[TGO SPOILERS] Self-Moving Souls in view of the Gods?

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H

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« on: July 28, 2016, 12:15:13 pm »
I had a thought that I had posted in the ARC subforum here:

Quote from: H
I just had an idea, because I was spinning some nonsense in chatting with Madness the other day, coming up with things that make sense but not really.  My question was essentially, why does Yatwer seem to be able to see everything, what happens and move agents within that, yet, cannot account for Kellhus?

Well, I was thinking that Kellhus is somehow outside of time, but that doesn't really make sense, since if he was, why not just go back and kill anyone before they were even a problem?  No, something more subtle is happening I think.

So, in spinning ideas of what goes on in the scene where the White-Luck Warrior tries to assassinate Kellhus, I started to wonder, what goes wrong?  It's Kelmomas' intervention, seemingly, that disentangles Kellhus and the Narindar.  That got me thinking, what do Kellhus (who has shown to be disentangled before and act beyond Yatwer's seeing) and Kelmomas share?  Well, one, is blood, but what is the effect of the blood?  Possibly the answer is to be "self-moving souls."

How?  Well, Kellhus tells us he is moved by visions (a topic for yet aother thread, but here it suffices that they exist, whatever the source) and Kelmomas is moved by either the Voice, Esmenet's affection, or, as Inrilatas, tells us, the pursuit of God-hood, perhaps The Absolute.  In either case, they are outside the usual cause-effect chain, outside the Darkness the Comes Before.

Why would this make them blind spots to Yatwer (and the rest of the Gods).  Well, possibly because the God are that Darkness.  Since they come before, they know what comes after.  But with the Absolute, with a self-moving soul, they are blind, because they cannot be seen in the chain of cause-and-effect.

Indeed, Kellhus says "You can be Everywhere and still blind," "You can be Eternal and remember nothing."  Also, "Even the infinite can be surprised."  The Anasûrimbor's are outside what the Gods can predict, because they are outside the God's influence (mostly).  They have the ability to move themselves, independent of the God's entangling.

Perhaps?

I later had this thought too:

Quote from: H
My personal crack-pot theory is that Yatwer doesn't see the future at all.  To me, it is something like the following:

The Gods are the Darkness that Comes Before.  What arises from that Darkness they can read the implications of.  So, what they see is basically a chain of cause and effect, because (when?) they are themselves the main cause.  This could be why Yatwer's vision isn't 100% clear, there tends to be more than one cause at play, but She does seem to see the most of it (because (when?) She is the most of it) when it comes to the WLW.  In fact, perhaps that is what the WL is, Her moving (as the Darkness) to line events up and place the WLW in the most advantageous place within the chain of cause and effect.

So, what She can't see are those totally outside the Darkness.  That is, those who are self-moving souls, not moved by the Darkness at all and so outside the chain of cause and effect that She (or any of the Gods) can read.

This is probably a totally Swiss cheese theory, as I haven't really thought out all the implications of it.

So, several "points" I am drawing here:

1.) The Darkness that Comes Before is the movement of your soul.  Your soul is what connects you to the God, as it is of the Outside and can be accessed by them.

2.) That the Gods are actually blind to Kellhus, et. al.  My inference is that they only see him through the lens of those who are under the influence of the Darkness.

3.) This could possibly explain why the Gods never got wise to the Consult's plan's.  Everyone they are surrounded by directly is either under sway of the Inverse Fire, or is an unsouled Tekne creation.  Also could explain another part of why they so often act through "shadow agents."

Still not fully formed, but perhaps there is something to this?
I am a warrior of ages, Anasurimbor. . . ages. I have dipped my nimil in a thousand hearts. I have ridden both against and for the No-God in the great wars that authored this wilderness. I have scaled the ramparts of great Golgotterath, watched the hearts of High Kings break for fury. -Cet'ingira

Cosi

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« Reply #1 on: July 28, 2016, 08:45:08 pm »
So the gods have perfect prediction based on TDTCB. Isn't that what the Dunyain were searching for? The ability to grasp the Absolute and have total mastery of circumstance. Perhaps the gods are the remnants of a earlier attempt to do what the Dunyain did. This would imply that the gods can't predict the actions of other gods (another explanation for Kelmomas). Also consider Dunyain/Dunyain interactions (like Kellhus/Moenghus). They don't see to have the same ability to read each other. For example, Kellhus and Moenghus seem to mostly make general predictions based on the assumption that the other would act the way they would. Moenghus doesn't deduce the Metagnosis, whereas Kellhus learned about the second inutteral from reading Achamain.

On a related note, compare WLW versus Dunyain. The WLW succeeds because circumstances are always already the way they must be to enable his success. He is perfectly adapted to circumstance. Conversely, Dunyain seek to war with circumstance, adapting circumstances around them.

JRControl

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« Reply #2 on: July 28, 2016, 10:12:55 pm »
I think it depends on the composition of Kellhus's soul, if strong and damned souls can turn into Ciphrangs...what would that make of Kellhus? It's important to consider I think, the primary reason we're enslaved to the power of darkness is that we're basically unable to reorganize how our brains will process the inputs it receives. Not self-willingly I mean, this is why I feel if anything we made in RL to have true free will or at least closest thing to it, would be uhh an AI, but that's neither here nor there. The Dunyain, well...they've been getting very close to it if I understood Koringhus neural OS correctly. I also feel like this is why WLW/Yatwer was stymied by little Kel, he's got two competing threads running and while they are basically predictable their interaction probably screws with complexity because as you said souls are of the Outside and two of them communing in one body screws with cracking the code of the world.
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« Reply #3 on: July 31, 2016, 01:57:09 am »
Quick question - If Yatwer cannot see Kellhus, then why has she sent forth two agents, one filled (WLW) and one anointed (Sorweel) to kill Kellhus. If she was blind to Kellhus, then she wouldn't even know to go after him, no?
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Cosi

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« Reply #4 on: July 31, 2016, 04:06:20 am »
Quick question - If Yatwer cannot see Kellhus, then why has she sent forth two agents, one filled (WLW) and one anointed (Sorweel) to kill Kellhus. If she was blind to Kellhus, then she wouldn't even know to go after him, no?

Maybe she sees him to a different degree or in a different way than she does other things? Maybe she sees a probability distribution mapping the most likely actions he might take. Maybe he is not "continuous" in her sight and she can't track him from moment to moment. Maybe she doesn't fully understand his mind/soul and has to predict based on a mental model of him. Maybe they're both predicting off of TDTCB and their predictions create interference effects.

Based on my understanding of the less Momemn chapter, she can "see" both Kellhus and Kelmomas, they can just take actions (only some of the time?) that she can't predict. So she can see Kellhus, but he can still act unpredictably.

H

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« Reply #5 on: August 02, 2016, 07:25:47 pm »
Yeah, blind is certainly not the right term for Her sight of Kellhus.  Blind to his intentions, yes, but not blind to his physical being.  He is far too in view of those in Her view to be literally invisible to Her.  The important part is that She cannot account for him.
I am a warrior of ages, Anasurimbor. . . ages. I have dipped my nimil in a thousand hearts. I have ridden both against and for the No-God in the great wars that authored this wilderness. I have scaled the ramparts of great Golgotterath, watched the hearts of High Kings break for fury. -Cet'ingira

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« Reply #6 on: August 07, 2016, 03:12:53 am »
If Kellhus is the next No-God, then perhaps he is a bit invisible to the gods?  Wasn't it supposed to be something about the Dunyain way of life that made them invisible to the gods?  Maybe Kellhus is carrying a bit of that with him?

I have to admit that it is just straight up contradictory in my head that the gods could dwell outside of time and yet be foiled by a mortal.  I hope Bakker gives us more on this point because I don't see how the view from eternity could admit to any blindness.

2 possibilities for Yatwer not getting her way at the end of TGO.  1) She did.  She's playing a longer con with a lot of big feints.  2) Some other god is interfering--What Yatwer was to Issaral, god X is to Kellhus--he is a competing manifestation of white-luck.  There's so much stuff about the narindar just do whatever happens, they don't know.  Kellhus being an unwitting narindar would keep with that ignorance theme.

On the subject of narindar--i feel like it's been implied that all narindar are somehow connected to Ajokli, what does that mean for Sorweel?

I get the feeling Yatwer and the other gods aren't really infinite, they are just big.  Maybe Yatwer sees time like the way I could look at the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.  I could sort of see it all if I stand as far back as possible, but I can only ever devote my attention to certain portions at a time, and I'll probably remain ignorant of all the details even if I look for a long time.