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Messages - Francis Buck

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256
General Earwa / Re: TSA related art and stuff. (VI)
« on: March 13, 2017, 05:01:27 pm »
Eye of the Witch
(credit to Somnambulist for the Trinket)
(credit to Wilshire for initial procurement of, and proceeding shipping fees for, vital artistic influence)


257
General Misc. / Re: What are you watching?
« on: March 13, 2017, 01:03:19 am »
Started The OA on Netflix... lost interest midway through episode 2.
Started The Magicians... lost interest midway through episode 3.
Persevered through Vikings... steadily grew less interested through the seasons.  Finished the most recent episodes. 'I must have Vengeance!' Meh.

I think something is wrong with me.

Nah, all of those shows have some considerable flaws (well I haven't seen The Magicians but if it turns into the next Sopranos I'll eat crow). The best fantasy I've seen on TV recently -- which basically makes it one of the best ever, given the competition -- is the BBC adaptation of Johnathan Strange & Mr. Norrel. Definitely worth checking out, especially if you haven't read the book.

I'm just twiddling my thumbs now waiting for Better Call Saul and Fargo...

258
The Great Ordeal / Re: [TGO SPOILERS] Kellhus and the Voice.
« on: March 12, 2017, 07:36:36 pm »
Proyas the Place is the important part. He is certainly extremely important during the timespace of TGO, even in PoN. What we are saying is extremely similar, but I'd phrase it as such: The Kellhus made people special by choosing them, not the other way around. I think your definition is closer to "the author made the character, so its therefore specials" which, while true, doesn't satisfy my need for in-world explanations. 

As Madness says, he might have been groomed before we even saw him on screen by Maithanet/Moenghus specifically for Kellhus. That's something like 30+ years of conditioning directly and indirectly by Dunyain. He's a well shaped tool, but uncoupled from the dunyain who knows what he might have been.

Also, Achamian isn't really special either. He's the Mandate-Place that was stepped upon to gain the Gnosis. The Prince-Place was fulfilled by Proyas, but could have been any number of Princes that had functionally similar experiences - which is what I was attempting to demonstrate above.

The point is this :They are all parts of a plan that gets from point A to point B (TTT). The Places (people) in between are inconsequential in the specifics, but extremely vital in their generalities. Kellhus needed to be taught the gnosis, he needed a prince to back him, he needed later a queen to bare his children, good generals to lead his war efforts to groom to be his exalt-generals, and eventual general-in-fact while he was gone. He needed many different positioned filled, but they are all just pieces on the benjuka plate. When he moves them, the rules change - the pieces just do what they are told.

Now that's Classic Wilshire  ;). Kickass post.

259
General Earwa / Re: TSA related art and stuff. (VI)
« on: March 12, 2017, 12:24:38 am »
The No-God walks.

http://spiralhorizon.deviantart.com/art/No-God-low-668418917

Fantastic man, love the style and the slightly different sort of take on the No-God that looks even more ominous somehow.

260
The Great Ordeal / Re: Kellhus' return to Momemn and the Hundred
« on: March 11, 2017, 12:35:50 am »
Yup, that's what I was referancing. Goldy-horns there sounds like the A-man. 4 horns ... four horned brother.... sounds like Ajokli lol.

Another reason for that, at least for me, is celmomas was pretty dilusional. I think if the god that apeared looked like a pregnant woman he still would have figured it was Gilgaol. Making the mistake that his seed would save the world rather than end it is pretty big, so his idea of which god was there doesn't sway me.

Interesting, what makes you so sure Celmomas was mistaken out of curiosity? The phrasing was pretty interpretive to me. And after all, if the vision IS of Ajokli, can we really take his word for it?

261
The Great Ordeal / Re: Kellhus' return to Momemn and the Hundred
« on: March 11, 2017, 12:05:33 am »
Yeah,the four golden horns are definitely interesting. I have a suspicion that the entity described there is actually some kind of amalgamation of the Gods, which Celmomas simply interprets as War. The descriptions are very interpretive for sure. And badass as fuck.

262
The Great Ordeal / Re: Kellhus' return to Momemn and the Hundred
« on: March 10, 2017, 11:39:44 pm »
Oh, was it Momas? I though Psatma said Yatwer, maybe Esmi says Momas right? Could be either/both/neither lol.

Bakker "confirmed" that the earthquakes were sent by Momas in the Westeros Q&A a little whiles back (and I have no clue how anyone was supposed to figure that out from the text, though it does make sense in retrospect). But yeah, either way it seemed like a joint operation haha.


Ajokli's prophecy? I'm not quite sure I remember something like that, can you explain it? It seems I need an Elju.

Hm, do you mean the Celmomian Prophecy I mentioned? Here's the description of what Celmomas sees:
Quote
"I see him so clearly!" the high King gasped. "He's taken the sun as his charger, and he rides among us. I see him! Galloping through the hearts of my people, stirring them to wonder and fury!"
Gilgaol, War, come to claim him... Come to save, despite everything.
"Shush.. Conserve your strength, my King. The surgeons are coming."
The visions eyes were fury, his hair the tangle of warring nations, and his teeth were as whetted blades. A crown gleaned above his brow, four golden horns, clutched in the arms of four nubile virgins--the Spoils. Bones and bodies clotted the ravines of his grim expression. And his cloak smoked with the burning of fields.
Gilgaol, the Dread Father of Death, the All-Taker.
Brave, broken King...
He did not so much fly toward the high King as grow, bigger and bigger, bloating until he blotted the Whirlwind, crowded the very sky. Fire sheathed and pulsed across his four horns, streams that plummeted in skyward oblivion. He opened his hands, and lo! Another stood within the curved palms, bright as a ceremonial knife. A Norsirai, though his beard was squared and plaited in the fashion of Shir and Kyraneas. His dress was strange, and his arms and armor for the glint of Nonmen metals. Two decapitated heads swung from his girdle...
Behold the son of a hundred fathers...
Behold the end of the World...

263
The Great Ordeal / Re: Kellhus' return to Momemn and the Hundred
« on: March 10, 2017, 07:14:13 pm »
I would definitely put Yatwer and Gilgaol in a somewhat special place in the hierarchy. They are basically polar opposites, and together create the engine that cycles souls through life and death. And, as Wilshire mentioned, there is an abundance of evident miracles on Yatwer's behalf, and as of TGO, the only god we've seen genuinely incarnated (for lack of a better word) it would seem is Gilgaol, during the extended Celmomian Prophecy.


All that being said, I'm still somewhat divided on whether the instances of visible power we've seen from Yatwer is because of something unique to the deity, or if it's simply all the audience has been shown, and the other Hundred have yet to appear so vividly on-screen thus far (as Yatwer was depicted in the first trilogy, for example). I'm inclined toward it being a bit of both.

ETA:

That said, I don't think Yatwer was the entirety of the cause of the earthquake (Earwaque? Earwaquake, Earwake... whatever). All of her manipulations were mostly nudges  through people. The closest thing we saw was when the WLW's tenant building collapsed, and we got to see the cause-and-effect chain for hundreds of years in the past.

Maybe she nudged the builders to use mediocre materials in one part of the wall, or place a vulnerable point of the wall directly over the faultline - this kind of thing. If she knew there would be an ground-shaking-event such a thing would be fairly reasonable. Like you said, it opens up to many questions if its as simple as "Yatwer reached down to Earwa, and with her hands, split the ground asunder".

The earthquake was actually caused by Momas, not Yatwer, for what it's worth. Not sure how I'd even define "cause" here really, as you implied.

Also, the one possible outlier among Yatwer's interventions being more like nudges (which I otherwise agree with) is when she embodies herself out of dead sranc. The actual motivation for the characters is still sort of in the "nudge" category, but so far as outright displays of power over material reality, it's a pretty big one.

Idle thought: it's interesting that Yatwer and Gilgaol both manifest (in their own fashion) using the remains of the dead. Can't help but be reminded of how Sil is described as "wearing the festering bodies" of the fallen.


264
The Great Ordeal / Re: Who are the Dûnyain?
« on: March 08, 2017, 04:24:16 am »
LET ME TELL YOU "WHO ARE THE DUNYAIN?" IS NOT A DEAD QUESTION

Man, that gets me all sorts of psyched.

265
Arrival was great (and based on a story that could be called unadaptable), so I have great hopes for Dune.

Yeah, Arrival is possibly my favorite "alien invasion" movie ever and gave me high hopes for the kind of feelings that a proper Dune movie should hit.

Nothing short of 2001: A Space Odyssey has captured the feeling of:
(click to show/hide)

 

266
General Misc. / Re: Starcraft
« on: March 08, 2017, 02:07:22 am »
I'm actually trying to expand my horizons a bit gaming-wise, as I'm typically more of an "action-oriented" gamer (not so much literal action scenes with fighting and stuff -- even though that tends to be the case given the market) but for some reason I am inclined toward games where I have a very direct control over an "avatar" of sorts. Things like Dark Souls, MGSV, etc., appeal to me greatly, and for the same reasons that say, a Metroid or even Mario game would. Still, I've been trying to get more into strategy games as of late. The indie game Kingdom, which is basically a real-time tower defense, is a weird half-way point for me in that in combines the strategic elements with the feel of being tethered to an in-game avatar (also it has the best pixel art water FX I've ever fucking seen).

The only RTS I was ever really into at all was WC3, and I could never even beat the first mission or two of the Undead campaign (it was a while ago that I last played TBF but I doubt I'd be much better).

Nonetheless, I did enjoy failing miserably time and again and just building stupidly large bases. My thing with Starcraft (I'm assuming we're talking Starcraft 2) is I don't know where to begin, exactly. Is each expansion its own thing, or is there a basic game package I need? Is one better than the other? I haven't followed this at all aside from watching Blizzard's kick-ass cinematic trailers, but I'd be down to pick it up and tool around anyway!

267
The Great Ordeal / Re: (TGO SPOILERS) Ishterebinth
« on: March 07, 2017, 07:51:54 pm »
Pretty sure something about finding out a Ciphrang's name lets you summon it.

Oh, good call! That also dovetails interestingly (in some way I cannot yet fathom) with the Nonmen's concerns that Kellhus might be a "substitution" or some agency of the Outside.

268
The Great Ordeal / Re: (TGO SPOILERS) Ishterebinth
« on: March 07, 2017, 06:19:48 pm »
For what it's worth, "secret names" (which are also sometimes a "true" name, in a metaphysical sense) are pretty common in fantasy and myth, and I wouldn't be surprised if that was worked into Earwa's worldbuilding. That being said I'm not sure how much legit evidence there actually is for it at the moment, and I wouldn't necessarily link that Nonman line with the concept.

At the same time it totally could be. Particularly since such a thing would more than likely apply to Kellhus anyway. For example, in a lot of myths, there would be a notion of an extremely powerful deity who could only be killed/defeated by knowing their "secret name". And then, of course, there are a million and one riffs on that concept itself, so who knows.

269
The Great Ordeal / Re: nin'janjin
« on: March 04, 2017, 12:32:06 am »
I loved the reveals about Nin'janjin and the Viroi that we got in TGO. Basically the Samurai of Nonmen.

There's also an interesting line somewhere during the Battle of Dagliash in which the Sranc are referred to as "Sons of Nin'Janjin". I wonder if perhaps Nin'janjin was the first specimen the Inchoroi used to crack the Nonman's bios and create the Sranc? Might also be how they learned how to make the first Inoculation for Nin'janjin himself.

270
The Great Ordeal / Re: [TGO Spoilers] [ TUC Spoilers] MG teaser 3
« on: March 04, 2017, 12:24:52 am »
From the wiki:

Quote
Jiricet is a Nonman Siqû who raped Anasûrimbor Omindalea in 824, and then fled to Ishterebinth. When Nil’giccas refused to return him to Ûmerau, all Nonmen were expelled from the Ûmeri Empire, thus ending the Nonman Tutelage.

Omindalea later died bearing Jiricet’s child Anasûrimbor Sanna-Jephera (825-1032), called ‘Twoheart.’

http://princeofnothing.wikia.com/wiki/Jiricet

Jiricet's age and date are not known.

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