The Second Apocalypse
Earwa => The Aspect-Emperor => The Great Ordeal => Topic started by: Cüréthañ on July 15, 2016, 01:16:25 pm
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What a great read! (Excepting the silliness of the Whale Mothers.) What were your favourite portions?
So, the climax in Ishteribinth was my favourite part. Made the hairs on my neck stand up, really kick-ass.
I thought there was a lot more humour, strangely enough. The 'halflings' and the oil, "10'000 pigs", Khellus making wisecracks at doomed Saubon and Psatma... or should I say, "Splatma".
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I really liked all the stuff we learn about Nonmen and Ishterebinth. Aurang showing up was great and had me real excited, but unfortunately he didn't really do much.
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Kellhus' internal monologue, Saccarees freaking the fuck out about Aurang and demanding a Disputation, Khoringas' experience with Qirri, Saubon's insane elation at his "temple," the march of the Scalded, as horrifying as it was. And of course the nuke, and Achamian seeing the mushroom cloud in the distance.
So many parts where I found myself holding my breath, my heart pounding, dopamine flooding through my skull!
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Kel spying on the WLW.
I thought Kellhus was a bit too jovial with malowebi etc. "think her goddess let her see that". The scenes before his appearance are great, Malowebi just thinking "FUCK, i should have left"
The Dagliash Chapter in it's entirety is crazy.
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Curethan! Bolivar! Glad to see you both rustled up copies :D!
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The "Dunyain in extreme distress"- the madness, recollections, and insights of Kohringus. An amazing character who lived too short of a time in the books. One of my favorite descriptions was how he would run among the scranc, snorting like them to drive them into a frenzy- intertwined with his admission of how he stole his son, knowing he was "defective". Great stuff, and I wish there was more!
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Visualisation of the years in the Thousand Thousand halls battling, endlessly, sranc and nonmen. So awesome.
The descent into the holy deep I loved too. So many great moments in this book.
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Cnaüir urs Skiötha, and his damned, smoking ruin of a soul. I don't think it was fan service. TBH, I think that he will have a critical role in TUC. If he doesnt, I will be hugely disappointed.
The Proyas/Kellhus talks and the way Kellhus just strips (literally) him bare, was great. So much revelation.
Ishterebinth. Sorweel has quickly become one of my favorite character, even though I was warming to him by the end of WLW. Ironically, after his revelation that Kellhus is his saviour, I still feel there is a huuuge chance that he will indeed do what the WLW couldn't. And, it's got me thinking, if Yatwer seen the death of Kellhus at the hands of the WLW, why would have she placed trust in Sorweel also? There's a thread in that question.
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Yeah MSJ i thought the same thing, if it is "guaranteed" the WLW is going to do the biz what need of Sorweel.
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Cnaüir urs Skiötha, and his damned, smoking ruin of a soul. I don't think it was fan service. TBH, I think that he will have a critical role in TUC. If he doesnt, I will be hugely disappointed.
Bakker doesn't strike me as the type of author who would do that. Everything in his books is there for a reason and serves either narrative development, character development, or idea development (the philosophy of the series)
The nuke was the most surprising. Just hearing Kellhus telling everyone to run, the fear on Katyusus's face. Great scene of first tension, what's about to happen, and then destruction. Also meeting Kellhus's other son and the boy.
I loved seeing Cnaiur. I knew he wasn't done with the story. I had a crazy theory that he might end up being the no-god. Cnaiur, when he's traveling with Kellhus across the Scylvendi steppes, he stares at Kellhus and thinks over and over "What do you see?" And that question always makes me think No-God.
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What a great read! (Excepting the silliness of the Whale Mothers.) What were your favourite portions?
Other than the direct Herbert link there, I thought the Whale Mothers thing was done very well. It created a jarring and visceral reactions for many people, including myself - so maybe a favorite scene for quality rather than content.
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Ymmv, I guess. My negative reaction to the Whale Mothers was due to the way it is jarringly inconsistent.
Really destroyed my immersion because it makes very little sense according to the in-world logic Bakker applies elsewhere.
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What a great read!
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I thought there was a lot more humour, strangely enough. The 'halflings' and the oil, "10'000 pigs", Khellus making wisecracks at doomed Saubon and Psatma... or should I say, "Splatma".
Lol - what a great book, indeed :).
Splatma... Lol.
Saubon's insane elation at his "temple,"
Love this one. "Death can only be meted in so many ways... few as glorious as this" or something. Despite the fact of his unfortunate post-life circumstances, whatever they are.
The "Dunyain in extreme distress"
Visualisation of the years in the Thousand Thousand halls battling, endlessly, sranc and nonmen. So awesome.
Especially the Survivor's later recollection of the Dunyain fighting in "exquisite silence."
The nuke was the most surprising. Just hearing Kellhus telling everyone to run, the fear on Katyusus's face. Great scene of first tension, what's about to happen, and then destruction.
Yeah. That's so great. It reads too like Kayutas actually hears Kellhus' first call to the Knights of the Desert Lion and the remaining Swayali rather than the general call above the Ordeal.
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Ishterebinth hands down, the holy deep as a way to hide from the gods, knowing that Nonman kings were descended from a line/person, confirmation of the tall, and the resigned way the last Siqu knew his race was finally dead and he sacrified himself so his father would remember himself.
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Visualisation of the years in the Thousand Thousand halls battling, endlessly, sranc and nonmen. So awesome.
Especially the Survivor's later recollection of the Dunyain fighting in "exquisite silence."
I've yet to finish but the recollections of the underground war are BY FAR my favorite portions of TGO so far. That's despite my thinking it silly that the Dunyain left themselves no secret escape routes in the Thousand Thousand Halls despite having lived in Ishual for two millennia. Even animals know not to let themselves get cornered. Still, all in all it was a great read.
Cuts and cuts and cuts.
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I loved the reveal of the tall. From the posts I'm seeing apparently it had already been theorized but I never came across that or forsaw it, It blew my mind.
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I was re-reading some of the Ishterebinth stuff today and I noticed that in the Boatman's songs, children are referred to as "spears" twice. First in the incest song, and again to describe the nonman king who sold them out for immortality.
Then I got to thinking that the Heron Spear is described as a powerful tekne weapon, which usually applied to creating fleshy/living abominations. The only other exception I could think of is the tekne nuke from TGO.
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I loved the reveal of the tall. From the posts I'm seeing apparently it had already been theorized but I never came across that or forsaw it, It blew my mind.
There was a bit in an early draft of The Four Revelations of Cinial'jin that suggested that Nonmen heroes never stopped growing, which actually lead to some in-thread speculation here that heroic deeds were somehow tied to Nonman physiology. But Bakker took it out of the "version-as-is" on TPB.
I think there are still some comments there that reflect that particular insight.
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I loved the sense of calm with which Kellhus destroyed the last water bearer. I think my second favorite moment was Saubon facing damnation. Magical Belief Lottery tickets balled up and thrown in the trash...
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Meppa's alive, friend. Last seen semi-conscious by Malowebi before Kellhus chops Malowebi's head.
Somnambulist pointed that out to me.
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The chapter where Sorweel descends into the Holy Deep is pretty unassailable. I admit Bakker really got me for a second with the mention of Sorweel being torn in two, but I managed to gather the true meaning quickly enough.
I'd say the final chapter from Koringhus got me the most. Most of the time, character arcs in this series seem to be a downward trend, here this was almost redemptive and moving, even if it did end with him killing himself. Maybe I completely missed the real implications, but it seems to me the Survivor really did love that child, or at least as much as a Dunyain could.
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I admit Bakker really got me for a second with the mention of Sorweel being torn in two, but I managed to gather the true meaning quickly enough.
I imagine there is some metaphorical meaning there too. I know it's meant that the Aimolos was ripped from his face. Yet, I wonder if that also severed his link to Yatwer, also? So excited where this storyline goes from where it was left off.
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I really liked the part where the Survivor realizes he saved the child because it was his own. It was profound, that even thousands of years of conditioning could not stamp out the love a father felt for his son.
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I admit Bakker really got me for a second with the mention of Sorweel being torn in two, but I managed to gather the true meaning quickly enough.
I imagine there is some metaphorical meaning there too. I know it's meant that the Aimolos was ripped from his face. Yet, I wonder if that also severed his link to Yatwer, also? So excited where this storyline goes from where it was left off.
I mean, it's possible. But in narrative terms it would be a bit of a bummer. Now that the WLW and Psatma went out like complete chumps, Sorweel is Yatwer's only remaining tool. Given how much build up Yatwer has been given it seems unlikely to me that she'd be so quickly beaten.
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I admit Bakker really got me for a second with the mention of Sorweel being torn in two, but I managed to gather the true meaning quickly enough.
I imagine there is some metaphorical meaning there too. I know it's meant that the Aimolos was ripped from his face. Yet, I wonder if that also severed his link to Yatwer, also? So excited where this storyline goes from where it was left off.
I mean, it's possible. But in narrative terms it would be a bit of a bummer. Now that the WLW and Psatma went out like complete chumps, Sorweel is Yatwer's only remaining tool. Given how much build up Yatwer has been given it seems unlikely to me that she'd be so quickly beaten.
Well, arguably, WLW was beaten by Ajokli. Psatma and the Fanim are a sacrifice move so that Kellhus thinks he's beaten Yatwer.
The problem for Yatwer is that after Sorweel's time in the Weeping Mountain, he might not be such a willing tool, and may in fact not act as Yatwer wishes.
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Well, arguably, WLW was beaten by Ajokli. Psatma and the Fanim are a sacrifice move so that Kellhus thinks he's beaten Yatwer.
A move made all the move effective by the fact that the Fanim don't worship Yatwer. "Let's you and him fight" is a frequent strategy in this meta-series.
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Meppa's alive, friend. Last seen semi-conscious by Malowebi before Kellhus chops Malowebi's head.
Somnambulist pointed that out to me.
Next one Kellhus' list, the Meta-Psukhe? He has said he is more than Dunyain, and Maithanet has said that Kellhus does love Esmenet and is weakened by it.
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Well, arguably, WLW was beaten by Ajokli. Psatma and the Fanim are a sacrifice move so that Kellhus thinks he's beaten Yatwer.
The problem for Yatwer is that after Sorweel's time in the Weeping Mountain, he might not be such a willing tool, and may in fact not act as Yatwer wishes.
But doesn't Kellhus know, or at least suspect that Sorweel is an agent? I thought that was part of why he was sent away, or at least that's what I thought.
I just think Sorweel has to still be an agent of Yatwer's, she's been a major player for the 3 books now, it would be a bit anti-climactic for Yatwer to have been beaten so casually. Ajokli doesn't even seem to care all that much, just doing it for the lols. Psatma was no real challenge to defeat.
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The final chapter was excellent,probably my favourite part of the book.
The Dreams were awesome as always.
Everything with Korringus especially his flashbacks from the consult's attack.
Dagliash was cool and I got chills when Saccarres/Seswatha attacked Aurang.
And yes the descent to Ishterebinth's bowels was epic.Sorweel's Inferno!!
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But doesn't Kellhus know, or at least suspect that Sorweel is an agent? I thought that was part of why he was sent away, or at least that's what I thought.
You know, I'm not so sure. Serwa admits that's fucking Moe Jr. and all that they did, was all a ploy to get Sorweel to hate them. She was certain that Sorweel loved them, Moe wasn't buying it though because he doesn't read faces, he could tell through body language that there was hate there. I feel the only way Kellhus could've possibly knew that Sorweel was an agent of Yatwer, was through Sorweel and Zsoronga's conversations he spied through the "seeing fire". I don't think it's definite that Kellhus actually knew.
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But doesn't Kellhus know, or at least suspect that Sorweel is an agent? I thought that was part of why he was sent away, or at least that's what I thought.
I just think Sorweel has to still be an agent of Yatwer's, she's been a major player for the 3 books now, it would be a bit anti-climactic for Yatwer to have been beaten so casually. Ajokli doesn't even seem to care all that much, just doing it for the lols. Psatma was no real challenge to defeat.
I can't guess at what Kellhus might know, though I've previously maintained that Kellhus would figure out the discrepancy pretty quick between what Sorweel is saying and what Kellhus is seeing and the possible whys and wherefores.
I also don't think Yatwer is beaten or that she's necessarily the only God who has a hand in the events unfolding before us, just the only one who we're explicitly privy to.
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I REALLY LIKED THIS:
I'm not a mom, but this really got to me as a parent--
TGO P. 34
"Nothing could be so absent--so missing--as a lost child. They dwell so close, more here than here, ducking fingers that would tickle, convulsing with laughter, gazing with thoughtless adoration, lazing on your knees, or your hip, or in the crook of your arm, their body always there, always waiting to be clasped and hoisted, pressed against the bosom they took as their throne. Let the Inchausti scowl! Let men disapprove! What did they know of motherhood, the mad miracle of finding your interior drawn from you, clinging and bawling and giggling and learning everything there was to learn anew?"
Also this from p. 35
"Something ruthless dwells within every mother, a capacity born of plague and tribulation and children buried. She was impervious; the hard realities of the World merely broke their nails for clawing. She turned away, strode back into the shadowy palace with a kind of weary resignation--as though she played at something that had cracked her patience long before. She had not so much abandoned hope as shouldered it aside."
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I just love these parallel constructions—Bakker’s so good at them and keeps them going in TUC
Knowing precludes being
Intro quote from chapter 14:
“To be a Man is to take the frame of a Man as firmament, to be immovable unto oneself. And to know Man as Man is to be blind to this common frame, to be without knowing. Thus is knowing the corruption ob being. And so to learn what it is to be a Man is to cease to be a Man.”
When Oinaral explains to Sorweel about how few Intact remain:
P. 250 “This is how you know that you stand before the lease of my Race…The fact that I stand lucid and Intact before you.”
P. 254-5 “The Aged coddle me…make grand gesture of all the strife I am spared. At leas some ember of the, they proclaim shall glow long into the black. But for all their fatuous celebration, I am despised just the same. Thus the bitter irony of my curse, Son of Harweel. I am the greatest shame my Kinning has known, a reclusive Scribe among grasping Heroes, and yet only I recall the distinction between honour and corruption…Only I can remember what shame is!”
Sorweel pondering the descent, p. 304:
“Judgment ever belongs to the greater. He saw himself the way the Injori Ishroi saw Men in days of ancient old, as strutting bests, by turns devious and absurd, rotting even as they lived, shouting boasts from atop their barrow-graves. Weed or flower, it did not matter, for their time was too short to count anything but the dregs of glory. Henceforth, his would always be a miscreat life. And so the last of the boy left to the Son of Harweel died in the Weeping Mountain.”
And to go back to the chapter 14 quote—this is the chapter where Koringhus discovers the ‘truth’ of what it is to be Dunyain and then self-destructs.
And, wow TAE is the most fucked up perversion of a coming of age story. Poor Sorweel.
AND! TO READ AND ENJOY BAKKER IS TO NOT BE BAKKER AND TO BE BAKKER IS TO BE BLIND TO THRILL OF READING HIS OWN BOOKS
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I loved the inside looks we got into Serwa's point of view. Seeing a POV of a half dunyain other than Kelmomas was pretty awesome. And how she affects the Non-Men so violently while being a prisoner. Very typical Dunyain. Ishterebinth was awesome and I actually like the anticlimactic death of opponents (in moderation), so I thought it was pretty cool that Fanayal just got murdered in a few sentences after all the build up he got. And that Meppa wasn't even a challenge to Khellus. I think those things invert expectations in a good way and get away from the clichéd.
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But doesn't Kellhus know, or at least suspect that Sorweel is an agent? I thought that was part of why he was sent away, or at least that's what I thought.
I just think Sorweel has to still be an agent of Yatwer's, she's been a major player for the 3 books now, it would be a bit anti-climactic for Yatwer to have been beaten so casually. Ajokli doesn't even seem to care all that much, just doing it for the lols. Psatma was no real challenge to defeat.
I can't guess at what Kellhus might know, though I've previously maintained that Kellhus would figure out the discrepancy pretty quick between what Sorweel is saying and what Kellhus is seeing and the possible whys and wherefores.
I also don't think Yatwer is beaten or that she's necessarily the only God who has a hand in the events unfolding before us, just the only one who we're explicitly privy to.
I think Kellhus knew Sorwell was a spy/agent/assassin/traitor/non-believer/whatever ... he sent Sorwell to Ishterebinth to convert him to being a double-agent, among other reasons. It was a chance for Sorwell to gain first hand accounts of the Cûno-Inchoroi Wars and the fact he was planning on betraying/assassinating Kellhus would keep him alive as well.
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I think Kellhus knew Sorwell was a spy/agent/assassin/traitor/non-believer/whatever ... he sent Sorwell to Ishterebinth to convert him to being a double-agent, among other reasons. It was a chance for Sorwell to gain first hand accounts of the Cûno-Inchoroi Wars and the fact he was planning on betraying/assassinating Kellhus would keep him alive as well.
He probably didn't know exactly what was up with Sorweel, but he probably realized something was amiss with how he was acting. Offering him up in the Niom keeps his "piece on the board" but outside anywhere to really interfere with Kellhus, which are two things he is very apt to do (a la Akka, post PoN).
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Yeah, nice view on that - see some of Gandolf's wisdom at play there - with a bit of Kell spin, don't be so quick to kill, never know what "use" is left for the subject. Hard to use people when they are dead.