[Kellais]

Hi everyone,

So after signing up here i had to urge to start rereading TJE....let us see how long i can keep it up (have a lot of enticing looking books on my "to read" pile  ).

Here some first thoughts and questions - or to put it another way, let me know what you think about this stuff:

- Mimara's judging eye...first appearance when she looks at Akka during their first long talk at the fire before his tower. Now, i was wondering (and maybe there already is a thread somewhere where you discussed that indepth, but i didn't see a thread-title so here it is (again?) ) ... do you think this really is something we, as readers, have to take at face value? In other words : she really has a judging eye...so Akka is really damned etc etc . What else could it be? After her musings on how Akka and herself have suffered a lot in this life, and Akka more or less confessing that he is most probably mad...what if Mimara is just...well, mad? Maybe she hallucinates that stuff. Any theories and ideas on this? It just got me thinking...maybe i'm paranoid but i can't belief that it is what is says on the tin, so to speak  Or is that precisely what Scott wants us to think and therefor this is exactly how it is... ?! Now you see where this is going right...you could start thinking in circles like that and do that ad infinitum and ad absurdum ... so, let me have it.

- This goes a bit in the same direction but i hope you keep reading  The vision of Psatma Nannaferi at the beginning of the book...where she thinks the goddess herself visits her...do you guys think that this is for real? I mean are the gods in Scott's world real? If they are, do you think they interfere that directly? If not, what is happening here? Is the old priestess just nuts? Or are there darker schemes at work. I could totally see the consult behind this...trying everything to oppose Kellhus, even if they have to play a ruse like this instead of killing him directly.

These two scenes just made me very curious as to how much the reader can take at face value in this trilogy and how much it is the author trying to mislead us. On the one hand i find this very stimulating, on the other it can also be very frustrating  My mind just does not stop thinking about the many possibilities that could be...i'm almost doing a thousandfold thought here 

Anyway, i hope this gives us something to talk about. I'm kind of new here but i was a-little-bit-active on the old three seas forums a long time ago. I'm trying to get back in the saddle 
Maybe this kicks off other discussions on the topic of Bakker's Earwa-work which i think are a bit slow atm.

[Wilshire]

At this point, without even a semblance of any kind of conclusion, what you take at face value is entirely up to you. There is so much ambiguity, and so little information, that you can probably find evidence to support any theory if you look hard enough.

I tend to use TJE as an anchor. I think its one of the few things that actually shows the world as it is, and that Mimara is something close to an unbiased POV. That said, I wouldn't be terribly surprised to to find out that anything I believe is wrong.

Hows this for crazy:
Maybe the gods are an Inchoroi genetic experiment gone awry? Perhaps they accidentally created the means of their own damnation (the Gods) and have spent millennium running from their own creation. A creation that far surpassed the creator, driving them out and pursuing them across time and space. Eventually the Inchoroi found a way to mask themselves, body and mind, but alas, not their souls.
The Gods finally found the Inchoroi when 1000's of souls showed up as they crashed into Earwa. Now they have focused their energy onto the world, using humans to hunt down their elusive prey.


Dune tangent:

(click to show/hide)

An unlikely union of the Tleilaxu and Bene Gesserit that could create their own super children: the Honored Matra and the perfect face-dancers. So perfect they become indistinguishable from their creators, eventually they destroying their fathers and chased their Mothers  back to the void from whence they came. Back to the old empire....

Anyways, back to your post: I had to eventually cross off possibilities from the list. Trying to consider every ambiguity got too difficult, so I've picked a set of variables and will run with them until new info is presented, or someone convinces me to change my mind. Thats why this forum is awesome. It lets people interact and discuss their own views which may be entirely hidden to others because of the things they have long since discarded as wrong.

[Somnambulist]

- Mimara's judging eye...first appearance when she looks at Akka during their first long talk at the fire before his tower. Now, i was wondering (and maybe there already is a thread somewhere where you discussed that indepth, but i didn't see a thread-title so here it is (again?) ) ... do you think this really is something we, as readers, have to take at face value? In other words : she really has a judging eye...so Akka is really damned etc etc . What else could it be? After her musings on how Akka and herself have suffered a lot in this life, and Akka more or less confessing that he is most probably mad...what if Mimara is just...well, mad? Maybe she hallucinates that stuff. Any theories and ideas on this? It just got me thinking...maybe i'm paranoid but i can't belief that it is what is says on the tin, so to speak  Or is that precisely what Scott wants us to think and therefor this is exactly how it is... ?! Now you see where this is going right...you could start thinking in circles like that and do that ad infinitum and ad absurdum ... so, let me have it.

This is something I've been thinking about lately, as well.  I'm starting to lean in the direction that the possessors of the Judging Eye are, in fact, casting judgment and not just seeing judgment.  There's a passage in WLW (in the infamous Library dream by Achamian) wherein the statement is made that reality is based on the principle of 'watcher and watched,' or something to that effect.  To me, in regards to Earwa, that means reality is subjective to the watcher, and their own preconceptions of what reality is.  Mimara grew up in the Three Seas where sorcerers are damned, and she was sold to a brothel where men abused her.  What could be worse in her mind than a male sorcerer?  Thus, she sees Achamian as this blasted, damned wreck when the eye opens, 'confirming' her own bias.  This could go a ways to explaining the encounter with the wight in Cil-Aujas when she proclaims that she guards the gates (not sure how just yet, but it could be something).  Like she's some kind of moral compass for the world.

Another thought occurs to me as I'm writing this.  RSB uses a lot of religious metaphors from our own world to flesh out his (obviously).  What if this is another one?  The meek shall inherit the earth.  Mimara has been so wronged in her life that she now possesses the ultimate tool of judgement, and reality is as she sees it, damning all those who have wronged her.

And then there's the actual name of the judgement, the Judging Eye.  Who is judging if not the possessor?  It could be the One God, judging through the possessor of the Eye, but now I'm just spinning myself into circles, like you said.   

[Wilshire]

By your own reasoning, the reason that she is able to defeat the wight is because she proclaims it defeated. It said that "no one guards the gate" (or something to that affect), and she replies that she is now the guardian. Like a schoolman shaping reality to his whim, except the Eye goes far deeper.

[Somnambulist]

I think that might be where I was going with that, or thereabouts.  My apologies, the thought came to me while at work, so I wasn't sure I presented the theory very well.  Cheers, Wilshire.

[Wilshire]

All the pieces were there   

[Madness]

The description of the Wight, bringing his own Outside reality into the world, is metaphor for Mimara when the Judging Eye flicks on... and ultimately then, the Judging Eye probably flickers and flickers before turning on permanently - so I hazard.

Either way, great allusion in the Wight, but God's objective Frame vs. Mimara's subjective Frame are both cool conceptions.

Awesome, Somnambulist.

EDIT:

- This goes a bit in the same direction but i hope you keep reading  The vision of Psatma Nannaferi at the beginning of the book...where she thinks the goddess herself visits her...do you guys think that this is for real? I mean are the gods in Scott's world real? If they are, do you think they interfere that directly? If not, what is happening here? Is the old priestess just nuts? Or are there darker schemes at work. I could totally see the consult behind this...trying everything to oppose Kellhus, even if they have to play a ruse like this instead of killing him directly.

Somnambulist thoughts of Subjectivity's Frame could also account for Psatma and really all interaction between the Outside. People are inhabited by the Outside, the Outside leaks in, but everyone, where the bead breaks, sees the Outside they want to see, because Desire rules the Outside. People see and create their own Heavens and Hells because of what they believe.

Somnambulist... you've earned title should you want it (though to be quite honest I don't think I've figured out how to stop you all from making your own titles).

EDIT EDIT:

Lol, seriously floored. This interaction would be cyclical in that, like viramsata, the very World/Outside enacts the Subjectivities (Lies, Truth, Relativities) of the various ensoulled beings that inhabit it. This would account for both the changes wrought by the theo/philosophical articulations by Nonmen and Humankind and the weight of belief.

[Kellais]

Cool! Thanks guys for participating. Awesome ideas, all!

So you guys seem to think that it is the in-world functions that we should consider...but you do seem to think that the JE and also the visions of Psatma are, in that sense, real?! So it's not something as simple as Mimara being crazy or that the consult is playing games with Psatma. Hmm...interesting. I was really considering Scott just messing with us ... you know, kind of out-of-world messing with us as the author. From an in world perspective he lets us see stuff that makes sense in the context of the world he paints, but behind the scenes he is kind of teasing us with his theories about the consciousness and brain functions and all that.

On the other hand, i guess Somnambulist's theories kind of account for that...at least a bit.

But i think the basic idea is cool...so she can, with the power of her mind/imagination force reality...that's severe shit 
Question is, though, is it real for everyone after she imposes it on the world? Or is this more in line of the philosophical line of thinking of "everything is just a dream" or "everyone only perceives his/her own "reality" and it is 100% subjective" aka "no two "realities" are the same" . Ouch...my head hurts 

Oh and Madness, care to elaborate on that title remark? Is that a thing on this forum? 

[locke]

Somnambulist thoughts of Subjectivity's Frame could also account for Psatma and really all interaction between the Outside. People are inhabited by the Outside, the Outside leaks in, but everyone, where the bead breaks, sees the Outside they want to see, because Desire rules the Outside. People see and create their own Heavens and Hells because of what they believe.

Lol, seriously floored. This interaction would be cyclical in that, like viramsata, the very World/Outside enacts the Subjectivities (Lies, Truth, Relativities) of the various ensoulled beings that inhabit it. This would account for both the changes wrought by the theo/philosophical articulations by Nonmen and Humankind and the weight of belief.

almost as though people's souls stand astride the bounds of inward/outside and that the outside is nothing more than a fractured and distorted reflection of the inward.

That's the view Moenghus articulates of the Outside, at least.

Kellhus on the other hand has the belief of the Outside that it's "a thousand points of light" everyone shares a spark of the oversoul and hugs and kittens and damnation for all...

[Wilshire]

Oh and Madness, care to elaborate on that title remark? Is that a thing on this forum? 

The offer on the last forum was that you could choose a custom title if you had 50+ posts ( think). I'd say about 1/2 the people that got there picked something, the rest didn't bother.
Its just an added descriptor displayed under your name when you post. I thought it was cool idea.

[Somnambulist]

Oh and Madness, care to elaborate on that title remark? Is that a thing on this forum? 

The offer on the last forum was that you could choose a custom title if you had 50+ posts ( think). I'd say about 1/2 the people that got there picked something, the rest didn't bother.
Its just an added descriptor displayed under your name when you post. I thought it was cool idea.

That's cool!  Cheers, Madness.  Is there an approved list of titles?  Do I get to choose my own?  This is the kind of stuff I AGONIZE over!  lol

[Wilshire]

Its all you. No list or anything like that, so come up with something you'd like to show up every time you post. No pressure.

Custom Title is no longer displayed as a sorting option in the Members tab, but some of them are:

Madness - The Warrior Pose
Wilshire - Enshoyia
Callan S - Warrior-Profit
Curethan  - Pendulous Fallacy
Baztek - Aleph Jester

There are probably others but I didn't want to manually look though all the names. As you can see, there is nothing in common with all of them. Madness' is from an old game, mine is Kellhus's sword (translates to "certainty", which I think is arrogant enough to be funny), Warrior-Profit a clear pun, Pendulous Fallacy is another pun that I'm sure Bakker would appreciate given his obsessions with this particular part of anatomy, and I'm not at all sure what Aleph Jester is.

[Madness]

Oh and Madness, care to elaborate on that title remark? Is that a thing on this forum? 

As I wrote above, if it were up to me/when I actually spend time to figure it out, I will set a limited number of posts to edit your title. As Wilshire mentioned, I used to manually edit people's locked titles on the old forum.

However, as it stands, I'm pretty sure you can just edit your title in your profile right now until I find moments.

EDIT:

This is where the story of the Aleph Jester begins, Wilshire.

[mrganondorf]

Cool! Thanks guys for participating. Awesome ideas, all!

So you guys seem to think that it is the in-world functions that we should consider...but you do seem to think that the JE and also the visions of Psatma are, in that sense, real?! So it's not something as simple as Mimara being crazy or that the consult is playing games with Psatma. Hmm...interesting. I was really considering Scott just messing with us ... you know, kind of out-of-world messing with us as the author. From an in world perspective he lets us see stuff that makes sense in the context of the world he paints, but behind the scenes he is kind of teasing us with his theories about the consciousness and brain functions and all that.

On the other hand, i guess Somnambulist's theories kind of account for that...at least a bit.

But i think the basic idea is cool...so she can, with the power of her mind/imagination force reality...that's severe shit 
Question is, though, is it real for everyone after she imposes it on the world? Or is this more in line of the philosophical line of thinking of "everything is just a dream" or "everyone only perceives his/her own "reality" and it is 100% subjective" aka "no two "realities" are the same" . Ouch...my head hurts 

Oh and Madness, care to elaborate on that title remark? Is that a thing on this forum? 

I think a lot of Earwan reality comes down to one entity's subjectivity dominating other entities' subjectivities.  The God is the one with the secret of battle: indomitable conviction of what should be real.

[mrganondorf]

Doing my own TJE reread--

Remember that kid at the end of TTT that Aurang is chatting with?  Maybe he's in TJE too!  Mimara in Cil-Aujas, chapter 16, reminiscing about a damaged mural of Shimeh in the Andiamine Heights

"In shallow sockets here and there even this layer had given out, especially near the centre, where her stepfather had once hung out of proportion in the sky.  There, after dabbing away the white powder with her fingertips, she saw a young man's mosaic face, black hair high in the wind, child-wide eyes fixed upon some obscured foe."