[What Came Before]

hello,
 i enjoy reading the thoughts and ideas posted on this forum.  Mostly it reveals how much i missed. the plan is to start rereading once i power through some other stuff.

Two part:
Does Ajencis have a larger role to play? A back story that involves him interacting with players we see today(an agent of one faction or another)

What would a meeting between Ajencis and Kell look like? Could a world class intellect hang with the AE?

[What Came Before]

He came up with the concept of Conditioning, which is one of the pillars of Dunyain philosophy which suggests more than a passing link.

I wrote some fanfic exploring Ajencis's past, but it's still in "I need to edit this pile of shit" mode*. (Obviously he doesn't encounter any Dunyain, but I managed to connect him directly to the events of TSA)

It's worth noting that there are some parallels between him and Achamian (caste-menial background, philosopher, rise to tutor powerful rulers, etc) but nothing is said about whether he is one of the Few. In my story, I chose to make him blind to the Onta.


*My GF actually made a ton of suggestions and corrections... I should get on actually implementing those.

[What Came Before]

Ajencis has always been Socrates to me. But that could just be my personal connotation.

[What Came Before]

Didn't Akka claim in the first trilogy that Kellhus pointed out and corrected flaws in Ajencis' reasoning? I don't think a meeting between Ajencis and Kellhus would vary substantially from any meeting between Kellhus and a world born man.

[What Came Before]

His position in Earwan history seems that of Aristotle. He's the father of syllogistic logic and easily the most influential philosopher in the Three Seas.

His philosophy is the philosophy of Bakker himself. I think many of the writers and philosophers from Earwan history figure as mouthpieces for the author to a greater or lesser degree but if you look at the quotations from his books it seems to match Bakker's philosophy perfectly.

"Faith is the truth of passion. Since no passion is more true than another, faith is the truth of nothing."

"If it is only after that we understand what has come before, then we understand nothing. Thus we shall define the soul as follows: that which precedes everything."

"Complexity begets ambiguity, which yields in all ways to prejudice and avarice. Complication does not so much defeat Men as arm them with fancy."

"Gods are epochal beings, not quite alive. Since the Now eludes them, they are forever divided. Sometimes nothing blinds souls more profoundly than the apprehension of the Whole. Men need recall this when they pray."

[What Came Before]

His position seems to be that of Aristotle, yes, but his life always was giving me Diogenes vibe.

[What Came Before]

Historically speaking, I find it odd that Ajencis conforms (or roughly conforms) to Bakker's own philosophical perspective.

Chronologically, Ajencis is situated in a position similar to Aristotle; that is, he's an early (perhaps the earliest) philosopher that heavily influenced the "Earwan" tradition.  Of course, one can't ignore Plato, Socrates, Parmenides, etc.; but as far as I'm concerned, Aristotle had perhaps the most "modern" view of the world.

That said, his theories were still conditioned by his own historical period.  Bakker's theories of "post-semantics" and "positive nihilism" (all of which might be lumped collectively under the insufficient category of "post-postmodernism") would have been inconceivable in Hellenic Greece.  So I find it somewhat odd that Bakker would attribute such a radically skeptical philosophy to a thinker who occupies an early chronological space.  Granted, Earwa isn't Western European culture; but I think Bakker is still highly historically conscious within the Three Seas world.

[What Came Before]

Well, you don't need neuroscience or a philosophy focusing on language itself to reach extreme skepticism about people and their motivations. But maybe I should have said 'the philosophy Bakker puts forward in TSA' instead of Bakker's philosophy in general.

[mrganondorf]

I think of Ajencis as Socrates+Plato+Aristotle for narrative efficiency.  Have all of them in one guy so there's a few less names for the reader to have to remember.

One huge thing that could happen (I don't really think it will, but...) we find out that we have been conditioned to accept Ajencis' interpretation of desire/object (especially of the Outside) and that he was completely wrong.  How the fuck would he know that shit anyways?  Was he a sorcerer too?  A pre-cishaurim?  Did he daimos his way outside or summon demons to ask their opinions of the fragmented god?

I don't really have the vibe that anything special is coming our way about Ajencis, but I could see him being revealed as part of some kind of ur-dunyain set that was at work before Ishual was built.  THOSE people will be the real darkness that came before.

[Madness]

I think of Ajencis as Socrates+Plato+Aristotle for narrative efficiency.  Have all of them in one guy so there's a few less names for the reader to have to remember.

How about... Soclatotle... or Plaristes... or Ariscrato .

One huge thing that could happen (I don't really think it will, but...) we find out that we have been conditioned to accept Ajencis' interpretation of desire/object (especially of the Outside) and that he was completely wrong.  How the fuck would he know that shit anyways?  Was he a sorcerer too?  A pre-cishaurim?  Did he daimos his way outside or summon demons to ask their opinions of the fragmented god?

There's a blog on TPB where I commented about Bakker channeling Ajencis... he kind of implied that Memgowa was his intellectual better.

I don't really have the vibe that anything special is coming our way about Ajencis, but I could see him being revealed as part of some kind of ur-dunyain set that was at work before Ishual was built.  THOSE people will be the real darkness that came before.

Lol... Ur-Dunyain. Crack me up, MG.

The Dunyain That Come Before .

[mrganondorf]

The Ur-Dunyain are obviously every human in the story for which the reader doesn't get a pov.  They are working tirelessly and completely willing to sacrifice themselves to see the Dunyain delusion through.

[Wilshire]

The Ur-Dunyain are obviously every human in the story for which the reader doesn't get a pov.  They are working tirelessly and completely willing to sacrifice themselves to see the Dunyain delusion through.

Virmsata (sp?) on a world wide scale. This has been discussed before, though with Kellhus as the author.

[mrganondorf]

Lol, I'm just fascinated by the idea that if someone was in a higher IQ class than Kellhus, they could completely fool him into thinking that they were just another "world-born."  Fingers-crossed!