Earwa > The Great Ordeal
[TGO Spoilers] Whale Mothers
Madness:
--- Quote from: Cüréthañ on July 21, 2016, 03:36:14 am ---I'm not sure of your contention aside from the possibility of more successful daughters.
I mean, even there we have foreshadowing that seems to dismiss that possibility; where previous volumes' "what has come before" state that Khellus requires sons.
Sure, there is the probability that there is more going on, but that isn't really the point as far as my dissatisfaction (except insofar as there is no hint of anything more going on).
I look at it as a world-building issue for now. I mean that in terms of consistency from a reader's perspective, something Bakker is usually very, very good at in my eyes. And for me it is worse than 'why not Chorae plus Wracu?'.
The whale-mothers just contradict many implications of character actions, in-world consequence and assumptions from real-world experience without much set-up or explanation. It is used as the premier example of why the Dunyain are objectively evil and then simply left at that without further edification.
--- End quote ---
Hmm... somewhere I've been unclear.
My only "contention," I think, is why it's perceived automatically as implausible in-world and why that should cause the reader such dissonance.
If Bakker had drafts of the Whale-Mother passages done pre-TDTCB release, then it implies to me that Earwa doesn't reflect our real-world "causal mechanics" so much as we previously thought. Or real-world generations of broodmares do eventually resemble Tleilaxu Axolotl tanks. Or that Esmenet's contribution to their progeny would yield normal, human-looking daughters.
Also, Bakker addressed the Chorae/Wracu gripe in the Wracu and Chorae and in another secondary thread with some interesting responses.
Cüréthañ:
--- Quote from: Madness on July 21, 2016, 03:47:28 am ---Hmm... somewhere I've been unclear.
My only "contention," I think, is why it's perceived automatically as implausible in-world and why that should cause the reader such dissonance.
If Bakker had drafts of the Whale-Mother passages done pre-TDTCB release, then it implies to me that Earwa doesn't reflect our real-world "causal mechanics" so much as we previously thought. Or real-world generations of broodmares do eventually resemble Tleilaxu Axolotl tanks. Or that Esmenet's contribution to their progeny would yield normal, human-looking daughters.
--- End quote ---
I get you now. I kinda covered this above - the three-fold issues (implications of character actions, in-world consequence and description and assumptions from real-world experience) combine into a gripe greater than the sum of it's parts in my head. It's not the fact of the Whale-mothers - it is the execution that sucks.
--- Quote --- Also, Bakker addressed the Chorae/Wracu gripe in the Wracu and Chorae and in another secondary thread with some interesting responses.
--- End quote ---
Thanks man, I have browsed those Chorae/Wracu discussions. Not that it was ever much of an issue to me. ;)
Wilshire:
Why do people assume the Whale Mother's weren't intelligent? I can't remember if that's stated by mimara or not.
If its not said, I can't imagine that they would be unintelligent. That, at least, would be consistent with finding an intelligent woman to bare dunayin children, since Kellhus/Moenghus wouldn't be able to find a true dunyain woman.
I totally get the criticism of them, though they didn't bother me. There needs to be more exposition on how/why they came to be. Women baring a differing portion of the Mission compared to men is fine, but a few more words on the matter would have gone a long way.
Bakker responded somewhat generally to the criticisms in a TPB post. He mentions that the Logos and other Earwa-metaphysics things somehow allow for this type of gender dysmorphia. That's nice I guess but does little to explain what is actually happening there. Evidently Bakker thinks that we have either already received enough information on the subject and haven't figured it out yet (regarding logos/metaphysics/subjective-realities, etc.), or that information later on will reveal to us the greater workings of the world. I'm inclined to the latter. Once TUC wraps up, I assume we'll have all the information required to unravel the remaining mysteries - barring actual mistakes.
I doubt the entire Whale-Mother thing is as poorly thought out as some people suggest. So far, nothing in the series has been, so I have faith. Unfortunately, the series as a whole is about layered revelations, so until the story is done there just isn't currently sufficient in-text evidence to satisfy all critics.
Cosi:
I'd guess that the Whale Mothers are intelligent, and the physical dysmorphia is required to support full-blooded Dunyain children ("the seed is too strong"). Doesn't explain why Serwa and Thelopia look human though. Maybe the Whale Mother gene is recessive?
H:
--- Quote from: Cosi on July 21, 2016, 02:22:05 pm ---I'd guess that the Whale Mothers are intelligent, and the physical dysmorphia is required to support full-blooded Dunyain children ("the seed is too strong"). Doesn't explain why Serwa and Thelopia look human though. Maybe the Whale Mother gene is recessive?
--- End quote ---
It's been a long, long time since Biology class, but there are possible explanations in a double recessive genes, which if non-Dunyain humans have a dominant one, or even series of linked alleles that mean that inbreeding (which the Dunyain certainly are) will give Whale-Mothers almost all the time (between Dunyain parents). We actually don't know how many "defective" (i.e. closer to familiar human) females there ever were, so there certainly is plausibility in just being pretty simple genetics.
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