Discuss the possible arcs for Ishterebinth. I'm motivated primarily by the idea that Sorweel is to be the character to confront Kellhus, due to speculation on the old Three-Seas. Also featuring:
Achamian bitchslapping Nin'ciljiras (I'm assuming the Betrayer's line aren't Quya, those scheming fucks)?
Serwa taking the Nonman seed... to term?
Moenghus being batshit crazy?
Sorweel whining and moping about a whole species using his crush as an incubator?
Nonmen in suspended animation? Or just sitting round polishing stones to keep their memories intact maybe.
Wilshire and I debated some kind of inversion of DBZ's Hyperbolic Chamber ;).
Quote from: MadnessDiscuss the possible arcs for Ishterebinth. I'm motivated primarily by the idea that Sorweel is to be the character to confront Kellhus, due to speculation on the old Three-Seas. Also featuring:
Achamian bitchslapping Nin'ciljiras (I'm assuming the Betrayer's line aren't Quya, those scheming fucks)?
Serwa taking the Nonman seed... to term?
Moenghus being batshit crazy?
Sorweel whining and moping about a whole species using his crush as an incubator?
:lol: @ bitchslapping and incubator.
From the excerpt I brought back, I think there will be a vary large amount of Sorweel whining/bitching/moping around at anything and everything that happens in Ishterebinth. We will probably only get his POV for a long time, and he will be all confused self-conflicted and miss 90% of whats important and not understand the much of the remaining 10% that he witnesses directly. Oh yeah, several masturbation scenes.
For example they'll be walking in a hallway and he'll look into a room and see a Nonman sitting on the ground polishing a stone and think to himself "fuck I wish I could sit around like that all day, carefree and pursuing a hoby such as rock cleaning". And that will be all there is about the intact nonmen.
I think the Nonmen will try to make some babies. Initially with Serwa (more crying/masturbating from Sorweel). Then regardless of if that works or not, when Mim shows up they will try to make some crazy babies with her as well (Akka masturbating/crying this time? Possible I think. Crying yes, masturbating maybe. Maybe our two moribund heroes will tag team this scene, Akka with the tears, Sor with the semen).
Akka will probably show up and get all pissed off, try to kill a few people, with mild success until he inevitably loses and gets chained up and then later rescued/set free under the pretext of a simple misunderstanding/blaming it on Seswatha.
Moe? No idea. He's just a crazy barbarian. The nonmen will probably just kill him.
Madness, were you suggesting that the basically Nin'janjin's people were running the show? Were you making assumptions about the "Nin" prefex of their names? If so, I wouldn't say it's all his line but likely more like his clan or extended, extended family.
Lmao...
Look, we're all seed crazy here. It matters - though I hope Wilshire and lockesnow don't have our First Honorary Row of the Second Apocalypse over it ;). Fuck... this place is a drug and my brain gets kicks out of hot topics.Quote from: WilshireI think the Nonmen will try to make some babies. Initially with Serwa (more crying/masturbating from Sorweel). Then regardless of if that works or not, when Mim shows up they will try to make some crazy babies with her as well (Akka masturbating/crying this time? Possible I think. Crying yes, masturbating maybe. Maybe our two moribund heroes will tag team this scene, Akka with the tears, Sor with the semen).Quote from: TriskeleMadness, were you suggesting that the basically Nin'janjin's people were running the show? Were you making assumptions about the "Nin" prefex of their names? If so, I wouldn't say it's all his line but likely more like his clan or extended, extended family.
Firstly, quick yes, Trisk, but you're right - we should help ourselves define line, seed, etc, as it bears greatly on the themes. I'm assuming that all Nin's are related like all Bakker's are related. We have to remember that the Nonmen would have had better to worse records of lineage in their history, not the human worse to better gradient... not to mention that all the Nonmen alive are contemporaries of Cu'jara Cinmoi and Nin'janjin. These aren't likely distant cousins we're talking about here, and even if they are, they interacted far more regularly with them - albeit, with sword and sorcery - than I do mine.
I mean, none of us could have guessed that Bakker might take it farther but I'd long suspected he's intended to use Faith as a vehicle for the sexist critique he's got going on.
Heretics/Chapterhouse Dune:(click to show/hide)
The Inchoroi gave the Nonmen the worst possible racial memory - the loss of the Females... in this way, the Nonmen mirror the Ents - disguised as immortality, which itself cursed them with forgetting that loss.
Kellhus offers them nothing less than recovering their race... albeit, forever tainted by mannish blood.
Serwa is 100% the best possible combination of parents (Kellhus - the Bastard/Esmenet - Last Scion?) for preserving the true Anasurimbor bloodline, which contains aspects of the Nonmen genome. Mimara would be a close second, if she is the Last Scion.
There are added complications because we don't understand the relationship between the Outside and Earwa. Is there simultaneously a mundane and Soulful genome so that things like Righteousness or Piety, for instance, are hereditary - though, I could easily field an argument that those concepts are reflected in the meat regardless.
Serwa is sadly, probably, ignorant of her father's schemes...
+1 for Achamian being locked up. I reiterate, the moment that a Nonman sees Achamian wearing Nil'giccas armour, he will be the Kingslayer.
+1 for Sorweel finding a real girl... I mean, Mimara's gots to better than Serwa for him. Though, she isn't exactly sunshine and rainbows either: "Hi, I'm Mimara. I've already successfully seduced one Nonman Erratic this season (like weather - though double entendre ;)) and I'm ready for a whole Mansion more. I'm also pregnant with the Unborn Eye of God and will likely die when I give stillbirth to its childlike form." Way to go, Sorweel!
I don't know about this breeding program speculation.
Mim's baby will probably be the first stillbirth of the second apocalypse when the No-god walks again (which is possibly why she's important to the Consult).
Which will make Serwa's possible ability to interbreed with non-men a moot point.
dead babies better than no babies? maybe the tekne can fix that.
QuoteKellhus offers them nothing less than recovering their race... albeit, forever tainted by mannish blood.QuoteMim's baby will probably be the first stillbirth of the second apocalypse when the No-god walks again
If Mimara, like her mother, is able to carry the Nonman gene (which is very likely highly diluted in the Anasurimbor line after two millenia) to term, then the resurrection of the No-God and her subsequent stillbirth might rouse the Intact to join the Ordeal. I would expect nothing less than Kellhus to be making his gambit with the Nonmen on several levels (I know his gambling on Mimara getting pregnant by Nil'giccas is a hell of a stretch). The extinguishing of new hope might be the goad to rouse the Nonmen to join the Ordeal.
I also suspect that the Judging Eye is probably much more significant and better understood by a race that has existed for millenia. I think the Nonmen revering Mimara for possessing the vision of judgement would make for an interesting information dump, it strikes me as a fitting moment for Bakker to stretch his style of cryptic revelations that we all love so much.
Might start a new post if this garners more than passing attention: How much/what do we know of the ritual of Niom?
Nothing, Camlost. A son, a daughter, and an enemy... Men say trust only the thieves among Nonmen and Nonmen view men as unrealiable... for Celmomas abandoning the First Investiture or for the Men of Cil'aujas? Or just general practice since the Tutelage.
Also, Serwa is the better combination of Esmenet and Kellhus.
Quote from: MadnessAlso, Serwa is the better combination of Esmenet and Kellhus.
Yes team Serwa :P
Shes got a bit of the Nonman in her (assuming that its there to begin with) and a bit of whateverthefuck Esmenet had going for her. Maybe that will make it possible to carry a baby with a full Nonman father to term and not die birthing a 12 armed monster.
Maybe both Serwa and Mimara will get prego, and of course Mim's dies (that whole JE thing).
[flashback to Serwe and the concubines giving birth to 'blue babies' storiy. Would it be ironic is Serwa gets the living one and Mim's is the blue one?]
And then the Nonmen feel like 1 of 2 is pretty good odds so they join Kellhus for (in their eyes) his ability to find suitable Nonmen baby mommas.
You're right. If I were placing odds on one of the two of them delivering a Nonmen child it would be Serwa.QuoteWould it be ironic is Serwa gets the living one and Mim's is the blue one?It would be hard not to side with a guy after him offering that
Lol... ever Dunyain.
I pity the child with Serwe for a mother and an Erratic for a father.
Just to be clear:
Serwe is that dumb blond chick who's corpse was tied to Kellhus. I hope shes dead still.
Serwa is the badass Grandmistress of the Swayali Sisterhood.
Derp. My crab fingers type independantly of Mr Brain.
Nah but a either way what a terrible way to grow up. That kid would have all kinds of issues.
Derp! And a healthy lifespan.
I've yet to weigh in on the budding thread but I hazard I might as its far more... charitable than the other versions I've not engaged.
But this Serwa the Womb shit is going to cause a ruckus ;)...
For pities sake, those with the judging eye have only still borns - so obviously if she births when the no god is up and dancing, it'll be one that's alive! Just because intuitive inversion and the world actually caters to human intuition!
Stop getting it the wrong way around! I will get out a rolled up newspaper if I have to!
O.o
Team Serwa!
Though I had thought about Mimara's baby being born alive during the Years of the Crib, that would simply make him God incarnate, actually.
Quote from: Callan S.For pities sake, those with the judging eye have only still borns - so obviously if she births when the no god is up and dancing, it'll be one that's alive! Just because intuitive inversion and the world actually caters to human intuition!according to the received wisdom of an incredibly misogynistic culture within an incredibly misogynistic society. It's more than likely that sorcerers would have spent millenia downplaying the Judging Eye because it was something they could never possess. Due to the fact that it could only be grasped by a woman, it must be lesser, thus it must be made diminutive.
Stop getting it the wrong way around! I will get out a rolled up newspaper if I have to!
I seriously doubt Achamian was 100% right about the Judging Eye, just as I doubt the veracity of the Seswatha Dreams.
So the association with still births is actually false (or perhaps a false observation - perhaps by chance as much as some women are infertile, some of the prior judging eyes just happened to be infertile but it was treated as an associated trait)?
Maybe.
It might be a bit meta of me though, but I think the author courts our credibility - the more you make such bald statements a lie (rather than a truth for lies on other matters to then cling on like barnacles), the more anything you write loses the readers granting of credibility.
All fiction is inherently a lie. Any attribution of credibility is merely a willful illusion the audience engages in.
+1 lockesnow. I prefer all fiction is all anachronistic but meh. I'd dismissed your hypothesis before but I wonder... are you suggesting that woman with the Judging Eye are a suppressed Few like Witches and Wizards but that its occurrence would have been as prevalent as grasping the onta?
This doesn't have more of White-Luck Warrior, Kahiht, World-Moving events type feel to you? That's what makes narrative, and this case, fantasy, so EPIC! The accumulation of synchronicity.
I wasn't suggesting that, but I like it, so I'm going to say, yeah, that's what I was thinking.
I was just being a contrarian pedantic ass with the comment right above yours. The comment before that was more directed at the point that Akka is an unreliable narrator and has a well known blindspot when it comes to women.
What if the Judging Eye is the origin of all sorcery? That before the first woman grasped it, men and cunoroi had no access to speaking with the gods' voice? She showed the way, perhaps women even developed sorcery by expanding the principles of the Judging Eye and then reapplying them to speaking and listening, rather than just seeing. Males then stole the knowledge ala Prometheus and then there was a war between the sexes. males won, and suppressed and dominated women from then on--but the cost was damnation.
Didn't you have the guess about stillbirths and the No-God's rise being, contemporary, but different events?
Quote from: lockesnowWhat if the Judging Eye is the origin of all sorcery? ... males won, and suppressed and dominated women from then on--but the cost was damnation.RSB is not MZB. :P
Seriously, it's a cool idea, but it's too nice and neat and affirming to be Bakker's style.
Hmm... depends on what you think it affirms, Duskweaver?
What is MZB?
Yeah I think I did have that theory, Madness.
Now here is something I found that could set off some morbid speculation.
<1. Is it possible for unions between Sranc and Men to have offspring?>Quote from: Cu'jara CinmoiNo. Though it is possible with Nonmen.
ew
Marion Zimmer Bradley, lockesnow.
Quote from: MadnessHmm... depends on what you think it affirms, Duskweaver?Possibly a poor choice of word on my part. 'Affirming' was intended, more or less, as an antonym to 'challenging'. What I was getting at was that it seems too much like the sort of ideologically friendly "just so" explanation that Bakker himself seems to disdain. Millennia of misogyny explained away by a single black-and-white historical event just feels too convenient, and invoking the idea of an ancient Golden Age of Sexual Equality (well, unless he then went on to brutally subvert it)... yeah, I just can't see him going for that.
(No criticism of MZB intended, incidentally. She's one of my favourite authors. But I don't read her books for the sort of intellectual/moral/philosophical challenge I expect from Bakker. She'd never make damnation real, and therefore she'd never allow us, even for a moment, to find ourselves kinda-sorta rooting for the Consult.)
Quote from: Duskweaver(well, unless he then went on to brutally subvert it)... yeah, I just can't see him going for that.
+1 - The Second Apocalypse, Now With More Inversions ;).
Quote from: DuskweaverI know I read an Engels essay on the 'golden age of polyandry' I think it was called The Origins of the Family or somesuch. Struck me as a bit racist/wishfulfillment at the time, but maybe bakker is going to play with Marx's pal's starry-eyed take on 'pre property equality'?Quote from: MadnessHmm... depends on what you think it affirms, Duskweaver?Possibly a poor choice of word on my part. 'Affirming' was intended, more or less, as an antonym to 'challenging'. What I was getting at was that it seems too much like the sort of ideologically friendly "just so" explanation that Bakker himself seems to disdain. Millennia of misogyny explained away by a single black-and-white historical event just feels too convenient, and invoking the idea of an ancient Golden Age of Sexual Equality (well, unless he then went on to brutally subvert it)... yeah, I just can't see him going for that.
He's doing something more than we're seeing.
We can't even figure out where the plot's going :P :D.
Quote from: MadnessHe's doing something more than we're seeing.
We can't even figure out where the plot's going :P :D.
Well if it was simple enough to figure out, then this site would be a waste of everyone's time. Glad we're all here.
+2.
Bakker commented on TPB that he's working through the last chapters of TUC :shock: .
What is in those pages?!
Speaking of the last pages, once the book is released I'm not going to show back up until I'm done with it. Wouldn't want to spoil any surprises.
Lmao... I actively tried not reading WLW - I ended up doing little else for three days and finished it twice.
Your absence will be noted :( ;).
The layering of revelation is very important. I wouldn't want to spoil the fun.
True but we can move all the existing Unholy Consult threads to WLW and Misc. Chatter and have a spoiler forum again.
*gasp*
You would move a mountain?
Your faith has made you powerful.
Quote from: MadnessTrue but we can move all the existing Unholy Consult threads to WLW and Misc. Chatter and have a spoiler forum again.
sounds irritating, probably not worth it. :P
Psh. There is going to be some kind of space to discuss The Unholy Consult without spoilers :P.
I hone my body and my mind in preparation for that day, lockesnow ;).
QuoteLmao... I actively tried not reading WLW - I ended up doing little else for three days and finished it twice.I spent the full first day I had it completely immersed. It's the only book I've finished and reread immediately
WLW made me reread the entire series. What a great book.
Quote from: lockesnow*gasp*
You would move a mountain?
Your faith has made you powerful.
This thread got me thinkin:
1) Are the nonmen still interested in babies? I have no idea what motivates these kinds of characters beyond what Cleric seemed to want: a proper ending.
2) If Serwa's womb is a bargaining chip, then an even bigger one would be how to make more Serwa's. I have a crackpot that old Moe is what makes Esmi's womb so singular. He could offer way more Serwa since they would be products of the psukhe/dunyain know how.
3) If Serwa's womb is a bargaining chip, then Thelopia is another one.
4) If Kellhus is keeping Serwa in the dark about what she would mean to the nonmen, there could be some trouble when she sleeps with a nonman and then produces a child from the liason just before--young Moe's son!
5) @ Curethan - that quote from Bakker, is it talking about the union of nonmen & humans or nonmen & sranc?
Am hoping to see some Nonmen who went over to the Consult in exchange for graftings to boost memory. Nonmen with extra brain lumps/sranc faces here and there. Nonmen connected by head, wet wires to trailing bashrag. Nonmen in a circle like Shae.
Kellhus must have spent time with Cleric before Cleric met Kosoter. It's not even a question in my mind. Kellhus absolutely knows that his bulldog (possible embodied Ciphrang) is watching the Nonman King.
Ishterebinth fell because the Consult made skin spies of lady nonmen.
Fake, but the next best thing! Maybe if you could daimos a nonwoman soul out of hell into a skin spy vessel...
Kellhus must have spent time with Cleric before Cleric met Kosoter. It's not even a question in my mind. Kellhus absolutely knows that his bulldog (possible embodied Ciphrang) is watching the Nonman King.
Akka: WTF, its a flying head-in-a-jar!?
CC's head in a Jar: DID YOU HUFF MY BODY MOTHERFUCKER?
*eyebeams*