The Second Apocalypse
Earwa => The Aspect-Emperor => The Great Ordeal => Topic started by: CondYoke on July 27, 2016, 01:47:32 pm
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So, just an observation/ question- Of what significance is all of the tree imagery?
The tree of Siol, the tree in Kellhus' visions of the one/ no- God, the trees in his life, from training in Ishual to the mating ritual. What essential "treeness" is Bakker trying to point out to us? Or does he just like trees?
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I think it's mostly about ivoking a suitable trope.
Tree have a long history as an expression tool for metaphysics etc.
(https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/09/28/7a/09287a227ad1852e729e542bd4cd04d1.jpg)
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Indeed, as Simas just posted, Yggdrasil (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yggdrasil) is a good example. Trees are also common alchemical symbols, usually representing wisdom of some sort, not to mention a bridge between Earth and Heaven. Bakker uses branches to represent different paths of action at times too, usually with leaves as well.
I'll try to dig up some more alchemical references when I am home and have access to the Jung works there.
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Cool image of Yggdrasil- yeah, that's an idea- tying together the different planes of existence.
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This is all really, really interesting. Bakker has said that he is doing something thematically with trees in an interview or Q&A awhile back. So, your definitely on the right track.
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There's a user at Westeros, WrathofTinyKittens, I believe, who sometimes posts as WrathofMe here; has got some great thoughts about ongoing metaphors throughout the series, including Bakker's use of trees. Of course, he'll never have anything on Happy Ent, who has repeatedly refused my requests that he join us here to my eternal sads.
I know we have a couple threads here but as Wilshire says: "Ah, yes, the tree imagery thread. Never became anything. A topic much discussed but little concluded."
- Earwan Trees (http://www.second-apocalypse.com/index.php?topic=1436.0)
- Requests for Tree Imagery from the Earwa novels. (http://www.second-apocalypse.com/index.php?topic=1001.0)
- Onkis and Siöl - A Copper Tree Connection (http://www.second-apocalypse.com/index.php?topic=1683.0)
I will also reiterate a couple sprinkles throughout the series, though I'd really be sending myself on a quote hunt through my paperbacks to find them:
- The skull in the tree in the Mop, that Pokwas and Galian find.
- A mention that witches could harness the "wild urgings" of trees, I believe mentioned by Leweth.
- That it takes a hundred years for the spark of sentience in a tree.
- That people bury their children and grow a tree from them, which some argue is the soul of the child living on and others suggest is the "Demonic Simulacrum" of their children.
Not to mention a very specific and overwhelming passage from Light, Time, and Gravity, which uses an extended type of tree metaphor; I may have even quoted it in one of the threads above.
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Trees begrudged the quick, the old witches believed. They hated as only the perpetually confused could hate. And when they rooted across blooded ground, their slow-creaking souls took on the shape of the souls lost. Even after a thousand years, after innumerable punitive burnings, the Thousand Temples had been unable to stamp out the ancient practice of tree-burial. Among the Ainoni, in particular, caste-noble mothers buried rather than burned their children, so they might plant a gold-leaf sycamore upon the grave - and so create a place where they could sit with the presence of their lost child...
Or as the Shrial Priests claimed, the diabolical simulacrum of that presence.
TWLW, Chapter 3, Kindle.
I always loved this bit. Creepy AF.
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Gems like this, stuffed into single paragraphs or sentences, are one of the major reasons I enjoy reading Bakker.
Thanks, Somnambulist :).