Crabby Fails

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JerakoKayne

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« on: December 20, 2017, 05:02:00 am »
...the Dunyain at least!

He was explicity told just before Koringhus' death that "everything I have taught you is a lie". And for whatever reason, he was defective in the first place.

Crabby is not Dunyain. Thoughts?

TaoHorror

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« Reply #1 on: December 20, 2017, 08:45:40 pm »
Crab has captured our imaginations ( well, at least mine, but from context of others discussions I'll extend it to the group as a whole ). Bakker left it so wide open, his significance could be damn near anything from almost nothing to the savior of the world. He is genetically Dunyain - just don't know what the significance of that if not Dunyain raised ... but he was Dunyain raised ( i.e. raised by a Dunyain ), just not by a society of Dunyain ... again, not sure what that will mean. I've ( bragged? ) about not having expectations about the next books, but I am excited about what will become of our little uber-man. The implications/possibilities are so cool, I do hope it's something wild/impactful. You're suggesting he's not Dunyain? I say he is, but as with any transplant, can't say for sure what he'll specifically be given his "upbringing" wasn't classic Dunyain. Will he leverage disparate psychological prowess over others? I think so, but in a unique way with a unique flavor ( Bakker gives us clues he's got game ). So I guess the answer to your query is, sorta.

And to add, the Dunyain "tests" are highly suspect in my book in regards to their "accuracy" of detecting defectives - at least I would likely disagree with their aims/conclusions. Just because someone ain't quick on anything ( thought/speed ), that doesn't preclude them from an achievement that dwarfs all others. So labeling him defective means little to me as to his capabilities. I suspect the Dunyain inadvertently selected for weaknesses they might have not known about because of it. Additionally, we now get to see how a Dunyain will develop in the outside world, bypassing the trauma of exposure to it at a late age - the world does a good job of challenge/growth/vetting people, who knows what they miss by that lack of exposure. Could be the stuff of legends. And for all we know the bar for defective could be quite low and they're measuring in millimeters, the cat could well not be all that different from his ancestors/brothers. "ooooh, you missed 1 question out of the 143,968 questions on the test, fuck you, you're dead".

One last thing ( apologies for all the edits, I'm multi-tasking, but your post lured me in ) ... are you asking if he can fill the shoes of a Dunyain or will he be sociopathological as a Dunyain? That will be interesting to see how much of that is genetic selection vs environment/upbringing ... I don't know ( yet ).
« Last Edit: December 20, 2017, 09:09:56 pm by TaoHorror »
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TLEILAXU

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« Reply #2 on: December 20, 2017, 11:14:36 pm »
The boy is "defective" in spirit, not necessarily in intellect...

Cuttlefish

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« Reply #3 on: December 21, 2017, 09:39:37 am »
I thought he was defective due to his hand? He was only a baby when Koringhus took him, his defect was known as a baby - long before anything beyond physical could be established.

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« Reply #4 on: December 21, 2017, 12:28:25 pm »
I thought he was defective due to his hand? He was only a baby when Koringhus took him, his defect was known as a baby - long before anything beyond physical could be established.

Yeah, this is what I felt as well.

All Dunyain are "defective in spirit" though.  Crabby is Dunyain by birth (a product of their breeding) but not by training, that is the distinction to be made I'd think.
I am a warrior of ages, Anasurimbor. . . ages. I have dipped my nimil in a thousand hearts. I have ridden both against and for the No-God in the great wars that authored this wilderness. I have scaled the ramparts of great Golgotterath, watched the hearts of High Kings break for fury. -Cet'ingira

Cuttlefish

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« Reply #5 on: December 21, 2017, 01:15:10 pm »
I thought he was defective due to his hand? He was only a baby when Koringhus took him, his defect was known as a baby - long before anything beyond physical could be established.

Yeah, this is what I felt as well.

All Dunyain are "defective in spirit" though.  Crabby is Dunyain by birth (a product of their breeding) but not by training, that is the distinction to be made I'd think.


Indeed, he has all the genetical superiority of the Dunyain, but very little of their ideology (probably even less than that since his dad told him it was all a lie before he died). He might grow up to be a hero or a villain in personality, and possess the Dunyain intellect.

The degree to which he has Dunyain skills is debatle, though. I don't think he could master people like his grandfather, though. Kellhus's flashbacks reveal that he went through special training to read expressions, and the crab handed boy never did. There was also that bit about him shedding the emotions he wears too early, that Koringhus remarks on warning him about.

TLEILAXU

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« Reply #6 on: December 21, 2017, 02:16:00 pm »
I thought he was defective due to his hand? He was only a baby when Koringhus took him, his defect was known as a baby - long before anything beyond physical could be established.
It's his emotions.

I thought he was defective due to his hand? He was only a baby when Koringhus took him, his defect was known as a baby - long before anything beyond physical could be established.

Yeah, this is what I felt as well.

All Dunyain are "defective in spirit" though.  Crabby is Dunyain by birth (a product of their breeding) but not by training, that is the distinction to be made I'd think.
I mean from a Dûnyain point of view.
« Last Edit: December 21, 2017, 02:19:03 pm by TLEILAXU »

Cuttlefish

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« Reply #7 on: December 21, 2017, 02:26:57 pm »
I thought he was defective due to his hand? He was only a baby when Koringhus took him, his defect was known as a baby - long before anything beyond physical could be established.
It's his emotions.

I thought he was defective due to his hand? He was only a baby when Koringhus took him, his defect was known as a baby - long before anything beyond physical could be established.

Yeah, this is what I felt as well.

All Dunyain are "defective in spirit" though.  Crabby is Dunyain by birth (a product of their breeding) but not by training, that is the distinction to be made I'd think.
I mean from a Dûnyain point of view.

Where are you getting that emotions thing? He was literally a baby when he was declared a defective, and saved by Koringhus. His defect seemed to be clearly his hand.

MSJ

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« Reply #8 on: December 21, 2017, 03:31:24 pm »
But, all the Survivor taught him was a lie. The Dunyain were so wrong about the world it was there downfall.

I say its a good thing he didn't receive the training. And, its gonna be very interesting indeed how he turns out. Remember, he oout ran a Skin-Spy.... So, the physical abilities are gonna be there along with being of the few.(maybe?)
“No. I am your end. Before your eyes I will put your seed to the knife. I will quarter your carcass and feed it to the dogs. Your bones I will grind to dust and cast to the winds. I will strike down those who speak your name or the name of your fathers, until ‘Yursalka’ becomes as meaningless as infant babble. I will blot you out, hunt down your every trace! The track of your life has come to me,

TLEILAXU

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« Reply #9 on: December 21, 2017, 04:37:57 pm »
I thought he was defective due to his hand? He was only a baby when Koringhus took him, his defect was known as a baby - long before anything beyond physical could be established.
It's his emotions.

I thought he was defective due to his hand? He was only a baby when Koringhus took him, his defect was known as a baby - long before anything beyond physical could be established.

Yeah, this is what I felt as well.

All Dunyain are "defective in spirit" though.  Crabby is Dunyain by birth (a product of their breeding) but not by training, that is the distinction to be made I'd think.
I mean from a Dûnyain point of view.

Where are you getting that emotions thing? He was literally a baby when he was declared a defective, and saved by Koringhus. His defect seemed to be clearly his hand.
Some quotes:
Quote
The child was defective, as the Assessor had predicted.
Quote
They would have cracked open his skull, had Ishuäl not fallen. The boy would have been pinned as all other Defectives were pinned to the subtlety of some forbidden affect, strapped for the scrutiny of others, nailed as if a drying hide to the outer expression of some inner frailty.
Quote
There was more horror than concern in their faces when his eyes fluttered open. The boy especially.
Quote
The boy clutches his tunic with both hands, hale and halved. He cannot help himself. He is defective.
« Last Edit: December 21, 2017, 04:44:20 pm by TLEILAXU »

Wilshire

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« Reply #10 on: December 21, 2017, 05:10:45 pm »
Looks like while they Dunyain know some baseline of feelings remain, there is a certain threshold that is 'too much', and apparently they are able to accurately predict from infants (or however early on) which ones will likely be defective as adults. So rather than spending 10 years training them, they  pre-select them from a young age with some degree of accuracy and discard those who don't pass. Time is of the essence .
One of the other conditions of possibility.

Cuttlefish

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« Reply #11 on: December 21, 2017, 05:46:39 pm »
I thought he was defective due to his hand? He was only a baby when Koringhus took him, his defect was known as a baby - long before anything beyond physical could be established.
It's his emotions.

I thought he was defective due to his hand? He was only a baby when Koringhus took him, his defect was known as a baby - long before anything beyond physical could be established.

Yeah, this is what I felt as well.

All Dunyain are "defective in spirit" though.  Crabby is Dunyain by birth (a product of their breeding) but not by training, that is the distinction to be made I'd think.
I mean from a Dûnyain point of view.

Where are you getting that emotions thing? He was literally a baby when he was declared a defective, and saved by Koringhus. His defect seemed to be clearly his hand.
Some quotes:
Quote
The child was defective, as the Assessor had predicted.
Quote
They would have cracked open his skull, had Ishuäl not fallen. The boy would have been pinned as all other Defectives were pinned to the subtlety of some forbidden affect, strapped for the scrutiny of others, nailed as if a drying hide to the outer expression of some inner frailty.
Quote
There was more horror than concern in their faces when his eyes fluttered open. The boy especially.
Quote
The boy clutches his tunic with both hands, hale and halved. He cannot help himself. He is defective.

Yeah, it appears you're right! Apparently it was a "prediction". Pretty interesting shit, I missed it and immediately thought he was defective because of his hand.

MSJ

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« Reply #12 on: December 21, 2017, 06:26:08 pm »
Quote from:  Cuttlefish
Yeah, it appears you're right! Apparently it was a "prediction". Pretty interesting shit, I missed it and immediately thought he was defective because of his hand.

Yea, I might be making it up in my mind, but I think there is a passage that describes his hand as loped off. I think the Srancy got to him a bit.
“No. I am your end. Before your eyes I will put your seed to the knife. I will quarter your carcass and feed it to the dogs. Your bones I will grind to dust and cast to the winds. I will strike down those who speak your name or the name of your fathers, until ‘Yursalka’ becomes as meaningless as infant babble. I will blot you out, hunt down your every trace! The track of your life has come to me,

Francis Buck

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« Reply #13 on: January 09, 2018, 12:27:47 am »
Crab has captured our imaginations ( well, at least mine, but from context of others discussions I'll extend it to the group as a whole ). Bakker left it so wide open, his significance could be damn near anything from almost nothing to the savior of the world. He is genetically Dunyain - just don't know what the significance of that if not Dunyain raised ... but he was Dunyain raised ( i.e. raised by a Dunyain ), just not by a society of Dunyain ... again, not sure what that will mean. I've ( bragged? ) about not having expectations about the next books, but I am excited about what will become of our little uber-man. The implications/possibilities are so cool, I do hope it's something wild/impactful. You're suggesting he's not Dunyain? I say he is, but as with any transplant, can't say for sure what he'll specifically be given his "upbringing" wasn't classic Dunyain. Will he leverage disparate psychological prowess over others? I think so, but in a unique way with a unique flavor ( Bakker gives us clues he's got game ). So I guess the answer to your query is, sorta.

And to add, the Dunyain "tests" are highly suspect in my book in regards to their "accuracy" of detecting defectives - at least I would likely disagree with their aims/conclusions. Just because someone ain't quick on anything ( thought/speed ), that doesn't preclude them from an achievement that dwarfs all others. So labeling him defective means little to me as to his capabilities. I suspect the Dunyain inadvertently selected for weaknesses they might have not known about because of it. Additionally, we now get to see how a Dunyain will develop in the outside world, bypassing the trauma of exposure to it at a late age - the world does a good job of challenge/growth/vetting people, who knows what they miss by that lack of exposure. Could be the stuff of legends. And for all we know the bar for defective could be quite low and they're measuring in millimeters, the cat could well not be all that different from his ancestors/brothers. "ooooh, you missed 1 question out of the 143,968 questions on the test, fuck you, you're dead".

One last thing ( apologies for all the edits, I'm multi-tasking, but your post lured me in ) ... are you asking if he can fill the shoes of a Dunyain or will he be sociopathological as a Dunyain? That will be interesting to see how much of that is genetic selection vs environment/upbringing ... I don't know ( yet ).

I agree with this by and large. As powerful as the Dunyain are, it seems clear at this stage of the series (to me, anyway) that much of what made the Dunyain so special came at the cost of numerous things, mainly being extremely vulnerable upon leaving Ishual and also their naivete of the World in general (a perfect barricade is also perfect blindness).

I also think that the entire Ansaurimbor lineage has the "defect" of being prone to love (this is just my random headcanon at the moment), even including Kellhus to a degree.Taking Kellhus as an example, he has numerous moments of fleeting passions (almost always with regard to Esmenet), and I also think that Kellhus is totally genuine with Proyas when he says "he isn't sure he's even capable of love".

Basically, I think Kellhus (and other Dunyain, maybe in particular the Ansaurimbor) does experience something akin to "love", it's just much different from the way human experiences it, and furthermore Kellhus himself (and probably most other pure-blooded Dunyain) would contextualize the experience in a completely different way. When Kellhus tells Emsi that she is his "only darkness, and the only place he can hide", I think that's basically Dunyain-speak for love-as-known-by-a-Dunyain.

However, I also think a major point of the series is to attempt dispell the notion that things like love, compassion, empathy, etc. are "weaknesses" or flaws of some kind. And that's where I think Crabicus will come into play -- due his unique upbringing and early exposure to the World, I think he may end up being the most  "balanced" of the Dunyain, in terms of combining all the superhuman faculties without losing sight of the HUMAN part of superhuman.

I could also see Crabby becoming the new version of Inri Sejenus. Somewhere in PON, Kellhus mentions how Inri came after the Second Apocalypse, when the World's wounds were in need of mending, while Kellhus himself came before in order to make Men more warlike (which he did end up following through on, even if it ultimately was not enough).

Given that Crabby also has the insights learned from his pops (which I think are legit), and given the theme of love/compasson/etc. not always being the weaknesses, it seems liable that Crabby may end up reforming religions and so forth, perhaps one that is truer to the actual metaphysics at work.

Ultimately I think the series was always intended to have Dunyain fighting on both sides of the spectrum -- the Mutilated, who represent a Dunyain that has quashed all human feelings in pursuit of their goals, and the others such as Serwa, Kayutas, Crabicus, and so forth (ironically even Kelmomas, as it turned out, though he "matured" a bit too late it would seem) who have enough humanity left in themselves to actually care about the survival of the species. 

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« Reply #14 on: January 09, 2018, 03:10:20 pm »
Well, certainly by the way Bakker framed the book, saying that he would write it first because otherwise it would seem to just be a useless adendum (or something like that) would seem to proscribe to me a very strict Blood Meridian-esque role for Crabby.  It simply isn't a story of Crabby "winning" or anything of the like, it's a document of Crabby's journey.

Just like the kid in Blood Meridian, it's not about what he might or might not achieve.  It's more about what he encounters, what he experiences, not him taking some premier role in world events.  In the end, he probably ends up being one of the many nameless numerous dead.
I am a warrior of ages, Anasurimbor. . . ages. I have dipped my nimil in a thousand hearts. I have ridden both against and for the No-God in the great wars that authored this wilderness. I have scaled the ramparts of great Golgotterath, watched the hearts of High Kings break for fury. -Cet'ingira