Earwa > The Judging Eye

Let's talk about the introduction of the WLW (spoilers)

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Francis Buck:
So, I've gone over this scene (or set of scenes) numerous times, and while I think I get the jist of what Bakker's going for (the passage of time, and also timelessness, and all things happening at once), I'm still a little lost on certain aspects of it.

It starts on page 211 of TJE, in my US version.

In particular, it's the opening I don't understand. I'll transcribe some of it, what I believe is the important part (the parts that are most vague, anyway):

--- Quote ---
A life lived, now forgotten.

A breeze as dry as hot ash. An airy room, clean with tile and paint, the floor canted to drain storm-waters. A woman in a simple linen shift, wedding young, her hair raven-dark, suckling an infant, smiling, asking something sweet and curious. Her head tipped, almond eyes flashing, poised to laugh at something soon to be said, a warm and gentle wit.

Peach-colored walls trimmed in vining green.

A life forgotten...

Concern clouding her dark eyes. A quick glance at the infant against her breast, then again the question.

"Love? Are you okay?"

You look like you are dreaming...
--- End quote ---

We then move on to some more descriptions, mostly giving off the vibe of warmth or tranquility, almost paradise-like (blue skies, metaphors of heaven, etc).

Then:


--- Quote ---The threshold crossed. Then a courtyard where gnarled old slaves chase chickens. A young scullery girl staring, immovable save for her tracking gaze, her skin as brown as her broom handle.

The gate. The street.

The infant wailing now, swung from a frantic hip, the woman scolding, weeping, crying out: "What are you doing? What has happened?"

Wake up, please! You're scaring me!

A slender clutch knocked aside by a strong, wide-waving arm. Steps taken. Distances rolled up into oblivion. A tugging from spaces unseen. The woman shrieking. "My love! My love, please!"


What have I done?
--- End quote ---

That bolded part in particular intrigues me, since it seems to be hinting at supernatural happenings.

The narrative then jumps two hundred and fifty seven years before, with the whole building collapsing bit. Then some random sequences, seemingly of different time periods. We get what appears to be a brief paragraph describing Psatma, and then we jump again, backwards in time, one thousand four hundred and twenty-two years earlier, a Scylvendi marauder rapes a Ceneian woman.

And then we jump back to Psatma, meeting the White-Luck.

So the part that really gets me is, what the hell's going on with the woman and the baby in the beginning? Is that modern times? Why is that particular sequence so vague? The rest of the descriptions of different time periods, while seemingly somewhat random, at least...well, make sense. They describe a specific and relatively simple set of events.

Any thoughts on what is happening in the beginning there? Bakker makes particular note of the slaves, including the scullery girl, and we know slaves are potential pawns of Yatwer...so yeah, there's that. Ideas?

locke:
he killed the woman--his wife--and the baby--his child, or Yatwer made him do it and he thinks he did it, and that's why he becomes the white luck? 

Francis Buck:

--- Quote from: locke on December 19, 2013, 11:47:57 pm ---he killed the woman--his wife--and the baby--his child, or Yatwer made him do it and he thinks he did it, and that's why he becomes the white luck?

--- End quote ---

So then are the italicized thoughts supposed to be those of the WLW, or the woman? They don't really sense as either (yet they could fit as both?).

Madness:
Hmm... my first thoughts turned towards Psatma's "falling disease." In most peripheral, and Psatma's direct case, Bakker seems to be using physical dysfunction as a portal between the Earwa and the Outside - which I think is also the untapped wealth of a couple disciplines in real-life, using diagnostic techniques anachronistically to discern the various dysfunction that might have occurred with religious and spiritual figures.

But count me as most confused about these passages. I actually felt I got most of the one off allusions and metaphors that constitute the Warrior's perspective.

locke:
no, the italicized thoughts are his own, disjointed brief lapses of awareness.

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