Zaudunyanicon Q&A

  • 39 Replies
  • 14292 Views

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Wilshire

  • *
  • Administrator
  • Old Name
  • *****
  • Enshoiya
  • Posts: 5935
  • One of the other conditions of possibility
    • View Profile
« Reply #30 on: August 17, 2017, 03:55:57 pm »
I think the parallels we see in the text are worth just as much as whatever the author intended to put there.

That's what I was driving at really. Which is why I separate the two, because I get lost in "but what if that wasn't the intent", rather than enjoying the connection.
One of the other conditions of possibility.

Khaine

  • *
  • Suthenti
  • *
  • Posts: 33
    • View Profile
« Reply #31 on: August 18, 2017, 06:28:30 am »
Umberto Eco in the postscript to the Name of the Rose wrote that once a book is written the author shouldn't comment on it so that he / she wouldn't get in the way of interpretations.

I wonder what Bakker thinks about this view, which in a way saves us from this obsession of what the author really meant here or there. Any work of fiction is merely a tool which generates different interpretations.

Knowing was the foundation of ignorance. To think that one *knew* was to become utterly blind to the unknown.

R. Scott Baker, The White Luck Warrior, chapter 12.

ἕν οἶδα, ὅτι οὐδέν οἶδα

Cynical Cat

  • *
  • Kijneta
  • ***
  • Posts: 227
    • View Profile
« Reply #32 on: August 18, 2017, 11:59:15 am »

It can't be a real influence if Bakker wasn't aware of whatever that thing is, but that doesn't mean one can't make the argument that there are similarities and parallels even though Bakker didn't put them there intentionally.

Not to say he is or isn't a 40k guy or any of the rest, I don't know, but whether the parallels are there and whether or not Bakker intended them to be are entirely separate questions in my mind. I often struggle when I don't separate those two ideas.

Warhammer, in all its incarnations, steals liberally from a variety of sources ranging from Dune's Navigators to Sumerian gods.  The broad base of source material means Warhammer has similarities with a wide array of works, especially those who tap into the same source material.

Wilshire

  • *
  • Administrator
  • Old Name
  • *****
  • Enshoiya
  • Posts: 5935
  • One of the other conditions of possibility
    • View Profile
« Reply #33 on: August 18, 2017, 01:28:49 pm »

It can't be a real influence if Bakker wasn't aware of whatever that thing is, but that doesn't mean one can't make the argument that there are similarities and parallels even though Bakker didn't put them there intentionally.

Not to say he is or isn't a 40k guy or any of the rest, I don't know, but whether the parallels are there and whether or not Bakker intended them to be are entirely separate questions in my mind. I often struggle when I don't separate those two ideas.

Warhammer, in all its incarnations, steals liberally from a variety of sources ranging from Dune's Navigators to Sumerian gods.  The broad base of source material means Warhammer has similarities with a wide array of works, especially those who tap into the same source material.

Makes plenty of sense. I should look into it some time.
One of the other conditions of possibility.

Duskweaver

  • *
  • Kijneta
  • ***
  • Posts: 192
    • View Profile
« Reply #34 on: August 18, 2017, 03:53:34 pm »
It can't be a real influence if Bakker wasn't aware of whatever that thing is, but that doesn't mean one can't make the argument that there are similarities and parallels even though Bakker didn't put them there intentionally.
I would argue that we are all influenced by lots of things we're not consciously aware of.

An example. A friend of mine, who likes to play elves (or the equivalent) in fantasy RPGs, always gives his characters names that sound sort of vaguely Akkadian. Now, he doesn't do this deliberately. He just thinks those sorts of names sound right for elves somehow. The reason he thinks this is because, years and years ago (in 2002), I started giving all my elf NPCs Akkadian names whenever I GMed an RPG that had elf NPCs in it. And the reason I did that in 2002 is because I heard Therion's The Siren of the Woods for the first time and really liked it (it literally completely changed my taste in music). And that song is sung in Akkadian. My friend hasn't ever listened to that song as far as I know. And yet, when he fires up TES: Skyrim and picks a name for his Altmer character, he is being influenced, indirectly, by that Therion song that he's (probably) never heard.

But yeah, I agree that there are similarities and parallels that the author didn't consciously intend. And that we should consider those separately from deliberate homages.
"Then I looked, and behold, a Whirlwind came out of the North..." - Ezekiel 1:4

"Two things that brand one a coward: using violence when it is not necessary; and shrinking from it when it is."

TLEILAXU

  • *
  • Old Name
  • *****
  • Exalt-Smiter of Theories
  • Posts: 731
    • View Profile
« Reply #35 on: August 18, 2017, 04:58:45 pm »
The most striking influences are clearly Dune and Tolkien. Like, sometimes I cringe a bit when I think how similar Dûnyain sounds to Dúnedain. Couldn't you have been slightly more inventive here Bakker  8)? Thematically, the Dûnyain are the Bene Gesserit (focus on reading emotions and physical prowess, selective breeding for the Kwisatz Haderach/Absolute)+ a bit of Tleilaxu (all male, having turned their females into Axolotl tanks/Whale Mothers). I originally started reading Bakker because I was aching for more Dune (I tried reading a bit of the 7th novel written by his hack son, but it was literally unbearably bad) and Bakker seemed to have deliciously "ripped off" some of my favorite elements from Dune. In time I come to love Bakker's series for what it is though. I've never been a huge Sword and Sorcery guy, but I was totally amazed reading about the Battle of Kiyuth, seeing sorcery being described so beautifully and destructive.

Wilshire

  • *
  • Administrator
  • Old Name
  • *****
  • Enshoiya
  • Posts: 5935
  • One of the other conditions of possibility
    • View Profile
« Reply #36 on: August 18, 2017, 05:47:06 pm »
It can't be a real influence if Bakker wasn't aware of whatever that thing is, but that doesn't mean one can't make the argument that there are similarities and parallels even though Bakker didn't put them there intentionally.
I would argue that we are all influenced by lots of things we're not consciously aware of.


Ah. By "wasn't aware of" I meant things he hadn't seen. ie if I don't know anything about Warhammer and haven't read or seen anything about it, its not an influencer of mine.
Of course, this isn't explicitly the case, we are influenced by things that influence us (clearly), and indirectly by the things that influenced those things, and on and on forever.

But yeah, I agree that there are similarities and parallels that the author didn't consciously intend. And that we should consider those separately from deliberate homages.
Right. This was my intent.

One of the other conditions of possibility.

TheCulminatingApe

  • *
  • Kijneta
  • ***
  • Posts: 274
    • View Profile
« Reply #37 on: August 18, 2017, 07:26:59 pm »
Like, sometimes I cringe a bit when I think how similar Dûnyain sounds to Dúnedain. Couldn't you have been slightly more inventive here Bakker  8)

I always thought the similarity was deliberate, to fit with the idea that Kellhus is a kind of inversion of Aragorn.  Heir of an ancient line of long-vanished northern kings, raised in a hidden valley, may well have non-human ancestry, physically and mentally greater than other men, ruler of a reunited kingdom (or new empire), the returning king who was prophesied, etc...
Sez who?
Seswatha, that's who.

solipsisticurge

  • *
  • Momurai
  • **
  • Posts: 79
  • There is a head on a pole behind him.
    • View Profile
« Reply #38 on: August 19, 2017, 01:20:30 am »
The Dune-yain is how I've always pronounced it internally.

And tleilaxu, the probability trance and hyperintellect are pure Mentat, so you have to throw them in the mix, as well.
Kings never lie. They demand the world be mistaken.

Madness

  • *
  • Administrator
  • Old Name
  • *****
  • Conversational Batman
  • Posts: 5275
  • Strength on the Journey - Journey Well
    • View Profile
    • The Second Apocalypse
« Reply #39 on: August 19, 2017, 04:20:46 pm »
There are a number of "obvious" parallels that we readers bring to the Amiolas that Bakker didn't intend. His choice antecedents are far more limited than ours, apparently. But that makes the comparisons no less apt or insightful, as far as my reading goes.
The Existential Scream
Weaponizing the Warrior Pose - Declare War Inwardly
carnificibus: multus sanguis fluit
Die Better
The Theory-Killer