Reassessing the confrontation between Moe and Kellhus

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MSJ

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« Reply #30 on: January 07, 2017, 11:04:56 am »
Kellhus and Moe met outside the view of the eyes of the gods?

The whole point of the mansions seems to be to hide from the gods.

Good point.  Perhaps that is part of TTT though, hiding it from the gods as well?

Also the place where Inri ascended to heaven. If one believes the entry in the glossary.

Well the whole series could be called the TTT, the series starts with Moe enacting it, although as he said he was quite unprepared when the first of the thought came to him. PoN is everyone walking the TTT as is TAE.

The TTT came to Moe out of the darkness as well.

I'm back into full Moe is behind everything mode.

But, The Torturer tried to create a blind spot to the gods........in a Mansion.....it didn't work.

Cause they took Sorweel there. Also Sorweel himself notes in the depths he went to a place the goddess couldn't see.

They were bid to dig into mountains in their earliest stories. The Torturer is just continuing this practice not initiating it.

Yea, I get that. But, his little torture room didn't hide him from the gods. And, he nearly shits his pants when he realizes it.
“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,

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« Reply #31 on: January 07, 2017, 02:37:55 pm »
Ishterebinth was outsmarted the moment they let Sorweel inside their mansion, I think. Sorweel is, in some fashion, similar to Psatma in that they are a form of Oracle, though the mechanism is different. The Torturer's reaction is just the most profound because his sins are so extreme; millenia of sadism and horror supposedly hidden, only to be found by the Gods and damned anyway. This is also true to some degree for whoever else was "seen" by Sorweel, before they realized their mistake and slapped the Amiolas on him. By which time they were already God-Entangled (and always were because the Gods exist in the eternal Outside).

Note that at least two birds are mentioned during this section, specifically after Sorweel gets the Amiolas: one is trapped in the chutes where where he first wakes up, and then later during his descent with Lastborn on the Haul, into the Holy Deep where the boatman, the Most Ancient Warrior, is singing songs and tossing pork. As the Haul is being lowered, a bird (implied to be a Stork, a.k.a. Yatwer's favorite spy). So, either Yatwer got desperate when Sorweel's perspective was fucked with by the Amiolas and sent in the birds to compensate OR the birds (having had literally thousands and thousands of years to get in there) have long since spotted the Nonmen and the Amiolas was just a way for Kellhus to get Yatwer's blessed face off of Sorweel when Oirunas "rips him in half", I.E. removing the Amiolas (Kellhus "killing two birds with one stone?). Seemingly, the blessing from Porsparian that put Yatwer's loving "face" over Sorweel's was also removed. This lines up with how Serwa perceives him as a warrior when he and Oirunas finally crash the party/gangrape going on upstairs.

I'm not sure how to parse the difference between the metaphysical connections to a God regarding characters like Sorweel, Porsparian, Psatma, and the White-Luck Warrior. I think Psatma's seemingly exponential growth in power (mainly after the reward of youth and foresight after lifelong sacrifice) is akin to Cnaiur's partial transformation into a Ciphrang despite still being a live. Cnaiur, much like Psatma, spend their entire lives devoted to their respective -- and interestingly, opposite -- deities, those being Yatwer (Birth/Life/Creation) and Gilgaol (War/Death/Destruction).


Wilshire

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« Reply #32 on: January 07, 2017, 07:05:49 pm »
And, yes, I'm saying there is no difference between a rat terrier a robot in terms of thinking capacity. There's research into making organic computers, and research into making computers sentient. It goes both ways. The differences are superficial. Its all just atoms and electricity.

We're working from pretty different fundamental frames of mind. I don't think there will be much reconciliation here. But, if there is to be, we should focus on a smaller scope lol.

At that point though, every living thing is a robot, so what is the point of distinction?

All the humans, all the Inchoroi and all the Nonmen are, so all the Sranc, Bashrags and Skin-Spies are, as are all the animals, every one of these are robots, exacting some biological code.

Yes. The  point is that there is not a distinction.

Oh, looks like FB followed that up for me already ;).


H, you seem to dislike that idea - the lack of difference. What makes it important? I think imposing a difference allows people to justify actions to things, animals, other people. Slavery/holocost/genocide are super examples. The industrial meat industry another (mmmm The Meat. I still eat it) . When things are different, its super easy to justify action. So, I think remove the distinction between 'us' and 'them' is a good thing. Maybe not?
« Last Edit: January 07, 2017, 07:07:55 pm by Wilshire »
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« Reply #33 on: January 09, 2017, 01:40:41 pm »
Yes. The  point is that there is not a distinction.

Oh, looks like FB followed that up for me already ;).


H, you seem to dislike that idea - the lack of difference. What makes it important? I think imposing a difference allows people to justify actions to things, animals, other people. Slavery/holocost/genocide are super examples. The industrial meat industry another (mmmm The Meat. I still eat it) . When things are different, its super easy to justify action. So, I think remove the distinction between 'us' and 'them' is a good thing. Maybe not?

Making a new thread, so as to not dereail the real point of this thread further: in PHil & Science.

TL;DR: If we deign to call a dog a robot, then every living thing a robot, then the term robot seems to literally have to meaning any more.  Indeed, on Earwa, we can point to the lack of soul as a differentiation, but again, the purpose seems to get lost along the way.  Sranc are really no different that animals in the grand scheme of things, only one arose through a (seemingly) non-conscious evolution and other other by a conscious hand.
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

themerchant

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« Reply #34 on: January 09, 2017, 02:17:00 pm »
I've now read my copy of TTT into about 5 pieces and i have 5 pages missing.

We have Moe picking the depths of a non-man mansion which is also named as a site where people can ascend to heaven. We know non-men mansions were built originally to hide from the gods. We know the Dunyain are damned.

We have Kellhus assertion that Moe is weak in the water. however the setting in which we meet him has overwhelming amounts of actual water, in fact it might be a water slide park with bronze slides.

Kellhus doesn't walk straight to his father he wanders down some halls "heeding a voice from nowhere" yet the torch his father left for him at the entrance sputters dead just far enough along his trail/trial for him to see the braziers that Moe set out for him. If Kellhus had spent a bit longer wandering he might have missed the lights till later.

Kellhus is described as inadvertently kicking a skull when he is describing his fathers journey. The author put it there for a reason.

Moe's eye sockets seem to weep still.

The Cish Kellhus beheads in TWP during the siege of Carkasand looks just like Kellhus and Moe, so much so, Kellhus thinks it's his dad till he gets face to face with him.

Just listing some of the things that make me go "hmmmmm i know jackshit but maybe..."

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« Reply #35 on: January 09, 2017, 03:18:16 pm »
We have Moe picking the depths of a non-man mansion which is also named as a site where people can ascend to heaven. We know non-men mansions were built originally to hide from the gods. We know the Dunyain are damned.

Or so we think he ascended in to heaven.  I do wonder what the hell really happened though.  It's definitely no coincidence though, considering the Nonman-Ishual-Kayudea connection.

We have Kellhus assertion that Moe is weak in the water. however the setting in which we meet him has overwhelming amounts of actual water, in fact it might be a water slide park with bronze slides.

Yeah, the water-Water parallel has always felt salient, despite Kellhus assertion that Moe is weak.  Weak certainly is a relative term though and while we can doubt the Moe would be Meppa-level with the Psuhke, that doesn't mean he was really all that weak, in my mind.

Kellhus doesn't walk straight to his father he wanders down some halls "heeding a voice from nowhere" yet the torch his father left for him at the entrance sputters dead just far enough along his trail/trial for him to see the braziers that Moe set out for him. If Kellhus had spent a bit longer wandering he might have missed the lights till later.

This could be another sign as to how conditioned Kellhus' path is.  The torch would burn just long enough to guide him down the path that Moe knew he would walk.

Kellhus is described as inadvertently kicking a skull when he is describing his fathers journey. The author put it there for a reason.

A foreshadowing of Moe's death?

Moe's eye sockets seem to weep still.

This one is really rather mysterious.  So, either he wasn't blind before, or for some reason he was further gouging out his own eyes?  Neither would seem to really make sense though.

The Cish Kellhus beheads in TWP during the siege of Carkasand looks just like Kellhus and Moe, so much so, Kellhus thinks it's his dad till he gets face to face with him.

I do wonder if this was some doing of the Psuhke, like Moe does when in front of the Emperor, or is it something more, like a delusion of Kellhus?

Just listing some of the things that make me go "hmmmmm i know jackshit but maybe..."

After all these years and we're still not sure about so much...
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

Wilshire

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« Reply #36 on: January 10, 2017, 07:34:03 pm »
"heeding a voice from nowhere" sounds like The Legion Within to me. Maybe an indication that Kellhus is broken, ie no longer in control of the Darkness that comes before? It also, given the no-god dreams, could be more of whatever that is.

Skull foreshadowing Moes death I like. Certainly isn't foreshadowing Kellhus' death. In any case I try to not get sucked too far into Chekhov's Armory.

Weeping Eyes. Maybe its some kind of Stigmata that all Cishaurim bear. We know at least 1 god that is real, why not Indara, and why not stigmata.

Ah, I choose to believe that the beheaded one was another half-brother of Kellhus. One of the six sons of Moenghus.

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« Reply #37 on: January 10, 2017, 08:27:08 pm »
"heeding a voice from nowhere" sounds like The Legion Within to me. Maybe an indication that Kellhus is broken, ie no longer in control of the Darkness that comes before? It also, given the no-god dreams, could be more of whatever that is.

But TGO does imply that the voice could be his own.  At least, that is nearly the linchpin of my crackpot theory.

Skull foreshadowing Moes death I like. Certainly isn't foreshadowing Kellhus' death. In any case I try to not get sucked too far into Chekhov's Armory.

One thing that I always come back to is how Conditioned the ground Kellhus walks on in this scene is?  As themerchant points out, the torch running out at the exact right moment is plausible to read as: when Kellhus' light is out, so Moe's burns.  That is, the ground that Kellhus then walks on is Conditioned.  But the skull, was that Moe's doing?  Or something else?  The same something that placed Leweth to save Kellhus?
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

Wilshire

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« Reply #38 on: January 10, 2017, 08:40:23 pm »
With the lights, yes it was a close call, but if your holding a torch, you can't see much beyond it. He'd have to be real close to a smoldering brazier whilst holding a lit torch before he could actually see it. Up until that point, it would always seem like the torch went out just before he came upon another light source.
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« Reply #39 on: January 10, 2017, 08:43:39 pm »
With the lights, yes it was a close call, but if your holding a torch, you can't see much beyond it. He'd have to be real close to a smoldering brazier whilst holding a lit torch before he could actually see it. Up until that point, it would always seem like the torch went out just before he came upon another light source.

True, it's hard to distinguish between true happenstance and true Conditioning, which is part of what makes that scene harder to really pin down.
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 #40 on: January 11, 2017, 10:31:57 am »
With the lights, yes it was a close call, but if your holding a torch, you can't see much beyond it. He'd have to be real close to a smoldering brazier whilst holding a lit torch before he could actually see it. Up until that point, it would always seem like the torch went out just before he came upon another light source.

The problem with this interpretation is the light is described as "the faintest of glimmers".

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« Reply #41 on: January 11, 2017, 02:10:49 pm »
The problem with this interpretation is the light is described as "the faintest of glimmers".

I find it highly likely that the torch lasting only just long enough is both a thematic point as well as a clue as to how Conditioned the encounter is.

I think where the Conditioning unravels is where Moe says how "I have searched, for nearly the length of your entire life, and I have found nothing that contradicts the Principle [of Before and After]."  Kellhus, even at the time, has a hunch this is incorrect (part of why I find credence in the theory that TTT is actually from the future or is atemporal) and we know, based on later revelations (and Bakker's own assertions) that the Principle is false, in so far as it is not the whole of causality.  It can explain some, but not all of what happens.
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

Wilshire

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« Reply #42 on: January 11, 2017, 03:22:16 pm »
This is a circular conversation from this point forward.

Someone points out that what Moenghus said is objectively wrong, then someone else claims that this was only because Moe was lying and that he secretly knew the truth.
Or the reverse, and Kellhus says something wrong, but wait no this was a lie, etc.

If anyone figures out a way around this, let me know :) .

With the lights, yes it was a close call, but if your holding a torch, you can't see much beyond it. He'd have to be real close to a smoldering brazier whilst holding a lit torch before he could actually see it. Up until that point, it would always seem like the torch went out just before he came upon another light source.

The problem with this interpretation is the light is described as "the faintest of glimmers".

His eyes would have been adjusted to the light source. When it goes out, they need to re-adjust.
Easy to test: When its dark out, turn the lights on in a room, and place a dim night light in the corner. Read for a half hour. Turn lights off. Note the brightness of said dim night-light before and immediately after you turn the lights off. In an hour, look at the dim light again, and note the brightness. Same bulb, same objective brightness level, different perceived strength. You might even say, right when the lights go out, that it was 'the faintest glimmer' if you could even see it, on the second check, you might describe it as enough to light the whole room.

Also, if Kellhus was following a meandering path following some unknown voice in his head (lets call it Madness), how did Moe plan the exact period of time he would take to see his light? If it was madness, it couldn't have been accounted for, because Moe discounted that possibility (if you think Moenghus lied about that, we're done here). If it wasn't madness, it was Moe's voice, and its not so much conditioned ground Kellhus was on, but more like he was being led by the hand. In either case, its not a feat of super intellectual calculation. Its either pure luck, a perception issue regarding light sources and their intensity, or Moenghus telling him where to go.
« Last Edit: January 11, 2017, 03:29:11 pm by Wilshire »
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themerchant

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« Reply #43 on: January 12, 2017, 08:40:09 am »
I take the skull to mean Kellhus made a mistake  when running through his assumptions/deductions of what Moe had been up to in the past.

The torch going out "at the right time" to indicate how conditioned the ground is, who it is conditioned by is up for debate, ostensibly it's Moe.

However i believe that the Thousand fold thought is just a chronology of the cause and effect that pushes the setting to some already determined conclusion. The Dunyain perceive it as oppose to conceive it "when the first of the thought came to my i was quite unprepared". They just start enacting it, unaware that it comes from the Darkness before them.

Like Benjuka: there are no actual moves (everything is deterministic) just a changing of the Rules and the Pieces. So my thought is Kellhus is trying to effect a change of rules or pieces that breaks the deterministic cycle.  How he goes about that I have no clue :)

"The cunning of benjuka lay in the absence of this fixed framework. Rather than providing an immutable
ground, the rules of benjuka were yet another move within the game, yet another piece to be played. And this
made benjuka the very image of life, a game of baffling complexities and near-poetic subtleties. Other games
could be chronicled as shifting patterns of pieces and number-stick results, but benjuka gave rise to histories,
and whatever possessed history possessed the very structure of the world."


Each game gives rise to a history.

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« Reply #44 on: January 12, 2017, 12:41:50 pm »
However i believe that the Thousand fold thought is just a chronology of the cause and effect that pushes the setting to some already determined conclusion.

The books seem to point to cause and effect as both true and yet not the whole story.  Just as Moe's assertion (whether he is lying, misleading, or just wrong) the Principle of Before and After is in fact false on Earwa.  This leads me to believe that TTT is beyond Before and After, which would make sense of why Yatwer and company are outmaneuvered by it.  I've presented the crackpot before that what they see is in fact the chain of cause and effect, so Kellhus being outside that means he moves beyond what they really can see.
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