The Second Apocalypse

Earwa => The Aspect-Emperor => The Unholy Consult => Topic started by: Madness on July 30, 2017, 02:50:08 pm

Title: [TUC] The Gods and Their Agency
Post by: Madness on July 30, 2017, 02:50:08 pm
Corralling thoughts from another thread.

- How the Gods perceive historical events?
- How do the Gods influence the World?
- Etc
- Etc

Original thread here (http://www.second-apocalypse.com/index.php?topic=2272.0).
Title: Re: [TUC] The Gods and Their Agency
Post by: Dunkelheit on July 30, 2017, 04:08:35 pm
It seems like the gods have different powers, Momas has the ability to cause earth quakes, Yatwer can make White Lucks. So they affect the world in different ways specific to the god in question. I take it that they perceive the entire timeline like White Luck does, so this probably means they are not really make decisions as much as they are gonna do the things they have already done. So I don't think they are like greek gods, actual beings with actual agency. I think they are more like if the forces of nature reacted to moral laws instead of physical laws?
Title: Re: [TUC] The Gods and Their Agency
Post by: themerchant on July 30, 2017, 05:04:20 pm
I think they see time like you could look from inside a black hole(if you didn't die, if you could see severe blue shift wavelengths etc). Everything can be seen but it's stationary and you can't connect events through time as they are all happening at once, you just have all the information but not in a causal way where you can see the progression of events like we do.

Over that though Kellhus seems to suggest there is a way to change the whole including the gods in a way that the whole and the gods are not even aware they changed.
Title: Re: [TUC] The Gods and Their Agency
Post by: MSJ on July 30, 2017, 06:07:51 pm
I agree with Merch and this also applies to H's theory. I think through the Diamos and the Head on the pole, Kellhus has figured the rules to the Outside and bent them, so to say. The Dreams are a clue to this. Kellhus is speaking to himself through the Outside. This "place" is nothing like a hell, its serene and peaceful. Might we say, a hiding place? From Bakker's answer we know that Ajokli cannot find Kellhus, thus the pact with Ajokli was a fluke. A way to use Ajokli to his own means. Everything points to Kellhus tricking Ajokli. He very well could be stuck in a Decapitant, but i wouldnt say it was by accident. My money though, is that he is in the Outside.
Title: Re: [TUC] The Gods and Their Agency
Post by: themerchant on July 31, 2017, 02:25:08 am
It's a huge quote so not typing it all out, maybe someone can lift it from kindle or something and put it on here.

Fuck it going for it.

"As they have to!The thing-the most horrific thing to understand, Proyas, is that at some point, the inchoroi must win . At some point perhaps this year or ages hence, the whole of humanity will be butchered. Think on it! Why did Momas strike Momenn, his namesake city, and not this infernal place? Why is Eternity blind to Golgotterath Because it stands outside of enternity, outside what the gods can see and that blindness is nothing short of breathtaking, Proyas! Our actions, our great Ordeal, follows a doom outside of doom We undertake a pilgrimage that rewrites the hundred with every step.
 
"When they attack me, the anasurimbor continued,"their assasins are doomed since creating to succeed, and then they fail as they were always doomed to fail. Eternity is transformed and the hundred with it, oblvious to the transformation. The unholy Ark is the the disfiguring absence, the put that consumes all trace of consumption!To the degree it moves us, we pursue a Fate the Gods can never see...

"do you see, Proyas? we act outside Eternity, here... in this place.

"Aye, if the absolute is anywhere to be found it is here

ps i hate bakkers use of italics now since i had to type them all fucking out.
Title: Re: [TUC] The Gods and Their Agency
Post by: Madness on July 31, 2017, 12:48:12 pm
It seems like the gods have different powers, Momas has the ability to cause earth quakes, Yatwer can make White Lucks.

Bakker attributed both the earthquake and flood to Momas in the TGO Feedback (http://asoiaf.westeros.org/index.php?/topic/143766-great-ordeal-feedback/) thread at Westeros last year (sorry, Westeros is slow as fuck a couple days before and after GOT releases or else I'd link that specific post - though the whole thread is worth reading). And I believe somewhere in the books (or perhaps extratextually) it's suggested/stated that any of the Gods can toggle a White-Luck avatar?

Kellhus is speaking to himself through the Outside. This "place" is nothing like a hell, its serene and peaceful. Might we say, a hiding place?

If true, Omnipotent Kellhus must find it extremely tedious dealing with his pre-deceasing self ;). How frustrating.

Though, for future generations, I'm still firmly in the "the Vision is Ajokli" camp.
Title: Re: [TUC] The Gods and Their Agency
Post by: H on July 31, 2017, 12:56:57 pm
Though, for future generations, I'm still firmly in the "the Vision is Ajokli" camp.

I'll dig more into it later, but while I thought this initially, I am not buying it, because his dialogue doesn't make much sense in line with what Ajokli is planning.  Unless we are seeing it in reverse.  The vision is Kellhus and the perspective is Ajokli.
Title: Re: [TUC] The Gods and Their Agency
Post by: Madness on July 31, 2017, 01:56:24 pm
Well, really, we only have that one explicit conversation from TGO, no? In which the Vision asks Kellhus to burn the fields because it's the only way to awake the God so that it can be killed?

Sounds fairly consistent with what we have about Ajokli from TTT Glossary and across PON.
Title: Re: [TUC] The Gods and Their Agency
Post by: H on July 31, 2017, 02:03:49 pm
Well, really, we only have that one explicit conversation from TGO, no? In which the Vision asks Kellhus to burn the fields because it's the only way to awake the God so that it can be killed?

Sounds fairly consistent with what we have about Ajokli from TTT Glossary and across PON.

Yeah, I was kind of remembering the way that conversation went.  But I don't know that Kellhus is really lying when he says he doesn't know the source of the visions, but he (seems to) knowingly makes a deal with Ajokli.  So, Kellhus doesn't know that Ajokli is the vision?
Title: Re: [TUC] The Gods and Their Agency
Post by: Madness on July 31, 2017, 02:09:15 pm
But I don't know that Kellhus is really lying when he says he doesn't know the source of the visions, but he (seems to) knowingly makes a deal with Ajokli.  So, Kellhus doesn't know that Ajokli is the vision?

By my reading, I don't think Kellhus knows Ajokli is the Vision - but I also don't believe Kellhus knowingly made a deal with Ajokli.
Title: Re: [TUC] The Gods and Their Agency
Post by: H on July 31, 2017, 02:27:50 pm
But I don't know that Kellhus is really lying when he says he doesn't know the source of the visions, but he (seems to) knowingly makes a deal with Ajokli.  So, Kellhus doesn't know that Ajokli is the vision?

By my reading, I don't think Kellhus knows Ajokli is the Vision - but I also don't believe Kellhus knowingly made a deal with Ajokli.

Good point.  It's a logical assumption to think him complicit, but plausibly wrong to think that Ajokli couldn't have just forced the issue of possession on his own.
Title: Re: [TUC] The Gods and Their Agency
Post by: themerchant on July 31, 2017, 05:02:50 pm
Well I think the forcing is possible considering earlier in the book the demon once in proximity of the ark was able to combine "subject and desire" and turn the tables on iyokus.

Seems they sheer demons in half when summoned by the Daimos.
Title: Re: [TUC] The Gods and Their Agency
Post by: TLEILAXU on July 31, 2017, 06:53:51 pm
I thought that was just because Golgotterath was such a deep Topos.
Title: Re: [TUC] The Gods and Their Agency
Post by: themerchant on July 31, 2017, 07:01:35 pm


Aye i believe it is too, just a careful reading of the actual passage you get some hints to how it actually happened. The Diamos seems to sheer desire and subject, each being in one realm. Going into the Topos allows them(the demons) to combine "subject and desire" again and reach back and grab Iyokus's soul.

There is a loss of control which might be a clue to what happened with Kellhus.

I must admit i'm not sure, i've never been good at figuring shit out.
Title: Re: [TUC] The Gods and Their Agency
Post by: Madness on August 01, 2017, 12:08:16 pm
Updated the thread with your post, themerchant. Some good quotes, though lacking citation and they get inserted by time actually posted so they're buried above. I hope this is the best thread (wish you could remember where you meant to post it in :P).
Title: i swoop in the topic and sow sorrow
Post by: Simas Polchias on August 05, 2017, 04:05:03 pm
- How the Gods perceive historical events?

Just saw this video (https://www.facebook.com/davidhomak/videos/10155015318218525/) and deemed it a good, though not perfect visualization. Gods percieve historical events all at once -- and the main layer of percieving is the cause-and-effect changes after divine intervention and/or mortal sorcery hacking.
I.e. if gods would change blood's colour in the middle intro from red to green, all subsequent intros will instantly become with green blood, while still being with red. And this is the world of gods, so to speak. It's not the plot or the actors of the film they see, but red2greed swaps -- a complete image of all possible interruptions in all possible historic events. Like the war of edits, lol, on the popular wiki-site.
Maybe, they have something commond with mortals here? Like people have TDTCB, The Hundred don't know about their initial solitarity and thus cannot to see/to intervene before dissolution or to know about consolidation. Maybe it's even a cycle with solitary god just wishing himself into existence from the primordial pool of lesser godling and decaying into it. This perfectly limits The Hundred power, nor they are capable of creating the whole World / Outside system, nor they are fit for breaking or reforming it. They are just bound around the top of it's food chain.

So, basically, perception of gods is akin to nonmen erraticism, but on a larger-than-whale-moms metaphysical scale.
Being broken things, they are especially reduced by perfection (you can't say all-seing without saying all).
Title: Re: i swoop in the topic and sow sorrow
Post by: Monkhound on August 05, 2017, 04:34:52 pm
So, basically, perception of gods is akin to nonmen erraticism, but on a larger-than-whale-moms metaphysical scale.
Being broken things, they are especially reduced by perfection (you can't say all-seing without saying all).

I was going to draw the parallel with the Four Revelations appendix based on Merch's first reply. It's an interesting idea.
Title: Re: [TUC] The Gods and Their Agency
Post by: Wilshire on June 12, 2019, 06:49:19 pm
This thread has me thinking about topoi.

A summoned Ciphrang can see Golgotterath.
A Ciphrang in a deep enough topos seems to function quite similarly to being in the actual outside.
Topoi are supposed to be the closest points "Inside" to the "Outside"

Its strange, then, that the Gods have the most trouble seeing Golgotterath, which is as close to the Outside as you can get while still being Inside. This makes me wonder if topoi obscure the Gods vision for some reason. The deeper the topos, the more obscure, until eventually the Gods cannot perceptive it at all.

This also brings about Anarcane ground, where The God dreams most lucidly. Something like a reverse Topos, and maybe equally as obfuscating to The Gods.

Maybe part of the No-Gods functionality is to turn the world into a single Topos. This would create an Inside that function very similarly to the Outside, where one's mundane subjective thoughts and feelings can effect the otherwise objective world, while having the bonus effect of making the entire world invisible to the Gods.
Title: Re: [TUC] The Gods and Their Agency
Post by: SmilerLoki on June 12, 2019, 09:29:31 pm
There is a bit of confusion in the community about Outside agencies not seeing the Arc or Golgotterath. Outside agencies see the physical forms of those things fine, what they don't see is their metaphysical significance to the living. There is no meaning there for the Gods aside from just another place in the Inside (even if it is the strongest topos, there is almost no souls there, and the Gods want souls), while for the characters there is loads of importance there.

So the Gods and Ciphrang can get into and navigate the Arc fine, assuming they have enough "juice" for such an undertaking, they just don't see a reason to do so. It's beyond their ken to see any metaphysical threat there.
Title: Re: [TUC] The Gods and Their Agency
Post by: Wilshire on June 13, 2019, 12:30:07 pm
I don't think the distinction is important to what I was saying. The point is that within boundaries of the Topos, the Gods are blind to meaning. It leads me to believe that souls within topoi are difficult to see, the deeper the topos the harder they are to see/comprehend/etc. But regardless, part of the confusion may be how we use the word "see" to be not always literal - sometimes used in place of a more complex description like "sensing  metaphysical significance".

Back to the topic, another possible explanation I find less interesting, which is that the gods have trouble "Seeing"/"sensing" through rock. I dislike the idea, but Golgotterath is probably one of the physically deepest places in Earwa (lets ignore the fact that they are in the horn above ground), next to our other big topoi like Cil' Aujas (sp) and The Holy Deep.

The potential effect of topos interacting with gods is more interesting than deep caverns - to me. This allows for further speculation an topos not located underground (Mengedda) and the weirdness of Anarcane ground (and why the NG avoided it).

Topoi and Anarcane Ground seem like opposite ends of a function. If Erwa's existence is somehow observed or described as a wave function, Anarcane would be a peak, Topos a valley, and the rest being some continuum of objective/subjective space. The Gods would see "all of time" in the middile section, with the peaks/troughs being outside the band of their visibility. TNG creates a moving 'blind spot'.
Title: Re: [TUC] The Gods and Their Agency
Post by: SmilerLoki on June 13, 2019, 09:13:10 pm
I don't think the distinction is important to what I was saying. The point is that within boundaries of the Topos, the Gods are blind to meaning. It leads me to believe that souls within topoi are difficult to see, the deeper the topos the harder they are to see/comprehend/etc. But regardless, part of the confusion may be how we use the word "see" to be not always literal - sometimes used in place of a more complex description like "sensing  metaphysical significance".
I think it's really important exactly for what you're proposing. The Gods can navigate topoi fine, since it's the closest to the Outside in the Inside by definition, as you say. So them having trouble with the Arc is exactly them not understanding the significance of the Consult and its work. For them, Golgotterath is just a mostly deserted topos, and thus of no particular interest.

Now, anarcane ground is another matter entirely, and it might be entirely possible that not only sorcery, but also divine power is impotent there. Which would also explain why the No-God was avoiding anarcane ground during the First Apocalypse (which lead to the survival of Atrithau).
Title: Re: [TUC] The Gods and Their Agency
Post by: Wilshire on June 14, 2019, 12:46:50 pm
But something specific we always get with topoi is blindness, especially to the gods. That's a thematic element that I think dismissing outright is a mistake. If a topos is supposed to be the closest to the outside, I'd expect the Gods to interact most heavily there. What we get is something much different. Godless vacuums where the outside, and inside subjective reality, become material and objective. Yet we see no gods in Meggeca, we see the bizarre Wight in the Mountain (an entity not fully in the outside for some reason), the physical Eye in the Heart, and the Nonmen hiding from Gods.

Plenty of opportunities in the story for Gods be reach out, especially in places to attuned to the outside. That they never do is very telling, despite ample room in the plot.
Title: Re: [TUC] The Gods and Their Agency
Post by: H on June 14, 2019, 06:08:04 pm
Wait, what is the evidence that topoi are not visible by the gods and/or Outside entities?

Is it because of what Kellhus tells us about the 100 not being able to view the inside of The Ark?
Title: Re: [TUC] The Gods and Their Agency
Post by: SmilerLoki on June 15, 2019, 01:44:38 am
@Wilshire

Yes, I share H's confusion. There is no evidence that the Gods are blind in topoi. The fact that specifically the Gods don't reach out more there is not a proof of anything, since other Outside agencies and phenomena are present. Just of a lesser caliber.

And Ciphrang do navigate the Arc fine, as evidenced by an horde of them being unleashed upon it. With one of them even getting a POV segment, which confirms that Ciphrang are, in fact, more free there, not less.

I'm not sure where your interpretation comes from.
Title: Re: [TUC] The Gods and Their Agency
Post by: H on June 17, 2019, 12:08:38 pm
The fact that specifically the Gods don't reach out more there is not a proof of anything, since other Outside agencies and phenomena are present. Just of a lesser caliber.

And Ciphrang do navigate the Arc fine, as evidenced by an horde of them being unleashed upon it. With one of them even getting a POV segment, which confirms that Ciphrang are, in fact, more free there, not less.

Well, it could be the case that topoi are where the world is closer to the Outside, but not necessarily where the Outside is closer to the world.  In other words, where the world "shifts" toward the Outside, but the Outside does not shirt "inward" toward the world.

I think it is logical to imagine this as a reciprocal process, but that doesn't mean it actually would be.  So, a topoi might put the Wright closer to Hell, but it wouldn't necessarily put Ajokli closer to the Ark.  There could also be a sort of question of "intentionality" there, because the "Outside forces" in a topoi do not seem to show intentionality (as far as I remember), so it could also be that even a think barrier is still a barrier to that.

But again, that is an aside really, as I still just don't quite see the evidence of blindness, per se.
Title: Re: [TUC] The Gods and Their Agency
Post by: Wilshire on June 17, 2019, 12:27:38 pm
Blindness as a theme in topoi, not gods specifically. Both the Holy Deep and Cil' Aujas , with the later that whole thing with the Eye in the heart.

As for Ciphrang, firstly they aren't Gods. But besides, none of them actually go into the Ark, they are rained down onto the top of the stairs, and IIRC the only one that makes it to the Ark is the one that eats Iyokus' soul who then discorporates before entering the ark itself.
Title: Re: [TUC] The Gods and Their Agency
Post by: H on June 17, 2019, 01:01:03 pm
Blindness as a theme in topoi, not gods specifically. Both the Holy Deep and Cil' Aujas , with the later that whole thing with the Eye in the heart.

But the Holy Deep and the bottom of Cil' Aujas are not blind spots because they are topoi, they are blind spots because they are deep in the earth.  Now, Cil' Aujus does happen to also be a topoi, but the Mere, that is, the Holy Deep is not a topos, at least not as far as I can remember.

That the topos of the Ark is not visable is not really related to it being a topos, rather, it's related to the Ark not being "of this world" that is, of Earwa.  At least, far as I understand it.
Title: Re: [TUC] The Gods and Their Agency
Post by: SmilerLoki on June 17, 2019, 01:32:57 pm
Well, it could be the case that topoi are where the world is closer to the Outside, but not necessarily where the Outside is closer to the world.  In other words, where the world "shifts" toward the Outside, but the Outside does not shirt "inward" toward the world.
Atemporal nature of the Outside presupposes its spatial unity (there is no distance, since time invested into covering it does not matter, so even the division between the Gods is arbitrary), so being "closer to the Outside" is being closer to that unity, or the same "intentional space", yes. And for something to touch you, you should be able to touch it, you can't have it both ways.

@Wilshire

Yes, the Holy Deep is not a topos, and while the Nonmen would like it to be invisible to the Gods, they fail spectacularly in such endeavors, at least so far.
Title: Re: [TUC] The Gods and Their Agency
Post by: Wilshire on June 17, 2019, 02:18:19 pm
Wait what, the holy deep isnt a topos?
Title: Re: [TUC] The Gods and Their Agency
Post by: SmilerLoki on June 17, 2019, 03:34:31 pm
Wait what, the holy deep isnt a topos?
Never referred to as such as far as I remember.
Title: Re: [TUC] The Gods and Their Agency
Post by: Wilshire on June 17, 2019, 03:55:53 pm
Wait what, the holy deep isnt a topos?
Never referred to as such as far as I remember.

It seems a perfect place for a topos to exist. Certainly on the way down we see suffering stacked on suffering. Ageless, infinite suffering of every crazy nonman, culminating in the the brutal depths of the deep. I'm not sure why it wouldn't be one.
Title: Re: [TUC] The Gods and Their Agency
Post by: SmilerLoki on June 17, 2019, 03:59:22 pm
It seems a perfect place for a topos to exist. Certainly on the way down we see suffering stacked on suffering. Ageless, infinite suffering of every crazy nonman, culminating in the the brutal depths of the deep. I'm not sure why it wouldn't be one.
But no Outside phenomena is present. Likely just not enough souls, or not enough souls crossing the boundary between the Inside and the Outside.
Title: Re: [TUC] The Gods and Their Agency
Post by: H on June 17, 2019, 04:19:36 pm
Wait what, the holy deep isnt a topos?
Never referred to as such as far as I remember.

Yeah, I see no reason why it would be either.  There was no overt amount of death or anguish there.  It's just a place of reverie, basically.  Almost the exact opposite of a topos, it would seem to me.