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Messages - What Came Before
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31
« on: June 04, 2013, 07:16:29 pm »
Yes, sorry, you've described the Cish use of serpents to see much better... Sort of what I was getting at but didn't come out right. The 'mundane' sight is probably the key descriptor there.
Regarding the Womb Plague and immortality... Yes I think that accepting and consuming it was a choice for the Nonmen, a choice that Cu'jara Cinmoi made first, and through his actions and position as King/Ishroi/Quya influenced the rest of the non men to follow suit.
From Cinial'Jin:
Something. Something in the meat.
I don't actually think it was Nil'giccas who disagreed with the choice to accept the Immortality, and subsequently the Womb Plague , but rather Cinial'jin... The bit about the Ishroi kneeling and madness becoming religion was from one of the earlier edits of T4RoCJ short story:
Cu’jara Cinmoi’s glare somehow slips the uproar and picks him from the confusion. Yes. You know.
From TTT glossary:
Then Nin’janjin returned. Invoking the ancient codes, he appeared before Cû’jara-Cinmoi begging Mercy and Penance. When the High King of Siöl bid Nin’janjin come near so he might see him, he was astonished to discover his old adversary had not aged. Then Nin’janjin revealed his true reason for coming to Siöl. The Inchoroi, he said, were too terrified of Cû’jara-Cinmoi’s might to leave their Ark, so they dwelt in confinement and misery. They had sent him, he claimed, to sue for peace. They wished to know what tribute might temper the High King’s fury.
To which Cû’jara-Cinmoi replied: “I would be young of heart, face, and limb. I would banish Death from the halls of my people.”
So "immortality" was the request CC made of the Inchoroi via Nin'janjin
32
« on: June 04, 2013, 07:16:21 pm »
Seconded on the good post.
You should take a gander at my Unholy Consult post, Wayward. I think you'd be able to catch everything I missed.
Cishaurim use serpents to, "see," the most objective world on this side of reality
This actually isn't specifically the case. The Cishaurim use serpents to see "mundane" creation - however we might define that in this series - and blind themselves in order to see the Outside. Kellhus explains some measure of this to Achamian in TTT and Meppa offers some rounding descriptions, however, I like TWP perspectives best. This is Achamian's:
"Achamian and Xinemus walked the ways of twilight, between light and dark, where only shadows are known. There was no food in this place, no life-giving water, and their bodies, which they carried across their backs the way one might carry a corpse, suffered horribly.
The twilight way. The shadow way. From the port city of Joktha to Caraskand.
When they passed near the camps of the enemy, they could feel the Cishaurim's plucked eyes - brilliant, pure, like a lamplight before a silvered mirror - search for them from beyond the horizon. Many times Achamian felt that otherworldly light throw shadows from their shadows. Many times Achamian thought they were doomed. But always those eyes turned away their inhuman scrutiny, either decided or... Achamian could not say why." p.642-643, TWP
Also, Xinemus soon after offers his perspective.
"'Akka,' Xinemus said, scowling in his queer, eyeless fashion. 'When we walked as shadows ...' ... 'I'm blind,' Xinemus continued, 'Blind as blind could be, Akka! And yet I saw them ... The Cishaurim. I saw them seeing!'
'You did see,' he said carefully, 'in a manner ... There's many ways of seeing. And all of us possess eyes that never breach skin. Men are wrong to think nothing lies between blindness and sight.'
'And the Cishaurim?' Xinemus pressed. "Is that ... Is that how they-'
'The Cishaurim are masters of this interval. They blind themselves, they say, to better see the World Between. According to some, it's the key to their metaphysics.'" p.651-652, TWP
Also, the World Between has it's own Glossary entry.
As to the Nonmen, I just had one thing to add, Wayward. I find it interesting that you think Nil'giccas contemporaneously disagreed with Cu'jara Cinmoi's decision to have the Womb Plague give them immortality - not that the Inchoroi came selling Womb Plague and if the scenario even happens as you say it.
33
« on: June 04, 2013, 07:16:14 pm »
Very good posts Mr. Ishroi. I had failed to notice the discrepancy in the design of the hauberk and chainmail. It's possible they simply represent different houses, but... *RED FLAG*
I have this suspicion that ending up in oblivion actually means that you give up your individuality in the outside and rejoin the larger, "sleeping," fragment of the Solitary God awaiting all the other little broken pieces to come back to it one day.
Various major symbols in the work are the Gnostic cross, the Logos and Gnostic sorcery. This points to some version of Gnosticism-like metaphysics to be the actual reality on Earwa.
The cool part is that if this is true, then even the alien Inchoroi are little (yucky) pieces of the Solitary God.
(See: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demiurge for lots of cool real-world references to the shit that happens on Earwa)
34
« on: June 04, 2013, 07:16:08 pm »
Also, back to the OP... I'm rooting for some kind of final peace for the remaining Cunuroi that doesn't involve damnation. True oblivion, as it were, and guaranteed... Not based on some abstract worshipping the spaces between the gods and hoping you split the defencemen on your way through the outside and miss being Ciphrang fodder for eternity. Maybe as some kind of reunification of the million warring fragments of god. Actually, I have this suspicion that ending up in oblivion actually means that you give up your individuality in the outside and rejoin the larger, "sleeping," fragment of the Solitary God awaiting all the other little broken pieces to come back to it one day.
And also... CNAIUR!!!!!!!!!!!!! urs Skiotha, most violent of all men. I know he's probably dead dead, but I love that fucker.
35
« on: June 04, 2013, 07:15:58 pm »
Or how serpents glow holy, while pigs seem to wallow in polluting shadow.
So when viewed through the Judging Eye, serpents are holy... Cishaurim use serpents to, "see," the most objective world on this side of reality, and Nin'sariccas (the Emissary sent by the non men in Ishterebinth to meet Kellhus and the Great Ordeal II) wears a nimil hauberk with the chainmail links in the form of serpents:
He wore a hauberk that was at once a gown, one that baffled the eyes for the wrought delicacy of the chain: innumerable serpents no larger than the clippings of a child's nails.
I love to speculate on these things... I have this terrible feeling that in TUC and TSTSNBN everything is going to be turned on its' head. The righteous and the wicked are going to change places... Actually, I've gotten the impression that this may have happened before in history... You get enough living souls to alter their belief in what constitutes damnation to hit some kind of critical mass and you suddenly have an inversion of what is holy versus what earns you damnation. Provided the world remains open to the outside, of course. I figure it happened once when Cu'jara Cinmoi leapt upon the altar (presumably after having regained his youth from receiving the nostrums of the Inchoroi when Nin'janjin returned still young), again at some point when Nil'Giccas took over in Ishoriol, and more recently during the breaking when Men destroyed the High Mansions of Earwa...
Cu’jara Cinmoi leaps upon the altar, gloating, displaying the mad extent of his arrogance, openly, outrageously, knowing that his own would celebrate his impiety as strength, and that his enemies would cry out for heartbreak and fury.
And the Ishroi kick aside their nimil skirts and kneel–and so does madness become religion. “I... am... immortal...”
I love how Bakker sets up this Juxtaposition of what many of us have as preconceived notions... In his world, serpents are holy, whereas in most Judeo-Christian backgrounds, serpents are associated with evil... Conversely, whereas we have Herons and Lions as avatars of nobility and justice, we could all be being set up for a reversal of the righteousness of Nil'Giccas:
Cleric stood atop the heights of a shattered inner wall, gazing high after the thing. Brush fires raged beyond him, throwing lines of orange across his jaw and cheek. His nimil chain glistened in the dry sunlight, and for the first time the old Wizard saw the faint lines of filigree worked across its innumerable links.
Herons. Herons and lions.
I've had this nagging suspicion about an exchange in TJE when Akka first meets Cleric:
"I remember..." the blackness wrapped by the cowl said. "I remember the slaughter of..."
A peculiar sound, like a sob thumbed into the shape of a cackle.
"Of children."
It is suggested that this memory comes from Nil'Giccas' presence at the fall of the Library of Sauglish... What we don't learn is just who was doing the slaughtering... I have this horrid inkling that it was Nil'Giccas himself chop chopping the kiddies...
36
« on: June 04, 2013, 07:15:52 pm »
Serpents were holy in most agricultural, Indo-European civilizations before the introduction of Semitic-inspired religions.
Particularly the Greeks, IIRC.
37
« on: June 04, 2013, 07:15:43 pm »
I root for the Consult. The world of Earwa (and perhaps the universe of Earwa) should be shut off from the outside. As The Sharmat noted, Aurang is right: "This world is an outrage!" better to be shut against the outside than damned by the arbitrary whims of uncaring gods (or an uncaring god, if the Fanim are correct).
I'd like Achamian to come out OK though - I have a lot of sympathy for him.
The big challenge here is what exactly will the Consult (Or Kellhus if he apprehends - mentally and physically - the No-God) be doing with its immortal existences?
Because if Akka is correct and souls are links to the Outside, then do the gate keepers who shut away the Gods simply need to keep the population below some threshold?
If the soul is intrinsically part of the Outside coming in, like Akka claims, what exactly does it mean to shut away the world? That every being who is born following the shutting of the world is a "skin-spy", a consciousness that possesses no soul?
38
« on: June 04, 2013, 07:15:12 pm »
I'm not sure you can suggest that the Solitary God is necessarily uncaring. Sure, he's unable to stop his entire religious populace from devastation but in hindsight the PON is beginning to be reframed by the Layers of Revelation in TAE - those Renegade demons join together under one unholy-motherfucker, after all, and it seems godhandle the plot of the PON on their way to kill what actually might be the true religion.
Another point for the Solitary over the God of Gods: "But more and more the different eye seems to open, one that has her perplexed for many years - that frightens her like an unwanted yen for perversion. Its lid is drowsy, and indeed it slumbers so deep she often forgets its presence. But when it stirs, the very world is transformed.
For moments at a time, she can see them ... Good and evil.
Not buried, not hidden, but writ like another colour or texture across the hide of everything. The way good men shine brighter than good women. Or how serpents glow holy, while pigs seem to wallow in polluting shadow. The world is unequal in the eyes of the God - she understands this with intimate profundity." p.129, TJE
Bolding alone is mine.
Also, from this passage, Callan, it might reflect the possibility that those lower on the Divine rankings might experience something other than the normal persecutions by the fluctuations of their social nodes.
39
« on: June 04, 2013, 07:15:08 pm »
I root for the Consult. The world of Earwa (and perhaps the universe of Earwa) should be shut off from the outside. As The Sharmat noted, Aurang is right: "This world is an outrage!" better to be shut against the outside than damned by the arbitrary whims of uncaring gods (or an uncaring god, if the Fanim are correct).
I'd like Achamian to come out OK though - I have a lot of sympathy for him.
40
« on: June 04, 2013, 07:14:56 pm »
What is a lower rung, if it does not give some sort of raw deal?
41
« on: June 04, 2013, 07:14:51 pm »
Bless your stalwart heart, CC.
42
« on: June 04, 2013, 07:14:44 pm »
Cheers, CC. I wouldn't get our hopes up though. Plus I think it says something very interesting about ourselves that the deeper this story gets, the more we pine for the satisfaction of the standard tropes.
Oh I know that, but I wouldn't call it "the satisfaction of the standard tropes." It isn't standard tropes, it is justice that we want. That's why people yearn for a world with meaning. Bakker has shown us a world of meaning where whatever determines what "justice" is does not share our values and the true horror that implies.
Also, while I'm compiling a list, stop giving everyone on the lower rungs of the social ladder (women, slaves, caste menials) a raw deal.
43
« on: June 04, 2013, 07:14:38 pm »
Cheers, CC. I wouldn't get our hopes up though. Plus I think it says something very interesting about ourselves that the deeper this story gets, the more we pine for the satisfaction of the standard tropes.
44
« on: June 04, 2013, 07:14:32 pm »
Let me start by saying I know I'm not going to get the warm, fuzzy ending that I wish for.
An end to the Inchoroi and the horrors they inflict on the world.
An end to Damnation without genocide.
Some kind of inner peace for Akka and Minara.
The gods of Earwa to perish screaming in the flames of their own cruelty.
Some hope for the future for the Nonmen. They might be slavers, but so is every other society on Earwa.
Retirement to some place nice for Esmenet, because she's put up with way too much shit and has certainly earned it.
45
« on: June 04, 2013, 07:14:25 pm »
On a purely moral basis I'd actually say the Fanim are the least repugnant. I just find them less fun than the Consult.
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