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Messages - Nil Sertrax

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1
The Unholy Consult / Re: Big question about the consult's intentions.
« on: August 31, 2017, 12:52:58 am »
"Yes. It's a holographic projection, simply meant to keep the Great Ordeal - and the Schoolmen in particular - pinned in place while the Oar comes rattles back to life."

IMHO, the most simple interpretation of this response, given the poor grammar, is that it contains a typo or was auto-corrected into something other than what he intended.  Would "sarcophagus" get auto corrected into "Oar comes"?  I always read it as the sarcophagus coming back online but, again, even Bakker's clarifications occasionally require clarification. 

So when is the AMA scheduled where he will provide answers regarding his responses in the initial AMA?!?!?   

2
The Unholy Consult / Re: Who actually liked TUC?
« on: August 26, 2017, 02:36:13 pm »
I think the criticism is generally the length and repetitiveness of these sections which, some believe, could have been shortened without losing their impact.  Some would have preferred additional words dedicated to describing events like Sorweel, Serwa and Moe's escape from Ishterebinth or a lengthier conclusion section inside the Golden Room. 

Personally, I have no problem with the sodomy cannibal holocaust as written but would have enjoyed a lengthening of the book to include those additional parts mentioned above.
 

3
The Unholy Consult / Re: Who actually liked TUC?
« on: August 23, 2017, 12:15:45 am »
Wait, what? Dick-eating and fisting to death? Where did that happen? I have some fantasies about writing a novel one day (just like I fantasize about releasing an album) and one of my ideas was to have this big cannibal eating the dicks of little boys. Can't believe Bakker has already scooped me.

Lmao. I previously brought up elsewhere on the forum that I must have simply watched too many shitty b-horror movies when I was younger because Bakker's obscenity didn't even really register.

At Zaudunyanicon, Bakker told an anecdote along the same lines about his wife and him watching shitty b-horror movies and the one that stuck with him recently was a guy wanting to or being forced to eat another guy's dick.

Sounds like "A Serbian Film" or possibly "Salo".  I don't think there's a fucked up horror movie that I haven't seen.  If you're looking for repulsive and transgressive try the "August Underground" series.  No redeeming qualities save for the effects and the psychotic imagination required to make something like this.


As for TUC, I liked it for the most part because I think Bakker writes extraordinary prose that conveys great meaning with few words.  He has a way with metaphor and description that is unmatched.  Unfortunately, he occasionally lapses into dense and impenetrable flights of fancy and loses me.  Examples include Serwe's burning heart, the passage regarding Koringhus and the Zero God,   the head on the pole and the golden room to name a few that come to mind. 

I was terribly disappointed in the end as I think the prose, once again, became much too opaque and simply deciphering what was actually occurring became difficult.  This coupled with the "out of nowhere" possession by Ajokli and then the subsequent possession of Cnaiur, it all felt rushed and disjointed.  Almost like Bakker lacked a satisfactory way to wrap up the story.  I think I was expecting more given Bakker's claim that the "G-string was going to fly across the room".  To me, this ending was decidedly not that!  Given the lack of clarity in the prose and the numerous narrative dead-ends, instead of seeing the g-string fly I felt more like the girl put her pants back on, wrapped herself up in a snow suit, punched me in the throat and then left the club! 

4
The Unholy Consult / Re: Zaudunyanicon 2017 Poster/Patch Giveaway!
« on: August 15, 2017, 12:40:36 pm »
Moenghus the younger will prove to be a cunning and capable leader blending the most effective traits of both his natural and adoptive fathers and the Scylvendi will prove to be the NG's most potent antagonists.

5
The Unholy Consult / Re: We Are Proyas
« on: August 13, 2017, 11:36:09 pm »
Great post...I wish  I had written it!

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The Unholy Consult / Re: Zaudunyanicon Q&A
« on: August 12, 2017, 02:43:34 am »
In response to my question regarding the lack of clarity in the writing, on July 28th, in this forum, Mr. Bakker stated;
Quote
That said, the only book I put more work into was TDTCB, so your sense of haste actually has no basis on the composition side. I actually went through and rewrote the ending for 'clarity's sake' no less than four times (!!) based on feedback from different beta readers, which is what makes your appraisal of the 'general reaction,' to be honest, hard to believe. The Amazon and blog reviews don't reflect it.

Given the reviews on Goodreads and Amazon I think it is becoming very apparent that lack of clarity and opacity is a common criticism of TUC.  Is there any chance that future installments in the series will see you try to strike a better balance between the poetic allusiveness of the prose and the clarity of the narrative? 

When did Ajokli first begin to possess Kellhus (and don't let him get away with telling you that Kellhus was always possessed because what comes after determines what comes before!)

And finally, can Mr. Bakker comment on his decision to keep the escape from Ishterebinth off-camera?  Given the cliff-hanger ending of this section in TGO, I think readers were expecting to see this narrative thread wrapped up in spectacular fashion.  It was frustrating that an opportunity for a spectacular large action set-piece was ignored.

Thanks for considering these questions.   

7
The Unholy Consult / Re: [TUC Spoilers]What was the point
« on: July 29, 2017, 01:16:15 pm »
I believe that the lack of commercial appeal was regarding a film or television option for the books.  The way I read it is that the No-God series is confirmed. If his publisher declines I will personally start a Kick-Starter to fund the self publication of the books!

8
Author Q&A / Re: Unholy Consultation - *SUPER SPOILERIFIC*
« on: July 28, 2017, 08:00:51 pm »
"...but hindsight is a motherfucker when it comes to threading those kinds of needles."  Perfect answer! 

Can you please clarify the meaning or symbolism of the "head on the pole behind you" imagery?

How did Serwa overcome the effects of the Agonic collar that she had on in Ishterebinth?

As I said, I have a million of them!  ;^) 

9
Author Q&A / Re: Unholy Consultation - *SUPER SPOILERIFIC*
« on: July 28, 2017, 07:35:32 pm »
Hey Mr. Bakker thanks for popping in and answering some questions.  I only have about a million of them! 

I don't know how much you peruse this forum or some of the other forums where your writings are passionately discussed.  If you do look at these forums you may note that a prevalent reaction to the ending of TUC was confusion.  I count myself one of your most passionate fans.  I already read TUC twice.  I've read the first three books in the PON series at least three times all the way through.  I've read the four books in the AE series twice and am currently almost through my third read of TJE in anticipation of going through TAE series once again. 

I think that this series is my favorite fantasy series of all-time and second place isn't even close.  It is so different from almost everything else out there.  The beautiful prose contrasted with the grittiness of the setting and story weave a powerful spell.

With that said, I was thoroughly confused by the ending of TUC.  I thought that many of the scenes that were unclear upon my first read would yield greater clarity upon my second.  Particularly, I felt the like the entire conclusion, from the gold room forward, felt rushed and opaque.  I consider myself to be well read overall, a careful reader and fairly intelligent.  What I am not, is a student of philosophy.  I was willing to allow for the possibility that the failure to comprehend was solely mine as I am not familiar with the deeper philosophical underpinnings of the second series.  When a reread failed to yield additional clarity I came to this forum and to Westeros to see what others had gleaned. 

I was disappointed to find the lack of any consensus.  Is the ambiguity intentional?  I feel like the end reads like a reprisal of the scene from PON where Kellhus pulls Serwe's burning heart from his breast.  The imagery is striking but the impact is lessened due to the ambiguity.  If I recall, you've always stated that the editing of the "burning heart" section was poor and that you would clarify it if you had a chance to write it again.  I still have only vague speculations regarding how that occurred even given the benefit of the whole series (was he possessed by Ajokli or interacting with the outside in some way?). 

Are you disappointed in the reaction thus far?  Are we missing something that that you, as the author, feel is obvious or is the ambiguity intentional?

Regardless, thanks for taking the time to interact with your fans.  Despite my dissatisfaction with the ending I still think that that your series is fantastic and I can't wait to begin reading the No-God in the hope that greater clarity awaits!         

10
The Unholy Consult / Re: [TUC Spoilers]What was the point
« on: July 26, 2017, 10:07:21 pm »
I've posted on this before and explained that I'm a huge fan of this series but I'm also disappointed in the ending.  It's not so much the end goal of inverting the standard fantasy trope where the over-matched heroes find some miraculous way to save the world but rather the opaque narrative.  I wanted to feel the full force of the world ending and the failure of what may have been the world's last best chance at survival but instead all I felt was a burning desire to read and reread the last chapter to figure out what the hell actually occurred.  I've read it again and again and I still can't make heads or tails of it.  And the real kicker is, neither can anyone else!  Beyond strange theories and wild speculations, nobody can say with any degree of certainty just what happened, never mind discussing the why things happened the way they did.   

I can't imagine Bakker's intention to wrap up this opus was to leave everyone completely confused but as his prose improved from book to book his narrative clarity got worse and worse.   I've said it before and I'll say it again, the whole Aspect Emperor series after the Judging Eye could have benefited greatly from a strong editor.       

11
I figure I'll chime in with my thoughts now that I've had some time to get through a reread of TUC and also a chance to peruse this forum as well as Westeros.  I've read the first three books in the PON series at least three times all the way through.  I've read the four books in the AE series twice.  I think that this series is my favorite fantasy series of all-time and second place isn't even close.  It is so different from almost everything else out there.  The beautiful prose contrasted with the grittiness of the setting and story weave a powerful spell. 

With that said, I think TUC is largely a missed opportunity.  I thought that many of the scenes that were unclear upon my first read would yield greater clarity upon my second.  Particularly, I felt the like the entire conclusion, from the gold room forward, was muddled.  I consider myself to be well read overall, a careful reader and fairly intelligent.  What I am not, is a student of philosophy.  I was willing to allow for the possibility that the failure to comprehend was solely mine as I am not familiar with the deeper philosophical underpinnings of the second series.  When a reread failed to yield additional clarity I went to this forum and to Westeros to see what others had gleaned. 

i was disappointed to find the lack of any consensus.  For the conclusion of a series I would hope that an intelligent group of devout fans would be able to reach some sort of a general consensus regarding the motivations of the characters and/or a coherent description of what actually occurred. 

As much as I love the characters and the setting, overall, I'm disappointed in this ending.  I think Scott may have done his best writing during the TTT and in TJE.  As the series progressed beyond these volumes many key scenes became too abstract or opaque.  In the first series the only scene I can recall that had these shortcomings was when Kell pulled Serwe's burning heart from his chest.  I still have no idea how that occurred.  In TJE we have another example with the Wight being banished by the Chorae.  A cool scene but one that left me wondering what I was supposed to have learned.  In WLW, TGO, and TUC these opaque passages became more common.  The Head-on-the Pole, the Zero God and the conclusion are just a few of the more egregious examples.  Here are some of the questions/issues I still have:

What are Kellhus' motivations?

Why does the No-God ask "What do you see?"

What significance is the head on the pole?

What is the point of the Judging Eye?

Why haven't I been rooting for the Consult all along as shutting the worl to the outside seems to be a reasonable and understandable motivation.  It's unfortunate that the population will be reduced but it's better than the alternative!

What is the point of projecting an image of Kelhus over the sarcophagus?

What is the point of introducing Koringhus and the Crab-handed boy?

How did Serwa ov ercome the Agonic collar and why would the escape from Ishterebinth happen off screen?

I'm sure I have a bunch more questions but these are off the top of my head.  I think this could have been a much, much better book had a good editor forced Scott to be a bit clearer in spots and maybe provided input on a few of the creative decisions the author made.

 






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The Unholy Consult / Re: The Unholy Consult Giveaway
« on: May 26, 2017, 11:11:43 pm »
Kellhus sacrifices everything in the fight with Golgoterath.  All his children, his wife and Proyas will all end up dead in the battle.  In the end, Kellhus will be revealed to be "good" but will be unable to overcome the consult.

13
General Earwa / Re: Zaudunyanicon 2017
« on: March 26, 2017, 04:26:05 pm »
Depending on the details I might be talked into this!

14
The Great Ordeal / Re: [TGO Spoilers] Explaining Koringhus
« on: July 23, 2016, 03:48:39 am »
Chapter 14 is pretty dense. I hoped to break down what happens to Koringhus tonight but I'm out of time. However, I've culled what I think the key passages are. I'll go through it all tomorrow hopefully. For now:

Some relevant points from the Encyclopedic Glossary:
Quote
Logos is the name used by Dûnyain to refer to instrumental reason. The Logos describes the course of action (so-called [Shortest Path])[1] that allows for the most efficient exploitation of one’s circumstances in order “to come before,” that is, to precede and master the passage of events
Quote
"[the] darkness which comes before" -- A phrase used by the Dunyain to refer to the congenital blindness of individuals to the worldly causes that drive them, both historical and appetitive.
Quote
The whole point of the Dunyain ethos is to overcome these limitations and so become a self-moving soul -- to attain what they call the Absolute, or the Unconditioned Soul . . . The hope was that eventually [the Dunyain] would produce a soul utterly transparent to Logos, a soul capable of apprehending all the darknesses that come before.
Quote
Among the Dunyain, [the Absolute is] the state of becoming "unconditioned," a perfect self-moving soul independent of "what comes before."

And a throwaway line that establishes that the Survivor is not to be trifled with. He appears to have been a Dunyain's Dunyain and so we shouldn't just dismiss his insights as the ramblings of a broken brain.
Quote from: pg. 391
He was known -- he who had confounded the Elders with his gifts.

And now to the disintegration of Koringhus' ethos:
Quote from: pg. 390
An absolute impossibility...
Referring to The Judging Eye. Koringhus realizes that the Judging Eye is wholly incompatible with Dunyain philosophy. Earlier in the chapter, when the Judging Eye first opens, he initially assumes the "certainty" that possesses Mimara is borne of madness because he cannot trace its Logos. Here, he's realizing it is neither madness nor sorcery.

Bakker italicizes "absolute" here because I think he's being cute with the language and making a double entendre. It's both shocking that Mimara knows about the stones, and specifically, it's impossible according to the Dunyain definition of "the Absolute."

Quote from: pg. 392-393
Only Cause could effect knowledge . . . "Cause measures the distance between things . . . This is why the strength of the Dunyain has always lain in grasping the Shortest Path..."

This is where his/the Dunyain's understanding of the world starts to crumble. Knowledge is supposed to proceed linearly, from The Darkness That Comes Before to conscious understanding.  However, he realizes that Mimara's knowledge of the hundred stones does not follow any causality or Logos at all. Her Judging Eye lets her sidestep Logos altogether -- for him, it's like finding out 1≠1. Everything he reasons in the rest of the chapter follows from this realization.

Quote from: pg. 396
The Dunyain, seeing only the skin of Cause . . . had assumed that Cause was everything, that it occupied the whole of darkness. But they had been fools, thinking that Darkness, even in this meagre aspect, could be seen.

Quote from: pg. 396 - 397
Pick any point in space - it does not matter which. The only way to make that point the measure of the surrounding space, the Dunyain had realized, was to call it zero, the absence of quantity that anchored the enumeration of all quantities. Zero... Zero was the source and centre of every infinity. And it was everywhere. Because Zero was everywhere, measure was everywhere - as arithmetic. Submit to the rule of another and you will measure as he measures. Zero was not simply nothing; it was also identity, for nothing is nothing but the absence of difference, and the absence of difference is nothing but the same . . . Thus the Survivor had begun calling this new principle Zero, for he distrusted the name the old Wizard had given it... God.
It's a little confusing without the italicized words but Koringhus here is realizing that The Judging Eye is analogous to the Dunyain understanding of the concept of "zero". The reason is that "Cause" are the little waypoints reaching forward into "Causes" and backwards into "Caused", if that makes sense. He uses the example of the boy's scabbed knuckles and notes that it was caused by something (maybe the kid scrapped it on something), and it will effect or cause something else (maybe the boy is irritated by the pain), which will be its own cause producing its own effect (the kid picks at it), et cetera et cetera.

And that this follows a linear progression. The Dunyain's entire project is producing individuals who can grasp a perfect understanding of these chains of cause & effect so that they can liberate themselves from them and become so-called "self moving souls". It's similar to Asimov's "psychohistory" from the Foundation series except at a much more granular level. The basis of the Dunyain's belief is the axiom that "Cause [is] everything"; that the whole of "the darkness that comes before" is undifferentiated Cause that humans are blind to and ignorant of.

So what's this Zero-God he invents? The next quote explains it a bit.

Quote from: pg. 397
The error of the Dunyain, he could see now, was to conceive the Absolute as something passive, to think it a vacancy, dumb and insensate, awaiting their generational arrival. The great error of the worldborn, he could see, was to conceive it as something active, to think it just another soul, a flattering caricature of their own souls. Thus the utility of Zero, something that was not, something that pinched all existence, every origin and destination, into a singular point, into One. Something that commanded all measure, not through arbitrary dispensations of force, but by virtue of structure... system... Logos.
As an aside, recall Kellhus' ministry to Proyas earlier in the book, where he gives lie to the worldborn conceit that the gods are in any way like men, and begins to refer to the God of Gods as "It":
Quote from: pg. 124
"... The infinite is impossible, Proyas, which is why Men are so prone to hide it behind reflections of themselves-to give the God beards and desires! To call it 'Him'!" . . . "This is the revelation. The God is not comfort. The God is not law or love or reason, nor any other instrument of our crippled finitude. The God has no voice, no design, no heart or intellect..." . . . "It is it . . . Unconditioned and absolute."
Emphasis mine.

The worldborn's mistake was in making sense of the Absolute by anthropomorphising it into a vaguely human-like God. Koringhus has appeared to grasp this same realization independent of Kellhus. The Dunyain's mistake, according to Koringus, was thinking that the 'Absolute' was a destination you could arrive at through intense training and evolving -- I don't think it's clear if Kellhus and Koringus are in agreement here, although I suspect yes because on page 123 Kellhus says that the God has no need of reason or Logos. There's a whole bunch else going on in Kellhus' teachings in Chapter Four that needs to be unpacked, though.

The point is that both were wrong. It is not a destination and it is not an origin. It is both and neither at the same time; a singularity. It is "One."

Anyway, the Judging Eye shows that there can be knowledge without Cause; knowledge without distance. Nevermind following the Shortest Path, for some there are apparently no paths at all. Later on, he'll call this the "sideways step that [gives] lie to Logos."

To break it down more:
Cause = the distance between things (cause & effect);
Zero = a singularity of cause & effect; a point where cause and effect are undifferentiated; a point where everything is One.

I think at some point off page, I think Achamian must have conflated the Judging Eye with God. The Survivor distrusts that term for whatever reason, so he instead refers to the principle underlying the Judging Eye as the "Zero-God".

The Absolute = Zero = the Zero-God.

Ajencis' Dyadic Principle ties in to this somehow but I don't feel like unpacking it at the moment. In short, Ajencis claims that "it is the relation between subject and object, desire and reality, that underwrites the structure of existence," and the "many regions of the Outside then represent diminishing levels of objectivity, where circumstances yield more and more to desire." If you think of Desire and Circumstance as Cause and Effect then you can start to infer that maybe the problem with The World is precisely that the Zero-God cannot (for whatever reason) incorporate it into its Zero-ness; it can't close the gap between cause and effect. But why?

Quote from: pg. 397
The God that was Nature. The God that every soul could be, if only for the span of a single insight... The Zero-God. The absence that was the cubit of all creation. The Principle that watched through Mimara's eyes...
I'm still trying to parse what the bolded part might mean.

Between this and the next quote, he snorts the Qirri.

Quote from: pg. 403
Thoughts, like legs, were joined at the hip. No matter how innumerable the tracks, no matter how crazed or inventive the soul, only what could be conceived could be seen. Logos, they had called it, the principle that bound step to step, that yoked what would be aimless to the scruple of some determinate destination. And this had been the greatest of the Dunyain's follies, the slavish compliance to reason, for this was what had shackled them to the abject ignorance of their forefathers... Logos.

Quote from: pg. 407
Only now did he understand. Ignorance. Only ignorance had sealed the interval between [himself and his son]. Only blindness, the wilful idiocy that was worldborn love . . . He clutched this wailing burden to his breast [his son], this impediment, without thought, as if it were no less a fraction of his own soul, a part that had wandered... Zero. The difference that is not a difference. Zero made One.

Quote from: pg. 407
And so it was with the Absolute ... At last he could see it -- the sideways step that gave lie to Logos. Zero. Zero made One.

Love this breakdown, thoughtful and insightful.  Gave me a few new ways to parse those scenes.  Great post!  Thanks.

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The Judging Eye / Re: Audiobook?
« on: July 03, 2016, 02:54:48 pm »
I'm surprised that these works are on audio.  I was thinking the other day how difficult these would be to do in an audio format.  The changes from external to internal dialogue (often italicized in the text) in particular must be difficult.  How does the audio book differentiate these?  I feel like it would work better as an audio play or audio theater with different voices for different characters.  Is it confusing to listen to?

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