I haven't yet gotten a satisfying explanation for the metaphysics of sorcery, but then again, I didn't really pay super-close attention to the sorcery parts in the books, so I might have missed a lot. Could someone better explain it to me?
Bakker seems to have taken Tolkien's concept of "magic is re-singing the Creation" (but inverted it, since the Gnostic and Anagogic sorcery leaves an unnatural stain on Creation). But it's never really explained how the Nonmen and humans learned how to warp existence in the first place. Did some God teach them to? But if that was the case, sorcery wouldn't be a crime against nature and leave an ugly mark. Or is the Mark caused by the incompleteness of humans trying to play God by using magic? I'm frankly a bit confused.
The article about sorcery on the PON wiki is shitty - it starts with "words are the tools by which sorcery is implemented", without ever describing what sorcery actually is.
So, could someone clear things up and better explain the workings of sorcery in Bakker-world?
As much as I'm lurking here and Westeros, I'm also trying to do some reading week reading - I have limited willpower today.
There are threads in The Unholy Consult, Sorcery[/b] (http://secondapocalypse.forumer.com/sorcery-t1222441.html), and in Misc. Chatter, Aporetic sorcery (http://secondapocalypse.forumer.com/aporetic-sorcery-t1222907.html) and I have a sneaking suspicion Curethan started one somewhere called "Sorcery." with the period.
QuoteDid some God teach them to? But if that was the case, sorcery wouldn't be a crime against nature and leave an ugly mark.It's implied that the earliest human Sorcerers were the Shamans. Since they were Prophets as well as Sorcerers, they (and their magic) quite possibly had no Mark. They also, presumably, were not considered damned.
We've never been provided with any information on how the Nonmen first learned Sorcery. However, it seems like they never had any concept of Sorcerers being damned just for using magic.
I'm interested in how the Judging Eye, seeing with the Gods eyes, is related to speaking with the Gods voice or recollecting the Gods passion.
Shaeönanra's magic in "The False Sun" also weirded me out, since it doesn't seem consistent with the rules of sorcery in Eärwa.
How does one create an "object that occupies no point in space", and how does such an object even physically exist at all? It must physically exist (it's not described as an empty point or a black hole), in order to breach the barriers around Golgotterath, but...gah, it confuses the hell out of me.
Just think about it as basic fourth grade math.
A point, X
A point, Y
A point, Z
A line, XY
A line, XZ
A line, YZ
A plane, XYZ
When doing basic geometry, how do your concepts exist at all? If you don't write them down on paper your point has no physical existence. Yet you can still think of a point, X. or a line, XY.
Quote from: AurigaShaeönanra's magic in "The False Sun" also weirded me out, since it doesn't seem consistent with the rules of sorcery in Eärwa.
How does one create an "object that occupies no point in space", and how does such an object even physically exist at all? It must physically exist (it's not described as an empty point or a black hole), in order to breach the barriers around Golgotterath, but...gah, it confuses the hell out of me.
Perhaps such objects utilize dimensions that are not experienced (or are imperceptible, a la string theory) in the Earwan universe.
Personally I find either of the two above explanations unhelpful.
For lockesnow's, that doesn't answer the question at all. Just because it exists in your mind doesn't mean it is manifest. The manifestation of a point that occupies no space wouldn't interact with the world. Even things like "point particles" in physics, a basic concept used to describe introductory physics, is just a theoretical/mathematical construct. It doesn't really exist, but it makes things a whole lot simpler.
Or a dirac delta, a curve with infinite height and an integral value = 1, is a close approximation of something like the "point that occupies no space" but again its a mathematical construct to simplify problems such that they can be solved without unnecessarily difficult math. Though useful and fair at approximating behaviors of certain ideal systems, such a thing isn't real. There is no such thing as a perfect valve.
Actually, that is a really good example of what the above mentioned "point" would end up looking like. The tool would be infinitely long and come to an infinitely sharp point that took up no space at the tip. But as infinity is a rather difficult place to get to, a tool made like that would be decidedly unwieldy :P
And Meyna's, I guess I just don't believe that Shae solved string theory and was applying it. Rape aliens and immortality and magic yes, solved string theory... nah.
Pretty much by definition, it doesn't exist if it doesn't occupy a point in space. Not to be confused with not having mass, or volume, like sound and light, and neutrinos can't be "captured" since they just float through shit whenever they want. Those things still occupy a point in space.
Though, another thought just came to me, Shae's key to the glamor could have been akin to some extremely focused beam of magic or some such idea. Like a laser, but with magic. The glamor is magical, so it would make sense if something magical broke it. Could have been more like finding its resonance frequency and emitting a "magic wave" that just amplified it and... boom, almighty glamor shakes itself apart.......
Somewhere on Westeros there is some quality discussion and coherent solutions with persons more skilled in teh maths than I ;). Unfortunately, its not The False Sun thread.
My understanding of math stops at practical application... i.e engineering. I guess you could say I'm using the analogies to real world idea to try and explain something far more abstract :P. It seems I cannot ever wield the gnosis, I cannot make the cognitive leaps on my own. I... have failed.
Hahaha... forever an Anagogic sorcerer!
Lest you can be Cishaurim?
I didn't mean to suggest that sting theory is in effect in Earwa; I just meant that Earwa's "reality as it really is" could include auxiliary dimensions. It is quite a reach, though :lol:
Also, Anagogic sorcery isn't so bad. At least you have the Daimos!
Quote from: lockesnowJust think about it as basic fourth grade math.
When doing basic geometry, how do your concepts exist at all? If you don't write them down on paper your point has no physical existence. Yet you can still think of a point, X. or a line, XY.
This doesn't even make any sense.
If the concept only exists in your mind, then it doesn't exist in the physical world. The barriers around the Ark are physical, and Shaeönanra obviously used a physical spell to destroy them.
I think the westeros conclusion was that the math-thesis point of Shaeonanra disproved the mathematics that established the space-filling-curve of the Architect.
Quote from: MeynaAlso, Anagogic sorcery isn't so bad. At least you have the Daimos!
The Daimos is a pretty good bonus, and it's odd that more sorcerers aren't using it. Sorcerers are already people with nothing to lose. Sure, using the Daimos does condemn you to be tortured in the afterlife by the demons you've summoned into the living world, but seeing as you're already damned by using any sorcery, being double-damned shouldn't be too much of a deterrent. It's a bit like giving someone the death penalty twice.
I guess there are degrees of damnation in the afterlife of Bakkerverse - you could burn in hellfire for eternity, or you could burn in hellfire for eternity while simultaneously being raped forever by Zioz and friends.
I'm sorta looking forward to an epic Super-Daimos™ moment, where Kellhus and all the Scarlet Spires combine their Daimotic powers to draw out Yatwer into the physical realm and send her against the Consult. That would be a fun read.
Oh yeah the space-filling-curve stuff.
A curve that fills space? Nonsense. Thats either just a solid sphere, or a melon wedge. Either way, a simple magical knife should do the trick, maybe a ... subtle knife? As I recall the wielder of the knife before that idiot kid was given it was an old man.... just shae giving away his knife since he was feeling charitable. Wait, damn, never mind, Shae has all his fingers.
I think its mumbo jumbo magic to sound cool, never really meant to be scrutinized. Vague enough to sound cool, but with juuuust enough description to be plausible. Under the microscope it just seems silly.
Quote from: AurigaQuote from: MeynaAlso, Anagogic sorcery isn't so bad. At least you have the Daimos!
The Daimos is a pretty good bonus, and it's odd that more sorcerers aren't using it. Sorcerers are already people with nothing to lose. Sure, using the Daimos does condemn you to be tortured in the afterlife by the demons you've summoned into the living world, but seeing as you're already damned by using any sorcery, being double-damned shouldn't be too much of a deterrent. It's a bit like giving someone the death penalty twice.
I guess it's discouraged because it's so dangerous. Demons seem like the unpredictable type.Quote from: AurigaI guess there are degrees of damnation in the afterlife of Bakkerverse - you could burn in hellfire for eternity, or you could burn in hellfire for eternity while simultaneously being raped forever by Zioz and friends.
We'll have to reference Ajencis' Inferno for that one.Quote from: AurigaI'm sorta looking forward to an epic Super-Daimos™ moment, where Kellhus and all the Scarlet Spires combine their Daimotic powers to draw out Yatwer into the physical realm and send her against the Consult. That would be a fun read.
Yes, perhaps a sufficiently adept user of the Daimos can summon the Gods themselves!
+1 for Super-Daimos™ :lol:
Quote from: MeynaI guess it's discouraged because it's so dangerous. Demons seem like the unpredictable type.
Maybe. Although the whole point of the Daimos is to enslave the demon to whoever is summoning it. From what we've read, the experience for the demon is much like a a human's experience of hell (and there's only way for the demon to get out of this - to follow the exact orders of its summoner).
It probably has backfired on people before. There's rumors about Kellhus being abducted while practicing Daimos and replaced by a demon, and all that.QuoteWe'll have to reference Ajencis' Inferno for that one.
Ajencis always knows best.Quote+1 for Super-Daimos™ :lol:
Super-Daimos™ isn't that big of a stretch, seeing as almost all the sorcery looks just like the Dragonball Z cartoons I watched as a kid.
A tip: Super-Daimos™ is a strong attack, but for extra power, it's best paired with Gnostic sorcery, like the ultra-powerful NONMAN HEXADECAGON SUPER-THEOREM™ and that devastatingly penetrating spell PHALLUS POLYGONUS™.
Lmao. +1 Auriga & Meyna.
There's this hypothesis, I believe Triskele spawned on Westeros, that Kellhus killed those two Ciphrang in specific and kept their heads to free Iyokus from the remaining Daimotic Damnation of the Holy War.
I personally see the Scarlet Spires as a Daimotic School at this point. They literally have no other purpose. Look what happened to the Vokalati when they turned on Saccarees. The Anagogic Schools are the pawns of Schoolman when they finally fight the Mangaecca and Erratic Quya.
Kellhus killed some Ciphrang in his travels to convince Iyokus that he'd free his School after. How else would Iyokus have earned the nickname of Blind Necromancer.
It occurs to me that the Daimos, with its focus on actively engaging with the agencies of the Outside (rather than desperately trying to avoid their notice), is perhaps that aspect of the Anagogis closest to its Shamanistic roots...
Lol, I want to see more folkloric sorcery. Harnessing the agency of the trees (I wonder if this related to Agencies)...
I can agree to that. Its kind of a mystery still, would be nice to see it filled out... and those trees are creepy as hell.
Trees are certainly symbolic of something.
Onkis: hope, aspiration, (ambition?), (compassion?), the Singer in the Dark, the Prophetess who sees the movements of Men's souls... the Goddess who represents the Darkness That Comes Before?
Siol: the Mansion whose king's ambition set this whole sorry tale in motion (the Darkness of history that Comes Before the events of the books).
The Mop: a forest that could conceal nations in its Darkness (and the ruins of fallen civilizations).
I'm hazarding Dead Trees are directly tied to the No-God or Dunyain...
The Copper Tree of Siol and Onkis always led me for a loop though.
And the inchoroi/consult looked to the mop to try and find the nation of the Dunyain, rather than reversing the path Kellhus took or checking up on Atraithau.
Quote from: MadnessThe Copper Tree of Siol and Onkis always led me for a loop though.I think what links them are the concept of ambition (IIRC, Onkis is said to tempt men to always try to grasp more than they can hold - as Cu'jara Cinmoi did in conquering Viri) and the way in which our present choices are constrained by history (i.e. they seem to spread out freely like the branches of a tree, but are in fact held within strict bounds by where the tree first rooted - by what has come before us).
There's also the idea that the World Tree actually creates the Ground by spreading out its roots through primordial Earth/Chaos, just as the laws, traditions, philosophies and ideologies of a group expand outward to create a society (under whose spreading boughs we seek shelter from the storm) once the group has defined the Centre/Root/Axle/Idea-Seed of their World.
I'll ante you up one from the man himself :). Apologies, if I've read LTG a couple times. Spoiler - though, its an "inapplicable" passage in the narrative. Though oddly it may be the most important passage for metaphor ;).(click to show/hide)
I have often wondered about the slow reveal of sorcery throughout the series. In TDTCB there was almost none worth mentioning, except that pittance of a mage that assailed Kellhus when he was first coming to the three seas. Each book after, sorcery is revealed more and more to us. Each book shows that it has more power, unimaginably so, than in the previous book. From our first encounter of it, to the epic fight with the dragon, sorcery has grown and changed.
The questions I have:
How long will this trend continue?
Hopefully each successive book continues along this trend, transforming sorcery into the kind of world cracking thunder that I have been hoping for.
And why?
Does Bakker do this on purpose, like with most things, revealing it slowly and with purposeful vagness. Or has this happened because Bakker himself was unsure of what he wanted it to be, its limitations, and its relevance?
What does anyone else think?
I think the "guy" Kellhus meets is more than a pittance of a mage.
I think Sorcery was pretty well established as bad ass as early as the library scene in TWP. It was then just a question of scale. In what ways would you say it changed? Akka always uses that concusion cant and the compass i think throughout the books.
i think you'll get your hope though with regards to world cracking thunder, I want to know what the things are that Kellhus has when he meets the non-men and also considering what he was doing when he rescued the army of the souths mage contingent he is capable of some crazy stuff.
I guess not so much changed as evolved. Sure the library scene was sweet, but compared to the sorcery battles later on, it was nothing all that special. An exploded library and some dragon heads, compared to the battles in Shimeh? Not even a fair comparison. Then you look at that battle, and to Cleric in Cil-Aujas, again not even close, even when you look at Kel's metagnostic stuff. Then Cil compared to the dragon, or the battles of the Ordeal, again to me its a hugely different thing.
Why pretend like Kel could get away from a Quya mage in the first chapter, and then make the Quya out to be some kind of all powerful beings.
So yeah, not really changed, its always been called amazing, but each book the mages get exceptionally more powerful.
Bakker most certainly does it on purpose.
TDTCB - Kellhus' encounter with Mekeritrig, Inrau fighting the Skin-Spies, Battle of Kiyuth, Parlay with Skauras and Xerius via Moenghus the Elder
TWP - Cant of Calling (first sight of the Mandate Gnosis), Bar of Heaven, Psuhkari at the Battle of Mengedda, Wathi Doll, Soretic Library (Anagogic vs. Gnosis), Soretic Library (Daimos), Siege of Caraskand (Psuhke vs. Anagogis)
Then TTT, the first real battle we see of Sorcery from Schoolmen's perspectives - Bakker did want to call TTT When Sorcerers Sing - the Battle of Shimeh, Anagogic vs. Psuhke, Gnosis vs. Daimos again, Gnosis vs. Anagogis again.
Then finally we see some raging Gnosis and Quyan Gnosis in TJE but really its a pittance compared to the Battles in WLW when the Schools of the Great Ordeal are unleashed.
I'd say in the Unholy Consult shit is gonna hit the fan. I wouldn't doubt if we finally see the explosive Gnosis vs. Gnosis, which is clearly the only contender for where this is going to go - also Metagnosis vs. ? the Consult has come up with. I'm counting on seeing some Aporetic Sorcery going down and probably a more thorough understanding of the Psuhke.
However, that really, really depends on whether or not the Consult will contest Dagliash themselves, or simply let their minions do it.
I loved that he took his time showing us how unbelievably powerful Achamian was.
For most of TDTCB, he's pitiful. And when you finally realize he really can boil people from the inside just by thinking it... the character transforms.
The sheer magnitude of his abilities combined with the reluctance to ever use them, shows us the true heart of a Skeptic. A believer-skeptic. Who no longer knows what to believe.
Always reminds me of the best thing Tolkien ever wrote:
Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends.
Layers of Revelation, man.
Quote from: Cu'jara Cinmoi, 2006The Chorae Hoard is how Sakarpus managed to survive the First Apocalypse. The No-God circumvented it, saving his limited sorcerous resources to overcome the South.
One of the ideas behind anarcane ground simply follows the notion that the boundaries between the World and the Outside are variable. Some, taking the distinction between wakefulness and dreams as their analogy, believe anarcane ground to be Holy ground - places where the God has, for whatever reason, focussed his attention - dreams lucidly - thus rendering the co-option of his Song by sorcery difficult if not impossible.Quote from: Cu'jara Cinmoi, 2005Good questions, all. Personally, I've always worried that the Chorae may come across as too ad hoc, as mere narrative conveniences that allow a happy (but not very credible) balance between the sorcerous and the non-sorcerous. But in point of fact, that role came after - the Chorae developed independently. From the outset, I've looked at each of the sorcerous branches in linguistic terms, as practices where language commands, rather than conforms to, reality. So the Anagogis turns on the semantic power of figurative analogies, the Gnosis turns on the semantic power of formal generalizations, the Psukhe turns on speaker intention, and so on. And much as language undoes itself in paradoxes, sorcery can likewise undo itself. The Aporos is this 'sorcery of paradox,' where the meanings that make sorcery possible are turned in on themselves to generate what might be called 'contradiction fields.'
Since the metaphysics of sorcery actually plays a significant role in TTT, it would probably be better to postpone a more in depth discussion until then.
I cannot wait for Apropos to be revealed. I wonder if it will be Mimara who is the one.
Quote from: coobekI cannot wait for Apropos to be revealed. I wonder if it will be Mimara who is the one.
With her initial extreme interest in magic, combined with their proximity to the Nonmen who are perhaps the only ones left who remember.... And what a wonderful way to get back at the world that wronger her by destroying its savior? Fits nicely.
Sorry to nit-pick, coobek, but aporetical (a. Doubting; skeptical.) has a quite different meaning from apropos (adj. Being at once opportune and to the point.)
Apologies.
'Aporos' means, literally, 'non-passage' (i.e. 'impasse'). The argument that encounters it passes no further.
Quote from: CurethanSorry to nit-pick, coobek, but aporetical (a. Doubting; skeptical.) has a quite different meaning from apropos (adj. Being at once opportune and to the point.)
Apologies.
You got me there. My explanation = English is not my mother tongue.
Another relevant and interesting quote from the Other Place (emphasis mine):Quote from: Cu'jara CinmoiThe Aporos is something I want to flesh out further in future books. The basic idea is this: the Quya first developed the Aporos in the prosecution of their own intercine wars, but it was quickly forbidden. The arrival of the Inchoroi allowed several renegade Quya to pursue their sorcerous interrogations, leading to the production of tens of thousands of Chorae, which were used throughout the Cuno-Inchoroi wars.
The Aporos possesses a contradictory, or negative, semantics, and as such is able only to undo the positive semantics of things like the Gnosis, Psukhe, Anagogis - even the Daimos. Aporetic Cants have no other effect. Salting is actually a kind of side effect. I would rather wait until TTT comes out before discussing the metaphysics - it has to do with the Mark.
Quote from: coobekQuote from: CurethanSorry to nit-pick, coobek, but aporetical (a. Doubting; skeptical.) has a quite different meaning from apropos (adj. Being at once opportune and to the point.)
Apologies.
You got me there. My explanation = English is not my mother tongue.
I know mate, sorry. Just got hit by the dissonance there.
And hey, now you know ;)
Lol. You all impress me everyday.
+1 Duskweaver. So... Salting isn't a reflection of Faith or the Outside but of the sorcery of the Aporos.
Does that suggest an additional attribute of Sorcerer's Salt? (I mean, we've gone over it a couple times in the past, certainly in my personal life, but mundane value of salt is huge historically!) Yet there's another quote in the Cishaurim thread that suggests Cishaurim aren't affected in the same way (I see, some of you have weighed in there already :)).
Quote from: MadnessDoes that suggest an additional attribute of Sorcerer's Salt? (I mean, we've gone over it a couple times in the past, certainly in my personal life, but mundane value of salt is huge historically!)I've always thought that dead-sorcerer-salt is just plain ordinary halite. That passage that gets trotted out as evidence of something more (the bit about some kid making his fortune from harvesting a salted sorcerer after a battle in one of the PoN books) never seemed at all convincing to me. 150-odd pounds of ordinary NaCl (I'm assuming the transformation more-or-less preserves the sorcerer's original mass) would be worth a heck of a lot (certainly enough to make somebody's fortune) in any comparable historic period in our world.
+1 Duskweaver. But... I'd still hazard that there's a purposeful reason for that scene.
Quote from: Madness+1 Duskweaver. But... I'd still hazard that there's a purposeful reason for that scene.
It has to have meaning, doesn't it? Or another red haring.
Either or. I want the intention. Aurang, a boy child, a Salted Sorcerer (which as Duskweaver and I highlighted is a fortune in any comparable time period) - hell, I'm almost out to make my riches in Earwa hunting Schoolmen. Bam! Fan fic idea... though that character gets to die real fast. Lmao.
Anyhow, the scene reeks of something other than Aurang simply being a perverted bird fuck, neh?
Madness do you have the old thread of White Lord asking questions? I remember I had that particular thread on favorites so I could read the answers Bakker gave.
A few questions...[/u] (http://forum.three-seas.com/topics/543)
Lol, I already had this posted in the Introduction thread where aengelas first posted the announcement as the one thread everyone exploring the old forums should read.
Cheers.
Might be that the Mark doesn't reflect the power of the sorcerer as much as how long and much he has been practicing sorcery.
Might be that the Mark doesn't reflect the power of the sorcerer as much as how long and much he has been practicing sorcery.
Not the difference in chorae effects on Akka between TDTCB and TJE. In both books a chorae is held in his face, in TDCTB it just freaks him out but in TJE he starts to salt.
It looks more like Akka's thinking "To get that kind of mark he must have used some nice moves over who knows how many years, he knows his sorcery, I must be careful"That's how I read it too. When he first met Cleric, it isn't completely obvious to him from the start that it's a Nonman, though, so the Mark can't be that different to a human sorcerer's.
At least that's how I read it XD
Kelps, as usual, is more about subtlety. I see the second inutteral as giving him more precision in getting exactly what he wants from the Onta, not necessarily only raw power. If this is so, his Mark could very well be less pronounced than other sorcerers'.
I think damnation points and Mark points are separate. Sorcery isn't the only way to be damned.
ETA: I believe that if you burn 7 tons of stone to cinders using the Fifth Quyan Whatnot, that could result in more Mark but fewer Damnation points than if you burn 3 tons of innocent people with the same Cant.
Interesting. I have always thought that damnation and the mark went hand in hand. At least as far as sorcerers are concerned.I edited my post a little while you wrote your response...
The Mark already blasts him, renders him ugly in the manner of things rent and abraded, as though his inner edges have been pinched and twisted, pinched and twisted, his very substance worried from the fabric of mundane things. But suddenly she sees more, the hue of judgement, as though blessing and condemnation have become a wash visible only in certain kinds of light. It hangs about him, bleeds from him, something palpable ... evil.
No. Not Evil. Damnation.
This is the passage that absolutely makes me think that sorcerery and damnantion are not the same.Quote from: TJE, p155The Mark already blasts him, renders him ugly in the manner of things rent and abraded, as though his inner edges have been pinched and twisted, pinched and twisted, his very substance worried from the fabric of mundane things. But suddenly she sees more, the hue of judgement, as though blessing and condemnation have become a wash visible only in certain kinds of light. It hangs about him, bleeds from him, something palpable ... evil.
No. Not Evil. Damnation.
Mimara looking on Achamian with the Judging Eye.
I think damnation points and Mark points are separate. Sorcery isn't the only way to be damned.
ETA: I believe that if you burn 7 tons of stone to cinders using the Fifth Quyan Whatnot, that could result in more Mark but fewer Damnation points than if you burn 3 tons of innocent people with the same Cant.
ETA2: Since the second option also involves murder of around 30-50 people, and I'm assuming murder gives Damnation point without affecting the Mark.
Fane developed the psukhe completely in the absence of knowledge of how anagogic and gnostic sorcery leverage changes to reality. Note that both of those forms of sorcery use two inutterals, which makes sense as they pin two interpretations of meaning to two frames of perception. By eliminating sight, Fane relied on one frame of perception (i.e. the onta) therefore one inutteral is enough to enforce sorcerous change. As a side effect it eliminates 99% of the dissonance and also the visible Mark.
Using a third inutteral is only mentioned in the context of the cant of translocation, and this seems like an obvious method of referencing two physical places against the metaphysical reality of the sorcerer. I believe its a question of leverage over power and that a third inutteral would serve no purpose in modifying most other cants.
Bakker made a statement somewhere on 3c's (if I remember correctly) that Inrau died damned because of the fact that he used sorcery before attempting to fly.
This question really morphed!
Yes, Inrau IS damned. And this is the basis of his conversion. There's always hope that the scriptures just overlooked some kind of loophole, or that by praying real hard...
Part of the problem is that we see Inrau primarily through Achamian, and if you think about it, Achamian tends not to go into the details of his damnation - or that of any of those he loves. For instance, why doesn't he ever wonder about Inrau's soul? This omission becomes more and more explicit the more implicated Achamian becomes in Kellhus's world. Think of TTT. I wanted this to be the one thing he cannot grasp without the protection of vague intellectual abstraction.
From what I remember, during the scene where Akka teaches Kellhus, he explains that the Anagosis and Gnosis use 1 utteral string and 1 inutteral to better fix the meanings.
When Kellhus asks about adding a second inutteral Akka mentions this as the famed "Third Phase". Which would suggest that it's something kind of possible and not just a one-cant thing or a single incident.
Still, it's true that so far we know only one cant which actually uses a second inutteral! But that could very well be only because we see it in the last Kellhus POV.
Maybe in a future POV we'll see other MG Cants where it's specified that they all use 2 inutterals.
Also regarding the use of 2 inutterals in regular cants, from what I understand the second inutteral added by Kellhus helps him to obtain purer meanings. We know that in sorcery purer meanings usually equals stronger Cants so I recon Kellhus can theoretically turn any regular cant into a meta-gnostic one by adding a second inutteral or something close to this.
Just to clarify, Akka actually tells Kellhus that it's impossible to use a a 2nd inutteral. He then recalls, in his mind, a Mandate/Quya fable that there once was a schoolman/quya (can't remember which) who was said to use 2 inutterals. Though it doesn't really make much difference, since we know that Kellhus would have just "read" the truth from his face anyway.
If the Gnosis is some kind of logic based geometric sorcery:
Consider that within a 3 dimensional plane , you can only define a point with 1 coordinate. i.e (x). This is a 1d "object".
I think this is, more or less, what the anagogic schools use. They are limited to defining 1d sorcerery. If they want to "make" something, they can only specify 1 thing at a time. For example, something's length, or somethings height, but not both. This makes their "meaning"(purity) unclear.
With 2 points, you may define 2 points. (x, y). With this, you can now make your meaning much more clear. You can define something's length and width, or its height and length.
This is where the Gnosis is. The Mandati, and others, use the innuteral to clarify what they want more accuratly.
With an additional innuteral (the Meta-Gnosis) you can more fully describe what you want.
As a crude example: An anagogic schoolman, a gnostic schoolman, and a meta-gnostic schoolman want to summon a red cube that is 10meters long per side.
The anagogic schoolman simply says: Summon cube! He gets a transparent cube thats 1 meter long.
The Gnostic schoolman says: Summon cube, but thinks in his mind Red. He gets a red cube thats 20 meters long.
The meta-gnostic schoolman says: Summon cube, thinks Red and 10meters. He gets a red cube that is 10 meters long.
Sorry for the extraordinarily lame example, but its easier for me to think about than simply "and innuteral makes it more pure, and a 2nd makes it more purer ".
I feel like I'm mostly just rambling now so I'll shutup.
It's hilarious to think about how easily Kellhus must have seen through Akka's attempted deception.
The second inutteral is only used for trans-location, that we have seen. If the meaning was pure, Serwe wouldn't be worried about detection. If anything, uniting three meanings into reality is going to leave a bigger, dirtier stain.
I think the "purity" of the Cishaurim work is a different sort of purity than the "purity of meaning" that I seem to recall is used somewhere to describe some Gnostic and or Quyan cants.
I like the "singing in tune" simile. The Cish are aware of and in tune with creation. Gnosis users don't listen at all, they just sing whatever they want, not giving a damn about even what kind of music is playing.
I like the "singing in tune" simile. The Cish are aware of and in tune with creation. Gnosis users don't listen at all, they just sing whatever they want, not giving a damn about even what kind of music is playing.
"He explained the all-important relation between the two halves of every Cant: the inutterals, whichalways remained unspoken, and the utterals, which always were spoken."
And
"Kellhus nodded, utterly unconcerned. "And this is why the Anagogic Schools have never been able tosteal the Gnosis. Why simply reciting what they hear is useless.""There's the metaphysics to consider as well. But, yes, in all sorcery the inutterals are key."
With three voices he sang, one utteral pitched to the world and two inutterals directed to the ground. What had been an ancient Cant of Calling became something far, far more...A Cant of Transposing.So it's not about refining the purity (although surely that sort of thing is possible), but about creating a new meaning entirely.
That makes me wonder how the different schools use cants of calling. Seems strange that from what we know, all 3 schools need to know who and where the receiver is in order to communicate the dreams. If the anagogic, gnostic, and psuke are so dissimilar, why would they all need this same information?
Kellhus stepped back, focused his eyes on a point the size of a thumbnail held at arm’s length. What was one became many. What was soul became place.
Here.
Calling out from bones of things.
With three voices he sang, one utteral pitched to the world and two inutterals directed to the ground. What had been an ancient Cant of Calling became something far, far more…A Cant of Transposing.
Blue fractal lights mapped the air about him, cocooned him in brilliance. Through scribbling filaments he saw his father press himself upright, turn with his asps to the girded corridor. Anasûrimbor Moënghus … that he could look so pale in the light of his son!
Existence cringed before the whip of his voice. Space cracked. Here was pried into there. Beyond his father he saw Serwë, her blonde hair tied into a war-knot. He saw her leap out of the black …
Even as he toppled into one far greater.
Cants of Calling: ... The degree of similarity between Anagogic and Gnostic Cants of Calling has led many to suspect they hold the key to unraveling the Gnosis.
:)Quote from: TTT Glossary, p528Cants of Calling: ... The degree of similarity between Anagogic and Gnostic Cants of Calling has led many to suspect they hold the key to unraveling the Gnosis.
Cants of Calling: ... Though the metaphysics of these Cants is only loosely understood, all long-distance Cants of Calling seem to turn on the so-called Here Hypothesis. One can call only to slumbering souls (because they remain open to the Outside) and only to those residing somewhere the Caller has been. The idea is that the "Here" of the Caller can only reach a "There," or other location, that has been a "Here" sometime in the past.
Lol.I just think it strange that all the schools are able to do this, and yet the gnosis is so much more powerful. Maybe the anagogic schools "calling" cants are like Skype with slow internet connection, where the gnosis calling is a full HD video feed without lag :). The only thing better than that would be actually being there talking... Oh...Quote from: TTT Glossary, p527Cants of Calling: ... Though the metaphysics of these Cants is only loosely understood, all long-distance Cants of Calling seem to turn on the so-called Here Hypothesis. One can call only to slumbering souls (because they remain open to the Outside) and only to those residing somewhere the Caller has been. The idea is that the "Here" of the Caller can only reach a "There," or other location, that has been a "Here" sometime in the past.
But surely, you know this, Father ;)?
The relative power of the gnosis lies in its abilities to smash anagogic analogies using logic - but this is mainly in the context of war cants. They simply have a better argumentative framework.Makes sense
Psukhe seems to be in between, probably because the cish are always 'open to the outside'.
Malowebi has clearly superior cants of calling using artefacts - he doesn't need location. Mallahet also displayed vastly superior cants of calling (compared to Akka) in TDTCB.I'll give you Malowebi, disagree on Moenghus though.
He simply sent dreams to every person he could think of. It seems reasonable to me that most of the higher ups slept in the same chambers all the time. This explains why Kellhus didn't actually receive the dreams, since he was more of an inniciate and may not have been sleeping somewhere that Moe could have found.
Again the dreams had come.
Vast landscapes, histories, contests of faith and culture, all glimpsed in cataracts of detail. Horses skidding to earth. Fists clenching mud. Dead strewn on the shore of a warm sea. And as always, an ancient city, chalk dry in the sun, rising against dun hills. A holy city . . . Shimeh.
And then the voice, thin as though spoken through the reed throat of a serpent, saying, “Send to me my son.”
The dreamers awoke as one, gasping, struggling to wrest sense from impossibility. Following the protocol established after the first dreams, they found each other in the unlit depths of the Thousand Thousand Halls.
Such desecration, they determined, could no longer be tolerated.
Bakker, R. Scott (2008-09-02). The Darkness that Comes Before (The Prince of Nothing) (pp. 4-5). Penguin Group. Kindle Edition.
...
Them dunyains... suspicious folks -.0
Interesting that the dreams were sent to many recipients simultaneously.
Also the snake-y voice? Perhaps the cish use the sssssnakes for an utteral component :o
Makes me wonder about Moe's comment about facility with scrying. Could he have been observing Kellhus' progress? From campfires and hearths maybe?
Them dunyains... suspicious folks -.0
Interesting that the dreams were sent to many recipients simultaneously.
Also the snake-y voice? Perhaps the cish use the sssssnakes for an utteral component :o
Makes me wonder about Moe's comment about facility with scrying. Could he have been observing Kellhus' progress? From campfires and hearths maybe?
There are a couple of things I'm speculating about here: how and whether souls can interact with the metaphysics of the ground, whether there's a difference between soul and ground at all (perhaps not, considering how Kellhus says soul becomes place when we see the cant of transposing), and whether there's a connection between knowing the ground you want to go to and the probability trance.
No thought.
The boy extinguished. Only a place.
This place.
...
A place without breath or sound. A place of sight alone. A place without before or after... almost.
...
And the place where Kellhus had once existed extended an open hand - the blond hairs like luminous filaments against tanned skin - and grasped the knife from stunned space.
If Moenghus is capable of scrying, how might those skills be enhanced by the probability trance, and how may those enhancements enable him to manipulate Kellhus' journey and domination of the holy war?
Another errant thought is that the snakes may facilitate the third sight. ... I may have to continue this in Storks, Faith, & Holy Animals.
All roads lead to Kellhus.
QuoteAll roads lead to Kellhus.
I think this is basically what the Thousandfold thought is, or at least what it was until Kellhus moved beyond the circumfix.
There do seem to be a lot of connection between the transposition cant and the calling cant, which seems reasonable. It is a good point though that with the scrying cant, both cants are improved. A schoolman could potentially search of the person they want to contact in the physical world before contacting them via dreams. Also, Kellhus could have a current view of exactly where he wants to be by scrying it before he jumps.
“I have come, Emperor, so you might parlay with another.”
Xerius blinked. “Who?”
For a moment, it seemed the Nail of Heaven flashed from the Cishaurim’s brow.
There was a shout from the blackness of the porticoes, and Xerius raised his hands before him.
Cememketri intoned something incomprehensible, dizzyingly so. A globe, composed only of ghostly trails of blue fire, leapt about them.
But nothing had happened. The Cishaurim stood, as motionless as before. The asp’s eyes glowed like amber coals in the firelight.
Then Skeaös gasped, “His face!”
Superimposed like a transparent mask over Mallahet’s skull-like visage was the face of another, a grizzled Kianene warrior who still bore the desert’s mark on his hawkish features. Appraising eyes peered from the Cishaurim’s empty sockets, and a phantom goatee hung from his chin, braided in the manner of a Kianene Grandee.
“Skauras,” Xerius said. He had never seen the man before, but somehow he knew he looked upon the Sapatishah-Governor of Shigek, the heathen scoundrel whom the Southern Columns had fenced with for more than four decades.
The ghostly lips moved, but all Xerius heard was a far-off voice speaking in the lolling rhythms of Kiani. Then the real lips moved beneath, saying, “Excellent guess, Ikurei. You, I know by your coins.”
Bakker, R. Scott (2008-09-02). The Darkness that Comes Before (The Prince of Nothing) (pp. 154-155). Penguin Group. Kindle Edition.
Sorry for the double post
Was it mentioned that the Dunyain could have escentially full conversations without uttering any words, or at least very few, by just looking at each other? I ask because this happens in one of Issac Asimov's books, so I could be getting it confused.
Whatever, if meaning can be obtained through gestures and minture muscle movements, should sorcery confine "utteral" cants to vocalized? We know that the language itself is not important, so why use language at all? I guess the Cish use emotion, which may not be confined by language, but I consider that "inutteral"
Mother fucker. I never realized that Moenghus works sorcery without an utteral component.
He is far beyond Kellhus, methinks.
Don't have my book in front of me, are the Cish ever noted as singing? I wonder if the Psuke is all inutteral to begin with.
I'm also going to suggest Moe left one of his snakes with Skauras for this trick.
Sorry for the double post
Was it mentioned that the Dunyain could have escentially full conversations without uttering any words, or at least very few, by just looking at each other? I ask because this happens in one of Issac Asimov's books, so I could be getting it confused.
Whatever, if meaning can be obtained through gestures and minture muscle movements, should sorcery confine "utteral" cants to vocalized? We know that the language itself is not important, so why use language at all? I guess the Cish use emotion, which may not be confined by language, but I consider that "inutteral"
Inralatus says something to Uncle Holy along the lines of "Isn't it strange how we speak without actually speaking?" to which Maithanet replies "We're speaking now."
Mother fucker. I never realized that Moenghus works sorcery without an utteral component.Note that the snake's eyes flare?
He is far beyond Kellhus, methinks.
Interestingly enough, Mallahet's described as having only one snake with him when dealing with Xerius, but three snakes come to Moenghus after Kellhus stabs him. Even if he left one snake with Skauras and took another with him, what did he do with the third?
And how does Moenghus (or any Cishaurim) experience this connection? Is it like Warging?
If the Dunyain could ever trust one of their own - then maybe two Dunyain could communicate like Cnaiur does with Kellhus a few times through PON (some of my favorite moments in the series).
Makes me wonder about Ishual and how the pragma or any post-training Dunyain would talk to each other. They'd probably have to use more actual speech in the thousand thousand halls due to the general light-prohibition, but otherwise there might not be much said in Ishual at all.
Y'all are blowing my mind on the snakes. But I must offer one bit of walk-back...the line about the asp's eyes lighting up could easily be interpreted as just the reflection of other light....it doesn't necessarily mean that sorcery rung through the snake.
That said...why didn't Moe have his snakes with him? I don't know why I haven't pondered this, but all of the sudden it stands out as a potentially huge moment. Moe has been waiting for Kellhus for decades and his snakes just weren't up for it????? Bizarre. Is that an authorial mistake, or is there something to be gleaned from this?
But my weigh in on Moenghus not having the snakes (sweet sejenus, when did we stop talking about sorcery ;)) is that he knew everything that was going to happen before it happened.
I always thought in TTT, Moe's snakes were around the chamber giving him effective 360deg vision. Trying to compensate tactically as 'twere.
That could have been Moe's pit of obscenities, and when Kellhus attempted to translocate, Moenghus used the snakes to observe and counter his spell by anchoring Kell from three points, instead Moe toppled Kell into the darkness of a carapace. Moe then took Kellhus' place.If he turns it on then all the sranc will come running to shimeh. The Great Ordeal will be confused when they meet no resistance all the way too Golgoterath and then find it empty.
In other words. Moe's got a no-god prototype, filled with a kellhus, sitting at the bottom of kyudea, he's just waiting to turn it on.
Moe does have his snakes. They come slithering from their hiding places when Cnaiur attends him.
No other Cish uses either Skype or BFoLF in the entire series that we are aware of, neh?
I'd like to point out that Kellhus didn't use any sorcery when he fought the thing.
Moved our Chorae specific (http://second-apocalypse.com/index.php?topic=1005.15) back and forth, Wilshire.>:(
Don't hate ;).
I'd put Quya above Serwa and Saccarees. Regardless of the metagnosis, Quya have been singing for centuries, and we've seen the toll metagnosis takes on Serwa, and Cet'ingira sang for days taking down the Barricades.
I think the true power of the metagnosis is in the sheer variety of potential cants made possible by a second inutteral.
Also understand that I have probably never felt like more of a geek in my life as I do making this post. :)
This word comes from English dialect geek or geck (meaning a "fool" or "freak"; from Middle Low German Geck). This root survives in the Dutch and Afrikaans adjective gek ("crazy"), as well as some German dialects, and in the Alsatian word Gickeleshut ("jester's hat"; used during carnival). In 18th century Austria-Hungary, Gecken were freaks on display in some circuses. In 19th century North America, the term geek referred to a performer in a geek show in a circus or travelling carnival side-shows (see also freak show). The 1976 edition of the American Heritage Dictionary included only the definition regarding geek shows. Wrestler Freddie Blassie originated the term "pencil necked geek".
The Scandinavian cognates of the term carry a slightly different meaning of "making a fool out of someone else". This is evident in the transitive verb gäcka in Swedish and the phrase drive gæk med in Danish, both of which mean "to outsmart" or "to fool", as in the Swedish expression att gäcka rättvisan ("to cunningly escape justice"). In Denmark, the Easter tradition of sending anonymous paper-cut letters called gækkebreve is intended to puzzle or tease the recipient.
Perhaps we could summarize the two alternatives thusly?
A) The modes of sight are different perspectives on the same metaphysical spectrum.
B) The modes of sight are looking at three different metaphysical dimensions.
On the topic of power-levels, one thing I've wondered is how any human sorceror could possibly rival a Nonman. I mean Titirga's described as being middle-aged, but even if we stretch it past credibility and say he's a hundred, the Nonmen are still thousands upon thousands of years older. Are we just to assume that sorcerous strength and age aren't all that related, or is there something special about humans? Even if we consider Titirga a unique case, there are still guys like Seswatha, or Shae, who were powerful as fuck.
Humans seem to be able to make some semantic leaps that the Nonmen cannot?
There are still sorcerous revelations to come, unfortunately for those of us speculating at this point. Bakker can still drop game-changing history or revelations on us. I happen to think that the Consult and Ishterebinthian Quya will still surprise us with their sorcerous innovation.
In a way you have to give Bakker credit for that kind of restraint. Writing a big epic fantasy series and keeping so much of that brimming at the edges but never flowing over.
But you're right. What might Ishterebinth be like? What has the last remaining Nonman mansion even been up to? If there are Intact, what could they have been working on?
I have a prediction though...I suspect anything is possible culturally or administratively, but I suspect that they have not advanced sorcery much. I bet you any advancements come from Kellhus. I'd be happy to be wrong though.
Witches and trees. Whats with all the trees!
lol Somna. In the prologue of TDTCB there is mention of a tree at nearly every major scene. Living trees, dead trees, fighting like a tree, branches that mesmerize. Trees upon trees from the very beginning.Connect this thought to Akka's description of the onta, and we have a plausible explanation for just why Kellhus was so overwhelmed by wild nature (rather than carefully controlled and directed nature)
I like that. It could very well be that his "inner eye" opened as he stumbled through the wilderness. That would help justify why he is so miserably stupid for the first few pages. He literally just starts walking south, with no map, no idea how far he is going to go, and without any idea how to hunt/fish/forage or otherwise survive. Its literally one of the dumbest things done in the entire series.lol Somna. In the prologue of TDTCB there is mention of a tree at nearly every major scene. Living trees, dead trees, fighting like a tree, branches that mesmerize. Trees upon trees from the very beginning.Connect this thought to Akka's description of the onta, and we have a plausible explanation for just why Kellhus was so overwhelmed by wild nature (rather than carefully controlled and directed nature)
The Aporos possesses a contradictory, or negative, semantics, and as such is able only to undo the positive semantics of things like the Gnosis, Psukhe, Anagogis - even the DaimosI can't help but wonder if there are as many kinds of negative sematic sorceries as their are positives…
ON THE APOROS
ON SALTING
Would be neat to learn if there is any difference in kind. Is anagogic salt different from gnostic salt? Is a salted sorcerer of rank better/worse than a pupil? Is it like qirri in that way?
ON VARIETIES OF MAGIC
The succesion in humans of gnostic magic to anagogic to daimotic to psukhe gives the reader the most evidence of variety in sorcery. But the only thing we know about the nonmen is that they had a version of the gnosis and the aporos and we really don't know much different for the Consult. Both groups could have been developing lord knows what in the interval. Psukhe is only 300 years old. What could a 10,000 year old do? Perhaps we'll see some new kinds of sorcery in Ishterebinth. Even just like an elevated form of nonman anagogis would be sweet.
ON TRANSPOSING
If Serwa is lying about warping bruising the onta, then we might be in for a TUC treat that Kellhus has *already* been to Golgotterath! Maybe she's telling the truth though, in which case a meta-psukhari could have already mapped out the Ark. Left some meta-psukhari-wathi dolls to do saboteur's work.
ON LANGUAGE AND SORCERY
Really hoping Kellhus or someone is able to do some bad ass stuff utilizing the original, forgotten nonman language. Also, what do you get if you sing in a tongue like the srancs'? Also, since the Anagogis uses a nonman language, does this imply some kind of nonman tutelage that is unrecorded?
ON UTTERALS
I get the feeling that these are unnecessary to people like Kellhus/Moenghus. Kellhus probably keeps using them to give others the impression that if he doesn't have his mouth open, he isn't casting.
ON RANKING SORCERERS
Maybe Shae is #1? If that guy is 10 fused souls and mouths, that's a shitload of utterals and inutterals. I assume Kellhus has thought about this, don't know what a person could do to combat it. Perhaps Kellhus will apply (has already?) the same principle and fuse some stuff on himself to up the anty. Maybe like a crown containing many sorcerous souls? Maybe he'll just possess a hundred or so of his sorcerers and be effectively a bigger Shae than Shae.
ON SHAMANS
Did the Inchoroi do something to humans to extinguish the position of shaman? If shaman's did magic and were not damned for it, then the perhaps the Inchoroi did something to the human soul/world soul/whatever that made doing magic a crime against nature. The upshot (for the Inchoroi) is that less people would go into sorcery and the faithful would fight sorcerers thus minimizing the number of human sorcerers that the Inchoroi would have to deal with. Lol, idk.
Maybe interaction with the nonmen 'poisoned' human ability to manipulate the onta. Something not rectified until Fane. The nonmen are so dark and don't think they'd give a fuck about teaching humans how damn themselves.
Or, for instance, if Kellhus made his own sorcerous tongue? This has definitely been suggested elsewhere ;).
They proved they could kill the grandmaster in his house, what more was there left to do?
In terms of your brain function, is there a significant difference between being blinded (i.e having no eyes a al Cishaurim) and being blindfolded (temporarily removing light stimuli to your eyes)?
SS filled their compound with attack dogs trained to sniff any Cishaurim. Saffron I believe was the scent. They probably where deterred... Besides, they took out the grandmaster, so the SS was sufficiently scared into inaction. To the Cish, the war was over, at least intellectually. They proved they could kill the grandmaster in his house, what more was there left to do?
SS filled their compound with attack dogs trained to sniff any Cishaurim. Saffron I believe was the scent. They probably where deterred... Besides, they took out the grandmaster, so the SS was sufficiently scared into inaction. To the Cish, the war was over, at least intellectually. They proved they could kill the grandmaster in his house, what more was there left to do?
But I thought the Cish and SS were engaged in a decade long war?
In terms of your brain function, is there a significant difference between being blinded (i.e having no eyes a al Cishaurim) and being blindfolded (temporarily removing light stimuli to your eyes)?
Among some other distinctions, yeah. How you are blinded matters quite a bit too (neural connections between major visual structures can fail because of different afflictions, disease, stroke, injury, the neural tissue of the structures themselves might deteriorate, eyeballs removed, which might do damage neurally as well or not at all - in the not at all case, that neural tissue might adapt itself to processing something else, either depending on the function of tissue around it or sometimes mirroring the function of the opposite hemisphere - etc, ec. Something like 30% of your brain matter "processes" vision.)
What about the Inchoroi's sorcery? Wonder if they will field their own Ciphrang against the Great Ordeal.
"rears were the only holy waters"
The cish don't cry when the sing do they?
"tears were the only holy waters"
The cish don't cry when the sing do they?
Not really. Like I said, I don't really believe that, but I suppose its a possibility. In the further interaction with Kel, there is no mention of blood. I'm inclined to think the latter (the bloody-socketed person was a decoy). I was only suggesting that his blinding may have been more recent than he was letting on (but again I don't really think that was the case).
Cememketri claimed the only thing keeping Mallahet from becoming Heresiarch is a law prohibiting non-Kianene from taking the title. I don't remember but I thought it was the Scarlet Spires who underestimated the Cishuarim, as the Saik did not follow them into Fanim land until coming to the aid of Conphas in TTT. I feel like the contrast between how well the Nansur understand the Fanim, compared to the routine ignorance of the rest of the Great Factions, might be at play here, with Bakker telling us Cememketri's estimation would have merit to it. He also expressed that Mallahet was capable of killing everyone at the parley, too.
MOENGHUS IS DUNYAIN---WOULD DEFINITELY BE CONTROLLING THE PERCEPTIONS OF EVERYONE IN THE THREE SEAS!!!This post needs more alcohol, it always helps my moe nerdanels.
I always got the feeling that much of the information that anyone has, Said or otherwise, is misdirection, especially surrounding Mallahet.
At what point, and from who's POV, do we learn of the Primaries? Moe is not one of the 5 Primary, the most powerful of the Cish, yey also considered the second most powerful? That doesn't match up at all. I don't think the Saik are much more informed than the SS, and Mallahet's alleged power is just that, alleged. There is no proof, and the only thing we seem him cast is Skype, which doesn't impress me. A cute parlor trick to scare the idiot Emperor and Saik, but little more.
...unless moe and company physically walked into the fortress and the door was just for effects/misdirection??? they were let in by Iyokus, scarlet traitor!!!
I like how mg's style of speculation is primarily taking one thing from the story and putting it with another thing.It sometimes yields interesting results. Probably fueled a bit by Madness suggesting that there are unconsidered combinations the community has yet to puzzle out.
Quote from: WilshirePersonally I find either of the two above explanations unhelpful.
For lockesnow's, that doesn't answer the question at all. Just because it exists in your mind doesn't mean it is manifest. The manifestation of a point that occupies no space wouldn't interact with the world. Even things like "point particles" in physics, a basic concept used to describe introductory physics, is just a theoretical/mathematical construct. It doesn't really exist, but it makes things a whole lot simpler.
Or a dirac delta, a curve with infinite height and an integral value = 1, is a close approximation of something like the "point that occupies no space" but again its a mathematical construct to simplify problems such that they can be solved without unnecessarily difficult math. Though useful and fair at approximating behaviors of certain ideal systems, such a thing isn't real. There is no such thing as a perfect valve.
Actually, that is a really good example of what the above mentioned "point" would end up looking like. The tool would be infinitely long and come to an infinitely sharp point that took up no space at the tip. But as infinity is a rather difficult place to get to, a tool made like that would be decidedly unwieldy :P
And Meyna's, I guess I just don't believe that Shae solved string theory and was applying it. Rape aliens and immortality and magic yes, solved string theory... nah.
Pretty much by definition, it doesn't exist if it doesn't occupy a point in space. Not to be confused with not having mass, or volume, like sound and light, and neutrinos can't be "captured" since they just float through shit whenever they want. Those things still occupy a point in space.
Though, another thought just came to me, Shae's key to the glamor could have been akin to some extremely focused beam of magic or some such idea. Like a laser, but with magic. The glamor is magical, so it would make sense if something magical broke it. Could have been more like finding its resonance frequency and emitting a "magic wave" that just amplified it and... boom, almighty glamor shakes itself apart.......
The Gnosis would wipe the floor with Voldemort or Dumbledore though.