[TUC Spoilers] The Nonman who reached Oblivion..

  • 19 Replies
  • 7876 Views

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

MSJ

  • *
  • The Afflicted Few
  • Old Name
  • *****
  • Yatwer's Baby Daddy
  • Posts: 2298
  • "You killed the wolf"
    • View Profile
« on: August 04, 2017, 07:42:56 pm »
When the Ciphrang kills the Nonman and cannot find his soul afterward, i immediately knew that the Nonman had found oblivion. I dont even think its in doubt. Its possible. Even though, throighout the whole series we're told that it is not. This would also go back to Akka and Cnaüir's talk about madness and it leaking in and Kellhus saying thats not how it works, he thought there wasnt any cracks. Apparently, there are. Did anyone else get that he went to Oblivion also?

[EDIT Madness: Title. Almost Tuesday, erryone.]
« Last Edit: August 04, 2017, 11:28:40 pm by Madness »
“No. I am your end. Before your eyes I will put your seed to the knife. I will quarter your carcass and feed it to the dogs. Your bones I will grind to dust and cast to the winds. I will strike down those who speak your name or the name of your fathers, until ‘Yursalka’ becomes as meaningless as infant babble. I will blot you out, hunt down your every trace! The track of your life has come to me,

Cynical Cat

  • *
  • Kijneta
  • ***
  • Posts: 227
    • View Profile
« Reply #1 on: August 04, 2017, 08:10:29 pm »
When the Ciphrang kills the Nonman and cannot find his soul afterward, i immediately knew that the Nonman had found oblivion. I dont even think its in doubt. Its possible. Even though, throighout the whole series we're told that it is not. This would also go back to Akka and Cnaüir's talk about madness and it leaking in and Kellhus saying thats not how it works, he thought there wasnt any cracks. Apparently, there are. Did anyone else get that he went to Oblivion also?

I thought it was a Sranc, not a Nonman, and therefore soulless.  Another passage to check, I guess.

SmilerLoki

  • *
  • Old Name
  • *****
  • Posts: 618
    • View Profile
« Reply #2 on: August 04, 2017, 08:13:14 pm »

MSJ

  • *
  • The Afflicted Few
  • Old Name
  • *****
  • Yatwer's Baby Daddy
  • Posts: 2298
  • "You killed the wolf"
    • View Profile
« Reply #3 on: August 04, 2017, 08:18:52 pm »
Quote
It stalks the great corridor, a crimson light in the smoking dark, trailing sizzling ruin in its wake. The flesh now flees before it, gibbering and yammering as if it were real. A different flesh replaces it, far greater in height and girth, draped in clanking gowns of iron. Bellowing they fall upon Kakaliol, spear and cudgel its scaled limbs, but they too fall away, puling hoarse and glutinous, burning and broken.
And it strides forward, stone cracking beneath its feet ...
Vile angel.
The meat lies smashed and smoking about it. Nothing opposes it—save a lone hooded figure occupying the centre of the grand hall ...
Beware ... the Blind Slaver whispers.A roar shivers up through rotted stone.
At last ... Kakaliol croaks on a poisonous fume.
A soul

Quote
Vile angel.
Its triumphant screech brings down a haze of dust and flaked mortar.
Kakaliol, Reaper-of-Heroes, dandles the thing in its fiery talons. Lolling limbs, head hanging as if from a stocking. Soft skin blistered or abraded or shorn away, a bladder for gelatinous innards and absurd quantities of blood, like an unwrung rag.
But where? Where is the soul?
Cast it aside, the Blind Slaver commands.
I would keep it for my token.
It runs a claw across the porcelain scalp, skinning it like rotted fruit, seeking ...
Discharge your task!

Not a sranc, a Nonman, a definitely had a soul as you see in the 1st quote.
« Last Edit: August 04, 2017, 08:21:31 pm by MSJ »
“No. I am your end. Before your eyes I will put your seed to the knife. I will quarter your carcass and feed it to the dogs. Your bones I will grind to dust and cast to the winds. I will strike down those who speak your name or the name of your fathers, until ‘Yursalka’ becomes as meaningless as infant babble. I will blot you out, hunt down your every trace! The track of your life has come to me,

The Sharmat

  • *
  • Old Name
  • *****
  • Horde General
  • Posts: 779
    • View Profile
« Reply #4 on: August 04, 2017, 10:10:09 pm »
Well even if it is possible it's apparently hugely unlikely and the method the Nonmen used to use to try to bring it about didn't work.

JRControl

  • *
  • Momurai
  • **
  • Posts: 108
  • Kellhus lied, Harambe died
    • View Profile
« Reply #5 on: August 04, 2017, 10:19:54 pm »
I think a lot of things in Earwaverse are determined by how badly you want it. I'd imagine after thousands of years I'd be pining for nothingness too.
“Because you’re a pious man born to a world unable to fathom your piety. But all that changes with me, Akka. The old food pyramids have outlived the age of their intention, and I have come to reveal the new. I am the Slimmest Path, and I say that you are not damned.”

The Sharmat

  • *
  • Old Name
  • *****
  • Horde General
  • Posts: 779
    • View Profile
« Reply #6 on: August 04, 2017, 10:23:33 pm »
i used to think that might be the case too but now I'm thinking seemingly belief fueled things like Kellhus' halos were just Ajokli messing with everybody.

MSJ

  • *
  • The Afflicted Few
  • Old Name
  • *****
  • Yatwer's Baby Daddy
  • Posts: 2298
  • "You killed the wolf"
    • View Profile
« Reply #7 on: August 04, 2017, 11:23:51 pm »
Quote from: The Sharmat
Well even if it is possible it's apparently hugely unlikely and the method the Nonmen used to use to try to bring it about didn't work.

Well, from what Bakker said in the Q&A thats exactly what happened. And, how do you possibly know it's never worked? If a Nonmen worshipping Oblivion dies and goes to Oblivion how can you say he did or didnt? It took that scene to prove that it can happen. It was the whole point of the scene.
“No. I am your end. Before your eyes I will put your seed to the knife. I will quarter your carcass and feed it to the dogs. Your bones I will grind to dust and cast to the winds. I will strike down those who speak your name or the name of your fathers, until ‘Yursalka’ becomes as meaningless as infant babble. I will blot you out, hunt down your every trace! The track of your life has come to me,

The Sharmat

  • *
  • Old Name
  • *****
  • Horde General
  • Posts: 779
    • View Profile
« Reply #8 on: August 04, 2017, 11:51:51 pm »
I'm not saying it didn't happen. I'm saying it appears to be the exception and not the rule from what we've been shown so far.

Cynical Cat

  • *
  • Kijneta
  • ***
  • Posts: 227
    • View Profile
« Reply #9 on: August 05, 2017, 12:48:03 am »
Damnation appears to be the rule, with oblivion and salvation (leaving aside the question of how good salvation really is) being comparatively rare exceptions.

Duskweaver

  • *
  • Kijneta
  • ***
  • Posts: 192
    • View Profile
« Reply #10 on: August 05, 2017, 07:04:09 am »
I still think that the Inverse Fire should be treated with a degree of suspicion.

The Inverse Fire seems like a huge self-fulfilling prophecy: everyone who looks into it sees themselves damned because seeing yourself damned will inevitably cause you to pursue actions that will damn you. Bakker even tells us outright in TUC that that was the whole point of it: to keep the Inchoroi and those they recruited utterly devoted to the cause of their Progenitors. It is entirely possible that (at least in some cases) if you never looked into the IF you would not have been damned.

And (AFAIK) the only evidence we really have for Nonman Oblivion being a lie is the Inverse Fire.

There is also the possibility that Oblivion sidesteps damnation in a way that simply cannot show up in the IF. In other words, looking into the IF and seeing yourself damned does not preclude you from avoiding that by finding Oblivion. In the same way that it does not preclude the No-God saving you from damnation by closing the World.

So the tragedy might be that Mekeritrig and his two companions were wrong, and that they damned themselves and their race right there in the Golden Room.

I actually wonder if the Progenitors would ever have been damned themselves if they hadn't started exploring their souls and peering into the Outside in the first place. Could ignorance of the very existence of the Outside protect you from damnation?
"Then I looked, and behold, a Whirlwind came out of the North..." - Ezekiel 1:4

"Two things that brand one a coward: using violence when it is not necessary; and shrinking from it when it is."

JRControl

  • *
  • Momurai
  • **
  • Posts: 108
  • Kellhus lied, Harambe died
    • View Profile
« Reply #11 on: August 05, 2017, 11:01:22 am »
Could be, it is after all an Inverse Fire. It doesn't come at you from your feet, but from your head. He even calls it an subparticular 'intentional field' machine in the glossary. It extrapolates your outcome from your intentions and memories? I mean it is a machine, all it could do is take a guess and since peering into the post-death future is beyond technology of the present Ark (obviously the original Progenitors had the tools to find out) my best guess it that it provides a simulated guess. It's all a matter of probabilities in the end no?
“Because you’re a pious man born to a world unable to fathom your piety. But all that changes with me, Akka. The old food pyramids have outlived the age of their intention, and I have come to reveal the new. I am the Slimmest Path, and I say that you are not damned.”

The Sharmat

  • *
  • Old Name
  • *****
  • Horde General
  • Posts: 779
    • View Profile
« Reply #12 on: August 05, 2017, 05:16:30 pm »
I think it's accurate and the universe works on Calvinist principes. There's an elect that are always saved and everyone else was born to be damned. There's some causality loop stuff involved for at least some of the guys that looked at the Inverse Fire, probably, but the effect is the same.

Duskweaver

  • *
  • Kijneta
  • ***
  • Posts: 192
    • View Profile
« Reply #13 on: August 05, 2017, 06:27:27 pm »
He even calls it an subparticular 'intentional field' machine in the glossary.
I think Bakker is using 'intentional' in the philosophical sense, rather than the everyday sense of "stuff you want to do". In that case, an 'intentional field' is basically a miniature artificial Outside.
"Then I looked, and behold, a Whirlwind came out of the North..." - Ezekiel 1:4

"Two things that brand one a coward: using violence when it is not necessary; and shrinking from it when it is."

JRControl

  • *
  • Momurai
  • **
  • Posts: 108
  • Kellhus lied, Harambe died
    • View Profile
« Reply #14 on: August 05, 2017, 09:18:54 pm »
So what is 'intent' in the philosophical sense? I read his blog and from some of the less dense jargon posts I gathered intent refers to intent. He writes on post-intentionality a lot and the works both journal and fiction deal with it. That said I'm neither a native speaker nor a philosopher by trade so I could be missing a lot here because it takes me a while to unpack everything.
“Because you’re a pious man born to a world unable to fathom your piety. But all that changes with me, Akka. The old food pyramids have outlived the age of their intention, and I have come to reveal the new. I am the Slimmest Path, and I say that you are not damned.”