R. Scott Bakker - The Second Apocalypse and You!

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > R. Scott Bakker - The Second Apocalypse and You!

Mr.48: May 1, 2007

I'm a big fan of the books, if I had to describe them to another fantasy reader it would be as: An artsy version of The First Law books with a crapload of extra philisophy.

# ¿ Oct 18, 2011 06:35

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 01:21

Mr.48: May 1, 2007

Algid posted:

I think it has something to do with how the no-god can subsume other minds, the bio-engineered weapons races it can access easily, and it can do it to human minds to a certain extent too. The sranc it was controlled certainly weren't concerned with self-preservation, so he might have just made the babies forget to breath, possibly without even consciously trying.

I think that the no god was created to directly contrast with the god of Earwa's cosmology. Instead of some sort of unconscious "sleeping god" (I think that was the analogy use in TTT) made up of the consensus beliefs of a local population, the no-god is one conscious super-intelligence that accesses other minds, except that access is determined by how close those minds are to it's own blank state, human minds that are too "polluted" by assorted beliefs so they are harder to access.

As far as I remember there was a problem with infertility for several decades after the final battle, so it definitely wasnt something the no-god was actively doing, more like it brought something into the world that persisted after the no-god itself was gone.

# ¿ Nov 9, 2011 07:30

Mr.48: May 1, 2007

Hey so when Achmian and the nonman king face off against the dragon, it says that the Ichinroi have gone from planet to planet reducing each to 144,000 trying to save themselves. That number also appears in Revelations as the number of people who will be saved before the apocalypse, is this a mere coincidence, or is Bakker linking his world explicitly to Christian theology?

# ¿ Nov 22, 2011 05:42

Mr.48: May 1, 2007

Algid posted:

It's intentional.

Aside from the imagery in the organized (in-story) religions (circumflex vs. crucifix etc), various real world religious imagery shows up in Earwa in contexts that aren't explicitly religious. The imagery of the sephiroth (or possibly the qliphoth) shows up a couple of times. The most obvious is with the sarcophagus of the no-god, which has eleven chorae embedded in it. Then there's the various tree references in TTT, with Kellhus being told about where to find his father, and having the vision of some sort of human-beast creature meditating under a leafless tree (this might also be a reference to the bodhi tree, hard to tell though since the creature was obviously supposed to be the no-god).

All those examples are more like analogies, but the exact number seems more of a reference.

# ¿ Nov 22, 2011 09:22

Mr.48: May 1, 2007

Seldom Posts posted:

I found the same thing, but I stuck it out and referred to the indexes at the back a lot. The book ends strong and the next two keep it up. I think it would be worth it to stick it out. If you still don't like it by the middle of the second book, I would just drop it though.

Yeah, the books suffer heavily from what I call "fantasy-name syndrome", but the core ideas and plot are pretty cool.

# ¿ Nov 29, 2011 05:28

Mr.48: May 1, 2007

yellowjournalism posted:

My exact words were "niggas in japan"

Boondocks style?

# ¿ Dec 2, 2011 08:24

Mr.48: May 1, 2007

Darth Walrus posted:

You did see the bit where he described her as a 'rabid animal' in his original post, right?

Plus, there was the thing about letting Lanius's overtly-racist posts and all the "are you sure she's a Thai woman?" stuff go uncommented-on whilst rapidly replying to and editing in comments on "hey, I think she might have a point" posts.

Which is a bit iffy.

Did you read the bit where he described her as a 'rabid animal' in his original post? Because he makes it very clear that the insult is a deliberate response to her using the same type of insult against Bakker.

# ¿ Feb 20, 2012 02:55

Mr.48: May 1, 2007

Darth Walrus posted:

There is quite a difference in weighting, though, between a Thai woman calling a white man a 'self-important little roach' and a white man calling a Thai woman a 'rabid animal'. One has a lot more bad history to it, and Watts's response when called out on it ('I thought you were a white man, and would have done the same if you were a white man') is not terribly convincing vis-a-vis him getting it.

The history (whatever it may be) is meaningless in this context, they traded insult for insult of the exact same type. Reading some hidden racism or sexism into is is pretty disingenuous.

# ¿ Feb 20, 2012 20:25

Mr.48: May 1, 2007

fritz posted:

Just as a for-example, it's one thing to call a white guy a monkey, it's something else to call a person of color monkey. Words have context.

I don't always agree with crackedmoon, but she has a lot of good points about a lot of things. This genre's gotten really rapey over the last decade or so and people need to call that poo poo out.

And she would have a basis for calling it out, except that she hasnt read the books. And she might have had a basis for calling Bakker out for being an unpleasant person except that shes never met or spoken to him. She is full of poo poo and and people need to call that poo poo out, which is whats happening.

# ¿ Feb 21, 2012 05:54

Mr.48: May 1, 2007

fritz posted:

She said she read the opening, which consists of a little boy being repeatedly raped, and that's kind of how I remember it too. I guess the question is how many rapes make a book too rapey, and how much of it do you need to read before you get to say 'wow there are some rapes in this book.' In the original post, she did engage with his words as he wrote them in his blog, which is a valid form of criticism.

There is something seriously rotten in this genre, I remember back in the day when even one rape was enough to get people really really mad about the Thomas Covenant books.

Next time someone wants to write a fantasy book I will forward them to you personally to check their rape quota. Are you seriously going to defend someone condemning a series of books based off of reading 6 pages?

# ¿ Feb 21, 2012 07:54

Mr.48: May 1, 2007

General Battuta posted:

I can think of examples within Prince of Nothing where I thought it was handled well and other examples where I think it definitely wasn't.

But I have friends who are just blanket sick of reading about misogyny/rape in big fat fantasy series. It's turned into something of a cliche.

Well poo poo, how do they handle being out and about in the real world then? The planet Earth aint exactly all sunshine and rainbows when it comes to misogyny and rape. I think a fair assessment is that people like that are pretty sheltered and dont like to think about the fact that for every horrible thing that happens to people in a fantasy book something equally bad or worse happens to people in real life all the time.

# ¿ Feb 26, 2012 21:26

Mr.48: May 1, 2007

General Battuta posted:

I don't think I could disagree more. In fact I'd come to the opposite conclusion, that 'people like that' get enough of horrible things in real life (since, you know, many of them actually have to deal with these issues instead of seeing them secondhand) and don't want to read about it in all their fat fantasy too.

Also, I wish we could have this discussion without belittling people, even generic groups like 'my friends'. It doesn't seem particularly compassionate to suggest that anyone who doesn't like grim dark rape rape fantasy is some kind of rape/misogyny ostrich who literally cannot handle real life. It's just a book, it's not a barometer of worth as a human being.

e: Seriously, 'sheltered'? Would you really blame, say, a rape survivor for not wanting to read about demons ejaculating black cum all over orgasming rape victims? I've defended this series at length but that's definitely not a statement I would get on board with.

I was objecting more to your use of the word "cliche" since that would imply that the concept of widespread misogyny and rape is something that fantasy authors just created from their imagination as opposed to being a very real part of the world we live in. Not a good part, but very real nonetheless.

Edit: Sorry if I came off as belittling to your friends. Got a bit carried away there.

Mr.48 fucked around with this message at 22:53 on Feb 26, 2012

# ¿ Feb 26, 2012 22:50

Mr.48: May 1, 2007

Play posted:

Yeah this is what I was thinking. Given the Dunyains ideas on sorcery, it was actually an unlikely miracle that Kellhus escaped from the Nonman Erratic at the beginning of the series. Kellhus himself would be more than enough to raise Ishual, a bunch of fanatics that hold no belief in sorcery. It is belabored over and over that the Dunyain are dangerous. The only reason Kellhus can trust his children/half-brother at all is because he is full Dunyain rather than half. Isn't it possible that there would be Dunyain in Ishual who are even more adept in the Logos than Kellhus? In addition, leaving his place of origin means leaving information about himself (precisely what Achamian seeks). There is really a lot of motivation for Kellhus to destroy Ishual.

Then again, that would cause the plot to suffer so I'm certain there's much more to it. Either Ishual survives there in secret, the Dunyain survive somewhere else, or enough survives inside the ruin to send Achamian and Mimara off on some other balls-out insane quest.

Actually, all this makes so much sense that now I'm thinking it was probably Kellhus who killed them all, if in fact they have been destroyed.

# ¿ Mar 7, 2012 00:18

Mr.48: May 1, 2007

The Sharmat posted:

I can't find Kellhus to be a mary-sue simply because I'm horrified him and want him to die screaming.

Yeah I dont really get people who say he is a mary-sue character, and in fact people who say things like that worry me, since the implication is that they see Kellhus the murderous sociopath as a protagonist.

# ¿ May 28, 2012 21:47

Mr.48: May 1, 2007

Seldom Posts posted:

That's an over simplification. We're obviously meant to see him as such at first. The first chapter of the first book of the first trilogy has him setting off on a heroic quest to find his father. It hits a lot of tropes just for that reason. He's clearly a protagonist of the first trilogy. It's only as we read that we learn he's not the hero.

Not really, even the prologue of the very first book has Kellhus abandoning a man to be butchered by Sranc after that man saved his life. Only inattentive readers or sociopaths can see Kellhus as a protagonist.

# ¿ Sep 25, 2012 22:12

Mr.48: May 1, 2007

General Battuta posted:

'Protagonist' is a narrative role, not a moral one. Protagonists can be villains.

Its still not Kellhus though, since the protagonist is the main character and Kellhus is almost entirely absent from the 4th and 5th books.

Achmian is the protagonist if the series can be said to have a protagonist at all.

# ¿ Sep 25, 2012 22:25

Mr.48: May 1, 2007

General Battuta posted:

That's the point Seldom Posts just made that you were disagreeing with: that we're supposed to think he's a protagonist at first and that he arguably plays this role (not exclusively, though!) in the first 3 books.

I just dont see how one character out of a fairly large cast, and a fairly unsavory one at that can be thought by anyone as the protagonist.

Edit: I just pulled TDTCB off the shelf and after the prologue we dont even see Kellhus again for like 6 chapters. How anybody could think that he would be the protagonist is beyond me.

Mr.48 fucked around with this message at 22:50 on Sep 25, 2012

# ¿ Sep 25, 2012 22:42

Mr.48: May 1, 2007

General Battuta posted:

Literature doesn't play by algorithmic rules; there's not always a single protagonist, nor are there firm definitions for the role.

Then why argue about it at all?

# ¿ Sep 25, 2012 22:57

Mr.48: May 1, 2007

I guess I'll be picking up The Warrior Prophet in the next couple of days, but dont remember much of what happed so far in the second trilogy. Could anyone kindly do a brief recap of The Judging Eye and White-Luck Warrior?

Mr.48 fucked around with this message at 06:45 on May 8, 2013

# ¿ May 8, 2013 06:43

Mr.48: May 1, 2007

General Battuta posted:

Why do you need one? There's nothing that comes after White-Luck Warrior yet.

I saw the dudes above me posting about The Warrior Prophet and thought that it was the third Aspect Emperor book that was just released. Guess that early-onset Alzheimer's is upon me.

# ¿ May 8, 2013 19:26

Mr.48: May 1, 2007

General Battuta posted:

Some of his thoughts about neuroscience are genuinely headed in the right direction, but unfortunately I don't think he's either critical or engaged enough with the research to make a good accounting of himself.

I kind of think of him like Dan Simmons these days - an author who's really, really, really good, almost peerless, at a few very specific things, and you've just got to grit your teeth about the rest.

Comparing Bakker to Dan Simmons is a bit harsh as Simmons has turned into a total right-wing lunatic, whereas Bakker just blogs like a typical internet sperglord.

# ¿ Dec 15, 2013 07:55

Mr.48: May 1, 2007

WastedJoker posted:

So I'm just starting the first book and it's all a bit confusing Is there a glossary of some sort? I'm on Kindle.

There should be an appendix/glossary at the end of the book, but be careful about looking at various wiki's online since you might stumble into spoilers.

efb

# ¿ Dec 16, 2013 17:56

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 01:21

Mr.48: May 1, 2007

Sephyr posted:

Or else death will come swirling down.

Like an evil helicopter.

# ¿ Dec 17, 2013 02:17

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > R. Scott Bakker - The Second Apocalypse and You!