The Second Apocalypse
Earwa => The Aspect-Emperor => The Great Ordeal => Topic started by: twooars on October 30, 2016, 03:25:13 pm
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Maybe this was answered before, but I couldn't find anything, what is Phusis, has it been mentioned anywhere else?
When the thing-called-Serwe is chasing the Survivor's son, quote from the latter's perspective:
The thing commanded Phusis - there could be no question
(The Great Ordeal, UK)
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Not sure. Is that the name of the skin spy?
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I think a quick google search will help. The Boy is basically saying that the skin-spy has superior physical strength/endurance(phusis) so instead of a direct confrontation he'll have to use his superior Dunyain intellect to outsmart it(logos).
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I think a quick google search will help. The Boy is basically saying that the skin-spy has superior physical strength/endurance(phusis) so instead of a direct confrontation he'll have to use his superior Dunyain intellect to outsmart it(logos).
This is my interpretation as well, again after googling :D
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Too bad I though it was a name or I could have looked less of an idiot :)
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I think that's the author playing word games with us. Again.
"Phusis" or "Physis" (with the ypsilon letter usually transcribed as a "y", not "u") is the Greek for "nature", just like "techne" (the "ch" being the transcription of the letter "chi", most likely originally pronounced as an aspirated "k") is the Greek for art/skill/technique.
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I distinctly remember looking up phusis because I thought it referred to a person as well.
My English vocabulary has expanded a lot since my first read of TGO, which does not happen often anymore. And... let's face it, So has my French and Dutch: Philology is an incredibly useful skill to be proficient in (provided you have affinity with Language) ;D
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We seem to have a dense population of polyglots around our forum. I find that fascinating.
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Quintus' post is correct; that noun is just Bakker's way of saying that the skin spy is a product of the Tekne and thus physically superior to the Boy (c.f. Kellhus having a hard time wrestling Sarcellus in TWP). Read it as "materiality" and it comes through clearly.
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Ah, makes sense. I was thrown by the capitalisation and assumed that it was explained somewhere else! Thanks.