The Second Apocalypse
Earwa => General Earwa => Topic started by: What Came Before on May 14, 2013, 10:15:43 pm
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More terrible still were those few Inchoroi who ventured into battle, hanging above the tumult, sweeping the earth with their weapons of light, apparently unaffected by the sorceries of the Ishroi
(Encyclopaedic Glossary, TTT)
I am not sure if this has been discussed elsewhere;
my impression had always been that the Aporos can negate all sorcery. But this quote implies that Aporetic sorcery functions similar to other sorceries, at least in granting the ability to 'walk' in the air. Can anyone think of other instances where the metaphysics of Aporos was described and compared to Anagogis and Gnosis? And this quote implies that aporetic sorcery is immune to chorae, as the Inchoroi could levitate while wearing the chorae, which I find a bit odd, because all other sorceries, including the Cishuarim's that does not leave a Mark, seem to be affected by Chorae. Considering that the Few do not become sensitive to Chorae until they learn the Esoterics, does this mean that the Aporos somehow grants power to the sorcerer to manipulate the world, while still letting the practitioner remain in a 'naive' state? Or is Aporos closer to the God's voice (than the Cishuarim, if we are taking Kellhus' explanation of the differences in sorceries as Fact)?
...they devised the first of the Chorae to render their masters immune to Cunuroi magic.
Does this mean that both Anagogic and Cishuarim sorcery were derived from 'Cunuroi magic'? Or is it more likely that only Cunuroi magic was mentioned because that was the only magic known at the time of the cuno-Inchoroi wars?
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Anagogic was entirely human. The Cunoroi never used it.
Inchoroi could hang above the battlefield because 1. They have grafted wings and can fly under their own power and 2. Seem to have had nonsorcerous flying machines produced with the Tekne in the early days.
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The Inchoroi do have wings. Also, I think the Chorae are simply artifacts of the Aporos like the Agonic Collar is of the Gnostic Mengaecca or the Agonic Circle is of the Anagogic Spires.
What might we surmise from the books:
- There are no reasons to assume that Aporetic sorcery is fundamentally different from other sorceries, as the Psuhke is, for instance. The Aporos simply turns on reduction.
- There are no reasons to assume that Aporetic sorcery is operationally the same as other sorceries. The Aporos tends to return the World to its proper frame, innately God-given. It's unlikely that it will reflect the hierarchical development seperating the Anagogic from the Gnostic.
- Chorae, rather than being unique like Superman on Earth, are unique like the only Macbook in a room full of basic calculators. There are simply a sorcerous tech like the Whore's Shell, Wathi Doll, Kellhus' fireplace, etc, etc - I had listed most of the sorcerous artifacts in another thread.
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The Aporos is something I want to flesh out further in future books. The basic idea is this: the Quya first developed the Aporos in the prosecution of their own intercine wars, but it was quickly forbidden. The arrival of the Inchoroi allowed several renegade Quya to pursue their sorcerous interrogations, leading to the production of tens of thousands of Chorae, which were used throughout the Cuno-Inchoroi wars.
The Aporos possesses a contradictory, or negative, semantics, and as such is able only to undo the positive semantics of things like the Gnosis, Psukhe, Anagogis - even the Daimos. Aporetic Cants have no other effect. Salting is actually a kind of side effect. I would rather wait until TTT comes out before discussing the metaphysics - it has to do with the Mark.
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Did he come out with anything post TTT on the topic?
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Ahh I knew it. Aporos was developed by Non-men and I bet in Isterbinth Akka and especially Mimara will learn the craft. Aporos sorceror with a Judging Eye ...
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Disagree with Akka, he would be a giant molten salt explosion if he even thought about it.
Mimara though, the first Aporatic Sorcerer since the fall of the Mengecca. Its possible, and I like it.
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By your argument, Mengaecca couldn't practice the Aporos, either, Wilshire?
Mimara, first Aporetic Witch since... the original practioners of the Aporos o.O? I figure she's onto Faith Power now... but Sorcery is the Co-opting of God's Song? Still blows me away.
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Sorcery is the Co-opting of God's Song? Still blows me away.
Mis-heard lyrics?
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One of the ideas behind anarcane ground simply follows the notion that the boundaries between the World and the Outside are variable. Some, taking the distinction between wakefulness and dreams as their analogy, believe anarcane ground to be Holy ground - places where the God has, for whatever reason, focussed his attention - dreams lucidly - thus rendering the co-option of his Song by sorcery difficult if not impossible.
... Yeah, say what?
I don't think Bakker knew what he was letting out of the bag. Or he did :ugeek: ?
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since... the original practioners of the Aporos o.O?
One possible reason why the Consult (including the original Aporetic Quya renegades) have never manufactured any more Chorae in the past couple of millennia (at least) is that they are all Marked so deeply that even being in the same room as a Chorae is hazardous.
It makes sense to me that only a relatively young/inexperienced (and therefore weakly Marked) sorcerer could actually create a Chorae without dying in the process. If you've been wielding sorcery for centuries or millennia, you've no chance.
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The Mark changes subtly - perhaps, there's a gradation between Titirga, Cishaurim, and the Schools?
What would the Mark of the Aporetic Sorcerer look like?
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I was thinking more along the lines of the Mark deepening the more one uses sorcery. There's a RSB post on Zombie Three Seas that mentions the most ancient Nonmen Quya starting to salt as soon as a Chorae comes anywhere near them, in contrast to human sorcerers with merely human lifespans who don't start to salt unless the Chorae is virtually touching them.
The Aporos appears to be just as grounded in thoughts (as contrasted with the emotional core of the Psukhe) as the Gnosis and Anagogis, so I would not expect an Aporetic's Mark to be fundamentally different.
It's actually just occurred to me that Nil'Giccas seemingly had no problem being quite close to the Captain's Chorae, despite the depth of his own Mark. Doesn't seem to quite fit, somehow.
Nerdanel For The Day: Cleric wasn't really Nil'Giccas at all. Someone (Kellhus?) just convinced some relatively minor Nonman erratic he was Nil'Giccas through the implantation of false memories. When we get to Ishterebinth, we'll meet the really ancient Quya, and their Marks will make Cleric's look like a neophyte's. :D
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By your argument, Mengaecca couldn't practice the Aporos, either, Wilshire?
Not at all. We do know that the more deeply the schoolman is marked, the more they are affected by the chorae (I.e distance). Like mentioned above, there are instances with some sorcerers beginning to salt at fairly large distances.
I think we get a bit of this from Akka's POV as well, though I could be making it up. I feel like he is more sensitive to the chroae in later novels than in that first scene where the chroae is nearly touching.
I think the mengaecca would have a limited ability to use the aporos if it indeed marks the user as the other disciplines. After thousands of years, the Inchoroi should have millions and millions of chorae if they could be produced without consequence to the user. Maybe they do and are just waiting, for fear that they may end up in the hands of men before. Maybe there is another chorae horde, hidden underneath an old sietche....
Fully agreeing with Duskweaver.
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I'm not sure, but where the Aporos invented by the Nonmen after the landing of the Inchoroi, or after the first wars? Was it a design, the Nonmen had crafted to overwhelm the Inchoroi, or simple a study in this direction by their Quya mages?
As I read through this posts, some questions come back to me. Is somewhere discribed, how a Chorae react to the Inchoroi, who use sorcery? They where damned before their landing and before their use sorcery and now are they....uhm...somekind of double-damned?
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Aporos was a Nonmen magic like the gnosis, quoted above I believe it was created to war against themselves though this was quickly banned.
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a chorae is a sphere, what if Kellhus were to write aporetic script into the very ground from on high, and turn the whole world into a chorae?
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a chorae is a sphere, what if Kellhus were to write aporetic script into the very ground from on high, and turn the whole world into a chorae?
To what end?
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Disenchant the world?
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Alright, let's check this - Wilshire, I'll find you that quote about Achamian when my newest copy of TJE arrives.
+1 Duskweaver and Wilshire. Big +1 for Cleric, not being Nil'giccas based on the depth of his mark and his disproportionate - though, I can imagine this being a mistaken retcon.
So you're suggesting that to become an Aporetic, Aporatic or Aporic (which is better?) Sorcerer has to submit to only negating all other sorceries?
Wow... Wicked.
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I just see no other way possible for a schoolman to manufacture chorae.
I was referring to when Akka was all tied up and the chorae was closeish to his face and he could feel himself salting... That was WLW, near the end before the dragon.
At a quick glance through, WLW page 531 English hardcover 1st edition.
"Lord Kosoter turned to Cleric, who stood looming behind. His Chorae drifted a fraction nearer as he did so, blistering the Wizard's cheek with salt"
And the first encounter with Chorae. TDTCB english small edition, page 36-38.
Nothing specific to quote there unfortunately. Nothing is mentioned of him actually salting nor how far away the chorae is.
Looks like more will need to be found as neither place mentions anything about proximity. I guess for the sake of my own argument, I could say that they should be relatively the same distance as they are kind of the same scene (Akka pinned down, man with chorae dangling 'near'). But that is mostly biased perspective an nothing more.
Besides, maybe the salting is more of an absolute distance thing rather than a gradient. So even a micron outside some absolute threshold there would be no salting observed.
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lots of salting in Cil Aujus.
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I think all of the original Aporetic sorceries have long since died in the time of the first wars, or they would have been able to manufacture limitless amounts. And I believe on the old forum that Bakker said that the Aporos was a dead branch of sorcery, but he might not be able to resist putting Aporetic sorcry into the story.
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I wonder if prophecy fits within the purveiw of the Aporos.
"All the prophecies must be respected. The true and the false..."
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Questions regarding Chorae:
Can normal people sense, in any way, that the chorae are some kind of absence (like a schoolman does)?
Normal people meaning people who cannot see the onta.
Should a skin-spy (or similar unsouled things) be able to sense the difference between a chorae and a rock?
One more regarding timeline I guess:
When did Soma become a skin-spy? I forget.
edit.
well i suppose the questions are still there, but the reason I asked was due to an improper interpretation of the text
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but Sorcery is the Co-opting of God's Song? Still blows me away.
And why the Cish can cast without attention, because they use passion - much like the cants of compulsion tortured Xinemus and felt like his very own emotions and urgings. So when they made him say pity is the only love Akka would ever find, Xinemus felt this through to his heart. So too do the Cish enact the god to act, but it thinks it it's own will.
Another blind side.
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I wonder what the inner workings of the Aporos are? We've heard that it's based in contradictions and basically "canceling out" the blot of sorcery, but how does it actually work out? Wouldn't anti-sorcery sorcerers get killed by their own Chorae? And does the Aporos exist in actual spells, like the other branches of sorcery?
but Sorcery is the Co-opting of God's Song? Still blows me away.
That's yet another thing Bakker copied from Tolkien. Not a concept original to PON, although Bakker expanded a lot on it. (Specifically, Tolkien's universe has a creation myth where God and the Ainur (angelic beings) sang the world into existence. This is why, for example, the magical duel with Sauron takes the form of a song battle, where the two duelists are basically re-singing God's song at each other.)
The ideas behind the Gnosis/Anagogis/Psukhe are inventions of Bakker's, though. I found the focus on language and meaning to be endlessly interesting.
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Auriga, can you point me to any obvious allusion towards this in PON or TAE? See beyond that comment and a poster, Feanor, here, I never, ever connected Tolkien's Music to Bakker's sorcery until this comment.
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And does the Aporos exist in actual spells, like the other branches of sorcery?
Aporetic sorcerers speak the utteral backwards, on inhalation.
A long time ago, on a forum far, far away (can't find the thread now) I raised the possibility that the Consult has full knowledge of the Aporos, and/or fully functional Aporetic sorcerers. So I have good hope of seeing some of this in TUC.
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Well, arguably, there's a small chance that some of the original Quya practitioners still exist and work with the Consult. Though, considering the extermination the Inchoroi and their original Nonman allies, I'd say that the original Aporetic Quya are likely dead.
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Well, arguably, there's a small chance that some of the original Quya practitioners still exist and work with the Consult. Though, considering the extermination the Inchoroi and their original Nonman allies, I'd say that the original Aporetic Quya are likely dead.
IMO, original is the keyword there. Couldn't there be more Nonman that have gone over to the consult since then? Or even a lift on the Aporetic ban in efforts to counter whatever it is the Inchoroi did to the Nonman?
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Lol - well, apparently, according to Nil'giccas, all of them have gone over to the Consult since then.
But I think the Nonman objected to the Aporos because it enables the balance of power we find in the Three-Seas, which the Nonman seemingly wanted to avoid.
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Perhaps it was banned because of the metaphysical implications. Like Copernicus or Darwin...
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Lol. Touche.
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Perhaps it was banned because of the metaphysical implications. Like Copernicus or Darwin...
Banned by whom? Sure yes the Nonman powers that were, but what if the "Gods" saw Aporetic Sorcery as a threat to their own existence. If they are just more powerful ciphrang, they may be affected by the chorae.
Also, could it be possible that chorae affect the Gods' avatars? Maybe this is why Sorweel was given his chorae in that sack. Not to hide it from Serwa (who didn't even notice its affects), but rather to shield its effects from Yatwer herself. We know that "unmarked" schoolman still died after being touched by the chrorae, and so did Ciphrang, so why something like the White-Luck Warrior or the body that Yatwer had assumed when she came to Sorweel?
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We know that "unmarked" schoolman still died after being touched by the chrorae
I don't think so?
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We know that "unmarked" schoolman still died after being touched by the chrorae
I don't think so?
The Cish are affect the same as the others, or at least thats the the SS says. Are there really no descriptions of one of them being hit by a chorae?
Didn't mean to suggest that those of the Few that don't use sorcery die.
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The Cish are affect the same as the others, or at least thats the the SS says. Are there really no descriptions of one of them being hit by a chorae?
There are three described explicitly. One Cishaurim Proyas kills, one Kellhus kills, and Moenghus the Elder.
Didn't mean to suggest that those of the Few that don't use sorcery die.
Indeed. That was my mistaken assumption.
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The Chorae are actually sorcerous artifacts (of something called the 'Aporos'), manufactured prior to the Cuno-Inchoroi Wars (by Quya defectors) as a way for the Inchoroi to counter the sorcery of the Nonmen. The script inscribed across each embodies a contradiction that unravels the semantics of all known Cants - even those of the Aporos!
Aporetic Cants?
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I speculate that is what Mimara used on the wight-king.
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The Chorae are actually sorcerous artifacts (of something called the 'Aporos'), manufactured prior to the Cuno-Inchoroi Wars (by Quya defectors) as a way for the Inchoroi to counter the sorcery of the Nonmen. The script inscribed across each embodies a contradiction that unravels the semantics of all known Cants - even those of the Aporos!
My bold. I read this and realized that that the Aporos us undone by its own creation. I already knew this, but it made me think that perhaps its something other than sorcery that creates it? ... Thaumaturgy, but of a different kind than the Cish.
Baring that, I don't understand how a true Quya could make one of these without bursting into salt (if indeed that is how it kills them).
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Baring that, I don't understand how a true Quya could make one of these without bursting into salt (if indeed that is how it kills them).
+1 based on the previous threads being convinced that it would be a Mark sorcerers undoing, or that Aporos couldn't have Cants...
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I just see the Aporos a school off Wards, but also all kinds pf anti-magic magic. They could have cants that paralyze, or somehow temporarily stop the subject from perceiving the onta. It doesn't seem too much of a contradiction in my mind. I think that just one facet of that school was the discovery of chroae, which is now the only artifact that shows us that it even existed. Like the Diamos is the forbbidden branch of Anagogic sorcery, perhaps chorae where a 'forbidden' magic of the Aporos. The production of chorae may have arisen from research into the Aporos, but that doesn't necessarily mean it follows the same mechanics as the rest of their school.
Follow that distinction, I wonder if one might classify the Diamos as a thaumaturgic practice... We don't "know" that summoning Ciphrang marks you or damns you (bit of a stretch).
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Speculation on why the aporos was banned: perhaps you have to have the judging eye to do it and so few did that it put all other nonmen sorcerers at risk. Also, was the aporos banned for similar reasons that the mangeacca were censured?
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IIRC the Mangaecca were banned largely because they revived Aporatic sorcery.
We are told that the Aporos was banned because it was deemed too dangerous by the Nonmen. This decision was probably largely political, as I get the idea that many of the Quya where nobles or whatever the Nonmen called their higer-caste citizens.
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IIRC the Mangaecca were banned largely because they revived Aporatic sorcery.
TTT Glossary says impiety if I remember right. Which I believe I mentioned around here recently... were contemporary Schools really considered pious, otherwise?
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Maybe a looser interpretation of the Tusk, coupled with the inherent power granted to those closest to the Tutors. Schoolman might have occupied a similar caste as the Quya within the human community. According to the history we are given, the modern day schools didn't even form until after the Scholastic Wars. Might have been that schoolmen where looked at much different before the Apocalypse laid waste to all.
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Maybe a looser interpretation of the Tusk, coupled with the inherent power granted to those closest to the Tutors. Schoolman might have occupied a similar caste as the Quya within the human community. According to the history we are given, the modern day schools didn't even form until after the Scholastic Wars. Might have been that schoolmen where looked at much different before the Apocalypse laid waste to all.
The do seem to have a different social role in the False Sun.
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The do seem to have a different social role in the False Sun.
Great point. Both characters in that short seem to come from wealthy aristocratic lifestyles. Granted, the SS also live in similar lavish, but this seems much more widespread in TFS.
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Strikes me that the anarcane ground in the north is where the chorae were created.
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Strikes me that the anarcane ground in the north is where the chorae were created.
Maybe one of the characters will get to Atrithau and we'll see a ruined chorae factory. I wonder if Atrithau's designation as "anarcane" is really just a set up to prepare the reader for another anarcane ground, like in Eanna or north of Golgotterath.
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I wonder what actually causes anarcane ground. I mean we have the explanation that these places are where the God dreams most lucidly, but that's super vague and doesn't really explain the specifics. On the other hand, topoi have very specific reasons behind their existence and creation.
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I wonder what actually causes anarcane ground. I mean we have the explanation that these places are where the God dreams most lucidly, but that's super vague and doesn't really explain the specifics. On the other hand, topoi have very specific reasons behind their existence and creation.
Perhaps topoi and anarcane are somehow opposites? Heaps of suffering cause topoi, perhaps some really 'good' deeds would seal the world more completely from hell. While on this tangent, any topoi that bring you closer to heaven (if there is one)?
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Yeh, Golgotteroth ain't gunna be anarcane ground.
Would kind of ruin the Consults day if they couldn't do sorcery there. (Especially Shae and Aurang).
Like I say, a Chorae undoes the Mark as well as the effect of sorcery, perhaps the manufacture of Chorae kind of irons out the ability to make a Mark/use sorcery in that region. Like an anti-mark.
Enchantments are laid on objects (sorcery cannot create anything besides channeling energy, from what we know) - e.g. the artefacts they recover from Sauglish would become mundane if they touch Mimara's chorae. This indicates that Chorae are manufactured objects, that are then enchanted.
The Mark or stain of aporetic magic could 'logically' be inimical to normal sorcery, creating an area where sorcery just won't work rather than undoing it. This is born out by the fact that Chorae protect their holder from sorcery but must connect directly to a sorcerous object to dispel it.
Altrernately there might just be a hoard of chorae buried under Atrithau.