The Second Apocalypse
Earwa => The Aspect-Emperor => The Unholy Consult => Topic started by: Omnirom on July 24, 2017, 11:01:23 pm
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There's a long post brewing somewhere :: found the ending quite logical and uplifting, until reading everything here !
But this isn't that post.
The (sub-optimal) title of this post refers to a couple of weird clues found in the text, single words used by the narrator which broke the world building.
I discussed this with my wife, who is a lot more literary than me, and she assured me that any skilled writer would have done this on purpose. It wasn't a mistake and it wasn't an editorial oversight.
Pfff, after all that build-up these two examples seem a bit pathetic - heregoes anyway
1) on my 3rd re-read of TJE or WLW (the part where the skin eaters are in the old non-man mansion) the narrator describes the dimensions as (from memory) “the length of a football field”. A huge jump out of Earwa's world into our own.
2) again, a measurement thing, I think from an even earlier book, the narrator describes a distance in “Miles” or “Kilometres” - not Earwan measurements.
These two (surely intentional) breaks in the narrative consciousness subtly suggested the possibility of the nuke scene. That there were contemporary eyes looking into & shaping Earwa.
Has anyone else found any other “sticky out bits” like these ? I'll be looking out for them on the 4th re-read.
This also raises the question as to why it was fine for the narrator to use present day, our world concepts to describe Earwan phenomena, yet couldn't call a nuke a nuke, or a hologram a hologram.
...
Slightly unrelated, but involving a stick (or was it a bone... :o ). Right at the end of TTT on the way to meeting Big Moe, Kellhus steps on a twig or something. It cracks. That was just so un-Kellhus.
I've seen a few posts about the meaning of this, but no conclusions.
It was interesting that in almost exactly the same point of the second series (20 pages before the end) there was another “Twig”; ground seemingly unconditioned by Kellhus, though this time much more explicitly significant to the unfolding of events : Kelmomas.
Are there any conclusions to be drawn from this, or is it simply random structural echoes ?
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There's a long post brewing somewhere :: found the ending quite logical and uplifting, until reading everything here !
But this isn't that post.
Lmao.
I discussed this with my wife, who is a lot more literary than me, and she assured me that any skilled writer would have done this on purpose. It wasn't a mistake and it wasn't an editorial oversight.
Bakker's always struck me as remarkablely capable regarding consistent in-world metaphors and analogies. Probably the bold :(.
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Would have to see the "football-field" quote. Don't remember it at all.
The twig is a metaphoric answer to what Kellhus is talking to the World about, a branching of choice and consequence between the two Anasurimbors that serve the Thousandfold Thought at that time- one is dead, the other alive. So Kellhus kills Moenghus. Seems a fair comparison to see deliberate similarities with Kelhus and Kelmomas.
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Doesn't Kellhus also find a twig and stare at it for a very long time as soon as he leaves Ishual? I might be making this up, but if not, there's a constant theme involving a twig with Kellhus.
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That was a tree branch iirc. I feel like it's a shout out to the apparently random nature of bifurcation in the natural world and Kellhus was stuck there until he aprehended the principles behind it. But yes, definitely themes about branching choices clouded by ignorance represented by trees in there.
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Would have to see the "football-field" quote. Don't remember it at all.
I searched the whole series for a mention of "football" and "foot ball" and came up with nothing. Couldn't even find a mention of "field" in that part.
The only quote I could find was:
The room was neither large nor small—about the size of a temple prayer floor—with a low circular ceiling spoked like a wheel.
Miles are frequently mentioned, but never kilometers. I believe this is solely for the readers benefit to a have a better idea of distances.
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Doesn't Kellhus also find a twig and stare at it for a very long time as soon as he leaves Ishual? I might be making this up, but if not, there's a constant theme involving a twig with Kellhus.
There's a handful of these moments throughout, yes. But Kellhus spends a lot of time screwing up if you're reading closely, so steping on a branch is not at all out of character ;) . He also, I belive, kicks a skull on accident just before he meets Moenghus. Plenty of symbolism throughout for those that want to find it. Do some hunting around the forum and you'll find many topics about it. But, the specific examples you cited I think Curethan covered pretty well.
As for those world-breaking words - thought I don't recall them specifically, I'd honestly chalk them up to to bad (horrible) editing. There are plenty of egregious mistakes that any professional editor should have caught, and my guess is this is another one of those things. I don't see any other reason for there to be so few 'modern' words/references throughout.
While, yes, one might make the comparison of Inchoroi/Nonmen/Men in Earwa being all a kind of allegory for the trials and tribulations that might face Homo Sapians of Earth in the future, I think that's about as far as that line of logic can be reasonable taken. Earwa is not an Earth analogue, magic aside, it has drastically different astronomical features that would make this quite impossible. Because of this, I think the 'sticky out bits' are just shit editing from a shit publisher.
Would have to see the "football-field" quote. Don't remember it at all.
I searched the whole series for a mention of "football" and "foot ball" and came up with nothing. Couldn't even find a mention of "field" in that part.
The only quote I could find was:
The room was neither large nor small—about the size of a temple prayer floor—with a low circular ceiling spoked like a wheel.
Miles are frequently mentioned, but never kilometers. I believe this is solely for the readers benefit to a have a better idea of distances.
Huh, wrote all of the above before H's post. Might need further direct quotes for clarity codebread :) .
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Huh, wrote all of the above before H's post. Might need further direct quotes for clarity codebread :) .
Omnirom brought up the quotes in the first place?
Also, Omnirom, what version did you read?
I'd have to go digging so it won't be today but I'm certain Bakker has posts on ZTS, if not Westeros, claiming that trees, stone, and something else have discrete metaphorical usage in the books.
In fact, Cüréthañ might know better than as I as he quoted most of Bakker's narrative commentary from ZTS to threads here... somewhere.
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I hope the "football field" isn't a troll, as i went and read the relevant chapters in TJE and it didn't come up either.
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He might have read an ARC and we have proof that Overlook did some editing ;)?
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Yeah maybe he puts in sizes he would know and then "converts" them to earwa sizes
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I so remember the word football. I think I do. Highlighted it and everything, but my ex wife has that iPad now, and I'd prefer to brave Wutteat than her :p
Will start a re-read tonight of any chapters it might have been in.
Big sorry if I got that one wrong, let's see
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I so remember the word football. I think I do. Highlighted it and everything, but my ex wife has that iPad now, and I'd prefer to brave Wutteat than her :p
Will start a re-read tonight of any chapters it might have been in.
Big sorry if I got that one wrong, let's see
I mean, I could be wrong, but all my eBooks are merged into one volume and I searched the whole thing, but came up with nothing.
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I've just done a search as well and can't find anything to with football, tenis, rugby or cricket !
It's true I was hitting the qiri hard on my last read through, but I can't belive I got it that wrong. It was sports related. It was related to a "as big as" or "the size of a".
Memory is a strange. Now I'm destined to spend the rest of my days scouring the accursed halls of Cil-Aujas in search of The 20th Century Sports Reference.
Fair enough damnation for opening a thread on such a flimsy premise ?
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I've just done a search as well and can't find anything to with football, tenis, rugby or cricket !
It's true I was hitting the qiri hard on my last read through, but I can't belive I got it that wrong. It was sports related. It was related to a "as big as" or "the size of a".
Memory is a strange. Now I'm destined to spend the rest of my days scouring the accursed halls of Cil-Aujas in search of The 20th Century Sports Reference.
Fair enough damnation for opening a thread on such a flimsy premise ?
I tried searching for the word size as well, only finding the quote I put above. I tried other searches of even "of a" and "as a" and still came away with nothing, really.
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I've just done a search as well and can't find anything to with football, tenis, rugby or cricket !
It's true I was hitting the qiri hard on my last read through, but I can't belive I got it that wrong. It was sports related. It was related to a "as big as" or "the size of a".
Memory is a strange. Now I'm destined to spend the rest of my days scouring the accursed halls of Cil-Aujas in search of The 20th Century Sports Reference.
Fair enough damnation for opening a thread on such a flimsy premise ?
Nah man it's cool. I've had "false memories" of stuff as well, only to find out my memory has changed for some reason I can't work out.
I was really excited though to see that part as it would have been cool how i missed it each time i read :)
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If we were damned for misreading or misremembering things, I'd probably be a Prince of Hell already.
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I've just done a search as well and can't find anything to with football, tenis, rugby or cricket !
It's true I was hitting the qiri hard on my last read through, but I can't belive I got it that wrong. It was sports related. It was related to a "as big as" or "the size of a".
Memory is a strange. Now I'm destined to spend the rest of my days scouring the accursed halls of Cil-Aujas in search of The 20th Century Sports Reference.
Fair enough damnation for opening a thread on such a flimsy premise ?
Are you sure you couldn't have read that reference in another book (maybe even another fantasy book) you were reading at around the same time? It's easy to be mistaken about what book/series it did come from, similar things have happened to me before (and to many others, I'd suppose). :)
Speaking of words/phrases that stick out, I'll admit by being thrown out of the text by the word "okay" a few times. Now, it's not like I know anything about the history of that word (and English isn't even my first language anyway) so I could be mistaken, but I always thought it was a fairly modern thing.
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Speaking of words/phrases that stick out, I'll admit by being thrown out of the text by the word "okay" a few times. Now, it's not like I know anything about the history of that word (and English isn't even my first language anyway) so I could be mistaken, but I always thought it was a fairly modern thing.
mid 19th century: probably an abbreviation of orl korrect, humorous form of all correct, popularized as a slogan during President Van Buren's re-election campaign of 1840; his nickname Old Kinderhook (derived from his birthplace) provided the initials.
Pretty modern indeed.
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Mekeretrig talks in an anachronistic manner in TDTCB that bumped me out of my flow in my reading, but YMMV.
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Mekeretrig talks in an anachronistic manner in TDTCB that bumped me out of my flow in my reading, but YMMV.
Its crazy to think about how delicate and complex this subject is. Everyone with different triggers, and a nudge this way or that really breaks the flow state, which can in turn ruin a book for someone.
Years ago, the word 'presently' really used to piss me off in books. I have since overcome this, but it used to make me put a book down completely - and I could never articulate why.