[dragharrow]

Can you refresh my memory on that?

It would make sense for him to eat souls. Souls are an illusion and I'm painting him as the breaker of illusions. They're also a connection to the outside and he seals the way so he could be cutting the tether.

As for the topoi I don't know. Are you deriving that from mengedda?

[Cüréthañ]

Skafra mentions Mog enjoying the taste of Celmomas' soul in one of the dreams.  And the whole blocking new births thing seems related.

Yeh, the generating topoi thing is a bit of an assumption drawn from Mengeda and my percieved similarity of being near him/ feeling his presence on the horizon with the feeling the skin eaters get in Cil Aujis.  Don't worry too much about that.

[Madness]

If you think its more relevant there than definitely go ahead. I'll try and read through it soon. Stupid finals.

Thanks for the warm welcome.

I just quoted it to Who (or what) created Eärwa?.

Good luck on finals, dragharrow. I have such a slack semester right now and, my last one, next semester is so heavy.

Has anyone read the Ender's Game books by Orson Scott Card?

I've mentioned elsewhere that Speaker for the Dead may be my all-time favorite science fiction book. Xenocide and the event in question were actually the point where I lost touch with Card's vision and simply read on because I'd come so far. Though, the shadow series made me love again... for a time. I really liked Han Qing-jao, though.

At the end of the series Card delves into something similar.  My memory is fuzzy around the details, but basically they travel to an Outside and through the help of a super computer (over simplification, but you get the point) they are able to create new people, things, complex biological structures, etc.
It seems like that would play in well with the idea of the No-God's will creating his own version of Earwa, superimposed over the existing one. 
Maybe someone with a more coherent thought process than mine can expand, or agree... or probably shoot it down.

Thats a valid comparison Ishammael. They end up using a computer to break into some kind of subjective reality thats outside time/space. Once there they are able to create whatever they want.
On a very similar note, near the end of Simmon's Hyperion Cantos, "the void which binds" seems somewhat similar.

Lol... Gall, Card. Did'ja have to ?

To be fair, I think certain of Card's books are very good.

Ender's Game, Speaker for the Dead, Shadow of the Hegemon, certain Alvin Maker books, and, definitively, his best collection of work, in my mind: Maps in a Mirror, one of his short story anthologies.

dragharrow, a couple select points, as I personally lack the evidence to support or refute you, and what you are writing reads like it might be onto some cruxes.

Sorcery is like Wittgenstein's conception of language games except it goes beyond language ... Science, philosophy, religion and common sense are all the same. They are just sets of rules for the games we play with truth.

+1

Again, the specific mechanics are beyond me but we know some of the things that are connected with being good at wielding these powers in Earwa. Will, intellect, emotion, and sight are all tied up with it.

Maybe. We're pretty tentative about "good" around here. And Trisk and I are big on the Cishaurim being Redeemed as opposed to Damned. Plus, Ajokli's Narindar suggests that the sighted are, in fact, the blind.

Someone mentioned the no god being a god of anosognosia but I think it's more likely to be the opposite. I can see the mechanics of the no god somehow working through hyper self awareness.

That was Curethan and I tossing that around .

The ineffable but all important thing we call “meaning” is actually a direct product of  informatic deficits wired into our brains. Our ability to experience love, hate, beauty, time, consciousness, is the direct product of our blindness to the truth of our own nature.

I think, instead, that it's our experience of those things wouldn't exist as we perceive them to now, not that they don't still serve some kind of function ulterior to what we perceive them to achieve.

He is a lens and a consciousness leashed together for the singular purpose of experiencing the worlds and his own meaninglessness. Thus the desperate mantra. He exists only to perceive the illusory-ness of that his existence. He experiences consciousness as robustly as we do, but he can see the neural or digital circuits that generate that consciousness doing so as they do it.

I'm not sure if you've read Neuropath or not but... The No-God's a Neil in a Box?

Skafra mentions Mog enjoying the taste of Celmomas' soul in one of the dreams.  And the whole blocking new births thing seems related.

Yeh, the generating topoi thing is a bit of an assumption drawn from Mengeda and my percieved similarity of being near him/ feeling his presence on the horizon with the feeling the skin eaters get in Cil Aujis.  Don't worry too much about that.

"My lord hath tasted thy King's passing and He saith... it is done."

One of my favorite lines in the whole series. I often quote it in completely inappropriate circumstances.

[Francis Buck]

I always interpreted the topoi at Mengedda being a result of all the souls the No-God had swallowed being violently expelled all at once, whereas the whole "everyone could sense him on the horizon" was due to their souls almost literally being tugged at by the No-God's soul-capturing mechanism.

[dragharrow]

Again, the specific mechanics are beyond me but we know some of the things that are connected with being good at wielding these powers in Earwa. Will, intellect, emotion, and sight are all tied up with it.

Maybe. We're pretty tentative about "good" around here. And Trisk and I are big on the Cishaurim being Redeemed as opposed to Damned. Plus, Ajokli's Narindar suggests that the sighted are, in fact, the blind.

Oh man, not the way I meant good. I meant like skilled at or whatever. Those seem to be factors that enable one to exert the power deeply, or delicately, or strongly.

Personally I completely agree on the Cishaurim front. Fits with the general constructiveness of blindness that I've been selling.  I wish I had the emotional depth to bear the water.

I'm not sure if you've read Neuropath or not but... The No-God's a Neil in a Box?

I have read it and yeah, they're at least of a similar order.

[Cüréthañ]

Don't forget that at Mengedda the consult had almost achieved their goal.  Presumably, reducing the population to 144k. 

Thus, the no-god was about to enact his purpose and the topos might have been formed as a part of that process rather than his demise.

[Madness]

I meant like skilled at or whatever. Those seem to be factors that enable one to exert the power deeply, or delicately, or strongly.

Hm. Thank you for clarifying.

Personally I completely agree on the Cishaurim front. Fits with the general constructiveness of blindness that I've been selling.  I wish I had the emotional depth to bear the water.

You do, dragharrow... you have only to pluck thine gaze from this world and you shall feel the water swell within you .

I'm not sure if you've read Neuropath or not but... The No-God's a Neil in a Box?

I have read it and yeah, they're at least of a similar order.

Hm.

Much thinking, yes.

I always interpreted the topoi at Mengedda being a result of all the souls the No-God had swallowed being violently expelled all at once, whereas the whole "everyone could sense him on the horizon" was due to their souls almost literally being tugged at by the No-God's soul-capturing mechanism.

Don't forget that at Mengedda the consult had almost achieved their goal.  Presumably, reducing the population to 144k. 

Thus, the no-god was about to enact his purpose and the topos might have been formed as a part of that process rather than his demise.

I dislike very much giving ammunition an enemy camp but... the ash, boys? The ash of souls .

[Madness]

dragharrow, Ishammael asked if I'd bridge the gap between the two of you after posted the questions below in Who (or what) created Eärwa? in response to your post that I moved there.

I stand entirely convinced by this argument.

So, essentially is seems like you are saying that the No-God is a sacrifice.  His torment of all-knowing, or all-self knowing, is what allows the people of Earwa to avoid the Damnation imparted upon them by the Hundred.

Does the No-God know this? If so, would that mean that he accepts the need for his existence and therefore becomes what some would argue to be the very epitome of "Good"?  If he he knows this but doesn't accept it, would he have said "Thank you" after being "killed" by the Heron Spear?  I don't think he truely understands or believes this, otherwise his questions wouldn't be asked.

So what would drive the need for death and war associated with the No-God's arrival, other than the hypothetical misunderstanding of the people of Earwa?  In other words, why wouldn't the Consult be able to create the No-God quietly in their basement after commiting the required torture, sacrifice, etc, and then hang out and party while the rest of Earwa is unaware of the existence?  I assume that the answer to this would be that the No-God's arrival would inevitably be tied to the inability for new children to be born, or other similar terrible consequences.  If that is the case, then I think we would need to explore why those consequences exist.  For example, if children are no longer born due to the presence of the No-God, does that mean the children are illusions of the Hundred or of their parents, which eventually grow into their own individual Truths capable of extending their Truth unto others?

[Triskele]

I just have to say that when Kellhus asks "What is the No-God...what are the possibilities you've considered" of Moenghus and we get nothing, it quite agonizing.  At least to this reader.

[Cüréthañ]

I just have to say that when Kellhus asks "What is the No-God...what are the possibilities you've considered" of Moenghus and we get nothing, it quite agonizing.  At least to this reader.

+1 trauma point.

[Madness]

Lol - I honestly don't know I ever expected Moenghus to be as opposed to the No-God as he seemed to be when Kellhus finds him. Like, as much as Kellhus just flat-out says Moenghus will betray humankind, Moenghus seemed pretty organized against the Consult. There are probably easier ways to fuck with the Three-Seas and prep-it for the Consult as an anonymous Dunyain than by putting yourself at human mercy (by always playing the Prophet Card, which Kellhus did and thought his Father would do to replace him)...

And then Kellhus does exactly what he says his Father would to a point. We're just waiting to see if Kellhus has organized some... pre-meditated disasters. You know, like Irsulor.

[Triskele]

So it was pointed out somewhere by Wilshire I believe that Cnaiur has a What do you see? thought when Moenhus burns away. 

Has it been pointed out that Cnaiur also has a What do you see? inner-monologue thought at least twice with respect to Kellhus in TDTCB?  I noticed that while perusing a reread.  Not sure what to make of it, but it seems potentially significant. 

[Cüréthañ]

As I remember it "What do you see?" is spouted by almost every character at least once in PoN.  I simply took it as a thematic motif.  Like swirly death in AE.

[Madness]

As I remember it "What do you see?" is spouted by almost every character at least once in PoN.  I simply took it as a thematic motif.  Like swirly death in AE.

+1 - mostly in explicit self-reflection by characters in interacting with Kellhus but it wasn't limited to that. Often it was embedded directly in the text, rather than being capitalized, bolded, or italicized and many times it seemed general shorthand for someone thinking about another's, inaccessible, thoughts and judgements. The inner unseen half of Kellhus' "we are two people" metaphor to Esmenet...

[locke]

Loving your thoughts, dragharrow, that's an incredibly compelling take on the metaphysics.  Speaking of which, what do you think of the metaphysics of the mark?  I've sometimes thought the Mark is a sort of Swazond-of-the-soul.  But where a swazond is a physical mark of the physical crime of murdering another's body, the Mark is a metaphysical mark of the metaphysical crime of murdering the world.  That's why it's sometimes called the blood of the onta, the mark is literally being marked with the bloody crimes your sorcery has wreaked against the world.