The Second Apocalypse
Earwa => General Earwa => Topic started by: What Came Before on June 03, 2013, 04:05:06 pm
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I believe there is a lot of subtle clues of Ajokli's influence throughout the AE so far, things I noted when reading that I could not quite grasp and tie together.
Sadly I'm missing a box of books containing my TJE and TDTCB from a recent move so I can't indulge a reread atm.
But here are a couple from memory;
Sarl and the Captain for example.
"Sometimes the dead bounce" Sarl says. I felt that maybe he didn't just break (no weepers on the slog), that possibly he actually briefly died and was bounced back into his body.
The Captain, who remembers Hell... did he accompany Kellhus perhaps on a jaunt outside? Possibly to condition him for the journey to Sauglish?
As an adherent to Ajokli, would he not make and excellent 'book' for the erratic Cleric? Trickster and assassin.
When last we leave these two, Sarl has tied the Captain's head into his beard... four-horned brother I thought to myself - two twists of Sarl's beard tied into two twists of hair was how I pictured it.
The twin souled Kelmomas and his similarly endowed ancestor Celmomas;
K is the essence of a chaotic trickster and lurking assassin, we don't know whether he's working against Kellhus or Yatwer but he apparently works towards claiming his mother (who bears Gierra's symbol on her wrist...). Perhaps this is the reason Kellhus leaves the empire to her?
C's prophecy is the fulcrum of Kellhus' Ordeal... but who sent that vision and is it true? Celmomas died in the field against the No-god, and the Tsuramah tasted his soul. Only Ajokli can see the no-god; this vision of an Anasurimbor returning at the End - it really seems to hinge on the fact that the No-god is the one to cause the apocolypse. And if the gods granted that vision to Celmomas and Kellhus (or Kelmomas) is its fruition, then WHY would they oppose him as they do?
Anyway, I'm tired and rambling. That's enough for now.
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I'll hopefully come back to this later when I'm not cramming for a test, but the prophecy only says an Anasurimbor will return at the end of the world. This is why Moe Sr war, or Kell is, the harbinger.
This isn't really the fulcrum of the Ordeal though is it? The point of the Ordeal is to shut down the consult before they resurrect Mog. Kell thinks that they are close not because of the prophecy, which I don't think he believes anyways, but because of his encounters with the consult in the first series.
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Lol, good luck, Wilshire. Had a social psyc exam this morning - think I handled it pretty well.
I'll just add some factuals and interpretives for now, Curethan ;):
- Followers of Ajolki are the true Narindar - not to be confused with Narindar, those mortal vassals that simply kill for the Gods. The Narindar proper wear their hair long. They are ritual assassins - all aspects of that social ritual are Holy to the Narindar, observed with scriptural reverence, culminating in the momentary divinity of murder.
- "'The Four-Horned Brother ... Do you know why he is shunned by the others? Why my Cult and my Cult alone is condemned by the Tusk?' [Nameless Narindar]
'Ajolki is the Fool' [White-Luck Warrior]...
'He only seems such because he sees what the others do not see... What you do not see ... The blindness of the sighted' [Nameless Narindar]"(WLW, p574).
- "Devotion? The Brother cares not for our cares, only that we murder in His Name" [White-Luck Warrior] (p586).
I don't have TJE on me right now either having lend copies to a couple friends but there are a lot of good introspective moments from Kelmomas concerning Ajolki in AE - who I think is top pick for Ajolki's Avatar.
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Damn, I was responding to Duskweaver's post and I had to pop back here - sometimes, before returning to a kind of cognitive baseline, I like to envision different circumstances as yielding insight by merit of their collective acknowledgement - a zeitgeist of noosphere, as it were.
Nerdanel:
Ajolki = Sil, King of the Inchoroi?
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I touched on this in another thread, but I wonder if we're supposed to read anything into the letters for "Loki" existing with "Ajokli."
They're both trickster gods of some kind, right?
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Loki reflects the Triskster archetype of Norse mythology.
My commentary in the other thread very much reflects Joseph Campbell's body of work. There are seemingly very clear archetypes, which emerge from analyzing many, many human narratives. Campbell in many ways was building off of Jung's work. For the most part, I've associated Ajolki with the classical Triskster, excepting in light of AE's evidence that he might see the No-God, which recontextualizes that entity away from the classic archetype within the context of TSA's narrative - he seems a Trickster and a Fool because he "claims" to believe in things the other Gods know don't exist.
That is, if he isn't the God who was an Inchoroi, as Wilshire and I have been searching for...
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I'll hopefully come back to this later when I'm not cramming for a test, but the prophecy only says an Anasurimbor will return at the end of the world. This is why Moe Sr war, or Kell is, the harbinger.
This isn't really the fulcrum of the Ordeal though is it? The point of the Ordeal is to shut down the consult before they resurrect Mog. Kell thinks that they are close not because of the prophecy, which I don't think he believes anyways, but because of his encounters with the consult in the first series.
Perhaps fulcrum is not the word I was searching for.
I meant that the prophecy is about a son of Celmomas returning to lead his people at the end of the world. Mog is the end of the world incarnate. I son't see how the prophecy can exclude the no-god's existence.
(And Seswatha is supposed to be there to witness the end... come to think of it he was a pretty good trickster, sneaking into Golgotteroth and lying to Nau, getting off the wall, banging the emperor's wife, hiding the heron spear etc)
Loki reflects the Triskster archetype of Norse mythology.
My commentary in the other thread very much reflects Joseph Campbell's body of work. There are seemingly very clear archetypes, which emerge from analyzing many, many human narratives. Campbell in many ways was building off of Jung's work. For the most part, I've associated Ajolki with the classical Triskster, excepting in light of AE's evidence that he might see the No-God, which recontextualizes that entity away from the classic archetype within the context of TSA's narrative - he seems a Trickster and a Fool because he "claims" to believe in things the other Gods know don't exist.
**edit: Triskster!!! Ajokli is Triskele!!!**
Hmm, what about Coyote and Anansi. Trickster gods, but a lot less malevolent than Loki iirc.
I feel like the compensatory gods, or at least their realms, their powers over the objective world and their portfolios are made from the aggregated experience and PoV's of the souls they have collected.
Those like Ajokli... whether bellicose or punitive, idk... might depend on less direct metaphysical attachments.
That is, if he isn't the God who was an Inchoroi, as Wilshire and I have been searching for...
For me, the logos as a defining trait of ensouled creatures allows some degree of choice - that is, a creature cannot be damned unless there is some choice involved in its actions (stoats and sranc can happily indulge in child rape because they cannot apprehend the logos).
Now, if humans are in the habit (or simply have a proclivity) of dedicating their souls to various dieties or otherwise leaving their subjective frames in the outside (see ancestor intervention) and the Non-men sought oblivion and a means to becoming (as opposed to persisting in the outside), what spiritual leftovers did the Inchoroi have before they dedicated themselves as a species to pursuits that would damn them all?
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Nau Coyote??
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I thought this was about me....*sigh*
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It's always been about you ;).
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Nau Coyote??
Now Coyote? New Coyote? No-Coyote? How is a coyote like a three-legged dog?
I am in an unusually whimsical mood this morning.
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Nau Coyote??
How is a coyote like a three-legged dog?
I dunno... how?
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Since we are going on about gods in this thread, I thought this was a very interesting bit from Mother-Supreme.
"Birth and War alone can seize - and seize She does!"
Maybe our God of War (who is that.. Gilgaol or something? Terrible with gods, and worse at spelling) has a much larger part to play. If he is worth mention in Psatma's rant alongside Yatwer, he must be powerful indeed.
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You got the spelling and the name right, actually.
I think that all the most powerful of the Hundred are going to play their hand in events to come... after all, this is the first time the Cults' can exercise agency in a long time.
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I dunno... how?
It was a reference to Triskele's name, which I assume is a Gene Wolfe reference. There are some correspondences, though, the most obvious ones being that both Coyote and Triskele (the three-legged dog from Wolfe's Book of the New Sun, not our Triskele AFAIK ;) ) come back from the dead and act as psychopomps and as messengers of the Absolute. A form of the triskele, the walknot, is a symbol of Odin, who is (among other things) a Trickster whose associated animal is the Raven (who is also associated with Coyote - in some First Nations myths, they're two faces of the same entity). Coyote and Triskele also share the trait of being the more 'human'/'approachable'/comprehensible representative/companion/'pet' of the Creator.
But I was just being, as I said, whimsical.
Maybe our God of War (who is that.. Gilgaol or something? Terrible with gods, and worse at spelling) has a much larger part to play.
Doesn't Kellhus claim that, "of all the Gods, Gilgaöl burns most brightly within me", or am I misremembering?
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Yeah - I think that Kellhus does say that, which I've taken as simply a manipulation on the part of Kellhus.
But I wonder...would Gilgaol not appreciate the carnage and success of the Holy War wrought by Kellhus?
Nice thoughts on "Triskele." Yeah, it's taken from Wolfe for sure.
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"I come before, when Men have need of warlike strength. Of all the Hundred Gods, far-striking Gilgaol burns brightest in me, but not so bright as He burned within Coithus Athjeari, son of Asilda, daughter of Eryeat, King of the Galeoth" (TTT, p297).
Athjeari was the shit. RIP... but probably not in Earwa.
"In the Higarata, the collection of subsidiary writings that form the scriptural core of the Cults, Gilgaol is depicted as harsh and sceptical of Men, continually demanding proof of worth from those who would follow him" (TTT Glossary, p559).
I'm sure Cnaiur would have attracted Gilgaol. Same with the Captain, if he wasn't a Ciphrang (I had him pegged for Gilgaol's avatar after TJE).
Ah whimsy :).
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@ Triskele
I think it's fairly clear that Kellhus' has been taking the souls that would have gone to hundred in the outside and binding them to TTT.
"So much stolen..."
Thus all the gods are pissed, because their source of power, or 'nourishment' for their minidimensions, has slowed to a trickle.
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Based on Madness' quote from TTT...it sounds like Gilgaol believes that measure is unceasing.
Curethan - You're not talking about the afterlife, right? You're just saying that more living people are paying attention to Kellhus rather than the Hundred?
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Totally talking about the afterlife. Kellhus has rewritten scripture. When his adherants die, they reach for whatever he tells them to.
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Totally talking about the afterlife. Kellhus has rewritten scripture. When his adherants die, they reach for whatever he tells them to.
Kellhus claims he has rewritten scripture. Or rather, he has rewritten scripture but does the metaphysical world actually answer to it?
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Going from what Psatma says, if you reach for her as you die, you end up in her afterlife.
Somewhere else she talks about why the gods are making war of Kellhus - it's because of his 'stealing' the souls that were otherwise bound for their outside dimensions.
There are countless references to the way Kellhus binds the souls of the worldborn to himself. Why would the gods care otherwise; he hasn't outlawed the cults, but he has made huge inroads on the individual souls of their followers.
Maybe TTT has its own minidimension forged from the souls of the dead at Shimeh. Or maybe Kellhus is simply 'polluting' the spice (souls) that flow to the hundred.
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If Kellhus is achieving his own degree of desire in the Outside, then Moenghus the Elder certainly did when the Cishaurim, including his Sect, died at Shimeh :)...
I constantly wonder at the relationship between the mundane and the metaphysical in this series.
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If Kellhus is gradually harbouring more and more souls it would be interesting if there would be a decrease in the number of newborn (parallelling the first apocalypse)? Perhaps the difference between the first and second apocalypse is that the first apocalypse closure of the passage of souls (the no-god) was the result by consult machination, while the second apocalypse closure of the passage of souls is the result of worldborn adherants volontarily reaching for Kellhus when they die?
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It is possible, Galbrod, but I doubt.
Kellhus isn't really interrupting the flow of souls in the same way that the No-God did. The problem is not that he is collecting souls and preventing them from reaching the outside, like the No-God, but rather he is just keeping souls from grasping for the Hundred after they dies.
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It is possible, Galbrod, but I doubt.
Kellhus isn't really interrupting the flow of souls in the same way that the No-God did. The problem is not that he is collecting souls and preventing them from reaching the outside, like the No-God, but rather he is just keeping souls from grasping for the Hundred after they dies.
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That would be a great reversal.
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Indeed. Though, we don't know he's taken the role of saviour, especially as he might already be a False Prophet. PON might very well be a Crusade of the Damned.
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Love that idea too. Said it elsewhere but, the Ordeal fighting for the right to its own damnation.
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That Ajokli's cult is hated by other cults--another Inchoroi addition to the Tusk? Do they see Ajokli as an enemy? While we're at it, who the hell knows what is true-tusk and false? Inchoroi could have put lots in. Injunctions against witches keeps the number of light-spitters at 50% capacity for easier domination.
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That Ajokli's cult is hated by other cults--another Inchoroi addition to the Tusk? Do they see Ajokli as an enemy? While we're at it, who the hell knows what is true-tusk and false? Inchoroi could have put lots in. Injunctions against witches keeps the number of light-spitters at 50% capacity for easier domination.
I agree 100%, MG. Lying liars who lie. Though, oral culture retained a hefty knowledge base of accurate understandings too.
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what do you think it means that Ajokli is sometimes considered "a companion of the gods" but presumably NOT a god? i think TTT is the source?
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what do you think it means that Ajokli is sometimes considered "a companion of the gods" but presumably NOT a god? i think TTT is the source?
Trickster gods are often relegated to being outside the pantheon of the 'true' gods in mythology, most notably the outsider Loki in relation to the Aesir of Norse mythology. He was often numbered among them, but was also explicitly not Aesir. Along with the similarity in naming conventions, it could have been a take on that. Bakker probably has assigned a very specific reason for this in Earwa, but that's anyone's guess.
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That is a better answer than i thought i would get! Lovely!
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'Injunctions against witches keeps the number of light-spitters at 50% capacity for easier domination.'
amen to that o creating the swayal sisterhood is the number one greatest thing that kellhus has done since becoming the transcendent master o
but heres my thoughts oo
my money for who is ajoklis avatar is anasurimbor moenghus o if their not the avatar then am is in the cult x big time ....
because am was the no god o
their soul was trapped in the carapace during the eleven years of the first apocalypse drawing souls into the carapace with them and unable to stop though am wanted to get out because they x ajokli the trickster x was tricked into the box to begin with o
the consult does not have a worse or more fearsome enemy then anasurimbor moenghus xx except probably counting kellhus o
kellhus goes over to the consult in the unholy consult o but basically just for a gag o or as a gag ?
and lastly oo
the no god cannot be resurrected o ever o
the consult have turned to other options in wake of the heron spear freeing am from the box at the end of their eleven years in it x probably totally deceived or totally desperate to get out and win the war for the resistance o i think the carapace must have been filled with fire the whole time x consuming ams soul and the souls of those who died o or filled and filling with spiders o it was the consults early or first direct tekne slash sorcery experiment and it succeeded beyond their wildest dreams o it also coincided with the death of judas iscariot back on terra o
there are 55555 homeworlds in known existence after all o ours x terra x is the hundredth o the world of the middle kingdom o earwa is number 55555 o the last world o (its star hangs from orions belt x the middle star of the three) o the consult went in basically a circle back to the same galaxy x or something o
but if am is not ajokli then they are a die hard adherent o they were mog pharau o they never want to be put back in the box again o
my money x again and lastly x is on the side who masters the tekne winning the war o serwa x the greatest witch in the world x is made out of nanobots afterall ....
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and the false tusk versus the true ....
the tusk is a collection of writings over someones whole life time that has been codified into x basically mathematical symbols and otherscript by the consult o
but there is a part of the collection that was missing when the tusk was created o the treasure o reading the tusk with the treasure is completely different from reading it without it and reverses much of the stances the tusk takes o thats false tusk versus true o