[TUC] The Gods and Their Agency

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Madness

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« on: July 30, 2017, 02:50:08 pm »
Corralling thoughts from another thread.

- How the Gods perceive historical events?
- How do the Gods influence the World?
- Etc
- Etc

Original thread here.
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Dunkelheit

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« Reply #1 on: July 30, 2017, 04:08:35 pm »
It seems like the gods have different powers, Momas has the ability to cause earth quakes, Yatwer can make White Lucks. So they affect the world in different ways specific to the god in question. I take it that they perceive the entire timeline like White Luck does, so this probably means they are not really make decisions as much as they are gonna do the things they have already done. So I don't think they are like greek gods, actual beings with actual agency. I think they are more like if the forces of nature reacted to moral laws instead of physical laws?

themerchant

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« Reply #2 on: July 30, 2017, 05:04:20 pm »
I think they see time like you could look from inside a black hole(if you didn't die, if you could see severe blue shift wavelengths etc). Everything can be seen but it's stationary and you can't connect events through time as they are all happening at once, you just have all the information but not in a causal way where you can see the progression of events like we do.

Over that though Kellhus seems to suggest there is a way to change the whole including the gods in a way that the whole and the gods are not even aware they changed.

MSJ

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« Reply #3 on: July 30, 2017, 06:07:51 pm »
I agree with Merch and this also applies to H's theory. I think through the Diamos and the Head on the pole, Kellhus has figured the rules to the Outside and bent them, so to say. The Dreams are a clue to this. Kellhus is speaking to himself through the Outside. This "place" is nothing like a hell, its serene and peaceful. Might we say, a hiding place? From Bakker's answer we know that Ajokli cannot find Kellhus, thus the pact with Ajokli was a fluke. A way to use Ajokli to his own means. Everything points to Kellhus tricking Ajokli. He very well could be stuck in a Decapitant, but i wouldnt say it was by accident. My money though, is that he is in the Outside.
“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,

themerchant

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« Reply #4 on: July 31, 2017, 02:25:08 am »
It's a huge quote so not typing it all out, maybe someone can lift it from kindle or something and put it on here.

Fuck it going for it.

"As they have to!The thing-the most horrific thing to understand, Proyas, is that at some point, the inchoroi must win . At some point perhaps this year or ages hence, the whole of humanity will be butchered. Think on it! Why did Momas strike Momenn, his namesake city, and not this infernal place? Why is Eternity blind to Golgotterath Because it stands outside of enternity, outside what the gods can see and that blindness is nothing short of breathtaking, Proyas! Our actions, our great Ordeal, follows a doom outside of doom We undertake a pilgrimage that rewrites the hundred with every step.
 
"When they attack me, the anasurimbor continued,"their assasins are doomed since creating to succeed, and then they fail as they were always doomed to fail. Eternity is transformed and the hundred with it, oblvious to the transformation. The unholy Ark is the the disfiguring absence, the put that consumes all trace of consumption!To the degree it moves us, we pursue a Fate the Gods can never see...

"do you see, Proyas? we act outside Eternity, here... in this place.

"Aye, if the absolute is anywhere to be found it is here

ps i hate bakkers use of italics now since i had to type them all fucking out.
« Last Edit: July 31, 2017, 02:26:39 am by themerchant »

Madness

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« Reply #5 on: July 31, 2017, 12:48:12 pm »
It seems like the gods have different powers, Momas has the ability to cause earth quakes, Yatwer can make White Lucks.

Bakker attributed both the earthquake and flood to Momas in the TGO Feedback thread at Westeros last year (sorry, Westeros is slow as fuck a couple days before and after GOT releases or else I'd link that specific post - though the whole thread is worth reading). And I believe somewhere in the books (or perhaps extratextually) it's suggested/stated that any of the Gods can toggle a White-Luck avatar?

Kellhus is speaking to himself through the Outside. This "place" is nothing like a hell, its serene and peaceful. Might we say, a hiding place?

If true, Omnipotent Kellhus must find it extremely tedious dealing with his pre-deceasing self ;). How frustrating.

Though, for future generations, I'm still firmly in the "the Vision is Ajokli" camp.
« Last Edit: July 31, 2017, 12:51:40 pm by Madness »
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« Reply #6 on: July 31, 2017, 12:56:57 pm »
Though, for future generations, I'm still firmly in the "the Vision is Ajokli" camp.

I'll dig more into it later, but while I thought this initially, I am not buying it, because his dialogue doesn't make much sense in line with what Ajokli is planning.  Unless we are seeing it in reverse.  The vision is Kellhus and the perspective is Ajokli.
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 #7 on: July 31, 2017, 01:56:24 pm »
Well, really, we only have that one explicit conversation from TGO, no? In which the Vision asks Kellhus to burn the fields because it's the only way to awake the God so that it can be killed?

Sounds fairly consistent with what we have about Ajokli from TTT Glossary and across PON.
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« Reply #8 on: July 31, 2017, 02:03:49 pm »
Well, really, we only have that one explicit conversation from TGO, no? In which the Vision asks Kellhus to burn the fields because it's the only way to awake the God so that it can be killed?

Sounds fairly consistent with what we have about Ajokli from TTT Glossary and across PON.

Yeah, I was kind of remembering the way that conversation went.  But I don't know that Kellhus is really lying when he says he doesn't know the source of the visions, but he (seems to) knowingly makes a deal with Ajokli.  So, Kellhus doesn't know that Ajokli is the vision?
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 #9 on: July 31, 2017, 02:09:15 pm »
But I don't know that Kellhus is really lying when he says he doesn't know the source of the visions, but he (seems to) knowingly makes a deal with Ajokli.  So, Kellhus doesn't know that Ajokli is the vision?

By my reading, I don't think Kellhus knows Ajokli is the Vision - but I also don't believe Kellhus knowingly made a deal with Ajokli.
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« Reply #10 on: July 31, 2017, 02:27:50 pm »
But I don't know that Kellhus is really lying when he says he doesn't know the source of the visions, but he (seems to) knowingly makes a deal with Ajokli.  So, Kellhus doesn't know that Ajokli is the vision?

By my reading, I don't think Kellhus knows Ajokli is the Vision - but I also don't believe Kellhus knowingly made a deal with Ajokli.

Good point.  It's a logical assumption to think him complicit, but plausibly wrong to think that Ajokli couldn't have just forced the issue of possession on his own.
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 #11 on: July 31, 2017, 05:02:50 pm »
Well I think the forcing is possible considering earlier in the book the demon once in proximity of the ark was able to combine "subject and desire" and turn the tables on iyokus.

Seems they sheer demons in half when summoned by the Daimos.

TLEILAXU

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« Reply #12 on: July 31, 2017, 06:53:51 pm »
I thought that was just because Golgotterath was such a deep Topos.

themerchant

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« Reply #13 on: July 31, 2017, 07:01:35 pm »


Aye i believe it is too, just a careful reading of the actual passage you get some hints to how it actually happened. The Diamos seems to sheer desire and subject, each being in one realm. Going into the Topos allows them(the demons) to combine "subject and desire" again and reach back and grab Iyokus's soul.

There is a loss of control which might be a clue to what happened with Kellhus.

I must admit i'm not sure, i've never been good at figuring shit out.

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« Reply #14 on: August 01, 2017, 12:08:16 pm »
Updated the thread with your post, themerchant. Some good quotes, though lacking citation and they get inserted by time actually posted so they're buried above. I hope this is the best thread (wish you could remember where you meant to post it in :P).
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