The Second Apocalypse
Earwa => General Earwa => Topic started by: What Came Before on June 04, 2013, 02:57:19 pm
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Something occurred to me while skimming a reread.
(I wasn't sure of the best spot to place this thread, so please move if appropriate).
The Nonman emissary Nin'sariccas asks Kellhus to confirm if he has, in fact, traveled to the Outside and returned. Kellhus asks him if he's worried that Kellhus has been replaced by a demon. I suspect that this is not the case, but Nin'sariccas says that "such substitutions" have happened before.
That makes me wonder if any of the major historical figures in Earwan history eventually were "replaced" by demons. Does anyone have any ideas?
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Or skin spies throughout history.
If Ciphrang find it painful to be in the world (if I understand it correctly), what would drive them to become a substitute?
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Well, I think Psatma is an example of what Trisk is talking about. She's just an extension of Yatwer now really.
Summoned ciphrang don't have the body to inhabit. Way I see it is that outside entities have a problem with the surfaces that don't readily yield to desire, being fixed by their shared objective nature granted by the watching 'world soul'. Being that it is concentrated in souled beings we get the 'needle world' where each pinprick observation reinforces reality.
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Remember Nin' out and out lies to Kellhus. Maybe he was just trying to make a point of some kind. Also, the Nonman may have incorrectly remembered something. For example, maybe he meant that substitutions have happened, by what they only think/thought was a ciphrang. At some point, maybe even still, they didnt know what skinspys were, so if during the time period of such a memory the Nonmen mistook a skinspy for a Ciphrang... well then maybe thats what he said (regardless of whether or not they currently know the difference). Sorry if that was confusing.
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Well, I think Psatma is an example of what Trisk is talking about. She's just an extension of Yatwer now really.
Summoned ciphrang don't have the body to inhabit. Way I see it is that outside entities have a problem with the surfaces that don't readily yield to desire, being fixed by their shared objective nature granted by the watching 'world soul'. Being that it is concentrated in souled beings we get the 'needle world' where each pinprick observation reinforces reality.
Something else that's basically identical to Warhammer cosmology, FWIW.
Implication is that possession avoids the limitations inherent to summoning, because the daemon/ciphrang can stay in the Warp/Outside and essentially just act as a replacement for the host's soul, without itself becoming subject to the material world's consensus reality/physical laws.
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Something like that Dusky. I think Yatwer is using Psatma's soul as a lens somehow rather than a straight replacement. The world still sees Psatma, Meppa can see her as her old self but Yatwer is certainly using her quite directly. It's like the opposite of sorcery.
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Maybe not quite the opposite, just a bit different. It doesn't so too terribly different than what the Inchoroi did to Esmi when they possessed her.
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If the notion is that souls are like bumps on some big soul, and the big soul is the gods, I kind of imagine Psatma as being her regular soul, but with the big soul pressing in, pushing Psatma towards extinguishment as a crescent on her normal bump, as her bump is stretched towards almost becoming a god itself (without being stretched so much it flattens out and presumably leaves the world/is not bumpy enough to penetrate through to the world)
Heh, I got all that way with intuition! Whether it's worth a dang, who knows?
I still think even with a human body to blunt the pain of raw what you see is what you get (rather than what you wish is what you get), I still think it'd hurt for a ciphrang. Perhaps that's why it happens only rarely?
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I was thinking opposite inasmuch as human souls channel power from outside (sorcery) to make the world conform to meaning via their choices, whereas this is power from the outside making the world conform to their meaning via humans. If you see what I mean. :p
Perhaps reverse sorcery would be more appropriate. Note that Sorweel can still touch chorae - I imagine this sort of power leaves a bruise of the soul of the individual rather than the onta, probably why the non-man wanted to touch Kellhus (because they can detect such a mark only by touching the boundaries of the soul - an extension of haptic touch, perhaps).
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+1, Duskweaver - that's an apt metaphor. There's those analogies coming in handy already.
"If he were a demon, then Zeum should arm for immediate war, now, before he achieved his immediate goals, for demons were simply Hungers from the abyss, insatiable in their pursuit of destruction" (WLW, p592) [Malowebi].
Pre-AE I might have suggested that this reflects a dictatorship mythology. Now, it might suggest a historical relevancy...
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I was thinking opposite inasmuch as human souls channel power from outside (sorcery) to make the world conform to meaning via their choices, whereas this is power from the outside making the world conform to their meaning via humans. If you see what I mean. :p
I'm inclined to think Earwa exists because of the outside wishing it so. Schoolmen and Cishurim interfear with the broadcast, so to speak. They don't chanel, the interfear with what is chaneled.
I think if outside powers were trying to affect the world by their wishing, they'd have to compete with the wishes of others in the outside. A human agent is simply direct access to the world. Even if more limited than wishing perse, when wishing competes with other wishing, it's perhaps less effective than one humans actions. Particularly if that human commands many a heart!
It's not so much power from the outside, I'd say, but commanding the meaninglessness of a human being, to trump meaning. The competing meanings of other outside entities.
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Ah yes, a chance line from the WLW that I stumbled onto.
I believe I was originally brought to the idea of a Kahiht somewhere over in The Almanac some months ago, but I'm not fishing through those topics, and it has come up in this thread too so I figured its fair game.
"No. I tell you this because I truly know very little. The Judging Eye is a fold legend, like the Kahiht or the White-Luck Warrior, notions that have been traded across too many generation to possess any clear meaning ... " page 57 WLW, Achamian's POV to Mimara.
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If Kosoter is a ciphrang, the next time we see Sarl, the captain's head may do all of the talking! We need a group photo with Sarl sporting Kosoter's head next to Kellhus with decapitants.
I bet Dunyains take the best selfies.
Ciphrang captured through the daimos + Dunyain knowhow + neuropuncture + skin spies = AN AWESOME SECRET WEAPON
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Thinking about that passage in The Thousandfold Thought where Cnaiur is reminiscing about a conversation with Akka. Akka told him that souls were like beads of water and when a person went mad, the Outside leaked into the world.
I wonder if Sarl's madness is going to be some kind of mechanism for the Outside to leak into Kosoter's severed head?
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Perhaps those ciphrang-possessed folks from of old were stopped by other White Luck Warriors?
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I do have this hunch that the Captain still has some role to play which is a strange thing to say given that he's dead.
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I do have this hunch that the Captain still has some role to play which is a strange thing to say given that he's dead.
If anything, I'm certain he will still be "talking" to Sarl, if he is seen again.
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Do Ciphrang get killed by Chorae?
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I think so. Don't they get salted before the siege of Shimeh?
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Ok, thanks. It’s been some time that I didn’t remember.
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I do have this hunch that the Captain still has some role to play which is a strange thing to say given that he's dead.
Same. I really don't think his "arc" is done, even though he may not actually be directly active in the story. The fact that this whole trilogy basically started with his character's intro also inclines me to believe there's more to the Captain's arc.
I go back and forth on him being a Ciphrang. I lean towards that not being the case, only because Bakker alludes to it so heavily that it feels like it must be a red-herring.
I have a crackpot that the Captain really isn't anything other than a man who had a "near-death experience". At some point he died and his soul witnessed true Hell, but he "bounced back" (to quote Sarl), either because he was somehow resuscitated or maybe through magical means via Kellhus and/or Iyokus.
Regardless, having witnessed Hell, Kosoter was of course never the same man again. It was basically like looking into the Inverse Fire. He realized that no Worldly pain or horror could ever even come close to matching genuine Damnation, and so upon returning from death he was utterly changed. The atrocities he saw and committed became nothing to him, just like the Consult members that saw Damnation. Ironsoul seems a fitting name for the man in this case. This scenario also explains his comment in the lava-filled depths of Cil-Aujas when they all think they're in Hell, but Kosoter says that it isn't and he knows because he'd already seen Hell. In addition, this explains his absolute, utter conviction to Kellhus. He knows Damnation is real in a way that few do, and for whatever reason he believes that Kellhus is his path to Salvation.
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IIRC some of Akka's reflections on the Wight-of-the-Mountain after Cil-Aujas reveal that it's theoretically possible for a mortal soul to become a Ciphrang after being in the Outside long enough, if it's a very powerful one.
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I do have this hunch that the Captain still has some role to play which is a strange thing to say given that he's dead.
Same. I really don't think his "arc" is done, even though he may not actually be directly active in the story. The fact that this whole trilogy basically started with his character's intro also inclines me to believe there's more to the Captain's arc.
I go back and forth on him being a Ciphrang. I lean towards that not being the case, only because Bakker alludes to it so heavily that it feels like it must be a red-herring.
I have a crackpot that the Captain really isn't anything other than a man who had a "near-death experience". At some point he died and his soul witnessed true Hell, but he "bounced back" (to quote Sarl), either because he was somehow resuscitated or maybe through magical means via Kellhus and/or Iyokus.
Regardless, having witnessed Hell, Kosoter was of course never the same man again. It was basically like looking into the Inverse Fire. He realized that no Worldly pain or horror could ever even come close to matching genuine Damnation, and so upon returning from death he was utterly changed. The atrocities he saw and committed became nothing to him, just like the Consult members that saw Damnation. Ironsoul seems a fitting name for the man in this case. This scenario also explains his comment in the lava-filled depths of Cil-Aujas when they all think they're in Hell, but says that it isn't and he knows because he'd already seen Hell. In addition, this explains his absolute, utter conviction to Kellhus. He knows Damnation is real in a way that few do, and for whatever reason he believes that Kellhus is his path to Salvation.
Good post!
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@ Ejjannelsouda - i'm still not sure that a salted ciphrang is dead rather than just banished back to the deep
@ Francis Buck
"Regardless, having witnessed Hell, Kosoter was of course never the same man again. It was basically like looking into the Inverse Fire. He realized that no Worldly pain or horror could ever even come close to matching genuine Damnation, and so upon returning from death he was utterly changed. The atrocities he saw and committed became nothing to him, just like the Consult members that saw Damnation. Ironsoul seems a fitting name for the man in this case. This scenario also explains his comment in the lava-filled depths of Cil-Aujas when they all think they're in Hell, but says that it isn't and he knows because he'd already seen Hell. In addition, this explains his absolute, utter conviction to Kellhus. He knows Damnation is real in a way that few do, and for whatever reason he believes that Kellhus is his path to Salvation."
That's awesome! Could it be that the Captain will eventually give us proof about the ultimate veracity of Kellhus' claims? If the head speaks from hell, Kellhus is a liar, promising salvation to the damned. If the head speaks from heaven, Kellhus controls the fates of the Zaudunyani in the afterlife.
so in my head, i'm picturing Akka and Mimara deep in the deepest parts of the Thousand Thousand Halls where they witness the anchor of the Dunyain project on to have Revelation creep in behind them as Sarl appears having followed them all the way down and the grating hate animates the Kosoter's mouth once again.
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Ironsoul seems a fitting name for the man in this case. This scenario also explains his comment in the lava-filled depths of Cil-Aujas when they all think they're in Hell, but says that it isn't and he knows because he'd already seen Hell.
Crackpot: If a mortal swallowed a chorae, would they be able to walk into the Outside without destroying the portal?
Ironsoul indeed.
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Ironsoul seems a fitting name for the man in this case. This scenario also explains his comment in the lava-filled depths of Cil-Aujas when they all think they're in Hell, but says that it isn't and he knows because he'd already seen Hell.
Crackpot: If a mortal swallowed a chorae, would they be able to walk into the Outside without destroying the portal?
Ironsoul indeed.
swallowing a chorae--why does no one do this???? there's got to be some big gullet types who wouldn't choke on it and could fight 2 handed until it passed
"a tear of god passing through the butt of man"
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FB that reminds me of that movie Constantine with Keanu Reeves
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just wondering--is it possible that a White Luck Warrior is equal to a Ciphrang possessed individual?