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76
The Great Ordeal / [TGO Spoilers] Prophecy as viramsata
« on: October 29, 2015, 02:12:56 pm »
So, from the earliest days of reading TTT, something has always sort of bothered me:

Quote
“But on the Plains of Mengedda,” he said. “The Shrial Knights … What I prophesied came to pass.” To the worldborn these words would have sounded blank, devoid of concern or occasion. But to a Dûnyain …

Let him think I waver.

“A fortuitous Correspondence of Cause,” Moënghus replied, “nothing more. That which comes before yet determines that which comes after. How else could you have achieved all that you have achieved? How else could you be possible?”

He was right. Prophecy could not be. If the ends of things governed their beginnings, if what came after determined what came before, then how could he have mastered the souls of so many? And how could the Thousandfold Thought come to rule the Three Seas? The Principle of Before and After simply had to be true, if its presumption could so empower …
His father had to be right.

So what was this certainty, this immovable conviction, that he was wrong?

Am I mad?

This never made any sense to me.  Moe is certainly misleading him here.  He knows that Prophecy is real, because he'll later tell Kellhus how this is so:

Quote
“Have you heard of a game played in southern Nilnamesh, a game called viramsata, or ‘many-breaths’?”
“No.”
“Across the plains surrounding the city of Invishi, the ruling caste-nobles are very remote, very effete. The narcotics they cultivate assure them of the obedience of their populations. Over the centuries they have elaborated jnan to the point where it has eclipsed their old faiths. Entire lives are spent in what we would call gossip. But viramsata is far different from the rumours of the court or the clucking of harem-eunuchs—far more. The players of viramsata have made games of truth. They tell lies about who said what to whom, about who makes love to whomever, and so on. They do this continually, and what is more, they are at pains to act out the lies told by others, especially when they are elegant, so they might make them true. And so it goes from tongue to lip to tongue, until no distinction remains between what is a lie and what is true.

Prophecy is real.  It doesn't violate the principle of Before and After.  It's simply a story, crafted to put this who hear it at pains to exact it.  Kellhus realizes this, because he will later do exactly this, craft a story to have people do exactly what he wants.

The Celmomian Prophecy was what started it all.  The Celmomian Prophecy is a lie, it is simply Seswatha's way of casting his will into the future.  The question is, does Kellhus realize this?  I think the answer is that he thinks he does.  He thinks he has out thought Seswatha though.  Remember, Moe tells him, point blank, "nothing violates the Principle of Before and After."  Kellhus thinks he knows all the before of Seswatha.  He can't, because almost everything he/we know of Seswatha is a lie or misdirection.  Kellhus can't truly precede "what comes before" simply because he can't/doesn't know what it really was.  He imagines he does, but I don't think he truly does.

My crack-pot theory is on record that while Kellhus thinks he walks the trackless steppe, Seswatha has really preceded him at basically every turn.

77
General Earwa / Skin-Spies (Nature of Tekné Soulles Things)
« on: August 05, 2015, 08:21:00 pm »
So, I found this part again:

Quote
Occasionally, Cnaiür spoke to them, learned something of their lean ways. They called themselves the Last Children of the Inchoroi, though they were loath to speak of their “Old Fathers.” They claimed to be Keepers of the Inverse Fire, though the merest question regarding either their “keeping” or their “fire” pitched them into confusion. They never complained, save to say they hungered for unspeakable congress, or to insist they were falling—always falling. They declared he could trust them, because their Old Father had made them his slaves. They were, they said, dogs that would sooner starve than snap meat from a stranger’s hand.
They carried, Cnaiür could see, the spark of the void within them. Like the Sranc.

So, "Last Children of the Inchoroi" seems to mean that they are the last, or possibly meaning the latest, creation of the Tekne.  We know that "Old Father" refers the Consult.

What I think is interesting is the idea that they are "Keepers of the Inverse Fire."  Now, at first, reading that as Tenders of the Inverse Fire yields us nothing, only more questions.  What I thought up, after ruminating on what we learn in False Sun and what Wutteät says about himself:

Quote
"IT IS MY CURSE TO BREATHE, SO LONG AS THE WORLD LIVES."
...
"He dies from the outside," Cleric said, "because Hell sustains him from within."
"CUNNING..." the Wracu groaned out from the black. "CUNNING-CUNNING ISHROI!"

It is my theory that skin-spies, are Keepers, in the sense that they keep the Inverse Fire within themselves.  In other words, the Inverse Fire is their substitute souls, that which animates them.  Sranc and Bashrag are probably the same as well.  This is why they can't even fathom what the Inverse Fire is either, how well can anyone describe their soul?

Last, is what is this part saying they only complain "to insist they were falling—always falling" actually telling us?  Something about the nature of the Inverse Fire perhaps?

78
General Earwa / On the Nature of the No-God
« on: July 27, 2015, 12:26:32 pm »
[I've searched a few times, but I can't find a thread for just discussion of the No-God, but if I'm wrong, someone correct me.]

The No-God has always been my second favorite character in the series, so I do have some off-the-wall theories about it's nature.

Mog-Pharau—"No-God"
Mursiris—“Wicked North”
Tsuramah—“Hated One”
Lokung—The “Dead-God” of the Scylvendi.
Cara-Sincurimoi—"The Angel of Endless Hunger"

These are the names of the No-God that we know of.  I think the most interesting of them all is the Ihrimsû name of, Cara-Sincurimoi, "The Angel of Endless Hunger."  The name seems to imply two things, first, that the No-God hungers, but also that it is an Angel that hungers.  What might such a thing hunger for.  Surely, considering the nature of what we know of the Carapace, the No-God eats no corporeal food.  What I would hypothesize is that the No-God hungers for is souls.

It has been my personal crack-pot that the No-God is not evil, because the No-God has no agency.  It doesn't know what it is doing.  To square these two points though, my summation would be that it is no more an animal (in fact, maybe less), fueled by a hunger, blind to the implications of it's action, it kills to eat, but it is simply a device, nefarious only because it's creators made it so.

Also, I would like to lob out the following Nerdanel, that perhaps the No-God was born of collective renunciation.  In other words, if we suppose that Fane could 'birth' the Solitary God out of faith, perhaps the No-God is 'born' of apostasy?

Sound off on how bad my ideas are.

79
Philosophy & Science / Bakker's Blind Brain Theory
« on: July 15, 2015, 03:18:07 pm »
Quote from: TPB
In the old proverb of the three blind Indian gurus and the elephant, one grabs the tail and says the elephant is a rope, the other grabs a leg and says the elephant is a tree, while the third grabs the trunk and says the elephant is a snake. In each case, the gurus mistake the part for a whole. This is the Blind Brain Thesis (which I simultaneously can’t stop arguing and can’t bring myself to believe): the thalamocortical system is the guru and the greater brain is the elephant. Intentional concepts such as belief, desire, good, perception, volition, action–all the furniture of conscious life–are simply ropes and trees and snakes. Misapprehensions. According to BBT, there are literally no such things.

The reason they function is simply that they are systematically related to the elephant, who does the brunt of the work. They have to count as ‘insight’ or ‘understanding’ simply because they are literally the only game in town.

Quote from: TPB
Enter what I call Encapsulation, the strange mereological inflation that characterizes consciousness. Mistaking parts for wholes, I want to argue, is constitutive of experience. Dennett wants to say we are actually experiencing the elephant. But as a matter of empirical fact, the thalamocortical system only has access to a fraction of the information processed by the brain, a fraction it cannot but mistake for wholes. We are experiencing elephant parts as opposed to the elephant, and we’re experiencing them as wholes, something they are not.

Quote from: TPB
As magicians well know, the brain makes default identity mistakes all the time: In “The Mark of Gideon,” Captain Kirk unknowingly beams into a perfect replica of the Enterprise, and so assumes that the transporter has malfunctioned and that his entire crew has been abducted. His inability to discriminate between the real Enterprise and the replica leads to their thoughtless conflation. The BBT suggests that experience seems to unfold across a substrate of self-identity simply because its margins, those points where the absence of information are expressed, must always remain the same.

By marking the limit of differentiation they endow us with the illusion of a soul.

Quote from: TPB
We are the elephant in such a way that we are a rope, tree, and snake. Anything but an elephant.

I think it's odd we don't have a thread about Bakker's BBT.  It definitely has influenced his fiction, so here's a thread for us to maybe try to piece together some of it.

80
General Earwa / Matthew 16.26 & The Mandate Catechisms
« on: May 03, 2015, 11:23:12 pm »
"Though you lose your soul, you shall gain the World." is the first of the Mandate Catechisms.  (In tDtCB and WP, the same catechism is phrased as "Though you lose your soul, you shall win the world.)

Matthew 16.26 from the Bible is:

King James version: "For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?"

I cannot imagine this is a coincidence.  Thoughts on the parallels here?

81
The White-Luck Warrior / Iëva [TUC Spoilers]
« on: May 01, 2015, 02:31:01 pm »
Quote
         “My wife,” he groaned, testing the mettle of his chains for the first time. “Iëva!”

         “Has committed...” one of the ancient mouths warbled.

         “Such crimes...”

         “What was her price...” he coughed. “Tell me!”   

         “She sheeks only...” the bloody one bubbled.

         “To save her soul...”

This is a quote from Chapter 1 of TUC.  Indeed, it had me thinking of why did Iëva betray?  After reading that part, I thought she traded Nau-Cayûti for "salvation" but then I stumbled back upon one of Akka's dreams:

Quote
Through closed eyes he watched her, Ieva, his wife of seven years, scurry naked to the cabinet across their spare room and produce a philtre, which she considered with an expression hung between terror and gloating. She turned to him, her face thin and cruel.
"How she will weep," she growled, "the filthy whore... And I will see it, and savour it, the breaking of her heart when she learns her beloved Prince has died in his wife's arms!"
He tried to call out as she leaned above him, holding the black tube with medicinal care. But he was sleeping and could not move.
"But you will not die, my heroic husband. Oh no! For I will fall upon your corpse, and I will wail-wail-wail, claiming to the Bull Heavens that you demanded to be buried rather than burned—like a Nonman!"
He tried to spit the foul liquid she poured between his teeth. He tried to reach up and out, seize her pale neck...
"Oh my husband!" she cried in a whisper. "My dear-dear husband! How could you not see the grudge I hold against thee? But you will know it, soon enough. When you are delivered, when you are beaten and broken—then you will know the compass of my spite!"

She doesn't seem very concerned with her soul here.  She seems very concerned with someone else, so I went back and dug up this:
Quote
Then, in 2140, Nau-Cayûti’s beloved concubine, Aulisi, was abducted by Sranc marauders and taken to Golgotterath. According to The Sagas, Seswatha was able to convince the Prince (who was once his student) that she could be rescued from the Incû-Holoinas, and the two of them embarked on an expedition that is almost certainly apocryphal. Mandate commentators dispute the account found in The Sagas, where they successfully return with both Aulisi and the Heron Spear, claiming that Aulisi was never found. Whatever happened, at least two things are certain: the Heron Spear was in fact recovered, and Nau-Cayûti died shortly after (apparently poisoned by his first wife, Iëva).

So, the Mandate are almost certainly lying.  Aulisi did come back and seemingly, it drove Iëva to murder Nau-Cayûti.  Or did Aulisi directly drive Iëva to it?  Perhaps she was made into a sleeper agent?  Is that perhaps why the Mandate pretend she was never brought back from the Ark?

Also, it is clearly premeditated that she would deliver him to the Consult, by not allowing him to be burned, so there must be more than just vengeance toward Aulisi and Nau.  Perhaps the Consult offered her shelter from the damnation that would surely come from exacting such vengeance.

[crackpot]Lastly, possibly purely coincidental, but Aulisi's name is nearly an anagram of Aisralu from Four Revelations.  Interestingly enough, changing a U to an I.  Possibly a connection that Aulisi is part non-Man?  Is this why Iëva seems to angrily put "like a Nonman!" into her admonishment of Nau?[/crackpot]

Sound off and let me know how far off I am.

82
General Earwa / Your favorite character?
« on: April 23, 2015, 08:05:55 pm »
Apologies if this thread is a double, but I didn't turn up any results in a search.

Who is your favorite character and why?

I'll start; initially I was a big Kellhus fan, until (I think) the point at which we met the No-God.  At that point, I realized that we were probably being set up and I soured on Kellhus.

At about the same point that we learned about the Consult, my favorite character became Aurang.  He is a flat out terrible thing, yet his audacity is so great, I can't help but like him.  Plus, he's got some incredibly bad ass nick-names too.

83
General Earwa / The Womb-Plague (A new theory, perhaps?)
« on: March 13, 2015, 11:13:52 am »
So, I was trying to do a little research on the Inverse Fire, trying to discover if there is evidence that anyone had seen it and not been converted, when I stumbled upon an "answer" (or at least, something of a satisfactory explanation for myself) to something that has always bothered me: the Womb-Plague.  I present what might be a new theory.

At first blush, it made no sense.  What kind of garbage weapon makes your enemy immortal?  Sure, it extinguished future generations of Nonmen, but if you could kill all the women, why not kill all the men too and be done with it?  I tried to explain it to myself that perhaps the Tekne was incompletely known or was unable to be wielded effectively, but both of those came to me as hollow explanations.

A while back, I took to think of why they would want to keep them alive for so long.  Was it just to torture them?  That didn't make much sense though either, since they could have had more victims if they let them continue to procreate.  Something was missing but I didn't have the time to find it.

In researching the Inverse Fire, I wanted to see who had seen (or most probably seen it) and what happened to them.  I believe I might have found a much more convincing explaination of the Womb-Plague instead.  Ready for it?  It was not a weapon at all, it was an enlistment.  Even more to the point, it was given to remake the Nonmen in the Inchoroi's image.

Follow me through here: as the Inchoroi wait in the Ark during the Second Watch, in the company of the traitor Nonman king Nin’janjin, I believe they realize two things.  One, that the Inverse Fire can effect Nonmen (and men as well) and two, that the Nonmen are not all that unlike themselves.  Realizing that it would be easier to fight their damnation collectively, the Inchoroi decide to set the Nonmen on the same path they took themselves, in the hopes that the Nonmen would turn willingly to the Inverse Fire and in the interest of their own salvation, help bring about the sealing of the world from the Outside.

The fact that all the women are killed in this plan is very salient here, since it cuts off any idea of "carrying on" through progeny.  The eternal life granted leaves them to work as long as they need to avoid damnation, faced with no other real option for self-preservation.

Certainly seems logical, how much easier would it be to reduce the world to 144,000 souls if your forces working toward that end are about that number or more?

I don't know if this is "right" in the strict sense, but I know it makes a lot more sense to me this way then the idea that the Womb-Plague was a failed weapon.  Failed enlistment tool, yes, definitely.

Hopefully this makes sense outside my head though...

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