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Messages - Walter

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31
The Unholy Consult / Re: [TUC SPOILERS] The No-God's abilities
« on: August 04, 2017, 12:48:39 pm »
God-power is the God singing with its own voice.  It is Markless, because if it 'of a piece', if you will, with the rest of creation.  However, the key point of it is that the controlling entity is Outside.

The WLW and similar divine ploys are atemporal interventions, inserted into the Inside as whole timelines.  Everything they do is destined, they can see their past/future, etc.

But the No-God is the end of time.  Its actions, and those of its slaves, make the world anew every time.  As soon as it impacts the timeline of a divine agent, that timeline no longer 'fits' in with the rest of the world, and is disrupted.

Sorcery, by contrast, is a part of the world, same as rocks and people.  The No-God doesn't disrupt it for the same reason it doesn't tear the air around it apart.  That is not its function.  The actions of the Few don't rely on the Outside/Inside congruity, and therefore are not automatically voided in the No-God's presence.

32
I mean...they had a thousand Schoolmen.  Absent the No-God's final ploy we have never seen the team with less schoolmen win.

33
He is making the point that Resumption must take place at some point, because otherwise Momas could just earthquake the Arc.  The Consult are shielded from the Gods by the fact that they are the servants of the No-God, which will end the Gods atemporal existence.  The Consult thus operate outside of their notion of time, remaking them with each action that they take.

Notably, this gives us some hope for the next series, as the Inchoroi's 'victory' has now come to pass.  There is no similar guarantee that the No-God be victorious, it could be destroyed once again.

34
The Unholy Consult / Re: So Kellhus "went mad?"
« on: August 04, 2017, 04:28:52 am »
I think Ajokli was eating him up from the inside throughout the series.  His vision during the 'tend the field / who better to burn them' is the most obvious incident I can think of, but I also think we get a hint of it at the point where he speaks to Proyas after bringing him to the Ordeal.

He declines to lie to him, stating that if he did so he wouldn't know why he was doing it.  That seems to imply that he is having trouble accounting for his actions, and is trying to tamp down on this tendency.  It would make a lot of sense if Ajokli is getting more and more uppity the closer they get to the ultra Topos that will allow him to take over completely.

35
Dunsult are gonna be super upset when the new No-God shows no interest in closing the world, and immediately starts chasing after Esmenet.

36
Remember Kellhus quote about the Gods and how the No-God is mucking with history.

The Gods and their agents inhabit a world where they are doomed to succeed (WLW, since the Gods are atemporal), then transition without noticing to one where they were always doomed to fail when the No-God thwarts them.

It isn't that the existence of atemporal beings denies free will, it is that free will (in the form of the nondeterministic No-God and its slaves) transforms those eternal beings, makes them over again every time they interact.

The Ajokli who possessed Kellhus did so from beyond history, in a world in which he had/would always possess Kellhus and plunder the Granary.  The one that possess Cnaiur is a DIFFERENT AJOKLI, made over along with the remainder of the Outside by Resumption.  His rage is Cnaiur's rage, Esmenet's rage...the homicidal outrage of the victim, the desperate search for the one accountable, doomed forever to failure.

37
One important tidbit from the AMA/Unholy Consultation is that we should have significantly less divine stuff going down in the next books.  He mentions that the Gods are all but lobotomized now that the No-God is gnawing away at the connection between Inside and Out.

38
An idea I've had a couple of times goes like this:

People can become Ciphrangs (Cnaiur, etc.)
Gods are Ciphrangs (maybe...)
Ergo, at some point in the span of history, there live humans who will become Gods.  (Note that, because of atemporality, the God self and the human self of these people exist at the same time)
Kellhus IS Ajokli's egg form.  He is the wickedest, smartest person who will ever live, and he becomes Ajokli.  Ajokli can't find him because he IS him.  He doesn't know it because the No-God's servants were intimately involved in his linear self's death, so his atemporal self can't see it.

39
Author Q&A / Re: Unholy Consultation - *SUPER SPOILERIFIC*
« on: August 01, 2017, 01:08:27 pm »
I'm aware that a question about 'The No-God' is obviously treading on the ground of spoilers...but I gotta ask.

Will the readers make the acquaintance of the notorious fool...Likaro?

40
Author Q&A / Re: Unholy Consultation - *SUPER SPOILERIFIC*
« on: July 31, 2017, 04:43:44 pm »
Can you tell us what Maithanet was trying to say to Esmenet when he died?

41
Author Q&A / Re: Unholy Consultation - *SUPER SPOILERIFIC*
« on: July 28, 2017, 10:14:30 pm »
Hi Scott, thanks again for answering questions.

Can you tell us what was up with the Old Father ordering the skin spy to preserve Mimara?  Even once we know the 'false prophecy' refers to the misunderstanding about the Anasurimbor returning at the end of the world I'm still not sure why they thought Mimara could prove beneficial to their cause.

42
The Unholy Consult / Re: TUC - Moments that cut to the visceral quick
« on: July 28, 2017, 07:12:24 pm »
Proyas leading the Horde against the survivors of Dagliash was another amazing moment.  The men who lived through Hell itself, who no Sranc could touch...are butchered by the Great Ordeal.  "Great beasts come to put an end to their lessers" - indeed!  Plenty of tracks in the snow here!

43
Author Q&A / Re: Unholy Consultation - *SUPER SPOILERIFIC*
« on: July 28, 2017, 07:00:16 pm »
Hi Mr. Bakker, huge congratulations on finishing The Aspect Emperor.  I thought the final book was the best of the lot.

If it isn't too spoiler-y, can you let us know what the image of Kellhus that everyone sees floating down from the Horn is?  It seems clear that the Judging Eye sees the Carapace beneath it, but what was making it ever look like Kellhus was there?  Was it the same kind of Tekne that the Mutilated used to project an image of Shae in the Golden Room, or was something else at work?

44
The Unholy Consult / Re: TUC - Moments that cut to the visceral quick
« on: July 28, 2017, 06:54:45 pm »
Akka looking out over the Field Appalling to see Golgotterath falling was awesome.  His divided lives joined together in one primal moment of vindication...before all the wheels fell off.

45
There's a classic problem in rationality that you need a reason beyond rationality.  Like, optimizing for optimizations sake is just an endless circle.  If you aren't trying to DO anything, why bother becoming more capable?

The question of the Dunyain's 'self moving soul' is the same.  Where would it move?  Why?  If it is immune to circumstance and the pressure of the universe, then why would it do anything at all?  Presumably you could embed motives into it prior to its instantiation (see the Dunyain's imperatives, passed down through the ages), but those motives come from the Darkness.  The whole thing is a monstrous contradiction.

Koringhus finally gets this, at the end.  "Everything I taught you is a lie." The Judging Eye does not look kindly upon competence and mastery, only ignorance and innocence.  The Dunyain have labored for generations to damn themselves utterly.

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