It's not that I consider it a coincidence, it seems more like an overinterpretation. Small mundane or technical details being assigned much greater significance than they really possess.
It's possible. With the small amount of information we're given on this particular subject, overinterpretation
will crop up...
It would be great!
I think I'll only add the quotes to this post when I've gathered enough of them...wall of text incoming. Still, no matter how long it gets, it could be helpful to get all the information on the JE and Mimara's abilities in one place. It will be easier to dissect it that way.
Absolutely. But I would never be mean to a person in my posts, being mean just isn't worth writing for. Even if I strongly disagree, I would only bring counter arguments, never an ad hominem attack. Especially I would never be mean to you or H, because time and time again you both demonstrate just how polite and respectful you are!
It's just sometimes I skip over considerate phrasing for the sake of being brief.
Ah, it still happens sometimes. You have never been anything other than polite in your comments before either, but my tired brain just went and twisted up that part of your comment, I guess (I still have no idea that my subconscious thought process was there). It's all been cleared up now, it's fine.
For the record, I would never do that either, I think we can all have a polite discussion here even if we strongly disagree with each other's points. My experience on this forum so far has been overwhelmingly positive, and it will hopefully remain that way.
This, and also the fact that she knew about Koringhus's one hundred stones without having any way of knowing about them.
That's right, I had forgotten about that part with Koringhus. (I really need to reread TGO.) I think that there were other moments where Mimara had knowledge about past events that she could not have possibly known otherwise (Galian having raped and murdered a child, etc.). If I remember correctly, those were all linked to the JE, but then again, so was the Wight-in-the-Mountain scene. Was the hundred stones detail something she also learned of via the JE?
I separate her very real supernatural powers revolving around the Judging Eye and her alleged prophetic status. Prophets are a mystery, while supernatural abilities are existing, shown, and sometimes explained in the series. We have many branches of sorcery, the divine (what the Gods do, in the narrative represented mostly by Ajokli and Yatwer), and the Judging Eye. Those forces are as objectively real in the setting as a fictional supernatural element can be.
Now, does the Judging Eye pertains to or, better yet, answers the question of prophets? This, unlike the shown properties of the Eye, remains unknown.
So when we're talking the Wight incident, I see what Mimara did as an objectively real supernatural power being used in a novel way. Just like Kellhus's first use of the Metagnostic Cant of Translocation in TTT. Even if the mechanics of it aren't explained, it doesn't mean they aren't there. It's not necessarily a miracle.
And I agree, it doesn't break the suspension of disbelief. At least not mine.
I see, it makes sense.
What makes a true prophet is a potential separate topic of discussion by itself. We have some of the prophets acknowledged as such in-universe being dismissed by those of different religions (the Fanim with Inri Sejenus, Psatma Nannaferi's comments about Fane, etc.), for instance (something that is, of course, to be expected). Even the idea that a true prophet has healing powers (that is usually thrown around in discussions about Kellhus and/or Mimara) only comes from Inri Sejenus' particular case, right?
As for the link between the JE and prophets - well, like you said, we don't know enough to reach a conclusion here.
This whole discussion makes me recall a Quorum conversation where it was said that Ajencis seemed to be suspiciously well-informed about how the Outside worked. I speculated that maybe he knew a woman with the JE, and that influenced his ideas. Of course, there is no evidence for this in the text given the lack of information about the JE, but it does make me wonder. The JE has been a known phenomenon for centuries, and probably millennia, that much we know. During my quote-hunting, I reread the scene where Achamian first realizes Mimara has the JE, and he refers to it as "what antique Mandate scholars called the Judging Eye". It could be possible that women with the JE have been sharing their visions with others for thousands of years, and thus contributing to the general perception of the Outside, damnation and so on. (To be clear, I'm not claiming this is actually the case, it's just a theory.) So a relationship, even if tangential, to at least one of the prophets that are know as such in-universe could be at least a possibility?
The tricky thing about prophets is that we just don't know if their miracles were
truly such... We can't discount the possibility that (at least) some of them also had supernatural powers of their own which they used in an unprecedented way. I might be going against what I did before and doubting too much now, but your post did make me think of that. Fane, for instance, "was granted miraculous powers" after going blind in the Carathay Desert. The loss of his sight and the life-or-death situation could have lead to him tapping into potential abilities, which eventually became a new branch of sorcery. (The Titirga comparison comes to mind here as well.)
P.S. If you're interested, I also outlined my lines of thought on metaphysics of the series here:
http://www.second-apocalypse.com/index.php?topic=2267.msg35628#msg35628
Some of it may be outdated by now, but it still shows where I come from.
Thanks, I'll go ahead and read your analysis.
I vaguely remember reading this when you first posted it, but it has been quite a while, so revisiting the thread would be a good idea.
