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Topics - Inshallabel

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Not sure if this thread already exists, I've glanced around but didn't find one, but I have seen scattershot posts on the subject.

Basically this is just for what analogues or cognates do you find between Bakker's Earwa, Herbert's DUNE, Tolkien's Middle-Earth, and real world History? 

I will list some.

Bakker and Tolkien

Nonmen of Viri - Sindarin Elves
Nonmen of Siol - Noldorin Elves
{I know the Nonmen are not as defined / divergent as Noldor and Sindar, just illustrating the relative supremacy of one to the other, the Siol Cunuroi seem to be the Highest among the Nonmen}.
Nonman Tutelage - First and Second Ages where Edain and Eldar had friendship in the Northwest
Inniur-Shigogli - The Plateau of Gorgoroth
Golgotterath - Barad-Dur
Dunyain - Dunedain (of the Lost Realm of Arnor)
Oirinas and Oirunas (Twin Sons of Siol) - Amrod and Amras (Twin Sons of Feanor)
Kuniuri - Either Numenor or Arnor

Half-Elven
Dior (Beren and Luthien)
Earendil (Tuor and Idril)
Elwing (Dior and Nimloth)
Elrond and Elros (Earendil and Elwing)

Cunuroi-Halaroi Hybrids
Cimoira - Mentioned in Isuphiryas.  Daughter of Sirwitta the Emwama and the wife of an Ishroi.  Accepted as Cunuroi.
Anasurimbor Sanna-Jephera "Twoheart" (Anasurimbor Omindalea and Nonman Siqu, Jiricet).  Sanna-Neorje (Father) adopts Sanna-Jephera as heir to the Anasurimbor Dynasty of Umerau.  Possibly point at which Nonman ancestry enters Anasurimbor line.
Anasurimbor Nanor-Ukkerja I, High King of Kuniuri, lived to be 178, the reputed result of Nonman blood.  Anasurimbors Moenghus and Kellhus are descendants.

Sranc and Bashrag - Orcs and Trolls
The No-God - Melkor
Mekeretrig - Sauron

Cu'Jara Cinmoi's Pursuit of Nin'Janjin's offer of Immortality - Ar-Pharazon the Golden's Pursuit Immortality via Sauron's urge to go against the Ban of the Valar.
Both rulers brought about the ruin of their Kingdoms/Peoples in pursuit of Immortality.

Bakker and Herbert
Haven't read every DUNE book so a lot less familiar on this front...

Dunyain - Bene Gesserit
Consult - Honored Matres
Anasurimbor Kellhus - Paul Atreides
Aspect-Emperor Kellhus - God Emperor Leto
The Straight Path / The Thousandfold Thought - The Golden Path
Skin-Spies - Face Dancers

Bakker and Real World
Ajencis - Plato, Aristotle, Socrates?  Unsure...
Stajanas II (Ruminations) - Marcus Aurelius (Meditations)
Emwama - Ancient Earwan Men, possibly similar to Erectus or Neanderthals 

Five Tribes of Men
Norsirai - Germanic, Norse, Finnish, Celtic
Zeum - Nilotic or African
Ketyai - Mediterranean, Indo-Iranian, Mesopotamian, Semitic, Afro-Asiatic
Xiuhianni - Mongolian, Sino-Tibetan
Scylvendi - Scythians, Sarmatians, Cimmerians
Should be noted that heritability of genes and traits seems to work differently in the Bakkerverse as opposed to the real world, though.

Inri Sejenus, Inrithism - Jesus Christ, Catholicism
Fan'oukarji I, Fanimry - Mohammed, Islam
Kiunnat Traditionalists of Nilnamesh - Hinduism and related Dharmic practices

Kyraneas, Ceneian Empire, Nansurium - Mycenean Greek / Etruscan, Roman Empire, Byzantine Empire
Kidruhil - Cataphracts or Klibinarii
Shiradi Empire, Cengemis, Conriya, High Ainon - Unsure on these...  Conriyan Knights seem reminiscent of Cataphracts or 12-Cent. Frankish Knights. 
The Ancient North: Umeri Empire, Kuniuri, Meori Empire, Aorsi - Essentially the Ancient Near Middle East, transplanted to the North.  Sumerian, Assyrian, Akkadians, Kassite Babylonians, Elamites, Hittites, and Mitanni with Norse or Germanic elements.
The Middle North: Galeoth, Thunyerus, Ce'Tydonn - Goths, Thurungians, Norse and Saxons.
Nron - Cyprus
Nilnamesh - India
Girgash - Persians, Medes, Aryans
Kian - The Arabic Caliphate
Nenciphon - Baghdad
Eumarna, Enathpanea, Xerash, Gedea - The Levant, Syria, Judea
Shimeh - Jerusalem
Shigek / Chemerat - Ancient Egypt, Ancient Mesopotamia
Zeum - Mali, Ghana, Songhay, Nubia??  A relatively isolated and remote people.

Excluding the Sorcerous Schools, the technology and aesthetic of Earwa in the 4th Millennium seems very similar to 11th, 12th, and 13th century Eurasia...
Lots of hauberks, mail, and I'm assuming some gambesons (padded jackets), scale armor, klivanions (or lamellar armor) is what is being worn by the majority of the Ketyai and Norsirai in these stories. 
As opposed to heavy Romantic and Gothic tourney plate amor of 15h and 16th century Europe and Game of Thrones...

The Nonmen - Ancient Greeks and Romans at the peak of their classicism and beauty, with copious doses of LSD, DMT, opium and cocaine. 

Please offer suggestions or criticisms.  I am sure I am missing or misinterpreting a lot here.

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[EDIT Madness: Title]

posted this here due to tangentiality of it

Assuming that the reality we live in is "random" is a large assumption based on no evidence whatsoever.
Quote from: Wilshire
If you're looking to debate scientific semantics, check out the Science subforums, theres a lot of good stuff there (and potentially a few other persons who might engage you there). Though, it might be good form to cite some evidence yourself if you're calling out someone else for not doing so ;).

!!!ATTENTION ALL MODS!!!  I realized how unnecessarily long and dumb this post was and how it probably leads this thread down a whatchamacallit.  Tangent. 
Also I realize I come off as a douchebag here, I don't actually take what I am saying too seriously or think I am actually right.  I am just really tired, it is really late, and somehow I found a keyboard in front of me, which are all circumstances which set my asperger's on fire.
PLEASE delete from this thread and move somewhere else if necessary.


But, for the sake of hubris and vanity I'm going to argue that you actually can prove that assuming the reality we live in is "random" is an assumption based on no evidence...  and that you can actually prove this without citing any evidence.

Quote from: mrganondorf
in an evolutionary setting, everything hinges on coincidences
But what is Coincidence?
Random versus Non-Random {or Neither}.  Coincidence versus Intentional {or Neither}.
It is difficult to discern.
Although perhaps Science or Reality somehow does not care whether or not we consider it Random or not, Intentional or not.
These are subjective ideas, and aren't based on any kind of mathematical rule or logical razor.
{How would one measure Random or Coincidence versus Intent, and if one could Find something Random or Intentional, how could they be certain that they were not overlooking a prior condition that rendered this finding incorrect?}
Coincidence v Intent are just personal assessments of a situation, given a fairly minimal amount of information. 
To say that Reality is Random is an assessment based on no evidence, although to say that Reality is Not Random is similarly a large assumption. 
You can point this out without having any evidence of your own.
Why?
Because every individual has their own approximation of what constitutes "coincidence" or "randomness".  And if anyone claimed to have evidence, that evidence would only be arbitrarily utilized to reinforce their claim of randomness.  The evidence itself is merely "evidence".
It doesn't argue for or against randomness or the nature of reality without a human lens. 
So we don't really need evidence to point out that someone else's position lacks evidence if that position is just an assumption based on feeling.

Quote
Fast forward to the set of circumstances that created our planet.
But in order to "fast forward" you must admit that these circumstances were framed by a set of circumstances that preceded it.
Ex. The circumstances that created our planet were framed by the circumstances that created our sun, and etc., ab initio {or at least until you reach a set of circumstances in which all subsequent sets are embedded, which is close enough to initio for most}. 
Quote from: Ajencis, The Third Analytic of Men
If it is only after that we understand what has come before, then we understand nothing.  Thus we shall define the soul as follows: that which precedes everything.
Is this world coincidental or intentional? 
Can any human make a concrete claim in one direction or the other?
Or is all appraisal of such values ultimately a subjective sliding scale of human emotional gradient?

Every intervening moment in spacetime that creates the environment we inhabit today was preceded by one that set the stage for its development, until there was at some point a set of circumstances that framed all following circumstances.
The firmament that sets the stage for the stage for the stage for the stage for the stage.

Otherwise the "Set of Circumstances" which illustrate coincidence is just arbitrarily partitioned off from surrounding Circumstances for the sake of being able to call events Random or Not-Random. 

This is like you looking at yourself as a baby and saying, "Fast forward to set of circumstances that created this baby.  Just the right number of this, and the right number of that to allow this baby's existence.  It is a random phenomenon, a complete and utter coincidence that this baby exists."  You do not, however, look at what set of circumstances immediately preceded the baby, i.e., its period of fetal incubation, its zygote-form, it's embryo.
You just arbitrarily looked at a small slice of spacetime and assumed that the conditions that generated a phenomena were random, which was just your personal assessment, when really the decision to label something as random or non-random isn't based on evidence because what is Real is Real... regardless of whether it was Coincidental or not.

Quote
Right distance from sun, right number of comets depositing water on the surface after it cooled, Jupiter to shield us from most asteroids.
Again, with everything being JUST the right amount of this or that, {generated by a preceding series of circumstances of incredibly precise material minutiae} it could be just as easy to say that it could not have possibly been a coincidence that things turned out the way they did.
What is so coincidental about a system of objects, compounds, molecules moving through space and time to generate structures like the Solar System we inhabit? 
The fact that conditions were so perfect still sounds almost Biblical in nature, even if you don't necessarily have an anthropocentric Creator Deity. 

Quote
Then life,  primordial soup with enough organic material to spontaneously form amino acids, single cells forming, single-cells evolving into everything.
Again, there's not really any clear indication that this combination of hydrogen/carbon/nitrogen/oxygen {prime elements of amino acids} is either terribly coincidental or terribly intentional. 
Neither is there any indication that there being "enough" of these materials is even the most remarkable or coincidental feature of the formation of amino acids {and life}.
The amount of objects, materials and mass in our universe doesn't seem either scarce or superfluous, it just is.

The presence of organic compounds was framed by a long chain of events that preceded them and set the stage for their development.
The mass and characteristics of the atoms hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen were framed before their development by the mass and characteristics of protons, neutrons, and electrons.  {And on down to quarks, bosons and leptons, etc...}

The characteristics of tiny protons results in their development of hydrogen, which generates mass, causing more hydrogen to condense,, which in turn generates massive structures like the Sun {nuclear fusion of hydrogen into helium, based solely on the weight and nuclear force of particles that are smaller than individual ATCG codons in our DNA}.
Does not seem very coincidental.  Although does it necessarily need to be coincidental or intentional?  Random or non-random?
 
In fact its kind of remarkable {IMO} that organisms are "programmed" into existence via a process of acute molecular representation and material re-appropriation that somewhat resembles binary {on/off 100011010100 versus gene on/gene off ACCTGACCTG}.
http://www.genome.gov/glossary/index.cfm?id=78 - link for whomever interested.

The Universe is Irregular, or "Misshapen" {i.e. mass distributed unevenly, non-uniformly} in such a particular way that everything that currently exists exists.
All of the great gulfs between stars and galaxies, massive interstitial darknesses of vacuum and void, are positioned perfectly for our existence.
And for this conversation.
Whether it was intentional or random is a whole different question entirely... albeit not one that ever really changes the reality of what we inhabit.

Quote
I'm sure that if you look at it all as a whole, its a giant chaotic system, which to me is the scientific equivalent of coincidence.
A giant chaotic system that generates smaller systems with the molecular precision to appreciate the giant chaotic system in such a fashion... 
doesn't seem very chaotic...  Although this is just my opinion.
Although I don't think chaotic or chaos is a good way to describe the system...
IMO like the entire concept of a System is antithetical to the adverb Chaotic. 
If this were all just giant chaos why would a system be developed out of it in the first place? 
How could chaos generate a System to begin with instead of just remaining continually chaotic?

And as for all of this science-like stuff, I make a point of it mainly because I think... maybe... just maybe there might be something in it that is actually related to all of this epic fantasy... 
I remember in an interview Bakker saying he likes to subvert genre conventions while simultaneously appealing to those audiences...
he said that instead of thrillers he writes anti-thrillers, instead of fantasy: anti-fantasy.
Considering that the author has said something like this we may have to be a little bit more skeptical in our approach to his books as fantasies that are entirely removed from our own reality.  We may have to attempt to look at them as something that is somehow not actually a fantasy... aggh I am getting ahead of myself here though.

Assuming reality is random?  I say y'don't have the evidence for it! 
My evidence?  I don't need any, naturally. 
YOU exist and your assumption exists. 
Are YOU random?  Are YOU non-random?
OR are YOU just YOU?
BOOM!  oh yeah.  wham.  just blew your mind.
haha okay ridiculous I know whatever I am going to sleep now.

A quote from the books, while Kellhus is making his way from Ishual to Sobel {my emphasis}.
Quote from: R.S. Bakker, TDTCB, p. 7
     On the afternoon of the seventeenth day, a twig lodged itself between his sandal and foot.  He held it against storm-piled clouds and studied it, became lost in its shape, in the path it travelled through the open air - the thin, muscular branchings that seized so much emptiness from the sky.  Had it simply fallen into this shape, or had it been cast, a mould drained of its wax?

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