The Second Apocalypse

Earwa => The Aspect-Emperor => The Great Ordeal => Topic started by: Jackehehe on July 21, 2016, 07:27:43 pm

Title: [TGO Spoilers] Explaining Koringhus
Post by: Jackehehe on July 21, 2016, 07:27:43 pm
Hello everyone!

I just finished my first read of TGO (there will certainly be more reads) and I'm having a bit of a hard time understanding exactly what was going on with Koringhus ('The Survivor'). What was his significance? What exactly were his insights and what do they portend, if anything? And why did he commit suicide?

I really didn't understand much of this in the book though admittedly I finished the book in 2 days because I need to concentrate on my master thesis (the allure of a new Bakker is pretty much equivalent to 'soft earth deeply ploughed' so I had to 'get on with it' haha). Anyhow, it just seems weird to me that Koringhus would surrender rather than seek to dominate the circumstances he is faced with (Sorcery, The Eye)
Title: Re: [TGO Spoilers] Explaining Koringhus
Post by: Bolivar on July 21, 2016, 09:20:04 pm
It warrants a closer reading but my takeaway is that he thought committing suicide would somehow help him better understand or dominate circumstances. At the end of the day, probably just a bad Qirri trip and Mimara knew it would happen. Something about the Judging Eye approving makes it sound like she may have actually had an active role in it.
Title: Re: [TGO Spoilers] Explaining Koringhus
Post by: RedSetter4570 on July 22, 2016, 02:03:51 am
It seemed the Survivor was broken beyond any Dunyain conditioning.  He clearly attempted to try to break Acca and Mimara to his goals, but realized that it was for not.  Thus, he realized Mimara's power was true, and he was damned.  I think The Survivor actually represents the ability for salvation.   Which means Acca is probably going to die in the next book, but at least he isn't damned.
Title: Re: [TGO Spoilers] Explaining Koringhus
Post by: spacemost on July 22, 2016, 01:37:52 pm
Chapter 14 is pretty dense. I hoped to break down what happens to Koringhus tonight but I'm out of time. However, I've culled what I think the key passages are. I'll go through it all tomorrow hopefully. For now:

Some relevant points from the Encyclopedic Glossary:
Quote
Logos is the name used by Dûnyain to refer to instrumental reason. The Logos describes the course of action (so-called [Shortest Path])[1] that allows for the most efficient exploitation of one’s circumstances in order “to come before,” that is, to precede and master the passage of events
Quote
"[the] darkness which comes before" -- A phrase used by the Dunyain to refer to the congenital blindness of individuals to the worldly causes that drive them, both historical and appetitive.
Quote
The whole point of the Dunyain ethos is to overcome these limitations and so become a self-moving soul -- to attain what they call the Absolute, or the Unconditioned Soul . . . The hope was that eventually [the Dunyain] would produce a soul utterly transparent to Logos, a soul capable of apprehending all the darknesses that come before.
Quote
Among the Dunyain, [the Absolute is] the state of becoming "unconditioned," a perfect self-moving soul independent of "what comes before."

And a throwaway line that establishes that the Survivor is not to be trifled with. He appears to have been a Dunyain's Dunyain and so we shouldn't just dismiss his insights as the ramblings of a broken brain.
Quote from: pg. 391
He was known -- he who had confounded the Elders with his gifts.

And now to the disintegration of Koringhus' ethos:
Quote from: pg. 390
An absolute impossibility...
Referring to The Judging Eye. Koringhus realizes that the Judging Eye is wholly incompatible with Dunyain philosophy. Earlier in the chapter, when the Judging Eye first opens, he initially assumes the "certainty" that possesses Mimara is borne of madness because he cannot trace its Logos. Here, he's realizing it is neither madness nor sorcery.

Bakker italicizes "absolute" here because I think he's being cute with the language and making a double entendre. It's both shocking that Mimara knows about the stones, and specifically, it's impossible according to the Dunyain definition of "the Absolute."

Quote from: pg. 392-393
Only Cause could effect knowledge . . . "Cause measures the distance between things . . . This is why the strength of the Dunyain has always lain in grasping the Shortest Path..."

This is where his/the Dunyain's understanding of the world starts to crumble. Knowledge is supposed to proceed linearly, from The Darkness That Comes Before to conscious understanding.  However, he realizes that Mimara's knowledge of the hundred stones does not follow any causality or Logos at all. Her Judging Eye lets her sidestep Logos altogether -- for him, it's like finding out 1≠1. Everything he reasons in the rest of the chapter follows from this realization.

Quote from: pg. 396
The Dunyain, seeing only the skin of Cause . . . had assumed that Cause was everything, that it occupied the whole of darkness. But they had been fools, thinking that Darkness, even in this meagre aspect, could be seen.

Quote from: pg. 396 - 397
Pick any point in space - it does not matter which. The only way to make that point the measure of the surrounding space, the Dunyain had realized, was to call it zero, the absence of quantity that anchored the enumeration of all quantities. Zero... Zero was the source and centre of every infinity. And it was everywhere. Because Zero was everywhere, measure was everywhere - as arithmetic. Submit to the rule of another and you will measure as he measures. Zero was not simply nothing; it was also identity, for nothing is nothing but the absence of difference, and the absence of difference is nothing but the same . . . Thus the Survivor had begun calling this new principle Zero, for he distrusted the name the old Wizard had given it... God.
It's a little confusing without the italicized words but Koringhus here is realizing that The Judging Eye is analogous to the Dunyain understanding of the concept of "zero". The reason is that "Cause" are the little waypoints reaching forward into "Causes" and backwards into "Caused", if that makes sense. He uses the example of the boy's scabbed knuckles and notes that it was caused by something (maybe the kid scrapped it on something), and it will effect or cause something else (maybe the boy is irritated by the pain), which will be its own cause producing its own effect (the kid picks at it), et cetera et cetera.

And that this follows a linear progression. The Dunyain's entire project is producing individuals who can grasp a perfect understanding of these chains of cause & effect so that they can liberate themselves from them and become so-called "self moving souls". It's similar to Asimov's "psychohistory" from the Foundation series except at a much more granular level. The basis of the Dunyain's belief is the axiom that "Cause [is] everything"; that the whole of "the darkness that comes before" is undifferentiated Cause that humans are blind to and ignorant of.

So what's this Zero-God he invents? The next quote explains it a bit.

Quote from: pg. 397
The error of the Dunyain, he could see now, was to conceive the Absolute as something passive, to think it a vacancy, dumb and insensate, awaiting their generational arrival. The great error of the worldborn, he could see, was to conceive it as something active, to think it just another soul, a flattering caricature of their own souls. Thus the utility of Zero, something that was not, something that pinched all existence, every origin and destination, into a singular point, into One. Something that commanded all measure, not through arbitrary dispensations of force, but by virtue of structure... system... Logos.
As an aside, recall Kellhus' ministry to Proyas earlier in the book, where he gives lie to the worldborn conceit that the gods are in any way like men, and begins to refer to the God of Gods as "It":
Quote from: pg. 124
"... The infinite is impossible, Proyas, which is why Men are so prone to hide it behind reflections of themselves-to give the God beards and desires! To call it 'Him'!" . . . "This is the revelation. The God is not comfort. The God is not law or love or reason, nor any other instrument of our crippled finitude. The God has no voice, no design, no heart or intellect..." . . . "It is it . . . Unconditioned and absolute."
Emphasis mine.

The worldborn's mistake was in making sense of the Absolute by anthropomorphising it into a vaguely human-like God. Koringhus has appeared to grasp this same realization independent of Kellhus. The Dunyain's mistake, according to Koringus, was thinking that the 'Absolute' was a destination you could arrive at through intense training and evolving -- I don't think it's clear if Kellhus and Koringus are in agreement here, although I suspect yes because on page 123 Kellhus says that the God has no need of reason or Logos. There's a whole bunch else going on in Kellhus' teachings in Chapter Four that needs to be unpacked, though.

The point is that both were wrong. It is not a destination and it is not an origin. It is both and neither at the same time; a singularity. It is "One."

Anyway, the Judging Eye shows that there can be knowledge without Cause; knowledge without distance. Nevermind following the Shortest Path, for some there are apparently no paths at all. Later on, he'll call this the "sideways step that [gives] lie to Logos."

To break it down more:
Cause = the distance between things (cause & effect);
Zero = a singularity of cause & effect; a point where cause and effect are undifferentiated; a point where everything is One.

I think at some point off page, I think Achamian must have conflated the Judging Eye with God. The Survivor distrusts that term for whatever reason, so he instead refers to the principle underlying the Judging Eye as the "Zero-God".

The Absolute = Zero = the Zero-God.

Ajencis' Dyadic Principle ties in to this somehow but I don't feel like unpacking it at the moment. In short, Ajencis claims that "it is the relation between subject and object, desire and reality, that underwrites the structure of existence," and the "many regions of the Outside then represent diminishing levels of objectivity, where circumstances yield more and more to desire." If you think of Desire and Circumstance as Cause and Effect then you can start to infer that maybe the problem with The World is precisely that the Zero-God cannot (for whatever reason) incorporate it into its Zero-ness; it can't close the gap between cause and effect. But why?

Quote from: pg. 397
The God that was Nature. The God that every soul could be, if only for the span of a single insight... The Zero-God. The absence that was the cubit of all creation. The Principle that watched through Mimara's eyes...
I'm still trying to parse what the bolded part might mean.

Between this and the next quote, he snorts the Qirri.

Quote from: pg. 403
Thoughts, like legs, were joined at the hip. No matter how innumerable the tracks, no matter how crazed or inventive the soul, only what could be conceived could be seen. Logos, they had called it, the principle that bound step to step, that yoked what would be aimless to the scruple of some determinate destination. And this had been the greatest of the Dunyain's follies, the slavish compliance to reason, for this was what had shackled them to the abject ignorance of their forefathers... Logos.

Quote from: pg. 407
Only now did he understand. Ignorance. Only ignorance had sealed the interval between [himself and his son]. Only blindness, the wilful idiocy that was worldborn love . . . He clutched this wailing burden to his breast [his son], this impediment, without thought, as if it were no less a fraction of his own soul, a part that had wandered... Zero. The difference that is not a difference. Zero made One.

Quote from: pg. 407
And so it was with the Absolute ... At last he could see it -- the sideways step that gave lie to Logos. Zero. Zero made One.
Title: Re: [TGO Spoilers] Explaining Koringhus
Post by: Madness on July 22, 2016, 04:31:43 pm
Hello everyone!

I just finished my first read of TGO (there will certainly be more reads) and I'm having a bit of a hard time understanding exactly what was going on with Koringhus ('The Survivor'). What was his significance? What exactly were his insights and what do they portend, if anything? And why did he commit suicide?

I really didn't understand much of this in the book though admittedly I finished the book in 2 days because I need to concentrate on my master thesis (the allure of a new Bakker is pretty much equivalent to 'soft earth deeply ploughed' so I had to 'get on with it' haha). Anyhow, it just seems weird to me that Koringhus would surrender rather than seek to dominate the circumstances he is faced with (Sorcery, The Eye)

I don't think you're going to get a much better break-down than spacemost's above but to note a couple things that were brought up in previous ARC threads otherwise.

Firstly, I'm withholding designation as of yet but, among the ARC readers, Koringhus has quickly become the new He-Who-Conditions-All-Grounds in place of his grandfather, Moenghus the Elder.

Also, what the text makes almost obtusely clear is that Koringhus' leap is important. That "the leap was his" matters, for some reason.
Title: Re: [TGO Spoilers] Explaining Koringhus
Post by: rhizome on July 23, 2016, 12:30:34 am
Quote
Also, what the text makes almost obtusely clear is that Koringhus' leap is important. That "the leap was his" matters, for some reason.

...it is, quite literally, a leap of faith after all.
Title: Re: [TGO Spoilers] Explaining Koringhus
Post by: Nil Sertrax on July 23, 2016, 03:48:39 am
Chapter 14 is pretty dense. I hoped to break down what happens to Koringhus tonight but I'm out of time. However, I've culled what I think the key passages are. I'll go through it all tomorrow hopefully. For now:

Some relevant points from the Encyclopedic Glossary:
Quote
Logos is the name used by Dûnyain to refer to instrumental reason. The Logos describes the course of action (so-called [Shortest Path])[1] that allows for the most efficient exploitation of one’s circumstances in order “to come before,” that is, to precede and master the passage of events
Quote
"[the] darkness which comes before" -- A phrase used by the Dunyain to refer to the congenital blindness of individuals to the worldly causes that drive them, both historical and appetitive.
Quote
The whole point of the Dunyain ethos is to overcome these limitations and so become a self-moving soul -- to attain what they call the Absolute, or the Unconditioned Soul . . . The hope was that eventually [the Dunyain] would produce a soul utterly transparent to Logos, a soul capable of apprehending all the darknesses that come before.
Quote
Among the Dunyain, [the Absolute is] the state of becoming "unconditioned," a perfect self-moving soul independent of "what comes before."

And a throwaway line that establishes that the Survivor is not to be trifled with. He appears to have been a Dunyain's Dunyain and so we shouldn't just dismiss his insights as the ramblings of a broken brain.
Quote from: pg. 391
He was known -- he who had confounded the Elders with his gifts.

And now to the disintegration of Koringhus' ethos:
Quote from: pg. 390
An absolute impossibility...
Referring to The Judging Eye. Koringhus realizes that the Judging Eye is wholly incompatible with Dunyain philosophy. Earlier in the chapter, when the Judging Eye first opens, he initially assumes the "certainty" that possesses Mimara is borne of madness because he cannot trace its Logos. Here, he's realizing it is neither madness nor sorcery.

Bakker italicizes "absolute" here because I think he's being cute with the language and making a double entendre. It's both shocking that Mimara knows about the stones, and specifically, it's impossible according to the Dunyain definition of "the Absolute."

Quote from: pg. 392-393
Only Cause could effect knowledge . . . "Cause measures the distance between things . . . This is why the strength of the Dunyain has always lain in grasping the Shortest Path..."

This is where his/the Dunyain's understanding of the world starts to crumble. Knowledge is supposed to proceed linearly, from The Darkness That Comes Before to conscious understanding.  However, he realizes that Mimara's knowledge of the hundred stones does not follow any causality or Logos at all. Her Judging Eye lets her sidestep Logos altogether -- for him, it's like finding out 1≠1. Everything he reasons in the rest of the chapter follows from this realization.

Quote from: pg. 396
The Dunyain, seeing only the skin of Cause . . . had assumed that Cause was everything, that it occupied the whole of darkness. But they had been fools, thinking that Darkness, even in this meagre aspect, could be seen.

Quote from: pg. 396 - 397
Pick any point in space - it does not matter which. The only way to make that point the measure of the surrounding space, the Dunyain had realized, was to call it zero, the absence of quantity that anchored the enumeration of all quantities. Zero... Zero was the source and centre of every infinity. And it was everywhere. Because Zero was everywhere, measure was everywhere - as arithmetic. Submit to the rule of another and you will measure as he measures. Zero was not simply nothing; it was also identity, for nothing is nothing but the absence of difference, and the absence of difference is nothing but the same . . . Thus the Survivor had begun calling this new principle Zero, for he distrusted the name the old Wizard had given it... God.
It's a little confusing without the italicized words but Koringhus here is realizing that The Judging Eye is analogous to the Dunyain understanding of the concept of "zero". The reason is that "Cause" are the little waypoints reaching forward into "Causes" and backwards into "Caused", if that makes sense. He uses the example of the boy's scabbed knuckles and notes that it was caused by something (maybe the kid scrapped it on something), and it will effect or cause something else (maybe the boy is irritated by the pain), which will be its own cause producing its own effect (the kid picks at it), et cetera et cetera.

And that this follows a linear progression. The Dunyain's entire project is producing individuals who can grasp a perfect understanding of these chains of cause & effect so that they can liberate themselves from them and become so-called "self moving souls". It's similar to Asimov's "psychohistory" from the Foundation series except at a much more granular level. The basis of the Dunyain's belief is the axiom that "Cause [is] everything"; that the whole of "the darkness that comes before" is undifferentiated Cause that humans are blind to and ignorant of.

So what's this Zero-God he invents? The next quote explains it a bit.

Quote from: pg. 397
The error of the Dunyain, he could see now, was to conceive the Absolute as something passive, to think it a vacancy, dumb and insensate, awaiting their generational arrival. The great error of the worldborn, he could see, was to conceive it as something active, to think it just another soul, a flattering caricature of their own souls. Thus the utility of Zero, something that was not, something that pinched all existence, every origin and destination, into a singular point, into One. Something that commanded all measure, not through arbitrary dispensations of force, but by virtue of structure... system... Logos.
As an aside, recall Kellhus' ministry to Proyas earlier in the book, where he gives lie to the worldborn conceit that the gods are in any way like men, and begins to refer to the God of Gods as "It":
Quote from: pg. 124
"... The infinite is impossible, Proyas, which is why Men are so prone to hide it behind reflections of themselves-to give the God beards and desires! To call it 'Him'!" . . . "This is the revelation. The God is not comfort. The God is not law or love or reason, nor any other instrument of our crippled finitude. The God has no voice, no design, no heart or intellect..." . . . "It is it . . . Unconditioned and absolute."
Emphasis mine.

The worldborn's mistake was in making sense of the Absolute by anthropomorphising it into a vaguely human-like God. Koringhus has appeared to grasp this same realization independent of Kellhus. The Dunyain's mistake, according to Koringus, was thinking that the 'Absolute' was a destination you could arrive at through intense training and evolving -- I don't think it's clear if Kellhus and Koringus are in agreement here, although I suspect yes because on page 123 Kellhus says that the God has no need of reason or Logos. There's a whole bunch else going on in Kellhus' teachings in Chapter Four that needs to be unpacked, though.

The point is that both were wrong. It is not a destination and it is not an origin. It is both and neither at the same time; a singularity. It is "One."

Anyway, the Judging Eye shows that there can be knowledge without Cause; knowledge without distance. Nevermind following the Shortest Path, for some there are apparently no paths at all. Later on, he'll call this the "sideways step that [gives] lie to Logos."

To break it down more:
Cause = the distance between things (cause & effect);
Zero = a singularity of cause & effect; a point where cause and effect are undifferentiated; a point where everything is One.

I think at some point off page, I think Achamian must have conflated the Judging Eye with God. The Survivor distrusts that term for whatever reason, so he instead refers to the principle underlying the Judging Eye as the "Zero-God".

The Absolute = Zero = the Zero-God.

Ajencis' Dyadic Principle ties in to this somehow but I don't feel like unpacking it at the moment. In short, Ajencis claims that "it is the relation between subject and object, desire and reality, that underwrites the structure of existence," and the "many regions of the Outside then represent diminishing levels of objectivity, where circumstances yield more and more to desire." If you think of Desire and Circumstance as Cause and Effect then you can start to infer that maybe the problem with The World is precisely that the Zero-God cannot (for whatever reason) incorporate it into its Zero-ness; it can't close the gap between cause and effect. But why?

Quote from: pg. 397
The God that was Nature. The God that every soul could be, if only for the span of a single insight... The Zero-God. The absence that was the cubit of all creation. The Principle that watched through Mimara's eyes...
I'm still trying to parse what the bolded part might mean.

Between this and the next quote, he snorts the Qirri.

Quote from: pg. 403
Thoughts, like legs, were joined at the hip. No matter how innumerable the tracks, no matter how crazed or inventive the soul, only what could be conceived could be seen. Logos, they had called it, the principle that bound step to step, that yoked what would be aimless to the scruple of some determinate destination. And this had been the greatest of the Dunyain's follies, the slavish compliance to reason, for this was what had shackled them to the abject ignorance of their forefathers... Logos.

Quote from: pg. 407
Only now did he understand. Ignorance. Only ignorance had sealed the interval between [himself and his son]. Only blindness, the wilful idiocy that was worldborn love . . . He clutched this wailing burden to his breast [his son], this impediment, without thought, as if it were no less a fraction of his own soul, a part that had wandered... Zero. The difference that is not a difference. Zero made One.

Quote from: pg. 407
And so it was with the Absolute ... At last he could see it -- the sideways step that gave lie to Logos. Zero. Zero made One.

Love this breakdown, thoughtful and insightful.  Gave me a few new ways to parse those scenes.  Great post!  Thanks.
Title: Re: [TGO Spoilers] Explaining Koringhus
Post by: Jackehehe on July 23, 2016, 06:07:35 am
Quote
Love this breakdown, thoughtful and insightful.  Gave me a few new ways to parse those scenes.  Great post!  Thanks.


Yeah same, was clarifying, thanks!
Title: Re: [TGO Spoilers] Explaining Koringhus
Post by: JRControl on July 23, 2016, 03:21:06 pm
It probably ties together then, with Prophets bringing the word of Men to God, that Men desire judgement and observation and so damnation/salvation are somewhat self-imposed.
Title: Re: [TGO Spoilers] Explaining Koringhus
Post by: spacemost on July 23, 2016, 05:33:18 pm
I should finish analyzing those last few excerpts but the more I think about them the more I'll have to cull other intratextual references to tie it all together, and my brain is a little melty right now between binging on TGO and catching up on real-world stuff.

I probably shouldn't put too much stock in a flavor text philosopher like Ajencis, but he seems to suggest that 'Damnation' (and maybe Salvation, if there IS a heavenly plane -- I don't think we've seen as much concrete evidence for that as we have for Hell) is what happens when your  soul is intercepted on its way out of the World. Maybe it's such that faith in one of the many gods is like gratifying a narcissist, and unless you appease them, they don't intervene to save your soul from being sucked up by demons. Maybe all otherworldy beings (gods & demons) function like the No-God and indiscriminately vacuum up souls before they can reach the Absolute -- in which case authentic salvation is joining the Absolute, not being caught in the pocket dimension of some God. Was Koringhus' leap a "sideways step" around the Gods and demons the way the Judging Eye is a sideways step around Logos?

And then how does the Judging Eye work, exactly? It's the eye of the Absolute, at least according to Koringhus, but does that mean the Absolute is the "cubit" against which morality is measured? If yes then where do the other gods like Yatwer factor in?

The theology is so opaque. I wonder if the World was actually peachy-keen in prehistory and the Inchoroi are like a Typhoid Mary that brings Damnation with them wherever they go.
Title: Re: [TGO Spoilers] Explaining Koringhus
Post by: JRControl on July 23, 2016, 06:04:32 pm
The way I understand it ZG or G is just the measuring stick, the all seeing eye. Men made God into what they needed of him, omnipresent observation, judgement, that made cohesion of groups possible. This is good for pack, tribe, city and civilization and these other things are bad. Which gives us order and more importantly in Earwaverse, meaning. Now the Gods and Demons are simply supreme personifications of facets of Men (or Inchoroi or Nonmen) taken to their extreme. I mean war is a thing you do, but usually to accomplish something mundane, but to worship war...or flesh, or deceit, or darkness. Things get a bit fuzzier from there. I think this theological opacity is a good thing, it makes it much more interesting and gives us something to ramble on. :D
Title: Re: [TGO Spoilers] Explaining Koringhus
Post by: MSJ on July 24, 2016, 03:18:07 am
Someone either here or at Easter is put forth the idea that the 100 rocks and the 99 birds killed by Koringhus is symbolic of the 99 gods that Kellhus will kill to shut the Outside. So, when Koringhus gives the Boy the last stone, he later uses it to hit Serwe the Skin-Spy and send her of a cliff, this escaping. So, I was thinking that this could be symbolic of someone other than Kellhus killing the No-God/Consult. Maybe Mimara? Akka? The boy? Anyone have anything that they might add to my thoughts?
Title: Re: [TGO Spoilers] Explaining Koringhus
Post by: H on July 24, 2016, 02:29:11 pm
Anyone have anything that they might add to my thoughts?

It would be pretty crazy if it was that Mimara would undo the No-God by simply looking at it and answering it's question of "What do you see?"
Title: Re: [TGO Spoilers] Explaining Koringhus
Post by: Titan on July 24, 2016, 05:29:00 pm
Anyone have anything that they might add to my thoughts?

It would be pretty crazy if it was that Mimara would undo the No-God by simply looking at it and answering it's question of "What do you see?"

Hah! Now that you mention it, it seems obvious that it will happen.
Title: Re: [TGO Spoilers] Explaining Koringhus
Post by: spacemost on July 24, 2016, 06:18:27 pm
It comes up a few times that the gods are blind to the No-God. Koringhus says that the Absolute is behind the Judging Eye. So what if Mimara's Judging Eye is what will finally let the Absolute/Zero-God/One God "see" the No-God?
Title: Re: [TGO Spoilers] Explaining Koringhus
Post by: MSJ on July 24, 2016, 09:11:41 pm
Very nice, H.
Title: Re: [TGO Spoilers] Explaining Koringhus
Post by: H on July 25, 2016, 11:41:08 am
It comes up a few times that the gods are blind to the No-God. Koringhus says that the Absolute is behind the Judging Eye. So what if Mimara's Judging Eye is what will finally let the Absolute/Zero-God/One God "see" the No-God?

I wish I had something profound to add here, but my theory was essentially just some random thought that popped into my mind as I read MSJ's post.

All I can do to expand on it is to say that perhaps Mimara is the closing of the watcher-watched loop, although I really have no idea what that means in a deeper sense.
Title: Re: [TGO Spoilers] Explaining Koringhus
Post by: Madness on July 25, 2016, 05:32:51 pm
Quote
Also, what the text makes almost obtusely clear is that Koringhus' leap is important. That "the leap was his" matters, for some reason.

...it is, quite literally, a leap of faith after all.

Indeed.
Someone either here or at Easter is put forth the idea that the 100 rocks and the 99 birds killed by Koringhus is symbolic of the 99 gods that Kellhus will kill to shut the Outside. So, when Koringhus gives the Boy the last stone, he later uses it to hit Serwe the Skin-Spy and send her of a cliff, this escaping. So, I was thinking that this could be symbolic of someone other than Kellhus killing the No-God/Consult. Maybe Mimara? Akka? The boy? Anyone have anything that they might add to my thoughts?

Somnambulist in the ARC discussion here.

Anyone have anything that they might add to my thoughts?

It would be pretty crazy if it was that Mimara would undo the No-God by simply looking at it and answering it's question of "What do you see?"

Hah! Now that you mention it, it seems obvious that it will happen.

Lol - such simplicity. Nice, H.

Something to add to the thread. I very much wonder if we can use Koringhus' Qirri overdose as analogous to what happens to Kellhus on the Circumfix. On p405 of TGO hardcover, Koringhus seems to have a "dialogue" with his own thoughts very similar to Kellhus' on the Circumfix.
Title: Re: [TGO Spoilers] Explaining Koringhus
Post by: MSJ on July 25, 2016, 08:47:25 pm
Lol - such simplicity. Nice, H.

Something to add to the thread. I very much wonder if we can use Koringhus' Qirri overdose as analogous to what happens to Kellhus on the Circumfix. On p405 of TGO hardcover, Koringhus seems to have a "dialogue" with his own thoughts very similar to Kellhus' on the Circumfix.

I think Koringhus can be used as an analogue in many regards to Kellhus. His care of his boy. Going mad. And, his realization of the Zero-God.
Title: Re: [TGO Spoilers] Explaining Koringhus
Post by: Viridius on July 26, 2016, 08:31:49 am
I should finish analyzing those last few excerpts but the more I think about them the more I'll have to cull other intratextual references to tie it all together, and my brain is a little melty right now between binging on TGO and catching up on real-world stuff.

I probably shouldn't put too much stock in a flavor text philosopher like Ajencis, but he seems to suggest that 'Damnation' (and maybe Salvation, if there IS a heavenly plane -- I don't think we've seen as much concrete evidence for that as we have for Hell) is what happens when your  soul is intercepted on its way out of the World. Maybe it's such that faith in one of the many gods is like gratifying a narcissist, and unless you appease them, they don't intervene to save your soul from being sucked up by demons. Maybe all otherworldy beings (gods & demons) function like the No-God and indiscriminately vacuum up souls before they can reach the Absolute -- in which case authentic salvation is joining the Absolute, not being caught in the pocket dimension of some God. Was Koringhus' leap a "sideways step" around the Gods and demons the way the Judging Eye is a sideways step around Logos?

And then how does the Judging Eye work, exactly? It's the eye of the Absolute, at least according to Koringhus, but does that mean the Absolute is the "cubit" against which morality is measured? If yes then where do the other gods like Yatwer factor in?

The theology is so opaque. I wonder if the World was actually peachy-keen in prehistory and the Inchoroi are like a Typhoid Mary that brings Damnation with them wherever they go.

Thanks for your posts Spacemost! Your final point about the Inchoroi is something that I was thinking.

It would be pretty crazy if it was that Mimara would undo the No-God by simply looking at it and answering it's question of "What do you see?"

Yes!   I can see that. I always thought that it would be Acha, but that makes sense to me.
Title: Re: [TGO Spoilers] Explaining Koringhus
Post by: Madness on July 26, 2016, 05:12:26 pm
Lol - such simplicity. Nice, H.

Something to add to the thread. I very much wonder if we can use Koringhus' Qirri overdose as analogous to what happens to Kellhus on the Circumfix. On p405 of TGO hardcover, Koringhus seems to have a "dialogue" with his own thoughts very similar to Kellhus' on the Circumfix.

I think Koringhus can be used as an analogue in many regards to Kellhus. His care of his boy. Going mad. And, his realization of the Zero-God.

We're still denied too much of Kellhus' perspective, methinks, MSJ :).
Title: Re: [TGO Spoilers] Explaining Koringhus
Post by: MSJ on July 26, 2016, 05:46:23 pm
Lol - such simplicity. Nice, H.

Something to add to the thread. I very much wonder if we can use Koringhus' Qirri overdose as analogous to what happens to Kellhus on the Circumfix. On p405 of TGO hardcover, Koringhus seems to have a "dialogue" with his own thoughts very similar to Kellhus' on the Circumfix.

I think Koringhus can be used as an analogue in many regards to Kellhus. His care of his boy. Going mad. And, his realization of the Zero-God.

We're still denied too much of Kellhus' perspective, methinks, MSJ :).

Lol. Most of you couldn't handle all of the LOVE that is inside that perspective!!!! ;)
Title: Re: [TGO Spoilers] Explaining Koringhus
Post by: rhizome on July 28, 2016, 02:08:24 am

Something to add to the thread. I very much wonder if we can use Koringhus' Qirri overdose as analogous to what happens to Kellhus on the Circumfix. On p405 of TGO hardcover, Koringhus seems to have a "dialogue" with his own thoughts very similar to Kellhus' on the Circumfix.

I think so. Being broken and being brought back to belief/faith is big theme in TGO -- I mean, the book ends on it  (and likely teases what will be in TUC with Akka/Kellhus). I'm sure it's deliberate, not only refer to TWP, but also in that the internal dialogue makes what's actually happening more difficult to figure out for the reader.  There are certainly things we are not meant to be able to know, or figure out... even now.

Still disappointed we didn't get more Dunyain perspectives, the Koringhus chapter(s) was/were the only part I felt was rushed.   
Title: Re: [TGO Spoilers] Explaining Koringhus
Post by: SilentRoamer on July 28, 2016, 03:54:51 pm

Lol. Most of you couldn't handle all of the LOVE that is inside that perspective!!!! ;)

How True MSJ. Although for those of us who truly Believe...
Title: Re: [TGO Spoilers] Explaining Koringhus
Post by: Madness on July 28, 2016, 05:10:06 pm
Still disappointed we didn't get more Dunyain perspectives, the Koringhus chapter(s) was/were the only part I felt was rushed.   

As I recall, we almost didn't get the later Survivor-centric chapter.
Title: Re: [TGO Spoilers] Explaining Koringhus
Post by: JRControl on July 28, 2016, 09:59:05 pm
I will say, I am getting some uncomfortable vibes about lube love being the Secret to all the things. I get these Hyperion/Endymion flashbacks and while I found those books great at that time, I would be disappointed in them today. Then again, I doubt things will turn out to be anywhere that simple.
Title: Re: [TGO Spoilers] Explaining Koringhus
Post by: Madness on July 28, 2016, 11:19:36 pm
I like Hyperion, never read Endymion.

I can't even imagine what Bakker "catharsis" looks like.
Title: Re: [TGO Spoilers] Explaining Koringhus
Post by: Titan on July 28, 2016, 11:31:21 pm
I will say, I am getting some uncomfortable vibes about lube love being the Secret to all the things. I get these Hyperion/Endymion flashbacks and while I found those books great at that time, I would be disappointed in them today. Then again, I doubt things will turn out to be anywhere that simple.

Re: Hyperion/Endymion, that concept (even if you simplified it) was not introduced until Endymion - and it did strike me as a bit of a Simmons not having the whole thing thought out from the beginning. Even though I like the last two books (Endymion + Rise of Endymion), the first two books (Hyperion + Fall of Hyperion) are heads and shoulders above the latter two, and can be viewed as their own work if you prefer.

But yes, hopefully Bakker doesn't head in that direction.
Title: Re: [TGO Spoilers] Explaining Koringhus
Post by: TheDeliverator on July 29, 2016, 12:33:15 am
Any thoughts on Koringhus' reference to fractions of his soul and Nil'Giccas\Incariol\Cleric's battle\attempt to Become at the end of WLW?

The Internet way back machine points to Dunyain and Nonmen (http://www.second-apocalypse.com/index.php?PHPSESSID=lhqhbi79j14sa3lgfoeb2n3pp0&topic=830.msg5776#msg5776) and Seswatha's Elju(s) (http://www.second-apocalypse.com/index.php?topic=976.msg8098#msg8098)


...the first two books (Hyperion + Fall of Hyperion) are heads and shoulders above the latter two, and can be viewed as their own work if you prefer.

But yes, hopefully Bakker doesn't head in that direction.

This
Title: Re: [TGO Spoilers] Explaining Koringhus
Post by: Cosi on July 29, 2016, 01:09:04 am
Definitely an interesting parallel. One of the meta-themes in the book is how different groups approach similar problems (i.e. Consult/Men/Nonmen and Damnation, various Dunyain and the world, the First and Second Apocalypses). I've thought for a while that there were some strong parallels between Dunyain and Nonmen. Apart from Men, in ways that are both superior (immortal or supremely intelligent) and inferior (insane or incapable of emotion). I half expected Kellhus to offer the Nonmen Dunyain breeding techniques as a way of recruiting with them.
Title: Re: [TGO Spoilers] Explaining Koringhus
Post by: JRControl on July 29, 2016, 01:33:45 am
Is there a reason I have forgotten why Nonmen didn't at least try to spawn a race of Men-Nonmen Hybrids after the Womb-Plague?
Title: Re: [TGO Spoilers] Explaining Koringhus
Post by: Cosi on July 29, 2016, 01:52:52 am
It was revealed, I think in WLW, that they did. But Nonmen babies are even harder on human women than Dunyain babies, and none came to term. Although I have heard some people speculate about Nonmen blood somewhere in Kellhus's line, so there may be something I missed.
Title: Re: [TGO Spoilers] Explaining Koringhus
Post by: Madness on July 29, 2016, 03:53:40 pm
Any thoughts on Koringhus' reference to fractions of his soul and Nil'Giccas\Incariol\Cleric's battle\attempt to Become at the end of WLW?

The Internet way back machine points to Dunyain and Nonmen (http://www.second-apocalypse.com/index.php?PHPSESSID=lhqhbi79j14sa3lgfoeb2n3pp0&topic=830.msg5776#msg5776) and Seswatha's Elju(s) (http://www.second-apocalypse.com/index.php?topic=976.msg8098#msg8098)

Lol - one of those is me; the other is you ;)?!

...the first two books (Hyperion + Fall of Hyperion) are heads and shoulders above the latter two, and can be viewed as their own work if you prefer.

But yes, hopefully Bakker doesn't head in that direction.

This

As far as I recall, H/FOH got a lot a love around here.

EDIT:

Is there a reason I have forgotten why Nonmen didn't at least try to spawn a race of Men-Nonmen Hybrids after the Womb-Plague?

It was revealed, I think in WLW, that they did. But Nonmen babies are even harder on human women than Dunyain babies, and none came to term. Although I have heard some people speculate about Nonmen blood somewhere in Kellhus's line, so there may be something I missed.

Probably attrition and contempt. The Tutelage ends with the "Rape of Omindalea," whose offspring leads to the Anasurimbor Line and Dynasty (out of text reference, that apparently Bakker thought made it into TTT Glossary). Before the Tutelage, the Halaroi (humans from Eanna) were actively killing Nonmen and afterwards relationships soured. Later during the Apocalypse, we have the story that, I think, Cosi is referencing that Achamian relays to Scalpers in TJE about the fall of Cil-Aujas to their Mannish allies (more on that in the TTT Glossary, I believe).

Not too many chances at it, probably.
Title: Re: [TGO Spoilers] Explaining Koringhus
Post by: MSJ on July 29, 2016, 09:10:42 pm

Lol. Most of you couldn't handle all of the LOVE that is inside that perspective!!!! ;)

How True MSJ. Although for those of us who truly Believe...

Yea, Blackstone, you and I. A small tribe, test I've seen a few newcomers who feel a little like we do, lol.
Title: Re: [TGO Spoilers] Explaining Koringhus
Post by: MSJ on July 29, 2016, 09:15:43 pm
I will say, I am getting some uncomfortable vibes about lube love being the Secret to all the things. I get these Hyperion/Endymion flashbacks and while I found those books great at that time, I would be disappointed in them today. Then again, I doubt things will turn out to be anywhere that simple.

The Love bit, is sort of an inside joke through Podcasts and the like. I and others just feel that Kellhus truly cares for humanity and wants a world where the Consult doesn't exist, damnation isn't almost an certainty and the denizens of Earwa Wil have the judgement based on their "moral compass", more or less. Do I think LOVE is the answer and will be what ends the damnation cycle? No, no I don't. But for example, I feel the sole reason Kellhus came back to save Momemn is exactly what he said, to salvage what he may. That's he cared for his people and what he has created. In not saying he is the next Buddha, lol.
Title: Re: [TGO Spoilers] Explaining Koringhus
Post by: MSJ on July 29, 2016, 09:29:51 pm
Another thought, after what Koringhus deduced and went to the Absolute, should we look at Inrilaitis in a new light. Inrialitis wanted death, and said so multiple times, did he also know that would take him to the Absolute, the Shortest Path. Need to go back and read all of his chapters. You know, layers of revelation and all that.
Title: Re: [TGO Spoilers] Explaining Koringhus
Post by: TheDeliverator on July 30, 2016, 02:20:41 am
Lol - one of those is me; the other is you ;)?!

In light of TGO.  What do you see... now?

The ability to to view\be the fractions is related to the absolute and yet hasn't helped the Nonmen.

What is missing?
Title: Re: [TGO Spoilers] Explaining Koringhus
Post by: Cuttlefish on July 30, 2016, 12:54:36 pm
A thing I found interesting about him was the fact the conclusions he reached about the Absolute ("God") by interacting with Mimara were in line with the philosophy Kellhus shared with Proyas, regarding the nature of God. Not human, beyond care, indifferent, etc.
Title: Re: [TGO Spoilers] Explaining Koringhus
Post by: Madness on July 31, 2016, 02:34:38 pm
Lol - one of those is me; the other is you ;)?!

In light of TGO.  What do you see... now?

The ability to to view\be the fractions is related to the absolute and yet hasn't helped the Nonmen.

What is missing?

Lol - not much. For sure, I was wrong, a Dunyain did not also rule in Ishterebinth nor, does it seem anyways, that Kellhus or any other Dunyain had a hand in the Nonmen turning from worshiping Oblivion to worshiping Becoming.

Nor am I really more clear on what that even means. A cursory guess would say that while encountering the same "legion" in themselves, the Dunyain strove to master it and the Nonmen strove to yield to it?

I'd have to think more on it, Deliverator.

A thing I found interesting about him was the fact the conclusions he reached about the Absolute ("God") by interacting with Mimara were in line with the philosophy Kellhus shared with Proyas, regarding the nature of God. Not human, beyond care, indifferent, etc.

Just happens to be the first post of yours I've run into this morning, Cuttlefish, but well met and welcome to the Second Apocalypse :)!
Title: Re: [TGO Spoilers] Explaining Koringhus
Post by: Cuttlefish on August 01, 2016, 10:11:27 am
Just happens to be the first post of yours I've run into this morning, Cuttlefish, but well met and welcome to the Second Apocalypse :)!

Thanks! I've been following the Second Apocalypse for a long while now, but the usual friend I discuss it with has mysteriously disappeared (and probably replaced by a skin-spy), so I felt the need to find new people to discuss it with.
Title: Re: [TGO Spoilers] Explaining Koringhus
Post by: Madness on August 01, 2016, 07:41:37 pm
Just happens to be the first post of yours I've run into this morning, Cuttlefish, but well met and welcome to the Second Apocalypse :)!

Thanks! I've been following the Second Apocalypse for a long while now, but the usual friend I discuss it with has mysteriously disappeared (and probably replaced by a skin-spy), so I felt the need to find new people to discuss it with.

Lol - happy the forum is the substitute :).

EDIT: I mean... not the thing that is now your former friend ;).
Title: Re: [TGO Spoilers] Explaining Koringhus
Post by: mrganondorf on August 06, 2016, 10:48:39 pm
@ Jackhehe - Hello!  Welcome!  Here's my thoughts on Koringhus…

I think that Koringhus is the 'real' descent into Ishual.  Bakker denied us a merry tour of Ishual's depths because the real significance was the trip down into a Dunyain's mind to revisit their most fundamental assumptions.  HOWEVER, I think it is totally possible that Bakker is still saving the trip into the Thousand Thousand Halls for TUC.

I think Koringhus makes for a striking contrast with Cnauir too--scars/swazond all over.


@ RedSetter4570 - Hello!  You know, I got a totally different vibe from Koringhus--I didn't get the sense that salvation was possible, but that there was no escaping the 'greater predator.'  I got the feeling that Koringhus came to the conclusion that the only meaningful thing left that he could do was submit to his judgment of damnation instead of resisting it.  What do you say?


@ spacemost - Hey there!  Great commentary!  To add to what you were saying--I think that it's not just that the Dunyain erroneously considered the Absolute in human terms--they did that Oedipus thing--raise yourself up to high and the gods will strike you down.


I wonder to what extent Koringhus' thoughts might be 'privileged' over Kellhus' own intellect?  The Dunyain are all about incrementally improving their stock, so it could be that Koringhus has more nascent intellect than Kellhus--that Kellhus will end up coming to Koringhus' conclusions but later.

Got to wonder if the Crab-Kid is super-duper smarter than Kellhus???


@ H - Goddamnit, you are so fucking right!  "It would be pretty crazy if it was that Mimara would undo the No-God by simply looking at it and answering it's question of "What do you see?""  Although, maybe it won't destroy NG, maybe he'll finally get to have the conversation that he's been moaning on about.


@ Titan, Viridius, TheDeliverator, Cuttlefish - HELLO FOLKS!  GLAD YOU ARE HERE!


Title: Re: [TGO Spoilers] Explaining Koringhus
Post by: Madness on August 07, 2016, 10:32:33 pm
@ spacemost - Hey there!  Great commentary!  To add to what you were saying--I think that it's not just that the Dunyain erroneously considered the Absolute in human terms--they did that Oedipus thing--raise yourself up to high and the gods will strike you down.

Icarus ;).
Title: Re: [TGO Spoilers] Explaining Koringhus
Post by: H on August 09, 2016, 12:57:31 pm
@ H - Goddamnit, you are so fucking right!  "It would be pretty crazy if it was that Mimara would undo the No-God by simply looking at it and answering it's question of "What do you see?""  Although, maybe it won't destroy NG, maybe he'll finally get to have the conversation that he's been moaning on about.

I think the No-God's questioning and seeming unawareness of itself is a key part of it's very existance.  I'd don't think a self-aware No-God can exist.

Another option is that Mimara is the Yes-God.  She kind of is the opposite of the No-God in a certain way, not the least of which is that she is pregnant and the No-God is the Death of Birth.
Title: Re: [TGO Spoilers] Explaining Koringhus
Post by: mrganondorf on August 09, 2016, 05:00:36 pm
@ H - Goddamnit, you are so fucking right!  "It would be pretty crazy if it was that Mimara would undo the No-God by simply looking at it and answering it's question of "What do you see?""  Although, maybe it won't destroy NG, maybe he'll finally get to have the conversation that he's been moaning on about.

I think the No-God's questioning and seeming unawareness of itself is a key part of it's very existance.  I'd don't think a self-aware No-God can exist.

Another option is that Mimara is the Yes-God.  She kind of is the opposite of the No-God in a certain way, not the least of which is that she is pregnant and the No-God is the Death of Birth.

Oh yeah--you definitely got me thinking that "What do you see?" may mean "Do I look damned in this outfit?"  But then I wonder if TUC is going to build up that possibility--that there is a major revalation to be had if the Judging Eye looks on Mog and then at the ultimate moment will find out that no answer is given, that some ignorances can't be overcome.  If the No-God had been looking for the Judging Eye all this time and then finds it and doesn't get it's answer, I wonder what it's response will be?  Give up?  Turn on the Consult? 

I guess it's even possible that revelation could work in the opposite direction.  I've been thinking that the Judging Eye is something that will force Mog in some way, but it could be the other way round.  It could be that the Judging Eye will not be able to make sense of Mog and that It (whatever is looking through Mimara) will be harmed, go blind, die, whatever.

I hadn't thought of it until this ramble, but if Yatwer was blind to the No-God during the first apocalypse, but could see sranc, then the Judging Eye embodied in a singular human might be Yatwer's (or other deities or all of them) strategy to see what all the fuss is about.

@ Madness - oh yeah, Icarus! :P
Title: Re: [TGO Spoilers] Explaining Koringhus
Post by: Parsh on August 10, 2016, 01:55:18 am
That was a pretty dense section, and I'm sure I don't understand everything that's going on. Some very good elucidation here. I'll try to add what I see:

1) One more thought on the "Zero God" idea: he first talks about "zero" as any point in space. There seemed to be an implication to me of, well, like imagine a graph from mathematics. (0,0) is the center. Each person is--potentially--the center, but only (as the Dunyain) if they can make themselves the measure of all things ("Submit to the rule of another and you will measure as he measures."). But Koringhus realizes that the existence of the God, the Absolute as something more than an ideal that they're reaching for: The God is, in fact, that zero point from which true judgement is passed, and it "had found his own measure wanting."

But then, several scenes later, as he reflects on the whole "Zero made One," which seems to be related to the love for his child that doesn't really fit into Dunyain culture, when he gets to this point, from Koringhus' perspective, "The Eye watches. Approves." He seems to believe that his "revelation" has been approved. If the JE approves, does this mean that he is, in this moment, not damned? Is this--at least in his view--a redemptive moment? Does he kill himself because he believes he's not damned (which I suppose would be a good time to die)? If he kills himself because he knows his damnation... well, this seems like a strange choice. Sure, sure--there's despair, there's the qirri talking. But the fact of damnation seems to argue for either trying to find a way out of damnation or, at the very least, avoiding it as long as possible.

When we get the suicide itself, the text reads:

Quote
So quickly...
The events that transform us slip...
So quickly.
The face, cut into all expressions, all faces.
Eyes gazing wet from mutilation.
Fixed upon something that runs as he runs, a place he can only pursue, never reach...
Unless he leaps.
The Eye understood, even if the woman did not.

This is why I think he believes himself saved. He's been transformed, but he recognizes the very human difficulty of holding onto any transformation. As noted, it's a "leap of faith" that he's taking.
Title: Re: [TGO Spoilers] Explaining Koringhus
Post by: Madness on August 10, 2016, 04:08:43 pm
I still don't understand the redemption through suicide angle (as that's a mortal sin coming from, at least, Catholicism).

But I'm also fairly sure that Mimara comments after that it being "his" leap was also important.
Title: Re: [TGO Spoilers] Explaining Koringhus
Post by: H on August 11, 2016, 10:30:29 am
I still don't understand the redemption through suicide angle (as that's a mortal sin coming from, at least, Catholicism).

But I'm also fairly sure that Mimara comments after that it being "his" leap was also important.

If I follow the line of thought (I am not sure if it is really "correct") it would be such that in the moment there, with absolution via Mimara, that he is clean, or pure, or at least not damned.  Now, if suicide is a sin in Earwa, he's screwed, but I don't think it is.  So he ends himself with a clean slate.

I wonder, if this is how one reaches the Absolute, is that why Kellhus hasn't yet?  Perhaps why he is taking the track he has, because he doesn't know that Mimara can undo damnation?  Or he has an idea, but I really doubt if trying to coerce Mimara to grant absolution is a winning idea.  Isn't it implied in one of the chapters (sorry, I will try to find it later, just a little short on time right now) that Dunyain are damned a priori because of the whale-mothers, etc.?  So doesn't Kellhus have to be damned?
Title: Re: [TGO Spoilers] Explaining Koringhus
Post by: MSJ on August 11, 2016, 11:50:52 am
But, we see through Koringhus and Mimara offers it to Galian, the chance for redemption.
Title: Re: [TGO Spoilers] Explaining Koringhus
Post by: Madness on August 11, 2016, 02:52:35 pm
Isn't it implied in one of the chapters (sorry, I will try to find it later, just a little short on time right now) that Dunyain are damned a priori because of the whale-mothers, etc.?  So doesn't Kellhus have to be damned?

I think so? But there's apparently room in-world for Kellhus to have shaken that Original Dunyain Sin?

But, we see through Koringhus and Mimara offers it to Galian, the chance for redemption.

If that's the case, and I don't know where I fall on Mimara having been able to grant Galian redemption, it's interesting to me that it took a Dunyain to figure out to bow before the Eye. The Eye didn't even phase Qirri-eating scalpers...
Title: Re: [TGO Spoilers] Explaining Koringhus
Post by: H on August 11, 2016, 04:06:51 pm
If that's the case, and I don't know where I fall on Mimara having been able to grant Galian redemption, it's interesting to me that it took a Dunyain to figure out to bow before the Eye. The Eye didn't even phase Qirri-eating scalpers...

Well, I can't recall exactly but Koringhus seems to embrace redemption when Galian didn't?
Title: Re: [TGO Spoilers] Explaining Koringhus
Post by: MSJ on August 11, 2016, 08:12:08 pm
Quote from: Madness

If that's the case, and I don't know where I fall on Mimara having been able to grant Galian redemption, it's interesting to me that it took a Dunyain to figure out to bow before the Eye. The Eye didn't even phase Qirri-eating scalpers...

Well, Galian was much more like the chance for redemption. IIRC, Mimara sees the oppurtunity for Galian to redeem his self. That his sins wasn't great enough that if he turned and walked a different path he might find redemption. I don't think it was comparable to what happened with Koringhus, but she saw it nonetheless.
Title: Re: [TGO Spoilers] Explaining Koringhus
Post by: Madness on August 13, 2016, 02:28:54 pm
Well, Galian was much more like the chance for redemption. IIRC, Mimara sees the oppurtunity for Galian to redeem his self. That his sins wasn't great enough that if he turned and walked a different path he might find redemption. I don't think it was comparable to what happened with Koringhus, but she saw it nonetheless.

This is what I think as well.
Title: Re: [TGO Spoilers] Explaining Koringhus
Post by: themerchant on August 13, 2016, 05:04:15 pm
So raping a child and killing her by suffocating her to shut her up are sins that can be redeemed?

I'm not sure that Mimara can pardon sin at all. She can say i forgive you but i'm not sure that actually does anything.
Title: Re: [TGO Spoilers] Explaining Koringhus
Post by: MSJ on August 14, 2016, 06:34:44 pm
So raping a child and killing her by suffocating her to shut her up are sins that can be redeemed?

I'm not sure that Mimara can pardon sin at all. She can say i forgive you but i'm not sure that actually does anything.

You've got Galian confused with the one that was going to rape her the first time.
Title: Re: [TGO Spoilers] Explaining Koringhus
Post by: Parsh on August 14, 2016, 07:46:26 pm
So raping a child and killing her by suffocating her to shut her up are sins that can be redeemed?

I'm not sure that Mimara can pardon sin at all. She can say i forgive you but i'm not sure that actually does anything.

You've got Galian confused with the one that was going to rape her the first time.

Either way, I'm with themerchant in wondering whether Mimara can pardon sin at all. After all, it's the Judging Eye, not the Judging Mouth.  :D
Title: Re: [TGO Spoilers] Explaining Koringhus
Post by: themerchant on August 14, 2016, 08:24:44 pm
So raping a child and killing her by suffocating her to shut her up are sins that can be redeemed?

I'm not sure that Mimara can pardon sin at all. She can say i forgive you but i'm not sure that actually does anything.

You've got Galian confused with the one that was going to rape her the first time.

Nah from White luck warrior.

"a Crimson Butterfly" she murmurs, blinking at memories not her own
The mans grin falters "A what?"...
... All three men go rigid. Powkas looks to Galian for a laughing dismissal that does not come. A kind of pity wells through her, watching horror and arrogance dual in Galians eyes.
Title: Re: [TGO Spoilers] Explaining Koringhus
Post by: MSJ on August 14, 2016, 08:43:48 pm
Lol. Ok, guess not then. Well, it's just how I read it. She sees that he may redeem himself and might find salvation.

To your other point, on Mimara being able to forgive, I think I'm with you that she can't really forgive anyone and therefore their saved. With Koringhus he comes to understand and therefore the JE approves. But, only after he understands. What I am saying is that I don't think Mimara can forgive and all is well. I think your right on that.
Title: Re: [TGO Spoilers] Explaining Koringhus
Post by: Cynical Cat on August 15, 2016, 12:23:30 am
Mimara forgives Galian for raping her because she can see the extent of his damnation and it is so horrific that she pities him.  She can't bear to add any more torment to what is due because what he will already suffer is so terrible already.  Galian is already literally so damned that he evokes sympathy from his victim.  The passage illustrates the Mimara is not so damaged as to be incapable of empathy and how terrible damnation is.  There is no indication that she has the power to forgive sins other than that of a person to forgive someone who has wrong him or her, although it would be really nice if she did.
Title: Re: [TGO Spoilers] Explaining Koringhus
Post by: The Sharmat on August 16, 2016, 07:57:12 pm
I almost cried at the end of the Koringhus chapter
Title: Re: [TGO Spoilers] Explaining Koringhus
Post by: Madness on August 17, 2016, 03:09:31 pm
So raping a child and killing her by suffocating her to shut her up are sins that can be redeemed?

You're right - sounds heinous, themerchant.

But... the alleged options are Redemption, Oblivion, or Damnation. Redemption only comes through sin.
Title: Re: [TGO Spoilers] Explaining Koringhus
Post by: The Sharmat on August 18, 2016, 01:14:13 am
Mimara forgiving that is extremely Christian. In Christian morality, severity of the crime has nothing to do with whether or not it should be forgiven. I also thought it showed something extremely powerful in Mimara's character, that she could see something so horrible and still forgive it.

I tend to think she literally absolved him of that last sin even in the eyes of God, since it seems appropriate to the narrative and theme at work here. But it's far from concrete. And I'm pretty sure he's still so damned from everything else he did that he's being devoured by Ciphrang anyway.
Title: Re: [TGO Spoilers] Explaining Koringhus
Post by: Francis Buck on August 19, 2016, 11:29:04 pm
I have a gargantuan amount to say on this topic (and several others that intertwine with it), which I'm still working on compiling into something intelligble. That being said, I will drop a suggestion here in regards to Mimara's Judgement vs The God's Judgement, which is:

What's the difference?

Put it another way: Mimara is the ring-bearer -- er, I mean she has the Judging Eye not so much because there's something special about Mimara herself exactly, but because Mimara perpetrates the Will of the God simply by being Mimara. Is someone damned because Mimara thinks they are? Yes and no. The same goes for so-called redemption -- though I think a better word might be Absolution, for that is what she (and/or the God) truly offers. An invitation to join the Absolute -- which itself is one and the same with Oblivion.

Likewise, I think this way of thinking can be applied equally to Kellhus. For all his Dunyain and sorcerous abilities -- which are mighty indeed -- he is still, ultimately, "just a man" (in one of his POV's in TGO he even describes how Men see him, with "two hands and one intellect" in reference to his halos, which is also perhaps the first real revelatory glimpse at the meaning/nature of his ever-mysterious halos themselves). Kellhus's will and actions are indistinguishable from the will and actions of the God Itself, though neither Kellhus nor Mimara need be fully aware of this fact.

It is, perhaps, no coincidence that the only characters we see bearing such halos are Kellhus and Mimara.
Title: Re: [TGO Spoilers] Explaining Koringhus
Post by: MSJ on August 20, 2016, 12:46:12 am
I agree with this 100% Ciphrank. Though, only thing I'd add to it is that I do think something is special about Mimara. I really think Cleric's remembering of that name is significant. Also, Nayu asking Clemommas who Mimara was are both clues to that fact.
Title: Re: [TGO Spoilers] Explaining Koringhus
Post by: Francis Buck on August 20, 2016, 02:16:49 am
Haha yeah, I actually do agree there is indeed something special about both Mimara and Kellhus (and numerous other characters for that matter) beyond their possible divine influence -- hell, even if they are "just" vessels for the will of the Zero-God(des) then, well, they're still rather special. I think that paradoxical attribute is quite intentional though, and in fact sort of applies to a lot of Earwa's general nature at large. The mundane physics of Earwa seem increasingly similar to our own in a broad sense, and I'm inclined to believe that anywhere else in that universe OTHER than Earwa would be virtually identical to our own world, at least until one "digs too deep" into the fundament of reality (through scientific progress) as the Inchoroi did.

I agree with this 100% Ciphrank. Though, only thing I'd add to it is that I do think something is special about Mimara. I really think Cleric's remembering of that name is significant. Also, Nayu asking Clemommas who Mimara was are both clues to that fact.

Whoa, so the name "Mimara" appears in a historical context? I either forgot that or never knew it -- the Cleric bit rings a bell but I don't recall the other instance. Any idea where that pops up? (I totally believe you I'm just curious to read the section).
Title: Re: [TGO Spoilers] Explaining Koringhus
Post by: MSJ on August 20, 2016, 03:50:15 am
@Ciphrank, in TJE I believe when Akka is having the dream about Ishual and at the end Nayu asks Cel who Mimara is. This coincides with Akka waking up and Cleric asking about Mimara. Some think it's the real world bleeding into Akka's dream, I do not. I think it's a subtle slight of hand by Bakker.
Title: Re: [TGO Spoilers] Explaining Koringhus
Post by: The Sharmat on August 21, 2016, 08:04:05 am
Aurang seemed quite interested in her as well, perhaps at least in part because of her name.
Title: Re: [TGO Spoilers] Explaining Koringhus
Post by: geoffrobro on December 29, 2016, 03:40:52 pm
"At last he could see it-the sideways step that gave lie to Logos.
This is one of the last inner POV thoughts koringus has and it reminds me of the ability of the WLW.
Title: Re: [TGO Spoilers] Explaining Koringhus
Post by: H on December 29, 2016, 05:25:08 pm
"At last he could see it-the sideways step that gave lie to Logos.
This is one of the last inner POV thoughts koringus has and it reminds me of the ability of the WLW.

I think the sideways step is the one that takes you out of the "loop" of cause and effect.  The Logos fails because the Law of Before and After is actually untrue, this is why Moe the elder dies.  Stepping "off the track" puts you in a place where it might not be clear where you are heading, as it would if you could only move forward or backwards on that track.
Title: Re: [TGO Spoilers] Explaining Koringhus
Post by: Wilshire on January 06, 2017, 03:24:07 pm
"At last he could see it-the sideways step that gave lie to Logos.
This is one of the last inner POV thoughts koringus has and it reminds me of the ability of the WLW.

I think the sideways step is the one that takes you out of the "loop" of cause and effect.  The Logos fails because the Law of Before and After is actually untrue, this is why Moe the elder dies.  Stepping "off the track" puts you in a place where it might not be clear where you are heading, as it would if you could only move forward or backwards on that track.
Basically flatland. Like if he was a 2 dimensional being who realized he could step sideways into the 3rd dimension.
Same idea, except he's a 3 dimensional being, stepping into a 4th.
Title: Re: [TGO Spoilers] Explaining Koringhus
Post by: H on January 06, 2017, 03:50:52 pm
"At last he could see it-the sideways step that gave lie to Logos.
This is one of the last inner POV thoughts koringus has and it reminds me of the ability of the WLW.

I think the sideways step is the one that takes you out of the "loop" of cause and effect.  The Logos fails because the Law of Before and After is actually untrue, this is why Moe the elder dies.  Stepping "off the track" puts you in a place where it might not be clear where you are heading, as it would if you could only move forward or backwards on that track.
Basically flatland. Like if he was a 2 dimensional being who realized he could step sideways into the 3rd dimension.
Same idea, except he's a 3 dimensional being, stepping into a 4th.

Right, except it's a little more tricky to conceptualize, because it's all still in the same dimension.

Possibly conceptualize the chain of cause and effect as a literal chain, where each link of cause hooks right to another of effect (only some links may lead to more than one link, but they are all still chained to each other) and pulls you (the present) from the past (cause) to the future (effect).  The sideways step is to get off the flow from link to link and travel outside of the deterministic pull of link to link.  No link before you, no link after, means you can't be pulled in either direction and can be "free."

At least that analogy makes sense in my mind.
Title: Re: [TGO Spoilers] Explaining Koringhus
Post by: Quietside on January 17, 2017, 04:28:31 pm
I think H hits it pretty much right on the head: Koringhus' leap is important precisely because it was his. In the moment he makes the leap he is free of the threat of damnation (the worldborn view of the Absolute) and has penetrated the lie of the Logos. In short he can make his choice without fear of consequence or driven by the momentum of what comes before. In that moment he becomes a self-moving soul, thus the reference to becoming one with the absolute for the space of an insight (horrific misquote/reference, but books aren't handy and I've had no sleep)
Title: Re: [TGO Spoilers] Explaining Koringhus
Post by: H on January 17, 2017, 04:42:29 pm
I think H hits it pretty much right on the head: Koringhus' leap is important precisely because it was his. In the moment he makes the leap he is free of the threat of damnation (the worldborn view of the Absolute) and has penetrated the lie of the Logos. In short he can make his choice without fear of consequence or driven by the momentum of what comes before. In that moment he becomes a self-moving soul, thus the reference to becoming one with the absolute for the space of an insight (horrific misquote/reference, but books aren't handy and I've had no sleep)

Welcome to the forum Quietside!

I can't really claim responsibility for the theory, just repeating what I heard others who are more well versed in philosophy say and how it makes sense to me.  Indeed though, I think you are right, that moment is key because he has been "forgiven" and so is "pure" from damnation (or considering the whale mothers, a sort of "original sin") making it something of an optimal time to pass to the Outside (I guess?).

This is in pretty stark contrast to what we see Inrilatas doing though, which is an interesting thing to think about.  But perhaps that is about a difference in means rather than a difference is ends?
Title: Re: [TGO Spoilers] Explaining Koringhus
Post by: Quietside on January 17, 2017, 05:01:06 pm
Thanks for the welcome!

 This particular chapter is one of the most interesting to me and I think it may actually be the key to the metaphysical riddle presented in the series. I'm about to embark on another re-read of the books since it looks like there's a pretty firm release date for TUC. Once I've grabbed a couple hours of sleep I'll see if I can put my thoughts together as complete, intelligible sentences and share them.

The shortest path verison of what I'm thinking: The Outside is a lie, the logos is a lie, all are one. The Eye doesn't forgive Koringhus, it simply approves of his insight.
Title: Re: [TGO Spoilers] Explaining Koringhus
Post by: Wilshire on January 17, 2017, 05:12:35 pm
You seem intelligible enough to me ;) Welcome to the forum.
Title: Re: [TGO Spoilers] Explaining Koringhus
Post by: MSJ on January 19, 2017, 09:11:08 pm
I've been tinking on this and some comments from Westeros spurred these thoughts. A lot of readers more knowledgeable than I, liken Koringhus's leap as one of faith into the arms of a loving God. And, how Koringhus is deceived because there is no loving God on Earwa.

Others, say he joined the Absolute. In fact, this is exactly what Mimara tells Akka, "He joined the Absolute". Well, from RSB we know that neither are true, he joined Zero, whatever that might be. I feel it to be nature, or maybe, as H has postulated, Oblivion.

But, this raises a question for me. Can we take the Judging Eye as reliable? Banker has said that the Absolute and Zero are not the same. So, the Eye tells Mimara that Koringhus was invited and joined the Absolute, but this is wrong. So, where am I going with this? Mimara sees Kellhus in a vision in the whale mothers room. He is blasted like nothing she has ever seen. I feel he isn't, and the JE to be unreliable. Not wholly unreliable, but it is fallible just as anyone or anything on Earwa, and yes, that includes Kellhus.
Title: Re: [TGO Spoilers] Explaining Koringhus
Post by: H on January 20, 2017, 03:35:38 pm
I've been tinking on this and some comments from Westeros spurred these thoughts. A lot of readers more knowledgeable than I, liken Koringhus's leap as one of faith into the arms of a loving God. And, how Koringhus is deceived because there is no loving God on Earwa.

Others, say he joined the Absolute. In fact, this is exactly what Mimara tells Akka, "He joined the Absolute". Well, from RSB we know that neither are true, he joined Zero, whatever that might be. I feel it to be nature, or maybe, as H has postulated, Oblivion.

I think it is a bit of a mistake to equate too closely Koringhus' leap with Kierkegaard's Leap of Faith, in the sense that God for Koringhus and God for Kierkegaard are not the same.  However, there are some possible parallels that might show us some thoughts about The Absolute and Zero-God:

"Like Dostoevsky, Kierkegaard, who plays an important role in the spiritual struggle for meaning on the part of the modern writer, cast off the bondage of logic and the tyranny of science. By means of the dialectic of "the leap," he attempted to transcend both the aesthetic and the ethical stages. Completely alone, cut off from his fellow-men, the individual realizes his own nothingness as the preliminary condition for embracing the truth of God. Only when man becomes aware of his own non-entity — an experience that is purely subjective and incommunicable — does he recover his real self and stand in the presence of God."

This is interesting in the context of Koringhus, because he realizes that the Logos is a lie.  Or at least that it isn't the whole truth, that there is something beyond Logic.

"Kierkegaard describes "the leap" using the famous story of Adam and Eve, particularly Adam's qualitative leap into sin. Adam's leap signifies a change from one quality to another, mainly the quality of possessing no sin to the quality of possessing sin. Kierkegaard maintains that the transition from one quality to another can take place only by a "leap."

This is another interesting parallel because Koringhus is certainly not Adam.  In fact, it is very nearly the reverse, the last of the Dûnyain rather than the first.  In the same way, Adam was born with no sin, where Koringhus has the original sin of the whole Dûnyain society behind him.  In this way, his leap is something of a reversal, ending with him in a state of no sin, rather than a state of sin.

I posit that Koringhus joined Oblivion though, because I do not think that there was a god waiting for Koringhus and he himself adds "into the arms of nothing" as the final word on his leap.  The question of the relation between The Absolute, Oblivion and Zero is pretty open though.

What we are offered as explaination of the Absolute is:

"“Precisely. And what is the solution to the Quandary of Man?”
“To be utterly free of bestial appetite. To utterly command the unfolding of circumstance. To be the perfect instrument of Logos and so attain the Absolute.”"

"In the effort to transform themselves into the perfect expression of the Logos, the Dûnyain have bent their entire existence to mastering the irrationalities that determine human thought: history, custom, and passion. In this way, they believe, they will eventually grasp what they call the Absolute, and so become true self-moving souls."

"The Logos remained true, but its ways were far more devious, and far more spectacular, than the Dûnyain had ever conceived. And the Absolute … the End of Ends was more distant than they’d ever imagined. So many obstacles. So many forks in the path …"

"How does one learn innocence? How does one teach ignorance? For to be them is to know them not. And yet they are the immovable point from which the compass of life swings, the measure of all crime and compassion, the rule of all wisdom and folly. They are the Absolute."

"For a time, it seemed they alone survived, that all mankind and not just the Holy War had perished. They alone spoke. They alone gazed and understood that they gazed. They alone loved, across all lands and all waters, to the world’s very pale. It seemed all passion, all knowing, was here, ringing in one penultimate note. There was no way to explain or to fathom the sensation. It wasn’t like a flower. It wasn’t like a child’s careless laugh.
They had become the measure … Absolute. Unconditioned."

“The God sleeps … It has ever been thus. Only by striving for the Absolute may we awaken Him. Meaning. Purpose. These words name not something given … no, they name our task.”

"Absolute, the—Among the Dûnyain, the state of becoming “unconditioned,” a perfect self-moving soul independent of “what comes before.”

"The whole point of the Dûnyain ethos is to overcome these limitations and so become a self-moving soul—to attain what they call the Absolute, or the Unconditioned Soul."

"The assumption that the Absolute could be grasped through mere thinking, that Men were born with the native ability to grasp the Infinite, was little more than vain conceit. The flesh, they realized.  Their souls turned on their flesh, and their flesh was not capable of bearing the Absolute."

"God.
The great error of the Dûnyain, he could see now, was to conceive the Absolute as something passive, to think it a vacancy, dumb and insensate, awaiting their generational arrival. The great error of the worldborn, he could see, was to conceive it as something active, to think it just another soul, a flattering caricature of their own souls."

"This, Sister … This is why I bare my throat to the blade of your judgment. This is why I would make myself your slave. For short of death, you, Anasûrimbor Mimara, wife-daughter of Anasûrimbor Kellhus, who is also my father … you, Sister, are the Shortest Path.
The Absolute dwells within your Gaze. You … a frail, worldborn slip, heavy with child, chased across the throw of kings and nations, you are the Nail of the World, the hook from which all things hang."

"And so it was with the Absolute. Surrender. Forfeiture. Loss … At last he understood what made these things holy. Loss was advantage. Blindness was insight, revelation. At last he could see it—the sideways step that gave lie to Logos.
Zero. Zero made One."

It is difficult for me to parse all of this.  The Absolute is what the Dûnyain call the state of being Self-Moving.  It is not a place, so when Mimara says Koringhus has "joined" the Absolute, it is not a place, but rather he took an invitation to take the shortest path to being Self-Moving.  Keep in mind, this is his soul we are talking about, not just his flesh, so while he is dead, mortally, his soul, presumably, is still self-moving.

How does this divide from Zero?  Zero is the marker, the placeholder of all meaning:

"Thus the utility of Zero, something that was not, something that pinched all existence, every origin and destination, into a singular point, into One. Something that commanded all measure, not through arbitrary dispensations of force, but by virtue of structure … system …"

So, it the condensation of Everything.  Literally.  That is, it is font of every cause, the sum of every effect, the system and the reason for the system.  It is the whole universe, in one place, or rather, the whole universe as one place.  This is why it is the vantage point for everything, why it is the Cubit, because it is the source of everything but not just the source, it is the destination as well, because it is everything.

What then is Oblivion, if it is not Zero?  Well, Oblivion is nonexistance.  Zero is a condensation.  Zero is a singularity, everything in One place and so in no place.  Oblivion is different, since it is literal destruction.

I wonder if then he did attain Oblivion, or simply a joining with Zero?

But, this raises a question for me. Can we take the Judging Eye as reliable? Banker has said that the Absolute and Zero are not the same. So, the Eye tells Mimara that Koringhus was invited and joined the Absolute, but this is wrong. So, where am I going with this? Mimara sees Kellhus in a vision in the whale mothers room. He is blasted like nothing she has ever seen. I feel he isn't, and the JE to be unreliable. Not wholly unreliable, but it is fallible just as anyone or anything on Earwa, and yes, that includes Kellhus.

I think the Judging Eye is reliable.  As reliable as anything can realistically be.  That doesn't mean that the vision has to be set in stone though.  Indeed, Kellhus is damned by the original sin of the whale mothers, so the vision then is true.  That doesn't mean things couldn't change.  Indeed, that seems to be what happens to Koringhus though, damned, but then forgiven?
Title: Re: [TGO Spoilers] Explaining Koringhus
Post by: Monkhound on January 20, 2017, 06:55:13 pm
Quote
This is another interesting parallel because Koringhus is certainly not Adam.  In fact, it is very nearly the reverse, the last of the Dûnyain rather than the first.  In the same way, Adam was born with no sin, where Koringhus has the original sin of the whole Dûnyain society behind him.  In this way, his leap is something of a reversal, ending with him in a state of no sin, rather than a state of sin.

I like the comparison worth an inverted Adam and Eve story. Defining Korringhus as the last of the Dunyain raises two remarks:
- The Boy is stated as being defective, which could make him a non-Dunyain, like Maithanet, Thelliopa, Kayutas, Serwa and Kelmomas.
- If Korringhus is the last of the Dunyain, he is the one to break the cycle of Before and After for all the Dunyain (The Legion, etc), since there is no more After to come after the Before (= there is only Zero, or Oblivion).

Quote
"God.
The great error of the Dûnyain, he could see now, was to conceive the Absolute as something passive, to think it a vacancy, dumb and insensate, awaiting their generational arrival. The great error of the worldborn, he could see, was to conceive it as something active, to think it just another soul, a flattering caricature of their own souls."

ie. The God simply is. The way Thelliopa defines Kellhus (as relayed by Kayútas).
Although the idea that Kellhus embodies the Dunyain (the Legion, the mended 100 shards/ stones) as a whole (as opposed to only Kellhus himself), becomes stronger. Why can't the gods see beyond him? Because it's possible there is no After, beyond Kellhus, if Korringhus (the last one to join the Legion) broke the cycle of Before and After.

Title: Re: [TGO Spoilers] Explaining Koringhus
Post by: H on January 24, 2017, 03:26:10 pm
Quote
This is another interesting parallel because Koringhus is certainly not Adam.  In fact, it is very nearly the reverse, the last of the Dûnyain rather than the first.  In the same way, Adam was born with no sin, where Koringhus has the original sin of the whole Dûnyain society behind him.  In this way, his leap is something of a reversal, ending with him in a state of no sin, rather than a state of sin.

I like the comparison worth an inverted Adam and Eve story. Defining Korringhus as the last of the Dunyain raises two remarks:
- The Boy is stated as being defective, which could make him a non-Dunyain, like Maithanet, Thelliopa, Kayutas, Serwa and Kelmomas.
- If Korringhus is the last of the Dunyain, he is the one to break the cycle of Before and After for all the Dunyain (The Legion, etc), since there is no more After to come after the Before (= there is only Zero, or Oblivion).

I think the Adam and Eve thing falls apart the deeper you take it, but it does, as you say, point to some interesting points about the boy's future role.

Quote
"God.
The great error of the Dûnyain, he could see now, was to conceive the Absolute as something passive, to think it a vacancy, dumb and insensate, awaiting their generational arrival. The great error of the worldborn, he could see, was to conceive it as something active, to think it just another soul, a flattering caricature of their own souls."

ie. The God simply is. The way Thelliopa defines Kellhus (as relayed by Kayútas).
Although the idea that Kellhus embodies the Dunyain (the Legion, the mended 100 shards/ stones) as a whole (as opposed to only Kellhus himself), becomes stronger. Why can't the gods see beyond him? Because it's possible there is no After, beyond Kellhus, if Korringhus (the last one to join the Legion) broke the cycle of Before and After.

Indeed, here is a discussion of Place, which is interesting:

Quote from: Kalbear
Quote from: H
It is difficult for me to parse all of this.  The Absolute is what the Dûnyain call the state of being Self-Moving.  It is not a place, so when Mimara says Koringhus has "joined" the Absolute, it is not a place, but rather he took an invitation to take the shortest path to being Self-Moving.  Keep in mind, this is his soul we are talking about, not just his flesh, so while he is dead, mortally, his soul, presumably, is still self-moving.
I think this is confusing because you're talking simultaneously about what the Dunyain define the Absolute to be and are also talking about what the Absolute actually is - and the two are really different (IMO).

The Dunyanic view of the Absolute is what Moe explains and Kellhus kind of thinks about - a way to reach personal enlightenment and to become God. God doesn't exist - yet - for Moe and Kell, but they could become it. As Kor says here:

"God.
The great error of the Dûnyain, he could see now, was to conceive the Absolute as something passive, to think it a vacancy, dumb and insensate, awaiting their generational arrival. The great error of the worldborn, he could see, was to conceive it as something active, to think it just another soul, a flattering caricature of their own souls."

 It is neither passive or active - it is a place. It is the place that encompasses all places. And in order to arrive at that place, you must strip yourself of everything gained from the world. For a soul, that means stripping it of all sin. All sin - and that includes things like believing yourself better, believing yourself different, believing yourself unique.

I think that Mimara saying that 'he joined the Absolute' is kind of a shorthand, the same way that she declared 'she guards the gates' when it wasn't true precisely either.

But we can determine at least what Kor's thought process is without determining the actual validity of it, which could be separate. (I happen to believe that Kor is the most right person and Mimara is the most genuinely metaphysically right person, but that is debatable). Kor's thought process is based pretty well in logic:

    1.) Everything has already happened and human's perception of time is wrong. (this explains how Mimara can see anything anyone has ever done, even if it would be impossible.
    2.) There exists a way for everyone to see anything anyone has ever done, regardless of who else witnessed them, and recall it perfectly.
    3.) Therefore, at least one person (Mimara) has a connection to every single other person.
    4.) Because others have had this ability before her, this means potentially anyone can have this connection, and more importantly it means everyone is connected in this way even if they cannot access it.
    5.) It also implies whatever is seeing these things is separate from the seen.
    6.) This thing that sees is what Kor calls the Zero-God.
    7.) He believes that everyone is part of the Zero-God and the only way to truly enter it as a place is not to become self-moving or to become worshipful - the only way is to relinquish all intellect, knowledge, and sin and any grasp of self.
    8.) Kor believes he can accomplish this by two ways: having his sin forgiven (which he believes Mimara can do) and then taking qirri and losing his personal sense of self by partially becoming someone else.

So in a very real way the Zero-God is oblivion, because there is no self when joining with the source. Koringhus ceases to exist as an entity at that moment, and instead becomes one with everyone. The damned are the ones who cannot relinquish their selves and are maximally subjective; to be maximally objective in Earwa is to become everyone.

In this way I both agree with @Happy Ent in that I don't think that there is a loving God as envisioned by Kierkegaard in the leap of faith, and disagree in that Koringhus never believed that there would be. He is putting his faith - literally, at that moment, the only thing he is - in the notion that there exists only everyone, and the Universe has simply unalterable rules, and souls happen to be a bizarre accident of universal law that deceives everyone into thinking they are singular.

Quote from: H
Quote from: MSJ
"Because the God demanded it". But we know this isn't true through Koringhus's POV. It was his leap, his choice to join Zero. So, either the Absolute and the Zero are the same, which is highly unlikely  (Bakker even confirmed as much), or the Eye other Mimara's conclusions are wrong. Now, I don't believe the Eye to be wrong on all accounts, but there is conflict in this. From what Koringhus says, to Mimara's interpretation.

I think she is lying to herself and to Akka here.  She seems, to me, to be offering Akka the "simple explanation" rather than the complex reasoning why Koringhus did it.  You can see that Akka doesn't buy it, buy him pressing her for "his reasons" and she dodges the question.  She knows the real answers, but chooses to not say them because they are far more complicated and would only serve to intrigue Akka more.
Title: Re: [TGO Spoilers] Explaining Koringhus
Post by: H on January 24, 2017, 03:37:57 pm

Quote from: Kalbear
Quote from: H
Good points, laid out better than I could (my mind is not that ordered, nor do I understand it well enough).  However, I do still disagree that The Absolute is a place, but rather is a state-of-being.  I think maybe that my point of disagreement is just semantics, rather than a real difference, because when it comes to souls, what is a place and what is a state and how would they be different?  In a singularity, is there really anything called a place or a state?  So, maybe what I want to define here isn't even a real thing.

I do agree with you numbered points, time is a "mortal" perceptual illusion.  The only thing I would quibble with is number eight, where I do believe that The Absolute (that is, being truly self-moving) is some kind of part in how Koringhus will join Zero.  I think that is the third part of a trinity to have his soul be in the correct state to be ready for Zero: forgiven, dilute (that is, as you say, self aside personal self, perhaps expanded is the right word) and self-moving (partly because souls do not approach Zero on their own).

 The way I think of it as a place is similar to a view of Platonist objectivism as well as multidimensional physics and how they project to fewer-dimensional objects.

Simply, everyone's soul is a projection of the place that everyone comes from. In the projection to the world of Earwa and the Outside, it is just a facet of the objective soul, warped and translated into a 4-dimensional picture on the wall.

The place is that objective soul, unprojected onto anything. The lens is the metaphysical system that translates souls to the World and to the Outside. The image is the self.

And why would anyone - who sees that individual facet, that image - think that they are the same or come from the same place as another person?

And that's why it is a place. It is an origin, a start. It isn't just a matter of state of being, because souls are basically illusions.

Quote from: Kalbear
Quote from: H
I do agree with you numbered points, time is a "mortal" perceptual illusion.  The only thing I would quibble with is number eight, where I do believe that The Absolute (that is, being truly self-moving) is some kind of part in how Koringhus will join Zero.  I think that is the third part of a trinity to have his soul be in the correct state to be ready for Zero: forgiven, dilute (that is, as you say, self aside personal self, perhaps expanded is the right word) and self-moving (partly because souls do not approach Zero on their own).
Again, I think Koringhus puts to rest the notion that self-moving matters in the least. The Dunyain are, by his view, totally wrong. Not only are they wrong, they're wrong in precisely the most wrong way. The Dunyain attempt to be self-moving and completely disconnected from everything. The Ur-Soul is exactly the opposite - it is everyone, connected to everything, and is all. The end result of a self-moving soul and the philosophy behind it isn't becoming one with the divine place of God - it is becoming the No-God.

Next theory: Serwe was more pure than Koringhus and joined the zero-God without his required realization. She is the only one in the series that harmed no one, ever, that never resisted, that never was anything other than what was given. She had no sense of self in any real way, and as a result gained everything.

In this way we know that Kellhus is almost certainly not  saved; the idea that he can be beyond himself when his personal narrative is entirely self-focused. He is not selfish, but he cannot personally think of himself as anything other than himself. While he claims this to others, this is clearly a lie that he does not believe.



Quote from: Locke
if to become self moving is to become the no god, and koringhus joined zero and moenghus joined the god of gods we have some nice Hegelian maps:

thesis->anti-thesis->synthesis

Moenghus -> kellhus -> koringhus

god of gods -> no god -> zero
Title: Re: [TGO Spoilers] Explaining Koringhus
Post by: H on January 24, 2017, 07:34:10 pm
" The Logos. The Logos. The Logos . . . He was a hollow filled by echoes bereft of any authoring voice, each phrase a flawless reiteration of the preceding. He was a wayfarer through the abyssal gallery of mirror set against mirror, his every step as illusory as the last. Only sun and night marked his passage, and only then by narrowing the gap between mirrors to the impossible place where vanishing point threatened to kiss vanishing point—to the place where the soul fell utterly still. When the sun reared yet again, his thoughts receded to a single word: The. The. The. The . . . And it seemed at once an absurd stutter and the most profound of thoughts, as though only in the absence of “Logos” could it settle into the rhythm of his heart muscling through moment after moment. Thought thinned and daylight swept through, over, and behind the shrine, until night pierced the shroud of the sky, until the heavens revolved like an infinite chariot wheel. The. The . . . A moving soul chained to the brink, to the exquisite moment before something, anything. The tree, the heart, the everything transformed into nothing by repetition, by the endless accumulation of the same refusal to name. A corona of gold across the high slopes of the glacier. . . . and then nothing. No thought.

No thought. The boy extinguished. Only a place. This place. Motionless, the Pragma sat facing him, the bare soles of his feet flat against each other, his dark frock scored by the shadows of deep folds, his eyes as empty as the child they watched. A place without breath or sound. A place of sight alone. A place without before or after . . . almost. For the first lances of sunlight careered over the glacier, as ponderous as great tree limbs in the wind. Shadows hardened and light gleamed across the Pragma’s ancient skull. The old man’s left hand forsook his right sleeve, bearing a watery knife. And like a rope in water, his arm pitched outward, fingertips trailing across the blade as the knife swung languidly into the air, the sun skating and the dark shrine plunging across its mirror back . . . And the place where Kellhus had once existed extended an open hand—the blond hairs like luminous filaments against tanned skin—and grasped the knife from stunned space. The slap of pommel against palm triggered the collapse of place into little boy. The pale stench of his body. Breath, sound, and lurching thoughts. I have been legion . . . In his periphery, he could see the spike of the sun ease from the mountain. He felt drunk with exhaustion. In the recoil of his trance, it seemed all he could hear were the twigs arching and bobbing in the wind, pulled by leaves like a million sails no bigger than his hand. Cause everywhere, but amid countless minute happenings—diffuse, useless. Now I understand." -The Darkness The Comes Before, Chapter 17

Quote from: Kalbear
Another thought, based on the pragma idea above:

The probability trance that Kellhus goes into for the first time makes him lose his sense of self and become nothing and everything. For the Dunyain they believe this allows them to catalog all causes and see likely effects. They can see everything that comes before and see how to manipulate that.

But let's turn that on its head. Start with the assumption that everything has already happened. If everything has happened, there is no cause or effect any more than what happened on page 110 changes what happens on page 341. In that case, Kellhus and the other Dunyain aren't tapping into probability - they're tapping into the same thing that guides the White-Luck Warrior. They can see what is going to happen and already has happened, and they can see it from the same point of view that the Judging Eye does - the Place, the Zero-God. When they become disassociated and blind (they use the phrase " A corona of gold across the high slopes of the glacier. . . . and then nothing. No thought. " they are able to see everything clearly.

They just have an incredibly wrong idea of why.

Excellent point.  That would somewhat explain why I had the feeling that the Voice was telling Kellhus things from the future and why I thought that The Thousandfold Thought itself was cast backward in time, the explanation of why was in the future, not in the past.  In reality it doesn't have to be Kellhus from the future, but rather, Kellhus dissociated from time, atemporal, or some such, in the Outside.  In other words, perhaps Kellhus himself already at the Zero-point?  Or Koringhus?  Or Kellhus as the Solitary God?

It can also answer how and why odd things like Kellhus being saved by Leweth, arriving at the mound of Cnaiur's father, and other seemingly improbable things that seem to keep happening to him.  White-Luck beyond even the White-Luck.
Title: Re: [TGO Spoilers] Explaining Koringhus
Post by: profgrape on January 24, 2017, 08:26:51 pm
I like this a lot.  There are a couple of places in TGO that suggest time doesn't exist in the Outside the way it does in the World. 

In the World, at any given moment (an infinitely small slice of continuous time), one's viewpoint is limited to a single snapshot of three-dimensional space.

As an analogy, imagine a single frame of a video clip -- it's a 2D snapshot of a series of snapshots in time.  Similarly, the World consists of 3D snapshots in time.  These snapshots are "played back" at a continuous rate, and hence, we perceive time.

In the Outside, by contrast, there's no concept of "playback".  All moments/snapshots are perceivable simultaneously.  Thus, time isn't really a thing.

The questions I have are:

1. Does this mean that viewing the World from the Outside would allow one to glimpse any given moment? 

2. Does this mean that from the Outside, one can affect the World at any given moment?
Title: Re: [TGO Spoilers] Explaining Koringhus
Post by: MSJ on January 24, 2017, 10:29:15 pm
The questions I have are:

1. Does this mean that viewing the World from the Outside would allow one to glimpse any given moment? 

2. Does this mean that from the Outside, one can affect the World at any given moment?

1. IMHO, yes. But, that doesn't mean that things can't change. The WLW is your prime example.

2. Yes, and no. The WLW was a shot at doing just that. But, let's look at Kellhus and his visions. It's an attempt to change the world through guidance.

When Bakker made it clear that neither Yatwer or Ajokli were responsible for the earthquakes, it made since to me. Momas,,is responsible for earthquakes. Yet, Yatwer was trying to use them to her advantage to kill Kellhus. The God's are just soul munchers, that's it. They see Kellhus as the end of soul munching. 

This is why I feel that Onkhis is humans representation of TDTCB. They  (humans of Earwa) just give names as idols to the passions and other things that are part of their life. Thus the 100. They have really no control at all at what happens. They may see the future and try to alter it, but it's a crapshoot.
Title: Re: [TGO Spoilers] Explaining Koringhus
Post by: H on January 25, 2017, 08:01:50 pm
I like this a lot.  There are a couple of places in TGO that suggest time doesn't exist in the Outside the way it does in the World. 

In the World, at any given moment (an infinitely small slice of continuous time), one's viewpoint is limited to a single snapshot of three-dimensional space.

As an analogy, imagine a single frame of a video clip -- it's a 2D snapshot of a series of snapshots in time.  Similarly, the World consists of 3D snapshots in time.  These snapshots are "played back" at a continuous rate, and hence, we perceive time.

In the Outside, by contrast, there's no concept of "playback".  All moments/snapshots are perceivable simultaneously.  Thus, time isn't really a thing.

The questions I have are:

1. Does this mean that viewing the World from the Outside would allow one to glimpse any given moment? 

2. Does this mean that from the Outside, one can affect the World at any given moment?

Let me see if I can think this through in a way that makes sense.

On point one, yes, I do believe you would see the world at any moment, but the key is that none of it is set in stone.  Rather, I would think it is like a web of chains.  Links of cause are bound to links of effects, which are the links of cause for links of effect and so on.  In this way, the gods are off the chains and so they can follow the lines and thereby "see" the future.  I would posit that that what they are actually doing is just following/expounding upon the chain of cause and effect.  In this way, they are seeing the future, but not one that is deterministic, rather they see what should happen.  This why why I believe that Kellhus can confound them.  He is off the chain, being self-moving, so apart from what they can really see.

I'm not sure about point 2.  I think the answer is no, they are not intercessional at any moment.  In the same way as why the Cant of Calling can only be received while they are sleeping (the books point out this is because while dreaming they are most open to the Outside).  In the same way, I think there must only be certain "windows" open at times where the Outside can really influcence the Inside in a physical manner (ideas are much easier to pass through).
Title: Re: [TGO Spoilers] Explaining Koringhus
Post by: profgrape on January 25, 2017, 09:23:21 pm
I like this a lot.  There are a couple of places in TGO that suggest time doesn't exist in the Outside the way it does in the World. 

In the World, at any given moment (an infinitely small slice of continuous time), one's viewpoint is limited to a single snapshot of three-dimensional space.

As an analogy, imagine a single frame of a video clip -- it's a 2D snapshot of a series of snapshots in time.  Similarly, the World consists of 3D snapshots in time.  These snapshots are "played back" at a continuous rate, and hence, we perceive time.

In the Outside, by contrast, there's no concept of "playback".  All moments/snapshots are perceivable simultaneously.  Thus, time isn't really a thing.

The questions I have are:

1. Does this mean that viewing the World from the Outside would allow one to glimpse any given moment? 

2. Does this mean that from the Outside, one can affect the World at any given moment?

Let me see if I can think this through in a way that makes sense.

On point one, yes, I do believe you would see the world at any moment, but the key is that none of it is set in stone.  Rather, I would think it is like a web of chains.  Links of cause are bound to links of effects, which are the links of cause for links of effect and so on.  In this way, the gods are off the chains and so they can follow the lines and thereby "see" the future.  I would posit that that what they are actually doing is just following/expounding upon the chain of cause and effect.  In this way, they are seeing the future, but not one that is deterministic, rather they see what should happen.  This why why I believe that Kellhus can confound them.  He is off the chain, being self-moving, so apart from what they can really see.

I'm not sure about point 2.  I think the answer is no, they are not intercessional at any moment.  In the same way as why the Cant of Calling can only be received while they are sleeping (the books point out this is because while dreaming they are most open to the Outside).  In the same way, I think there must only be certain "windows" open at times where the Outside can really influcence the Inside in a physical manner (ideas are much easier to pass through).

That makes a lot of sense, H.  In addition to time, there's an additional axis for what you might call "potential", where different spacetime threads branch.  5-dimensional data 4tw!

With this model, a self-moving soul is essentially something that creates it's own potential.  Meaning that it's inherently missing from the viewable dataset.
Title: Re: [TGO Spoilers] Explaining Koringhus
Post by: geoffrobro on January 25, 2017, 09:44:59 pm
" The Logos. The Logos. The Logos . . . He was a hollow filled by echoes bereft of any authoring voice, each phrase a flawless reiteration of the preceding. He was a wayfarer through the abyssal gallery of mirror set against mirror, his every step as illusory as the last. Only sun and night marked his passage, and only then by narrowing the gap between mirrors to the impossible place where vanishing point threatened to kiss vanishing point—to the place where the soul fell utterly still. When the sun reared yet again, his thoughts receded to a single word: The. The. The. The . . . And it seemed at once an absurd stutter and the most profound of thoughts, as though only in the absence of “Logos” could it settle into the rhythm of his heart muscling through moment after moment. Thought thinned and daylight swept through, over, and behind the shrine, until night pierced the shroud of the sky, until the heavens revolved like an infinite chariot wheel. The. The . . . A moving soul chained to the brink, to the exquisite moment before something, anything. The tree, the heart, the everything transformed into nothing by repetition, by the endless accumulation of the same refusal to name. A corona of gold across the high slopes of the glacier. . . . and then nothing. No thought.

No thought. The boy extinguished. Only a place. This place. Motionless, the Pragma sat facing him, the bare soles of his feet flat against each other, his dark frock scored by the shadows of deep folds, his eyes as empty as the child they watched. A place without breath or sound. A place of sight alone. A place without before or after . . . almost. For the first lances of sunlight careered over the glacier, as ponderous as great tree limbs in the wind. Shadows hardened and light gleamed across the Pragma’s ancient skull. The old man’s left hand forsook his right sleeve, bearing a watery knife. And like a rope in water, his arm pitched outward, fingertips trailing across the blade as the knife swung languidly into the air, the sun skating and the dark shrine plunging across its mirror back . . . And the place where Kellhus had once existed extended an open hand—the blond hairs like luminous filaments against tanned skin—and grasped the knife from stunned space. The slap of pommel against palm triggered the collapse of place into little boy. The pale stench of his body. Breath, sound, and lurching thoughts. I have been legion . . . In his periphery, he could see the spike of the sun ease from the mountain. He felt drunk with exhaustion. In the recoil of his trance, it seemed all he could hear were the twigs arching and bobbing in the wind, pulled by leaves like a million sails no bigger than his hand. Cause everywhere, but amid countless minute happenings—diffuse, useless. Now I understand." -The Darkness The Comes Before, Chapter 17

Quote from: Kalbear
Another thought, based on the pragma idea above:

The probability trance that Kellhus goes into for the first time makes him lose his sense of self and become nothing and everything. For the Dunyain they believe this allows them to catalog all causes and see likely effects. They can see everything that comes before and see how to manipulate that.

But let's turn that on its head. Start with the assumption that everything has already happened. If everything has happened, there is no cause or effect any more than what happened on page 110 changes what happens on page 341. In that case, Kellhus and the other Dunyain aren't tapping into probability - they're tapping into the same thing that guides the White-Luck Warrior. They can see what is going to happen and already has happened, and they can see it from the same point of view that the Judging Eye does - the Place, the Zero-God. When they become disassociated and blind (they use the phrase " A corona of gold across the high slopes of the glacier. . . . and then nothing. No thought. " they are able to see everything clearly.

They just have an incredibly wrong idea of why.

Excellent point.  That would somewhat explain why I had the feeling that the Voice was telling Kellhus things from the future and why I thought that The Thousandfold Thought itself was cast backward in time, the explanation of why was in the future, not in the past.  In reality it doesn't have to be Kellhus from the future, but rather, Kellhus dissociated from time, atemporal, or some such, in the Outside.  In other words, perhaps Kellhus himself already at the Zero-point?  Or Koringhus?  Or Kellhus as the Solitary God?

It can also answer how and why odd things like Kellhus being saved by Leweth, arriving at the mound of Cnaiur's father, and other seemingly improbable things that seem to keep happening to him.  White-Luck beyond even the White-Luck.
I like this a lot.  There are a couple of places in TGO that suggest time doesn't exist in the Outside the way it does in the World. 

In the World, at any given moment (an infinitely small slice of continuous time), one's viewpoint is limited to a single snapshot of three-dimensional space.

As an analogy, imagine a single frame of a video clip -- it's a 2D snapshot of a series of snapshots in time.  Similarly, the World consists of 3D snapshots in time.  These snapshots are "played back" at a continuous rate, and hence, we perceive time.

In the Outside, by contrast, there's no concept of "playback".  All moments/snapshots are perceivable simultaneously.  Thus, time isn't really a thing.

The questions I have are:

1. Does this mean that viewing the World from the Outside would allow one to glimpse any given moment? 

2. Does this mean that from the Outside, one can affect the World at any given moment?


What if it's all a probability trance? This "Earwa" we are seeing is the kellhus under the trees probability trance. He is dictating (thinking)to his legion. AE kellhus has realized that this reality is nothing but a thought that he is forcing into being reality. 
The TTT is a thought experiment to help to realize that existence is a thought itself that could be controlled into a reality.
Title: Re: [TGO Spoilers] Explaining Koringhus
Post by: Monkhound on January 25, 2017, 09:56:44 pm
Thank you for providing all the posts above, H. It's great to see so much musing and thinking.

I just re-read Chapter 14:
I am still amazed by how mind-bogglingly complex the philosophy of the world is, how packed with explanation the chapter is, and while still keeping us in the dark.

I'm more and more getting the feeling that the numbers 99 and 100 are tied to emotions, the Hundred (or the gods, or the Legion) and even animals being representations or personifications of those:
Quote from: TGO hardcover p.406
Run was a rule.
Hide was a rule.
Know was a rule.
Desire was following.
Existence was a heap.
What follows is the passage about the "too round" 100 stones and the 99 birds.

And of course, the strongest emotion is described soon after: Love, even if it was described as a "Human Deception" a mere few pages earlier.
Quote from: TGO hardcover p.407, Italics are in the text, Bold are mine
Dûnyain do not panic. Dûnyain do not reel, broken and bewildered. And he yet had found himself in the nursery without thought, scooping up this very babe without thought, the one that smelled of him, of Anasûrimbor, the most promising of the Twelve Germs. He clutched this wailing burden to his breast, this impediment, without thought, as if it were no less a fraction of his own soul, a part that had wandered...
Zero. The difference that is not a difference. Zero made One.
He had survived. He, the one burdened, the one tasked, the one who refused to illuminate the interval between him and his son. The fractions of the Dûnyain had been sorted, and he, the least able, the most encumbered, had been the one Selected... the Survivor.
He who had refused to know... Who had embraced the darkness that comes before.

Love is also the "hundredth stone" Korringhus gives to the boy right before he jumps.
Quote from: TGO p.408, Italics are in the text, Bold are mine
He draws the hundredth stone from the waist of his tunic.
"This is yours now."
The boy, the most blessed fraction, looks to him in alarm. He would deny the interval between them, if he could.

Emotions are triggers that force us into action: Either in physical action, in doing just nothing, or triggering thoughts. Emotions govern us. They lead us.

Which leads me to a possible explanation to the song about Anarlû:
Quote from: TGO hardcover p.327
They did hoist Anarlû’s head high,
And poured down its blood as fire.
And the ground gave forth many sons,
Ninety nine who were as Gods,
And so bid their fathers
Be as sons…

Birth.
The moment a baby come out of the mother's womb, emotions immediately start dictating action.
They are demanding obedience of the baby, like sons should obey their fathers.
But since the baby is the one who "created" or fathered these emotions, it becomes the father who then must obey his sons.
On the other hand, the emotions are poured into the baby by the parents (mainly by the mother, I suppose) through the womb.
Funny: Looking at it this way, I'd almost see a parallel between emotions and Judeo-Christian Original Sin, which all children earn from their parents.

Confirmation can as well be read in the words/thoughts of Korringhus:
Quote from: TGO p.403, Italics are in the text, Bold are mine
Proof of this lay in the very meat of the Dûnyain, for they had been bred in pursuit of deception. No intellect is orphaned, despite all the foundling hearts. All sons are born stranded because all fathers are sons. Every child is told, even those suckled on the teats of wolves. Even Dûnyain children. To be born is to be born upon a path. To be born upon a path is to follow that path - for what man could step over mountains? And to follow a path is to follow a rule...
To find all other paths wanting.
Title: Re: [TGO Spoilers] Explaining Koringhus
Post by: Francis Buck on January 25, 2017, 10:23:09 pm
Awesome post. Much to think over.
Title: Re: [TGO Spoilers] Explaining Koringhus
Post by: profgrape on January 25, 2017, 11:12:04 pm
FANTASTIC post, Monkhound!
Title: Re: [TGO Spoilers] Explaining Koringhus
Post by: H on January 26, 2017, 11:17:51 am
What if it's all a probability trance? This "Earwa" we are seeing is the kellhus under the trees probability trance. He is dictating (thinking)to his legion. AE kellhus has realized that this reality is nothing but a thought that he is forcing into being reality. 
The TTT is a thought experiment to help to realize that existence is a thought itself that could be controlled into a reality.

I really hope not.  I mean, it is possible.  But I think the basic formula of "it was all just a dream" really cheapens things to a great degree.

Funny: Looking at it this way, I'd almost see a parallel between emotions and Judeo-Christian Original Sin, which all children earn from their parents.

I think something like Original Sin is a pretty key idea in the series really.  Consider, Koringhus is partly damned based on the whale mothers alone.  I have at times ventured to speculate that the Inchoroi are basically in the same boat (this was pre-TGO, but the point still stands, if not more so) that they modified themselves and in doing so made themselves immoral in creation, let alone in action.
Title: Re: [TGO Spoilers] Explaining Koringhus
Post by: themerchant on January 26, 2017, 02:13:41 pm
Some good stuff in here.

Now i must wait while it cycles through my avian intellect.
Title: Re: [TGO Spoilers] Explaining Koringhus
Post by: MSJ on January 26, 2017, 10:25:51 pm
Excellent thoughts, Monkhound!

 
Quote
To be born is to be born upon a path. To be born upon a path is to follow that path - for what man could step over mountains? And to follow a path is to follow a rule...

I know man who can jump over mountains and follows  no rules, either of mankind or the Outside, Kellhus. We like to think because Koringhus died how he did and the chapter is like poetry, he has to be further ahead than Kellhus. I think that quote there validates the opposite. I have no doubt, that Kellhus has deduced Zero. It's just not part of the thought. He doesn't want to join Zero, he wants to be the One.

Otherwise, I think you've hit the nail on the head with the emotions and it was a really great post.
Title: Re: [TGO Spoilers] Explaining Koringhus
Post by: Francis Buck on January 28, 2017, 05:45:16 am
So, I actually noticed this almost immediately when reading TGO the first time, but didn't know what it meant/symbolized until now, having finally remembered to look it up.

As described in the text, the Boy/Survivor, son of Koringhus, has lost three fingers leaving only his index and thumb. Knowing the author's fondness for apophasis, I was reminded of (and just now learned the name of) Hindu and yoga gesture you've likely seen before. It is called the chin mudra.

(http://sacred-earth.typepad.com/.a/6a00d834539cc469e200e553acb0758834-pi)

Quote
The thumb and forefinger on each of the hands are joined, forming a zero. The rest of the fingers are extended. The hands are placed palms-up on the thighs or knees while sitting in vajrasana. This mudrā supposedly activates the diaphragm, making for deep "stomach-breathing" as the diaphragm pushes out the internal organs when it descends towards the pelvis on inhalation. Slow breathing in a 5-2-4-2 mentally counted rhythm (counting to 5 during the exhalation, to 2 while holding the breath, and to 4 on the inhalation) causes prana flow in the pelvis and in the legs.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mudra

Also...

Quote
Chin means consciousness in Sanskrit, and the purpose of this mudra is to remind the practitioner of the goal of yoga, the union of the individual soul with the supreme soul. Mudra means seal, and it is essentially an energetic and spiritual gesture that controls the flow of energy within the body. The fingers each have representations:

Thumb: Supreme Soul
Pointer: Individual Soul
Middle: Ego
Ring: Illusion
Pinky: Karma

Ego, illusion and karma are the 3 impurities that the yogi is trying to remove from his life in order to unite their Individual Soul with the Supreme Soul and experience that divine, blissful state of union they strive for. Doing chin mudra is a physical representation and reminder of this goal and serves to refocus and re-energize the practitioner.

http://thechalkboardmag.com/mantra-monday-chin-mudra

I think that the "Supreme Soul" and "Individual Soul" are directly relatable to what Kellhus references with Greater Proyas and Lesser Proyas.

This opens a lot of doors. Karma, in fact, may be what Mimara sees as "Judgement" -- an otherwise invisible accumulation of "weight" incurred by a souls mere existence and movement (life) throughout the world.

Also, even though the distinction has yet to be made in-text, I think that Souls may be the lesser/individual souls, while a Spirit is the greater/supreme soul -- Gods, Ciphrang, and so forth.

Perhaps Seswatha himself (or itself) is one of these Supreme Souls, distributed through many Individual Souls via the Heart...
Title: Re: [TGO Spoilers] Explaining Koringhus
Post by: mrganondorf on March 08, 2017, 04:15:06 am
Hello everyone!

I just finished my first read of TGO (there will certainly be more reads) and I'm having a bit of a hard time understanding exactly what was going on with Koringhus ('The Survivor'). What was his significance? What exactly were his insights and what do they portend, if anything? And why did he commit suicide?

I really didn't understand much of this in the book though admittedly I finished the book in 2 days because I need to concentrate on my master thesis (the allure of a new Bakker is pretty much equivalent to 'soft earth deeply ploughed' so I had to 'get on with it' haha). Anyhow, it just seems weird to me that Koringhus would surrender rather than seek to dominate the circumstances he is faced with (Sorcery, The Eye)

MEOW!