Earwa > The Almanac: PON Edition
TDTCB, Ch. 9
What Came Before:
--- Quote from: lockesnow ---[size=200]Sumna[/size]
--- Quote ---And the Nonman King cried words that sting:
“Now to me you must confess,
For death above you hovers!”
And the Emissary answered ever wary:
“We are the race of flesh,
We are the race of lovers.”
—“BALLAD OF THE INCHOROI,” ANCIENT KÛNIÜRI FOLK SONG
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Early Winter, 4110 Year-of-the-Tusk, Sumna[/i]
§9.1: Esmenet and a client, reflections on Achamian & Inrau, arrival of the Consult, attempt at negotiation, interrogated during rape, black seed, a gold coin, vomit.
§9.2: Esmenet leaves her apartment, wanders the city, decides to leave, remembers Achamian's warnings, finds a threadbare child similar to her daughter and gives her the gold coin.
§9.3: Achamian arrives in the valley of Sudica in Nansur, reflections on architectural ruins and arrival at the ruined fortress-temple of Batathent (a former sanctuary during the first Apocalypse), dreams off-screen of the summoning of the No-God, morning ablutions and reflections on Inrau's death and leaving Sumna, reflections on Esmenet, a Shiradi proverb & overwhelmed by circumstances, makes a map of known players in the game (see appendices), reflections on Proyas.
§9.4: Esmenet reaches the edges of the city, reflects on her whore's tattoo, prays to Gierra, gathers resolve from confidence in her trade, leaves the city.
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What Came Before:
--- Quote from: Wilshire ---Now THAT is a summary of a chapter. Dont know why but I thought "interrogated during rape, black seed, a gold coin, vomit" was so funny, maybe because of its simplicity, but I had to a good laugh. Sums up everything quite nicely.
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What Came Before:
--- Quote from: lockesnow ---Glad you enjoyed, I thought that construction was particularly good as well.
Here's the first part of my take on the first part of this chapter. More to come later:
I'm sure that sologdin will cover some of the interesting facets of the Ballad of the Inchoroi, particularly the juxtaposition and primacy of flesh before lovers.
And here is the first clue as to what the Inchoroi are, the nonmen of ancient times did not know what/who they were when they appeared, so they're a mystery, but apparently they are a race of lovers. It's important that we get this song now, considering the events of §9.1 when Esmenet encounters the Consult/Inchoroi as Inrau did earlier in the book.
(click to show/hide)There is a possible inconsistency here, in that Esmenet perceives the Consult to be man sized but later he vanishes through the window and she hears wings. A couple options:
1. Esmenet is seeing a glamour of the horrible Inchoroi form seen later in TWP, WLW and False Sun, so she sees a man rather than an outerspace rape demon. Pretty fucking huge window to allow something 12 feet tall to escape it.
2. A skin spy is connected to the synthese seen in the Inrau chapter. The synthese has taken over the skin spy to interrogate Esmenet. however I don't think skin spies leave black seed, though the next couple chapters when Esmenet connects to TTCSarcellus should clarify whether or not their seed is black. When the interrogator leaves, the Skin spy jumps out of the window and the synthese flies off.
3. Esmenet is interrogated by another kind of synthese not seen since this event.
4. Esmenet is interrogated because the synthese took control of a random dude or Consult Conspirator human, just like Esmenet is taken control of by the synthese in TTT when they try to kill Kellhus. The seed is black cuz magic.
5. Authorial inconsistency and the Inchoroi form was not yet fully fleshed out, heh. This is perhaps the most likely as the text says, “He was standing above her, his godlike frame shining in the glow of the remaining candle,” at the end of the interro-rape. Interesting that this invocation of godlike frame comes so soon on the heels of Conphas thinking of himself as a God. Also, Frames are really important to Bakker, so godlike Frame is a very loaded phrase regardless of whether or not this visitor is consistent with later portrayals of the Inchoroi, and the phrase could indicate the presence of glamour. And considering the invocation of this chapter names the Inchoroi as the race of lovers and the first significant event of the chapter is Esmenet being completely overwhelmed and in her words ‘mastered’ by the stranger’s ability as a lover, I think it is clear we’re to take this iteration of the Inchoroi as distinct from the Skin Spies and Synthese we have already seen.
This first passage begins with Esmenet reflecting on her and DA’s relationship as she bids farewell to a priest client. She eventually admits to herself that it’s not DA she loves, it’s his life, she wants to be important more than she wants to be loved.
Obviously the interro-rape is extremely important, but perhaps it is a macguffin for a few other significant events in this chapter. Does this event blind us to some other things? I think that is possible. As readers, we do not learn much from this scene, in terms of what Esme tells the inchoroi, but it does provide motive for her to leave Sumna, and it gives us another glimpse into the Consult—Bakker is very consistent at establishing the enemy in this book, starting with Mekeritrig, onto Geshrunni, the synthese, Sarcellus, and now this he reminds us every few chapters of their presence, and once we know future revelations more, we realize that the Consult is participating in other scenes behind the mask of skin spies. We don’t lose sight of who the enemy is in this book.
(click to show/hide)So, the first scene after the Interro-rape, we have Esme give away all she has. This should recall a few parables from the bible as well as Judas, but she gives away the wages of her sin (I think the text makes clear she basically leaves behind her apartment with only the clothes on her back and the gold in her hand), and I think this is theologically and metaphysically significant. What if the gold she gave the girl was a gift to Gierra or to Yatwer? Esmenet at the end of the chapter will reflect on how she is not a true temple priestess, but what if she effectively became a priestess of Gierra with the gift of the Gold. This gold coin has significance. I also wonder if Esement is being set into a the sort of narrative we would expect a hero to undertake, a journey of discovery in which the young lad grows into manhood and discovers his secret heritage or destiny to become the ruler of all. It feels very Greco-roman and classic to me and she definitely winds up in a position of unfathomable power, compared to the point she begins the journey, literally she has nothing. It’s sad that a lot of misogynistic internet types have decided to take agency away from Esmenet and deride all her achievements because they can’t stand to see such a success. ;)
§9.3 brings us to DA’s perspective again. He is traveling to sleep amongst some ruins. In the chapter for Unholy Consult we are admonished to consider the TIMING of DA’s dreams, and that is important here, in light of the events of this chapter, and the events of the Unholy Consult excerpt. Bakker here reminds us that DA and Seswatha are two men, before he gives us the new dream (which he keeps off screen), “For them to wander among half-walls and fallen pillars, or through words of an ancient treatise, was in a way to travel in peace with their other memories, to be one man instead of two.” And then our intrepid author reminds us of the unreliability and profound fallibility of the DA perspective, with this especial gem of his own inflated and distorting vision of himself, “Achamian wandered across the site, awed by the conjunction of old stone and his own learning.”
Thus having primed the reader, DA dreams:
--- Quote ---In his sleep, he dreamed of that day when every child was stillborn, that day when the Consult, beaten back to the black ramparts of Golgotterath by the Nonmen and the ancient Norsirai, brought emptiness, absolute and terrible, into the world: Mog-Pharau, the No-God. In his sleep, Achamian watched glory after glory flicker out through Seswatha’s anguished eyes. And he awoke, as he always awoke, a witness to the end of the world.
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There are several curious things about this construction, ‘emptiness, absolute and terrible,” is a damned good explanation of what the NoGod is, imo: the anthropomorphic personification of meaninglessness, the opposite of a God which is an anthropomorphic personification of meaning (meanings in their forms as varied as the gods are). Another interesting construction here is that Seswatha somehow saw every innumerable defeats of the war after the No God’s summoning yet somehow survived, I wonder about that… and then the final construction suggests Akka is a witness to the end of the world he lives in, it’s very cleverly written. Akka is a witness to the end of the world Seswatha lives in, but that’s not what the text explicitly says, it says he awoke a witness to the end of the world. It’s a nice piece of buried foreshadowing.
But we should not be talking about the second dream—held offscreen—but about the timing. The dream was about the Summoning of the No-God, and timing wise this occurs right after Esmenet is interro-raped. Why might that timing be important? The summoning of the No-God was facilitated by the capture of Nau Cayuti—Nau Cayuti’s capture was enabled by his wife Ieva.
In the question of timing, is Bakker here suggesting that the betrayer of the Great Ordeal of either Achamian or of Kellhus will be Esmenet? That she will play the key role of Ieva in the summoning of the NoGod? Does the world conspire so much? This might explain why the Narindar is alongside Esmenet, because she will be the Ieva of the story of the Second Apocalypse.
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What Came Before:
--- Quote from: Wilshire --- (click to show/hide)That seems like too obvious and explanation, and I say this because its a theory that makes sense. The whole "history repeats itself" bit is kinda a lame one IMO. But its entirely possible given what we have recently discovered about dreams.
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What Came Before:
--- Quote from: Callan S. ---Do hope she washed that coin before giving it to that child...
Anyway, I didn't really see it as rape? More like a hack (which is kind of worse)? Though if you want to say they are the same, I can understand that position.
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