principle" of the denizens of hell is one of Starving, a starving that seeks their souls out to munch upon for eternity.

Nameless gods howling like wolves at a silent gate or some such similar quote. And my long unfulfilled promise to examine the boding text of the wolf gate in cil aujis. Is reminded.

The nonmen seek to barricade themselves away in oblivion, both the figurative we know so well and in the literal delving that drives them into a subterranean existence of hiding.

And note the idea here that immorul invents sorcery in the passage, and this is seen as a source of Salvation, a way to fight back against the denizens of hell a way to tear the tempest asunder, a way to no longer fear damnation of the starving Sky.






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Ties in with the dude that was hiding his deeds from the gods with his "hiding" place.