Chorae and the Carapace

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« on: June 03, 2013, 03:45:56 pm »
Quote from: Duskweaver
OK, so I was thinking about the Greek words RSB chose for sorcery and its artefacts in tSA. They're mostly pretty obvious ('Gnosis' = 'Knowledge'; 'Anagogis' = 'Allegory'; 'Aporos' = 'Impasse'; 'Psukhe' = 'Soul'; you all know these already, right?), but for some reason I'd never really thought about what 'Chorae' meant. I think I sort of assumed it was something to do with 'chorus', as it drowns out the 'singing' of a sorcerer. But 'chora' is an actual Greek word, meaning 'country' (or 'realm' or 'region').

In The False Sun, RSB uses the word 'Ground' interchangably to refer to either worlds/planets or to what we might term 'spacetime' or 'the fabric of Reality' (the No-God's hunger bends it). A 'chora' is a relatively small (compared to the World), bounded piece of literal ground, with its own laws set by its creator/ruler. Replace 'ground' with 'Ground', and perhaps a Chorae is a small sub-reality with its own physical laws (e.g. "magic doesn't work here")? It is a 'Tear of God' (to the pseudo-pantheistic Inrithi at least) because a whole new Reality, even a very small and simple one, is by definition divine, with its own immanent Divine Presence. A Tear holds a tiny, distorted reflection of the Whole.

The No-God's carapace is an iron sarcophagus set with 11 Chorae (a curiously precise number). Now, what would eleven subrealities/'realms', each contained within a small sphere, arranged in the shape of a sarcophagus, actually look like?

Oh, right:

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« Reply #1 on: June 03, 2013, 03:46:16 pm »
Quote from: lockesnow
i don't get it, I've never seen the image before, what's it supposed to be?

When I first read the books, I figured stuff like Psukhe (which I took to be psyche) and gnosis (which I interpreted through the lens of the word gnostic/gnosticism) to be typical fantasy 'cutesy' use of greek/latin to make things sound more profound than they were.  The typical set dressing/costuming one expects with English language writing; a typical elevation/worship of Greco/Roman stuff found in most western fantasy writing.  I never gave any more thought to it than I gave to the thought that "Avada Kedevra" was a cutesy take of "abra kadabra". 

Not having any formal knowledge of Greek nor Latin I didn't give it a second thought.  It makes sense that Bakker is actively utilizing these tropes of fantasy, making the often meaningless invocation of the tropes have concrete meaning in his uses and in his uses of them he's also effectively subverting and critiquing these same tropes.

Interestingly, with the heavy influence of German philosophers on Bakker, Nietzsche, Wittgennstein, Schelling etc, it's almost odd that he didn't use the language of German philosophy for his 'other' vocabulary and instead relied on Greco/Roman usages.

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« Reply #2 on: June 03, 2013, 03:46:23 pm »
Quote from: Wilshire
Quote from: lockesnow
i don't get it, I've never seen the image before, what's it supposed to be?
+1. I don't get it.

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« Reply #3 on: June 03, 2013, 03:46:29 pm »
Quote from: lockesnow
apparently it's something to do with the kabbalah or some such.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiferet

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« Reply #4 on: June 03, 2013, 03:46:35 pm »
Quote from: Wilshire
invert that and it looks a lot closer to a sarcophagus.

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« Reply #5 on: June 03, 2013, 03:48:33 pm »
Quote from: bbaztek
calling it now: the no-god is sephiroth, WHAT DO YOU SEE is reference to his androgynous appearance. i should be writing this series.

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« Reply #6 on: June 03, 2013, 03:48:42 pm »
Quote from: Wilshire
Sepheiroth wasn't that bad.

He could be Sin though, that damnable yevon and Maester Seymor.

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« Reply #7 on: June 03, 2013, 03:48:51 pm »
Quote from: Duskweaver
Quote from: lockesnow
i don't get it, I've never seen the image before, what's it supposed to be?
I kind of assumed everyone would at least recognise the Tree of Life. I don't actually know enough about the Kabbalah to take the train of thought any further than I did in my OP. I posted the diagram because I hoped someone else here might have some insight. In any case, I suspect its influence may have been no more than RSB seeing that diagram once and thinking "hey, that looks like a sarcophagus".

Quote
Interestingly, with the heavy influence of German philosophers on Bakker, Nietzsche, Wittgennstein, Schelling etc, it's almost odd that he didn't use the language of German philosophy for his 'other' vocabulary and instead relied on Greco/Roman usages.
Dead languages complain less when you abuse them. ;)

More seriously, I think German is too obviously, well, German to RSB's intended primary readership (lots of German-speaking communities in the US, quite a number in Canada, and a lot of us in the UK at least learn it in school even if we have no significant communities of 'native' German-speakers), while Greek and Latin can pass as 'generic ancient language' with most people.

Using a lot of German or German-sounding terms would have made tSA feel even more like Warhammer to me, though. :P

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« Reply #8 on: June 03, 2013, 03:48:59 pm »
Quote from: Madness
Quote from: Duskweaver
A Tear holds a tiny, distorted reflection of the Whole

Good post. I would just rephrase this to be a Tear holds a tiny, undistorted presence or something. Also, am surprised by the lack of knowledge of Kabbalah symbols - but that is, definitely beauty to a series and forum like this: we all get to bring our connotations together, cast our minds together to see the Absolute, not the aspects, of what Bakker sees.

Quote from: bbaztek
calling it now: the no-god is sephiroth, WHAT DO YOU SEE is reference to his androgynous appearance. i should be writing this series.

I was thinking the other night what would happen if we all wrote a world together lmao.

Quote from: Duskweaver
Dead languages complain less when you abuse them. ;)

More seriously, I think German is too obviously, well, German to RSB's intended primary readership (lots of German-speaking communities in the US, quite a number in Canada, and a lot of us in the UK at least learn it in school even if we have no significant communities of 'native' German-speakers), while Greek and Latin can pass as 'generic ancient language' with most people.

+1.

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« Reply #9 on: June 03, 2013, 03:49:09 pm »
Quote from: Duskweaver
The whole world in a small sphere:

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« Reply #10 on: June 03, 2013, 03:54:46 pm »
Quote from: Madness
Beautiful picture.

Anagoge (ἀναγωγή) is a Greek word suggesting a "climb" or "ascent" upwards. The anagogical is a method of spiritual interpretation of literal statements or events, especially scriptural exegesis that detects allusions to the afterlife.

Gnosis is the common Greek noun for knowledge.

Psukhe (Greek Lexicon) -
    breath
        the breath of life
            the vital force which animates the body and shows itself in breathing 1a
        of animals 1a
    of men
        life
        that in which there is life
            a living being, a living soul
    the soul
        the seat of the feelings, desires, affections, aversions (our heart, soul etc.)
        the (human) soul in so far as it is constituted that by the right use of the aids offered it by God it can attain its highest end and secure eternal blessedness, the soul regarded as a moral being designed for everlasting life
        the soul as an essence which differs from the body and is not dissolved by death (distinguished from other parts of the body)

Thought I'd throw these in - though, there's plenty of better sources, apologies - in light of the evolving language discussion in the Thousandfold Thought thread. Zeitgeist threads :)!

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« Reply #11 on: June 03, 2013, 03:54:53 pm »
Quote from: Anasurimbor Bob
Hmmm the tree of life idea for the eleven embedded choraes in the No god's sarcophagus is not a bad one,in fact it is very good thinking,but to me it would be more logical if the patern was reversed:In Kaballah lore The tree of life represents God's creation Ex Nihilo,so if the pattern is reversed it would symbolise the unmaking of creation and it's return to nothing,which means the unmaking of god's work,and given the fact that the No god is the antithesis of everything divine it would fit.(And as another poster pointed out it is easier to fit on a sarcophagus when it is reversed).

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« Reply #12 on: June 03, 2013, 03:54:59 pm »
Quote from: Madness
Two for two. You've got some good connotations, AB. Must run in the family lol.

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« Reply #13 on: April 15, 2014, 10:36:52 pm »
Don't know if it matters, but the carapace seems to be an aporetic object itself and not just a case with chorae stuck in it

Quote
Seswatha glimpsed the unholy Carapace shining in the whirlwind's heart, a nimil sarcophagus sheathed in choric script, hanging...

Warrior Prophet, US edition, p 143, just a little into chapter 7.

So maybe it's whatever a big chorae would be?  A bigger contradiction/paradox?  It's a pretty sweet set-up: can't be attacked by convention forces, whirlwind; can't be attacked by sorcery, aporos; can only get to it with a laser rifle, and it has to be big. 

Any significance to the nimil?  Maybe we'll get a nimil revelation in Ishterebinth.