The Second Apocalypse

Earwa => The Aspect-Emperor => The Great Ordeal => Topic started by: profgrape on April 19, 2017, 04:13:19 pm

Title: [TGO SPOILERS] [TUC Spoilers!] Witness (MG Teaser #4)
Post by: profgrape on April 19, 2017, 04:13:19 pm
(http://i.imgur.com/3V58cSg.jpg?1)

From TTT glossary:

Quote
Imprompta, The --  The anonymously written collection of the Warrior-Prophet's earliest sermons and aphorisms.

As for the Warrior-Prophet summoning witness, this seems to be related to a specific sermon when Kellhus counseled a nameless Conriyan knight.  The knight was stricken by nightmares of a dead girl he'd seen in a nearby village.  From TWP:

Quote
"But why?" [the knight] cried.  "I mean, how many dead have we seen?"
"But not all seeing," Kellhus replied, "is witness."
"I don't understand..."
"Witness is the seeing that testifies, that judges so that it may be judged.  You saw, and you judged.   Trespass had been committed, an innocent had been murdered.  You saw this."


And now to start speculating!

The idea of witness being a deeper form of seeing makes me think of a couple of things.

First, a deeper form of sight, the idea of recording a deed so it can be judged, could be related to a soul's ledger of sins committed.  It might suggest that sins are only such if they are witnessed?

Second, I can't imagine a deeper form of sight than The Judging Eye.  It's suggested that Mimara not only has the ability to see the soul's ledger, but also the ability to absolve those sings. 

Ordinary witness records sin, TJE witness absolves it?
Title: Re: [TGO SPOILERS] [TUC Spoilers!] Witness (MG Teaser #4)
Post by: BeardFisher-King on April 19, 2017, 05:01:05 pm
Makes sense, prof. Witnessing is seeing that makes a moral judgement. The JE, just as does Emeril, kicks it up a notch. Bam!
Title: Re: [TGO SPOILERS] [TUC Spoilers!] Witness (MG Teaser #4)
Post by: H on April 19, 2017, 05:17:44 pm
Quote
“I’m not asking you to see,” Kellhus said. “I’m asking you to witness.”
Blank face. Desolate eyes. The nameless knight blinked, and two tears silvered his cheek. Then he smiled, and nothing, it seemed, could be so glorious.
“To make myself …” His voice quavered, broke. “To m-make …”
“To be one with the world in which you dwell,” Kellhus said. “To make a covenant of your life.”

Is it just me, or is there something of a unity concept here, along the lines of Koringhus' Zero-God?
Title: Re: [TGO SPOILERS] [TUC Spoilers!] Witness (MG Teaser #4)
Post by: BeardFisher-King on April 19, 2017, 06:12:54 pm
Quote
“I’m not asking you to see,” Kellhus said. “I’m asking you to witness.”
Blank face. Desolate eyes. The nameless knight blinked, and two tears silvered his cheek. Then he smiled, and nothing, it seemed, could be so glorious.
“To make myself …” His voice quavered, broke. “To m-make …”
“To be one with the world in which you dwell,” Kellhus said. “To make a covenant of your life.”

Is it just me, or is there something of a unity concept here, along the lines of Koringhus' Zero-God?

Bingo, H. There's also a conversation between Akka and Kellhus in which K. confuses Akka over where "here" is. But you've nailed it.
Title: Re: [TGO SPOILERS] [TUC Spoilers!] Witness (MG Teaser #4)
Post by: H on April 19, 2017, 08:01:11 pm
Bingo, H. There's also a conversation between Akka and Kellhus in which K. confuses Akka over where "here" is. But you've nailed it.

Ironically enough, Chapter 10 of TTT:

Quote
“Person? It would be more precise to say we’re the same here … But in a manner, yes. Just as there’s but one Here, there’s but one Soul, Akka, breaching the world in many different places. And almost always failing to apprehend itself as itself.”

Wouldn't it be some shit though if this was literally true:
Quote
“Indeed. Your body is your surface, nothing more, the point where your soul breaches this world. Even now, as we look upon each other from across this span, from two different places, we also stand in the same place, the same nowhere. I watch myself through your eyes, and you watch yourself through mine—though you know it not.”

As in, Kellhus can literally see through other's eyes?  That is why he often seems to infallible...but probably not really.
Title: Re: [TGO SPOILERS] [TUC Spoilers!] Witness (MG Teaser #4)
Post by: BeardFisher-King on April 19, 2017, 08:16:18 pm
Bingo, H. There's also a conversation between Akka and Kellhus in which K. confuses Akka over where "here" is. But you've nailed it.

Ironically enough, Chapter 10 of TTT:

Quote
“Person? It would be more precise to say we’re the same here … But in a manner, yes. Just as there’s but one Here, there’s but one Soul, Akka, breaching the world in many different places. And almost always failing to apprehend itself as itself.”

Wouldn't it be some shit though if this was literally true:
Quote
“Indeed. Your body is your surface, nothing more, the point where your soul breaches this world. Even now, as we look upon each other from across this span, from two different places, we also stand in the same place, the same nowhere. I watch myself through your eyes, and you watch yourself through mine—though you know it not.”

As in, Kellhus can literally see through other's eyes?  That is why he often seems to infallible...but probably not really.
That's the convo I was thinking of, thanks. It also brings to mind, as you mentioned, the Koringhus revelation. "Pick a point....any point"

So the question (as always) is: Is Kellhus telling Achamian the Truth? Or is Kellhus conditioning Achamian? Or both? 
Title: Re: [TGO SPOILERS] [TUC Spoilers!] Witness (MG Teaser #4)
Post by: MSJ on April 19, 2017, 08:32:48 pm
So, that pretty much shites the bed on the theory that Kellhus has never comprehended the Zero-God, as Koringhus has.

ETA: clarification - I mean that Kellhus has apprehended the same concepts, only Koringhus has attached the Zero-God to it........and, jumped off a cliff.
Title: Re: [TGO SPOILERS] [TUC Spoilers!] Witness (MG Teaser #4)
Post by: BeardFisher-King on April 19, 2017, 09:20:22 pm
I think this question ties into the matter at hand (if not, please feel free to start a new thread, Wilshire 😊): What does "madness" mean in Bakker's Earwa? This has been gnawing at me since TTT. If Kellhus is "mad", then what are we to make of his insights? Now, his Imprompta sermons are given before the experience of the Circumfix, so he is presumably sane. In TTT, Moenghus considers Kellhus "mad". Similarly, Koringhus is described as "broken" and "mad". What is the status of his revelation? It seems to me that "madness" is a desirable condition in this Earwan context. Thoughts?
Title: Re: [TGO SPOILERS] [TUC Spoilers!] Witness (MG Teaser #4)
Post by: Redeagl on April 19, 2017, 09:26:48 pm
I think this question ties into the matter at hand (if not, please feel free to start a new thread, Wilshire ߘʩ: What does "madness" mean in Bakker's Earwa? This has been gnawing at me since TTT. If Kellhus is "mad", then what are we to make of his insights? Now, his Imprompta sermons are given before the experience of the Circumfix, so he is presumably sane. In TTT, Moenghus considers Kellhus "mad". Similarly, Koringhus is described as "broken" and "mad". What is the status of his revelation? It seems to me that "madness" is a desirable condition in this Earwan context. Thoughts?

It means this :www.second-apocalypse.com/index.php?action=profile;u=230
Title: Re: [TGO SPOILERS] [TUC Spoilers!] Witness (MG Teaser #4)
Post by: MSJ on April 19, 2017, 09:30:44 pm
I think this question ties into the matter at hand (if not, please feel free to start a new thread, Wilshire 😊): What does "madness" mean in Bakker's Earwa? This has been gnawing at me since TTT. If Kellhus is "mad", then what are we to make of his insights? Now, his Imprompta sermons are given before the experience of the Circumfix, so he is presumably sane. In TTT, Moenghus considers Kellhus "mad". Similarly, Koringhus is described as "broken" and "mad". What is the status of his revelation? It seems to me that "madness" is a desirable condition in this Earwan context. Thoughts?

Well, Madness, as explained by Cnaüir to Akka suggests that it's the Outside leaking into your soul. Is this the case? Sounds reasonable from what we know. Others have suggested that the only who could take on the TTT would be a broken/mad Dunyain  (We've hypothesized before that a Mad Dunyain would just be a broken one, who let's emotions rule him, to an extent). And, Moe wanted Kellhus to be broken by the Circumfix for this very reason. It seems to have helped Koringhus.
Title: Re: [TGO SPOILERS] [TUC Spoilers!] Witness (MG Teaser #4)
Post by: BeardFisher-King on April 19, 2017, 09:55:50 pm
Moe wanted Kellhus to be broken by the Circumfix for this very reason. It seems to have helped Koringhus.
I never got the impression that Moe wanted Kellhus to arrive at Kiduya broken. I thought Moe was ready to shit-can Kellhus , but to Moe's surprise, Kellhus became "more"
Title: Re: [TGO SPOILERS] [TUC Spoilers!] Witness (MG Teaser #4)
Post by: MSJ on April 19, 2017, 10:07:30 pm
Moe wanted Kellhus to be broken by the Circumfix for this very reason. It seems to have helped Koringhus.
I never got the impression that Moe wanted Kellhus to arrive at Kiduya broken. I thought Moe was ready to shit-can Kellhus , but to Moe's surprise, Kellhus became "more"

You could well be right. Though, I don't think Moe was going to kill Kellhus, never got that feeling. And, what I talked about in my previous post, pure speculation.
Title: Re: [TGO SPOILERS] [TUC Spoilers!] Witness (MG Teaser #4)
Post by: profgrape on April 19, 2017, 10:42:56 pm
Moe wanted Kellhus to be broken by the Circumfix for this very reason. It seems to have helped Koringhus.
I never got the impression that Moe wanted Kellhus to arrive at Kiduya broken. I thought Moe was ready to shit-can Kellhus , but to Moe's surprise, Kellhus became "more"

You could well be right. Though, I don't think Moe was going to kill Kellhus, never got that feeling. And, what I talked about in my previous post, pure speculation.

Kellhus thought otherwise.  In his eyes, Moe only needed him to create the movement.  Once it had momentum, Moe could replace it as  leader.
Title: Re: [TGO SPOILERS] [TUC Spoilers!] Witness (MG Teaser #4)
Post by: MSJ on April 19, 2017, 10:57:23 pm
Right. But, does that make Kellhus right? He's been wrong before and Locke has made threads about it. So, I'm always skeptical that just because Kellhus thinks it, it becomes the Truth.

ETA: Hell, in TGO he even admits that killing Moe was a mistake. If he thinks it's a mistake after the fact, I think he realizes that Moe wasn't going to kill him.
Title: Re: [TGO SPOILERS] [TUC Spoilers!] Witness (MG Teaser #4)
Post by: BeardFisher-King on April 20, 2017, 02:25:47 am
Right. But, does that make Kellhus right? He's been wrong before and Locke has made threads about it. So, I'm always skeptical that just because Kellhus thinks it, it becomes the Truth.

ETA: Hell, in TGO he even admits that killing Moe was a mistake. If he thinks it's a mistake after the fact, I think he realizes that Moe wasn't going to kill him.
IIRC, in the Moe/Kell stand-off, Kellhus saw that one future possibility included his assassination. So I think that, though it's possible that Moe wasn't going to off Kellhus right then and there, Kellhus saw that his Shortest Path required him to off Moe.

I agree that Kellhus is always Conditioning the Ground, and so taking his statements as necessarily true would be a mistake. However, he is certainly capable of Conditioning The Ground by using Truth. Very perplexing. Kellhus is probably one of the greatest unreliable POVs ever created. As I put it in my stand-up routine (cf. the "Earwan Jokes" thread), Kellhus is an arrogant bastard, an utterly devious prick, and a master bullshitter.

(How 'bout that for shameless self-promotion?)
Title: Re: [TGO SPOILERS] [TUC Spoilers!] Witness (MG Teaser #4)
Post by: MSJ on April 20, 2017, 08:44:11 am
IIRC, in the Moe/Kell stand-off, Kellhus saw that one future possibility included his assassination. So I think that, though it's possible that Moe wasn't going to off Kellhus right then and there, Kellhus saw that his Shortest Path required him to off Moe.

I was always under the assumption that he killed Moe because he thought inevitably he would go over to the Consult once learning of his damnation. I don't recall anything about him being assassinated. And, if we stick to Bakker's Layers of Revelation, doesn't it seem more a mistake that he killed Moe after his admission as much? The only rationale I can make for Kellhus killing Moe is his assertion that the TT would outgrow the incubator of it. More's TT was a plan to destroy the Consult, by means of Viramsata and bringing Inrithism and Fanimry together to unite under a common goal. Which happened, no doubt. But, I think the TT has outgrown even that. It's why H's theory that Kellhus is indeed speaking to himself in those visions seem most likely. That it's grown to make war against the God, also.
Title: Re: [TGO SPOILERS] [TUC Spoilers!] Witness (MG Teaser #4)
Post by: Redeagl on April 20, 2017, 09:03:56 am
IIRC, in the Moe/Kell stand-off, Kellhus saw that one future possibility included his assassination. So I think that, though it's possible that Moe wasn't going to off Kellhus right then and there, Kellhus saw that his Shortest Path required him to off Moe.

I was always under the assumption that he killed Moe because he thought inevitably he would go over to the Consult once learning of his damnation. I don't recall anything about him being assassinated. And, if we stick to Bakker's Layers of Revelation, doesn't it seem more a mistake that he killed Moe after his admission as much? The only rationale I can make for Kellhus killing Moe is his assertion that the TT would outgrow the incubator of it. More's TT was a plan to destroy the Consult, by means of Viramsata and bringing Inrithism and Fanimry together to unite under a common goal. Which happened, no doubt. But, I think the TT has outgrown even that. It's why H's theory that Kellhus is indeed speaking to himself in those visions seem most likely. That it's grown to make war against the God, also.
If the Voice is a future Kellhus and the Voice told him to do that, then probably killing Moe was important for Kellhus' TTT.
Title: Re: [TGO SPOILERS] [TUC Spoilers!] Witness (MG Teaser #4)
Post by: MSJ on April 20, 2017, 09:34:42 am
If the Voice is a future Kellhus and the Voice told him to do that, then probably killing Moe was important for Kellhus' TTT.

Where does it say the Voice told him to kill Moe, in TGO?
Title: Re: [TGO SPOILERS] [TUC Spoilers!] Witness (MG Teaser #4)
Post by: H on April 20, 2017, 10:26:30 am
Right. But, does that make Kellhus right? He's been wrong before and Locke has made threads about it. So, I'm always skeptical that just because Kellhus thinks it, it becomes the Truth.

ETA: Hell, in TGO he even admits that killing Moe was a mistake. If he thinks it's a mistake after the fact, I think he realizes that Moe wasn't going to kill him.
IIRC, in the Moe/Kell stand-off, Kellhus saw that one future possibility included his assassination. So I think that, though it's possible that Moe wasn't going to off Kellhus right then and there, Kellhus saw that his Shortest Path required him to off Moe.

Quote
“And in my disorder, I listened … I did what it commanded.”
Sobs wracked the man, the convulsions of a bereaved child. But these words yanked something through Proyas, as if he had been wound by a windlass and released. The Place relaxed its grip, lowered him back to its lap. The man’s bloodshot eyes fixed him heedless of any shame or fury.
“I killed my own father,” the Place said.

Even though my initial impression of this part was that Kellhus is saying killing Moe was a mistake, upon rereading it, I don't actually see it that way any more.  He is simply horrifying Proyas with the fact that he suffers revelation from a source he does not know the origin of.  Indeed, Kellhus did "foresee" Moe eventually trying to kill him:

Quote
Kellhus had seen it many times, wandering the labyrinth of possibilities that was the Thousandfold Thought: The Warrior-Prophet’s assassination. The rise of Anasûrimbor Moënghus to take his place. The apocalyptic conspiracies. The counterfeit war against Golgotterath. The accumulation of premeditated disasters. The sacrifice of whole nations to the gluttony of the Sranc. The Three Seas crashing into char and ruin.
The Gods baying like wolves at a silent gate.

I think that a key is that the Thousandfold Thought must be singular in it's authoring.  It brooks no rivals and neither does Kellhus.
Title: Re: [TGO SPOILERS] [TUC Spoilers!] Witness (MG Teaser #4)
Post by: MSJ on April 20, 2017, 11:23:32 am
Fair enough.
Title: Re: [TGO SPOILERS] [TUC Spoilers!] Witness (MG Teaser #4)
Post by: H on April 20, 2017, 11:42:03 am
Fair enough.

I think no matter how you slice it, Moe had to die.  I don't think that Kellhus is lying when he thinks to himself that the Thought has outgrown "the soul of it's incubation" (i.e. Moe) and so I do think that the Thought would have needed him gone in that moment or a subsequent one, regardless of anything else.  I think that even with all the victories that Moe had over the world, to gain control of the Cishaurim, to engineer the Holy War, to draw Kellhus to him, and so on, he was wrong on several things.

One, he thought the world was "closed" and that the Outside was not a major influence on the Inside.  We know this is plainly false.  Two, he imagined that he possessed the Thought, when it was the opposite, most probably.  The Thought used him, not the other way around.  Three, failing to recognize both those factors, he totally misses what Kellhus will be when he arrives.  Moe imagines himself the engine, where he is really just yet another cog.

For these reasons, Moe is an anachronism in the "New World" of Kellhus.  Indeed, so are the Dunyain themselves.  They all die, necessarily.  They were tools in a bigger plan, discarded once they were of no use.

“The days are new Chigra … And far shorter than the old.”
Title: Re: [TGO SPOILERS] [TUC Spoilers!] Witness (MG Teaser #4)
Post by: MSJ on April 20, 2017, 12:43:37 pm
All great points, H. Thank you. See, I like I nice explanation. And, I have no problem saying I'm wrong. All that does seem to suggest Moe needed to die.

But, it's the great thing about this series. There are so many contradictory views, thoughts and so on within the narrative. It really makes you think and have to separate the bullshit that gets thrown in along with what's really going on.
Title: Re: [TGO SPOILERS] [TUC Spoilers!] Witness (MG Teaser #4)
Post by: H on April 20, 2017, 01:04:35 pm
All great points, H. Thank you. See, I like I nice explanation. And, I have no problem saying I'm wrong. All that does seem to suggest Moe needed to die.

But, it's the great thing about this series. There are so many contradictory views, thoughts and so on within the narrative. It really makes you think and have to separate the bullshit that gets thrown in along with what's really going on.

Well, you know, far be it from me to proclaim "correctness," I merely attempt to find logical inferences that can plausibly be made from the text.

In this case, I think it is fair to read such an inevitability to what happened, even if it seemed implausible at the time.  Kind of how it seems implausible to let Akka live at the end of TTT, yet we know why he was now.

To return this to the issue of witness:

Quote
I tell you, guilt dwells nowhere but in the eyes of the accuser. This men know even as they deny it, which is why they so often make murder their absolution. The truth of crime lies not with the victim but with the witness.
—HATATIAN, EXHORTATIONS

Chapter 2 of TTT, epigraph.

While I haven't fully worked it out, I think a key to understanding the importance of the Judging Eye and so Mimara, is that the Eye is the perennial witness.  What the ultimately means though, I'm not too sure.
Title: Re: [TGO SPOILERS] [TUC Spoilers!] Witness (MG Teaser #4)
Post by: BeardFisher-King on April 20, 2017, 03:08:31 pm
To return this to the issue of witness:

Quote
I tell you, guilt dwells nowhere but in the eyes of the accuser. This men know even as they deny it, which is why they so often make murder their absolution. The truth of crime lies not with the victim but with the witness.
—HATATIAN, EXHORTATIONS

Chapter 2 of TTT, epigraph.

While I haven't fully worked it out, I think a key to understanding the importance of the Judging Eye and so Mimara, is that the Eye is the perennial witness.  What the ultimately means though, I'm not too sure.

Going back to Kellhus' Imprompta sermon counseling the knight, Kellhus declares, "Witness is seeing that testifies, that judges so it may be judged." I'm guessing that the Judging Eye will be the Great Clarifier of matters in TUC.
Title: Re: [TGO SPOILERS] [TUC Spoilers!] Witness (MG Teaser #4)
Post by: H on April 21, 2017, 08:25:03 pm
Just a random thought I had, but it occurred to me that it is possible that Minara's role might be as the "ultimate" witness.  She will witness the No-God and be it's undoing and she will witness the fruition of the Thousandfold Thought and judge Kellhus to be somehow holy, which will sanctify everything he has done.

I'm not even sure what some of that means, but it was a stray thought I just had and figured I should post it, in case it might make sense to anyone else.
Title: Re: [TGO SPOILERS] [TUC Spoilers!] Witness (MG Teaser #4)
Post by: mrganondorf on April 25, 2017, 01:38:16 am
Fair enough.

I think no matter how you slice it, Moe had to die.  I don't think that Kellhus is lying when he thinks to himself that the Thought has outgrown "the soul of it's incubation" (i.e. Moe) and so I do think that the Thought would have needed him gone in that moment or a subsequent one, regardless of anything else.  I think that even with all the victories that Moe had over the world, to gain control of the Cishaurim, to engineer the Holy War, to draw Kellhus to him, and so on, he was wrong on several things.

One, he thought the world was "closed" and that the Outside was not a major influence on the Inside.  We know this is plainly false.  Two, he imagined that he possessed the Thought, when it was the opposite, most probably.  The Thought used him, not the other way around.  Three, failing to recognize both those factors, he totally misses what Kellhus will be when he arrives.  Moe imagines himself the engine, where he is really just yet another cog.

For these reasons, Moe is an anachronism in the "New World" of Kellhus.  Indeed, so are the Dunyain themselves.  They all die, necessarily.  They were tools in a bigger plan, discarded once they were of no use.

“The days are new Chigra … And far shorter than the old.”

H IS A GENIUS