[TUC Spoilers]Deus Ex Machina - Implausibilities - Running out of Steam

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Baztek

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« Reply #120 on: August 02, 2017, 06:53:14 pm »
I loved the book but man I still don't have a clue what the fuck happened.

Kellhus clearly understands Damnation is a problem - so why make a pact with Ajokli, the greater evil, to crush the Consult and prevent resumption? Especially if he already knows the Inchoroi are supposed to win? Scott says Kellhus was planning to defeat the Consult all along, was he trying to take them out before he can really work on this whole Damnation thing? Just what's going on man? Yeah yeah, muh meaning crash space, but there's a limit to philosophical titty-twisters before it wears thin. It's a testament to how riveting the narrative itself can be that this philosophical mud-puddle underneath it all barely detracts from my enjoyment.

We got like 3 fuckin' different conceptions of the absolute, a whole clusterfuck of ways to think about the soul/the Gods' blindness, and what Kellhus was really trying to do/what happened in the end.

Wilshire

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« Reply #121 on: August 02, 2017, 06:57:16 pm »
I saw you in the ama baztek , he's got some hints in there.

But yeah, TUC ends as TTT. We have few answers , and I'm of the mindset that we've gotten all we'll get regarding information about the world.

Anyone hoping for closure should come to terms with it. TSA was built this way, and plenty won't like it.
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The Sharmat

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« Reply #122 on: August 02, 2017, 07:07:27 pm »
I felt pretty good about things at the end of TTT so I can't agree there.

Kellhus and Damnation: Honestly, his solution seemed pretty Dunyain to me. He would avoid damnation by becoming a prince of Hell. Which, well, doesn't help anyone but him. And maybe not even him in the end since apparently Cnaiür is Ajokli? Cnaiür comes before Kellhus and is created as the Prince of Hate through Moenghus and Kellhus acting on his mortal origin to ensure his eternal rise. Cnaiür is the Absolute.

Kind of explains why Eärwa sucks so much.

Hiro

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« Reply #123 on: August 02, 2017, 07:59:34 pm »
I loved the book but man I still don't have a clue what the fuck happened.

[...]

We got like 3 fuckin' different conceptions of the absolute, a whole clusterfuck of ways to think about the soul/the Gods' blindness, and what Kellhus was really trying to do/what happened in the end.

Yup. Those different and conflicting conceptions are what makes it more realistic, just like here on Earth there are many conceptions.
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Baztek

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« Reply #124 on: August 02, 2017, 09:20:55 pm »
Scott's axioms here - the contradiction that is ensouled biological machines, the obscure, abyssal ground of causality, the necessity of ignorance to make everyday life possible, the dangers of plumbing too far and too deep with technology, the tension between biological hungers and higher-order thought, the collapse of firm meaning in the wake of late stage capitalism - these were discernible in book 1.

Now we wanted to see how they'd play out in the story proper, and while the narrative sheen is as lustrous as ever, I feel like it's just been, philosophically, a retread. I guess "there are no truth bombs to drop" is kinda the poiny but when he's talking about the g-string finally coming off only to reveal another one, just flesh-colored this time, it's a little disappointing.

Bolivar

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« Reply #125 on: August 03, 2017, 02:28:01 am »
I knew this was coming. When I was 200, then 300 pages into the book, I knew that there just wasn't enough time left for the story to go in a different, shocking direction or to offer a conclusion of finality to The Aspect Emperor like The Thousandfold Thought ending sequence did for The Prince of Nothing. When I turned the final page to the glossary, I knew this was the most insane epic battle I've ever read but a small part of me raged that this story is clearly far from over.

I just feel like this is not the book that's been teased since the publication of the White Luck Warrior. Sorweel, Mimara, Achamian, Meppa, Cnaiur, and the Survivor's Son all had zero bearing on the ultimate destination of the plot. It makes me wish we could have instead gotten what I was hoping to see from The Aspect Emperor, to really dive behind the scenes of characters like Maithanet, Aurang, Shauriatas. Both glossaries refer to the Mangeacca as a contemporary school, Kellhus saw them huddling over Aurang's body but now they all supposedly died out a long time ago? I don't know why this book is called the Unholy Consult.

There was no g-string. We only saw more Ur-Sranc, Bashrag, and Erratics. The Inverse Fire is exactly what we were told it is (which, I've been meaning to give my brother H some serious props for nailing it - that it's both a factual depiction of one's future damnation and the goad that the Consult uses to recruit talent). We were all getting psyched up for something that never happened. The No-God rising is the conclusion we were told was coming in the first chapter of the first book.

I really want to re-read just The Aspect Emperor because I expect it's going to resonate more now that it's complete and that these books in particular are going to age very well. It's clearly a much better written series than PoN, which is saying a lot, but it also has serious structural problems that make it such a far less satisfying story. A lot of fantasy fans like to defend a lack of closure by citing to the fact that these are large, overarching series. My response is always that the first three books here each had a clear beginning, middle, and totally unique, unforgettable end. The characters are completely different people at the end of each novel than they were at the beginning. If nothing came after TTT, you still would have read one of the greatest self-contained fantasy trilogies ever. So many of the TAE stories went nowhere and as amazing as Golgotterath was, my eyes really started glossing over the descriptions of fighting Sranc at that point. Again, I'm not scrutinizing Bakker for any of his plot point decisions, just the structuring.

And how can anyone deny the Deus Ex Machina at the end? There's no way that kid got to the upright horn!

littlegrice

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« Reply #126 on: August 03, 2017, 02:33:01 am »
To be fair, Kellhus was simply too powerful, too close to the all-seeing, all-knowing.  His character has dominated for 7 books simply because there is no-one more potent.  He really HAD to die for anyone else's actions to actually mean a damned thing.  I still think we'll be seeing him again in some form, but never again in the all-powerful position he occupied from the end of the Thousand Fold Thought through the Golden Room.
Well, he no talkie good like me and you, so his vocabulistics is limited to 'TELL ME...' and 'WHAT DO YOU SEE?' and, 'WHAT AM I?' Exclusively in that order.

The Sharmat

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« Reply #127 on: August 03, 2017, 03:32:34 am »
And how can anyone deny the Deus Ex Machina at the end? There's no way that kid got to the upright horn!
I agree with some of what you're saying but not with this at all. Kelmomas was simply escorted inside by a skin spy on the orders of the Consult. Why is that hard to believe? Not hard to get in when you're invited.

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« Reply #128 on: August 03, 2017, 01:05:50 pm »
And how can anyone deny the Deus Ex Machina at the end? There's no way that kid got to the upright horn!
I agree with some of what you're saying but not with this at all. Kelmomas was simply escorted inside by a skin spy on the orders of the Consult. Why is that hard to believe? Not hard to get in when you're invited.

+1

Especially on the back of a Cartilage-Monster.
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Wilshire

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« Reply #129 on: August 03, 2017, 01:39:34 pm »
And how can anyone deny the Deus Ex Machina at the end? There's no way that kid got to the upright horn!
I agree with some of what you're saying but not with this at all. Kelmomas was simply escorted inside by a skin spy on the orders of the Consult. Why is that hard to believe? Not hard to get in when you're invited.

+1

Especially on the back of a Cartilage-Monster.

Yeah I don't get why that's hard. Kelmomas escapes the day before, is found by skin spy. Does it take more than 18 hours to walk from the ordeal camp to the golden room? Why wouldn't he be there?

Compared to everything else going on, this is a pretty mundane issue of walking from point a to point b.

I assume those that think otherwise have reasoning behind it that I just don't see. Can someone please do me the honor of pointing out the obvious?
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Hiro

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« Reply #130 on: August 03, 2017, 01:46:18 pm »
And how can anyone deny the Deus Ex Machina at the end? There's no way that kid got to the upright horn!
I agree with some of what you're saying but not with this at all. Kelmomas was simply escorted inside by a skin spy on the orders of the Consult. Why is that hard to believe? Not hard to get in when you're invited.

+1

Especially on the back of a Cartilage-Monster.

Yeah I don't get why that's hard. Kelmomas escapes the day before, is found by skin spy. Does it take more than 18 hours to walk from the ordeal camp to the golden room? Why wouldn't he be there?

Compared to everything else going on, this is a pretty mundane issue of walking from point a to point b.

I assume those that think otherwise have reasoning behind it that I just don't see. Can someone please do me the honor of pointing out the obvious?

I'm guessing that people who have trouble with Kelmomas being in the Golden Room at the appointed time, have trouble (consciously or not) with the conclusion of the book.
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Wilshire

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« Reply #131 on: August 03, 2017, 02:08:57 pm »
That's kind of a bold assumption Hiro, puts someone on the spot. I'll let them speak for themselves lol.
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The Sharmat

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« Reply #132 on: August 03, 2017, 02:34:36 pm »
If that were the case it seems like missing something obvious. It's not a coincidence he's in the Golden Room at that time. A skin spy found him and brought him to its Consult masters. Kelmomas/Samarmas, in fear of his/their/its life, tries to be useful like he tried with Kellhus and mentions how the powers that be can't see him. The Dunyain keep him there as a contingency, a calculated risk. If what he's saying is true they don't have to contest with their brother, they can simply dispose of him and use Kelmomas/Samarmas.

Hiro

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« Reply #133 on: August 03, 2017, 02:38:15 pm »
That's kind of a bold assumption Hiro, puts someone on the spot. I'll let them speak for themselves lol.

Well, it's my honest impression. I did not intend to put anyone on the spot.
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Bolivar

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« Reply #134 on: August 03, 2017, 05:15:56 pm »
Kelmomas was simply escorted inside by a skin spy on the orders of the Consult. Why is that hard to believe?

Because you're pulling this entirely out of your own ass!

I just read his entrance into the golden room and the end of his captivity - Esmenet brings him a file, as he did for Inrilatas. There is absolutely zero textual support that either a) a Skin-Spy brought him or b) the Consult invited him. Unless I'm missing something in between those two moments or an AMA answer (which, by all means, I'm all ears!) there's no compelling reason to make this inference.

You're doing the author's work for him.

I'm guessing that people who have trouble with Kelmomas being in the Golden Room at the appointed time, have trouble (consciously or not) with the conclusion of the book.

Not at all. I always entertained the possibility that this demonic prodigy of Dunyain issue, who could see sorcery, would be the one placed within the carapace. In my initial reads of TAE, I never ruled out that the voice in his head was the No-God, same as it speaks to Kellhus. He becomes completely enamoured in Inrilatas' philosophy of heaping damnation upon oneself to better achieve divinity, and admits that he would stack the screams of this world to the heavens if he had the chance. Of course I still feel the way this book was positioned was misleading but Kelmomas being the No-God makes total sense within the greater narrative frame.

I just wish it wasn't forced in such an improbable manner.