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The Unholy Consult / Re: Who actually liked TUC?
« on: August 23, 2017, 07:38:29 am »
I was quite upset and depressed the evening I finished the book, but I felt better about it later on, like so many here.
It took me a while to understand my reaction. But it had mostly to do with Kellhus' failure:
We know Bakker set out to subvert fantasy genre and introduce the concepts from Evolutionary Psychology & Neuroscience (i.e. Blind Brain Theory, Semantic Apocalypse) to a wider audience. Those who read his books were in on the secret! Kellhus wasn't the traditional fantasy hero come to save the world, he was a fraud - a way to introduce, play up and take advantage of people's blindness to their own mental processes. We knew what was going on. It was all those other people, both in books and in the real world, ignorant of what Kellhus was doing/scientific developments on the subject. Oh those gulls and fools! Wasn't it wonderful to watch Kellhus manipulate and control everything through the first trilogy? Anticipate and conquer every single turn of events as PoN progressed? And so I came to identify and cheer Kellhus on (like many others, I suspect). He was the one with all the answers, with deepest understanding and all the technically correct (the best kind of correct) solutions.
There were hints of troubles in TAE. We didn't get many chapters from Kellhus' POV and none that sufficiently illuminated his perception of events, outside of handling Proyas. Maithanet's assassination showed limits to Dunyan control of events. Kellhus himself was only saved from White-Luck's assassination attempt by Kelmomas' interruption. And yet I believed - believed! - that Kellhus had all the answers and would be in control of events. If his son, The Survivor, had seemingly "solved the problem" with such limited time and access to the outside world, then surely Kellhus with his decades of experience would be able to do even better. I did not expect a "good ending", I was fully expecting Neuropath-style ending. But it would be "the correct solution". I had faith Kellhus would find a way between damnation at the hands of gods and shutting the world against them with No-God - a third way if you will.
In other words, I had come to have all the same expectations and identification of a traditional fantasy hero with a character meant specifically to undermine and subvert the very same genre and expectations! What a terrible disappointment it had been to find my hero fail at the end of the book. But I suspect this was the trap Mr. Bakker set for us all along.
If I set aside my feeling of disappointment and rejection of my hero failing, the end of the book plays out quite nicely. Think of the dark irony and revealatory horror a la Planet of The Apes ending "You Blew It All Up!" Or imagine a Twilight Zone episode ending, with Rod Sterling declaring "And so ends the Great Ordeal, meant to prevent the Second Apocalypse, it became the very vehicle to deliver their enemy's main weapon and doom mankind".
It took me a while to understand my reaction. But it had mostly to do with Kellhus' failure:
We know Bakker set out to subvert fantasy genre and introduce the concepts from Evolutionary Psychology & Neuroscience (i.e. Blind Brain Theory, Semantic Apocalypse) to a wider audience. Those who read his books were in on the secret! Kellhus wasn't the traditional fantasy hero come to save the world, he was a fraud - a way to introduce, play up and take advantage of people's blindness to their own mental processes. We knew what was going on. It was all those other people, both in books and in the real world, ignorant of what Kellhus was doing/scientific developments on the subject. Oh those gulls and fools! Wasn't it wonderful to watch Kellhus manipulate and control everything through the first trilogy? Anticipate and conquer every single turn of events as PoN progressed? And so I came to identify and cheer Kellhus on (like many others, I suspect). He was the one with all the answers, with deepest understanding and all the technically correct (the best kind of correct) solutions.
There were hints of troubles in TAE. We didn't get many chapters from Kellhus' POV and none that sufficiently illuminated his perception of events, outside of handling Proyas. Maithanet's assassination showed limits to Dunyan control of events. Kellhus himself was only saved from White-Luck's assassination attempt by Kelmomas' interruption. And yet I believed - believed! - that Kellhus had all the answers and would be in control of events. If his son, The Survivor, had seemingly "solved the problem" with such limited time and access to the outside world, then surely Kellhus with his decades of experience would be able to do even better. I did not expect a "good ending", I was fully expecting Neuropath-style ending. But it would be "the correct solution". I had faith Kellhus would find a way between damnation at the hands of gods and shutting the world against them with No-God - a third way if you will.
In other words, I had come to have all the same expectations and identification of a traditional fantasy hero with a character meant specifically to undermine and subvert the very same genre and expectations! What a terrible disappointment it had been to find my hero fail at the end of the book. But I suspect this was the trap Mr. Bakker set for us all along.
If I set aside my feeling of disappointment and rejection of my hero failing, the end of the book plays out quite nicely. Think of the dark irony and revealatory horror a la Planet of The Apes ending "You Blew It All Up!" Or imagine a Twilight Zone episode ending, with Rod Sterling declaring "And so ends the Great Ordeal, meant to prevent the Second Apocalypse, it became the very vehicle to deliver their enemy's main weapon and doom mankind".