Kellhus: good or evil?

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Wilshire

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« Reply #120 on: July 15, 2015, 01:45:47 pm »
I like that quite a bit. Hit the nail on the head I think. Those all fit into Bakker's Semantic Apocalypse (I think?).

Also, regarding BBT, I think the dunyain's "darkness that comes before", as well as their ability to "read souls through faces" steam directly from that, and as mentioned about, the God's and maybe even sorcery tie in somewhere as well... But I have barely even a vague understanding on what BBT is so I'm not the best judge.
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H

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« Reply #121 on: July 15, 2015, 02:10:43 pm »
I'm looking through his blog to see if I can find something like an introduction into his BBT, so I'll see what I can find that might relate...
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

Bolivar

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« Reply #122 on: July 15, 2015, 04:18:31 pm »
That was an awesome way to look at the races that I think are intended as mini lessons for the coming crossroads Bakker argues we will have to face soon.

In the linked interview from his latest TPB post, he mentions that he really thinks people are going to want to write out the functions of their brains responsible for guilt and regret. I assumed that was some insight into what makes the Inchoroi capable of doing the unfathomable things they do, they simply don't have the capacity to see it as horrifying. And the Inverse Fire seems like it simulated the same effect on the Mangeacca - they were completely desensitized to the experiments they performed on people to see what hell would feel like. It makes me wonder if it's not just a horrifying image and actually is a neurological rewriter. That would kinda lend some credence to Titirga's suggestion that the Consult's irrefutable proof of literal hell actually isn't true and really is just a goad.

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H

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« Reply #123 on: July 15, 2015, 04:44:56 pm »
I tend to think of the Inverse Fire as something that is experienced which is so profound, in a horrific sense, that it fundamentally rewrites your neurology.  In the same way that there are images you can look at that will mess up your brain's ability to perceive things (that is very vague, but I can recall reading about some kind of image that when you look at it, it messes with your brain in a way that changes how you actually see).

I think the Inverse Fire is the literally truth.  However, the literal truth does you no service, in fact, it is detrimental to your soul.
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

mrganondorf

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« Reply #124 on: July 21, 2015, 12:26:05 am »
@ H - this is a great find!  did not know it was so close!

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the timeline matches up, Celmomas died in 2146, the Dunyain arrive at Isual in 2147

:)  it's Science vs Religion!

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The Consult: Destroy the world, destroy meaning.
The Mandate: Save the world and save meaning.

hey, about this thing you posted:

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I was just thinking, having been visiting Bakker's TPB several times this week...

Are the Dunyain, Inchoroi and Nonmen different representations of transhumanism and the dangers of it?

I could see each as embodying a different extreme.

The Dunyain as the amoral pursuit of logic and pragmatism.

The Inchoroi as the amoral pursuit of pleasure and hedonism.

The Nonmen as the amoral pursuit of immortality.

What would the implications of this be?  Are any of these things really 'good?'

nice summary!  i get the vibe that Bakker is out to prove that a universe that truly has a supernatural element ultimately boils down to an issue of power.  goodness is nothing more than the arbitrary will of the strongest of the strong

about the BBT, here's a quote from Grimdark #3 interview with Bakker in the pics

mrganondorf

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« Reply #125 on: July 21, 2015, 12:27:18 am »
@ Boliva - i had never heard this take--cool!

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Either Seswatha disclosed its location to Mekeritrig while subjected to the Cants of Agony or they learned  of it through the Bardic priest. If he really is a Consult mole, as many suspect, it stands to reason he told them where the court was going and engineered the plague, which he conveniently survived, to pave the way for the Dunyain arrival.

a possible explanation of the end of TWP: Aurax is performing for some audience off stage--pretending not to know about the Dunyain to give the impression that the Consult do not know about them?

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@ Wilshire - this is a great idea!

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might as well say it was a Cishaurim from before they even existed

maybe Titirga was the founding member of the Cishaurim which later created the Dunyain???


H

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« Reply #126 on: July 21, 2015, 11:27:14 am »
I think the most salient quote from that interview is the following:

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What I set out to do was to write the first fantasy that self-consciously included meaning with gods, magic, and spirits, to write a fantastic apocalypse that mirrors our ongoing ‘semantic apocalypse’ in photographic negative.

Is he saying that Earwa is our negative, in the sense that it has meaning and people are learning that, where as here in the real world there is truly no meaning and we are learning that?
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 #127 on: July 21, 2015, 04:53:22 pm »
Is he saying that Earwa is our negative, in the sense that it has meaning and people are learning that, where as here in the real world there is truly no meaning and we are learning that?
Seems to make sense, but Earwa already 'knows' that there is meaning. Pretty much everyone except the Dunyain believe this... Might just be the Earwa world remains somewhat skeptical of the Gods/etc., so TUC and onward will reveal definitively their existence. This being the opposite of IRL where lots of people can see at least the possibility that all is meaningless, and the more we reveal the more irrefutable that will become. "meaningless" here defined as no god/religion/free-will/consciousness etc.
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« Reply #128 on: July 21, 2015, 05:28:42 pm »
Hmm, yeah, I hadn't thought that all the way through.

Thinking now though at his choice of words though, he specifically says "photo negative."  I'm kind of floundering on thinking this all the way through, but a photo negative isn't a negation, but an inversion:

"A positive image is a normal image. A negative image is a total inversion, in which light areas appear dark and vice versa. A negative color image is additionally color-reversed, with red areas appearing cyan, greens appearing magenta and blues appearing yellow."

So, Earwa is our inverse word.  I need to think more about this...
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 #129 on: July 21, 2015, 06:57:01 pm »
I dont think that makes much of a difference in this discussion though. its more/less the same thing, and the inversion/opposite that we are talking about probably doesnt change, it still turns on 'meaning'.
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Francis Buck

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« Reply #130 on: July 22, 2015, 07:26:20 pm »
Earwa (or more properly, the universe that Earwa exists in) is a place where "meaning" is laced into the fiber of everything, a universe that turns on the subjective will of consciousness. Which is obviously somewhat of an inversion of our world...or at least, the modern scientific model of the world as we know it (which is essentially the Dunyain/Inchoroi model).

Bakker has referenced the "man coming down from the mountain to find meaning in a meaningless world" as being inverted in his story, where a man (Kellhus) comes into a meaningful world believing it to be meaningless.

I agree with the sentiment of what Wilshire said up-thread though. In our world, everyone believed in gods/monsters until we dug so far into the nature of existence that it seemed void of anything. In TSA, the Inchoroi did the same, only to find that the universe was ruled by gods and monsters (specifically, gods that are quite alien to their sensibilities).

H

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« Reply #131 on: July 27, 2015, 10:43:28 am »
Quote from: Bakker Interview
The defining thematic moment in my endless rewriting came when I realized that I could turn the ‘man the meaning maker’ paradigm upside down, tell the story of a protagonist struggling to bring meaninglessness to an objectively meaningful world.

So, Kellhus as protagonist?  So, to revisit my earlier theorem, Kellhus saves the world and destroys meaning at the same time?
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

profgrape

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« Reply #132 on: July 27, 2015, 05:25:43 pm »
Earwa (or more properly, the universe that Earwa exists in) is a place where "meaning" is laced into the fiber of everything, a universe that turns on the subjective will of consciousness. Which is obviously somewhat of an inversion of our world...or at least, the modern scientific model of the world as we know it (which is essentially the Dunyain/Inchoroi model).

Bakker has referenced the "man coming down from the mountain to find meaning in a meaningless world" as being inverted in his story, where a man (Kellhus) comes into a meaningful world believing it to be meaningless.

I agree with the sentiment of what Wilshire said up-thread though. In our world, everyone believed in gods/monsters until we dug so far into the nature of existence that it seemed void of anything. In TSA, the Inchoroi did the same, only to find that the universe was ruled by gods and monsters (specifically, gods that are quite alien to their sensibilities).
Awesome stuff, FB!

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So, Kellhus as protagonist?  So, to revisit my earlier theorem, Kellhus saves the world and destroys meaning at the same time?

For whatever reason, I've trouble imagining an ending like this.   RSB's implied that the first 6 books are just there to get us to the really interesting stuff in TWSNBN.  And I can't help but think it has to be something more than a meaningless universe like our own.  It could be that a meaningless world is Kellhus' goal but that things don't exactly go as planned...

Wilshire

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« Reply #133 on: July 27, 2015, 07:54:18 pm »
Quote from: Bakker Interview
The defining thematic moment in my endless rewriting came when I realized that I could turn the ‘man the meaning maker’ paradigm upside down, tell the story of a protagonist struggling to bring meaninglessness to an objectively meaningful world.

So, Kellhus as protagonist?  So, to revisit my earlier theorem, Kellhus saves the world and destroys meaning at the same time?
Haha, yes. Full circle.

But wait, what if Akka is the protagonist. That may fit better, since Akka craves never really believes in anything, and in fact is seeking to destroy the one thing that is currently defining meaning in the world, Kellhus.

On that note: What happens if each of the Protagonists laid out so far have some small hand in this trope. Everyone has their own little inversion of meaninglessness in a meaningful world... But Akka is still the King non-believer to forefully bring an end to meaning imo.

For whatever reason, I've trouble imagining an ending like this.   RSB's implied that the first 6 books are just there to get us to the really interesting stuff in TWSNBN. 

Hmm, I dont think I agree with that. PoN and TAE are the original story, from what he's said. "Original" meaning what he thought up in his head back before his 8 years working on TDTCB. TSTSNBN (The Series That Shall Not Be Named) I have always thought was more of an extended epilogue. A 'what comes after' so to speak. Granted, Bakker has also billed PoN/TAE/TSTSNBN as what he imagined to be a 3 book trilogy that became bigger than he expected, so that kind of conflicts with my general sentiment, but not entirely.
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profgrape

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« Reply #134 on: July 27, 2015, 08:03:38 pm »
Ah, I see.  Couching it as an epilogue makes it a lot more compelling for sure.

For whatever reason, discussing a "meaningless" world makes me think of an old SNL sketch where a disgusted Sinead O'Connor (the late Jan Jooks) presents an award for "Most Meaningless Lyrics" to Phil Collins.  Yeah...