|
Mr. Soul posted:It's only getting weird to me now I'm in warrior prophet, the not-mongol stabbed a bunch of holes in the ground and hosed them while crying. Everybody else crying all the time too. That's one of many reasons I love this book so much. Conan the Barbarian is a neurotic paranoid mess, and Gandalf is crippled by self-doubt and indecision. The only people who act with any certainty are demonstrably insane - with the level of insanity increasing drastically with the level of certainty.
|
#
¿
Jan 22, 2016 20:24
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 28, 2024 10:18 |
|
|
anilEhilated posted:Depends on what you mean by premises of modern science, I guess. I have a mere bachelor in psychology but if that taught me anything it's that we have absolutely no loving idea how the mind works and all our theories stop working at different points. Neurology and brain chemistry don't fully explain identity; similarly while you can manufacture and manipulate social constructs, you cannot effectively predict responses to them on an individual basis without knowing about the person's experience (which tends to be moderately difficult to impossible). I haven't finished Neuropath, but in the fantasy books a lot of the stuff Kellhus does seems implausible - particularly the way he convinces Achamian smells more of plot contrivance than actual manipulation, the buttons he's pushing working because the author wants them to. You've run into part of the problem I had with Neuropath, and it's very much a problem in Bakker's writing, rather than in his character. The books are vastly more certain than the author. In the Afterword he explains his motivation in writing Neuropath - that modern psychology is starting to indicate that it might one day be able to maybe start to map desires and decisions in the human brain (try and cram a few more caveats into the first sentence, cos we are a loving long way off doing that) and that he's intrigued by what it would mean if psychology was actually successful in doing that. It's in a large part speculative. He singles out the example that Bible uses, about how brain scans can show that "the brain" makes a decision before your consciousness is actually aware of it. There's been some studies that kind of show that already, but Bakker thinks that they're empirically and methodologically shakey. But his philosophy, and the basic fundamentals of psychology (I'll leave the details to Boing) give him no reason to believe that we won't eventually show that. Neuropath is basically an exploration of what that would mean. Reading the Afterword made me really angry for a while (as does lots of what I read, I think you've seen that) because I find it incomprehensible that he would want to write a book about things that haven't been proven yet, to write a book presenting an argument (sorry, an Argument) that the author doesn't actually believe in. The relationship between Bakker and the ideas in his work is something really interesting to me - and the fact that I just wrote that phrase is a ringing endorsement of Bakker over every fantasy writer bar Gurm and Erikkson. He's a cynic, no doubt about it, and probably a nihilist, but not to the same degree as the ideas expressed in the books. Because no matter how compelling the Argument might be, nobody is ever going to believe it. Not fully, not down in their bones. Why? Because it's impossible to function as a human being without believing you have something resembling a will. Bakker rejects the extreme nihilism of Neuropaths and Dunyain but he fully admits he has no reason to It's like Hume and the problem of induction. Induction relies on the assumption of consistency in the universe ("i have seen things this way in the past, therefore they will be this way in the future") but the only evidence we have towards that is itself inductive ("i have seen things continue to be the way I have previously seen them to be") and so we set ourselves in a nonsense circular argument. From this we should, strictly speaking, reject all possibility of ever gaining any knowledge about how the world works. But nobody believes that. Because if we did we'd go insane, and then we'd starve to death because we'd have no reason to believe that food would actually keep us alive. In summary - Neuropath isn't very well written if it's aimed at a general audience. The reason Boing responded so well to it is because he's familiar enough with psychology to known which bits are speculation, and which are just extensions of existiing ideas and theories. If you're unfamiliar with psychology it comes off a bit Dan Brownish, with big long intellectual sounding lectures that turn out to be compete nonsense. PoN is much more effective at handling these ideas (Xinemus  ) because it's less about the ideas, and more about the characters responding to those ideas. And because "what if there was a super genius who could predict and control all emotion and motivation" is much easier to accept in fantasy than techno-thriller.Edit: Also, Wheee's got the books sussed out pretty fast. He and Mr Soul should give us updates and continual speculation on what Kellhus is really up to. I've got a pretty good idea, but it's always fun and interesting to get a neophyte's take on it.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 24, 2016 22:26
|
|
|
I''ll take verisimilitude over factual accuracy any day. Doesn't matter if the names have perfectly justifiable roots in the ancient world, a lot of them feel like a complete mish-mash. It's odd that having put so much detailinto the exact kind f beard habits of the Three Seas, he then doesn't give the names much to distinguish them from each other. Mr. Soul posted:I've really latched on to this stuff. Finished TFT and I was euphoric when akka told kellhus to go gently caress himself right in front of his court. I felt that that scene was Bakker directly having a dig at Dune. It's almost exactly the ending of Dune/Children, with our hero ascendant, the whol civilisation bending to his will, the political and spiritual establishment complletely upended and then
|
|
#
¿
Feb 7, 2016 23:10
|
|
|
House Louse posted:2. It's funny to think of Kellhus, the mighty Warrior-Prophet and Aspect-Emperor, as Charles II of Spain, the drooling idiot. Oh you are gonna love the Judging Eye.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 24, 2016 19:01
|
|
|
The Mandates mantra is also an inversion of jesus' "what good is it to gain the world if you lose your soul?" One of the epigraphs is also an obvious riff on "when I was a child I thought as a child." The epigraphs I think are some of the strongest parts of Bakkers writing. They drive home just how dark and cynical the philosophies of Earwa are. Compare to Malazan , where the weirdly serene poetry never sat comfortably alongside the rape and cannibalism. There's elements of all sorts of philosophers that are given a nihilistic twist all through the book, but my knowledge of the classics doesn't let me get much beyond "well Ajencis feels kinda like Descartes".
|
|
#
¿
May 14, 2016 15:26
|
|
|
House Louse posted:I'd like to but I can't get them here Oh yeah probably. I was thinking of Ajencian Nail where he sits down to think out the only thing he can be sure of ("that I am less ignorant than before") which is what Descartes does in the intro to his cogito, even if they're vastly different.
|
|
#
¿
May 19, 2016 17:21
|
|
|
Could we change the title to something less off putting? Everyone gets far too hung up on sranc spunk
|
|
#
¿
May 20, 2016 10:16
|
|
|
Daktari posted:I see by my kindle status that I shelved The Thousandfold Thought 1/4 into the book. Yeah. The middle half kinda drags, so if you try and pick up where you left off you'll probably stall out again. Start at the top, enjoy Conphas getting smacked down, and ride that high all the way to the  finale.
|
|
#
¿
May 23, 2016 13:56
|
|
|
Daktari posted:It didn't take much to convince me. I'm already reading recaps on the previous books Excellent! Please keep us updated with your opinions of what Kellhus' endgame is. Love hearing some good speculation.
|
|
#
¿
May 25, 2016 21:55
|
|
|
Wxhode posted:Yeah, but what's with the plains kid that the gods are hiding from Kellhus? What was a white luck warrior anyway? The white-luck warrior is a servant of Yatwer - the white-luck is when chance swings in the favour of the gods, and the white-luck warrior "wills what happens as it happens". From his chapters he's seemingly four-dimensional, he does everything he does because he sees himself doing it in the future (*cough* Dune *cough*). He's conveniently in the right place to save Esmenet from assassination, and his blade has been chipped in just the right place so that when he fight's Kellhus it will shatter and pierce his heart.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 15, 2016 18:38
|
|
|
Reason posted:I haven't heard of this before. The op mentions it is 'brutal', is it grim dark brutal hardcore for the sake of it? Are there elves? It is a bleak and uncaring nihilistic universe, what TVtropes would call a "crapsack world", so there's a lot of rape and murder. I would however, argue that it's largely artistically justified. When I say the world is nihilistic, I mean that precisely. The philosopher, the poetry, the language of the world all argues the impossibility of moral meaning. I started highlighting all the idioms and figures of speech in the books, and all of them are critical, puncturing bravery and idealism. For the world to not be one of unrelenting misery would clash with the attitudes and beliefs of the characters. The infamous "black demon seed" of the title is one of the best handled rape scenes in fantasy - it treats it with appropriate gravitas, and it forms a key part of that characters story, without reducing her to just "rape victim". It doesn't have elves, but there's a handful of "nonmen" in the later books who are clearly based on theidea "how could elves live for thousands of years without going crazy? " although I always picture them as the Engineers from prometheus
|
|
#
¿
Jun 29, 2016 22:38
|
|
|
General Battuta posted:I did like that scene! That scene was cool. I find most of his perspective really dull, though, and I think that's coming off the first trilogy, where we had: I would say you forgot "petty grasping prince with self esteem issues" but I think Saubon might be covered by "gently caress bird". E: my major problem with the second trilogy is how little we know about so many characters motivations. In PoN we see inside Kellhus' head enough that we can unpick his manipulations of other people in their POV chapters. But in TAE we have Maithenet being mysterious, Inrilatas being crazy, Cleric being crazy and mysterious, Kosoter being quiet and mysterious, Sarl being noisy and crazy. Theres so little for Esmenet and Akka to bounce off. Double edit: what do you mean by preconcious framing? Because I'd say Kel exploits that massively, but I may be misunderstanding the term. Strom Cuzewon fucked around with this message at 17:14 on Jun 30, 2016 |
|
#
¿
Jun 30, 2016 16:53
|
|
|
Jeffrey of YOSPOS posted:A parallel to Xinemus? Is that a stretch? There was that whole minor thing about how he and xin look practically identical, that never seem to come to something beyond the clunky "they are both Proyas' father figures" Also Iyokus (more like eyeless-yokus amirite?) is implied to be better at the Daimos now he's blind, not because he's adapting the Psukhe, but because he's achieved greater clarity of meaning without the mess of vision getting in the way.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 1, 2016 16:39
|
|
|
Predictions for The Great Ordeal: Kellhus is going to destroy the Consult, and seize their work for himself. The only way to achieve the true Self-Moving Soul is for him to recreate the No-God, which is the final step of Moenghus' Thousandfold Thought Kellhus' great revelation during PoN is that there is only one soul. Just as the gods are merely fragments of the God, human souls are also fragments of the God. This is the explanation he gives to Akka about how Sorcerors are able to work magic, by remembering what it is to speak with the God's voice. Incariol echoes this, talking about humans as fractured souls unable to perceive the whole, and Samarmas believes he sees the same soul in the eyes of the people he murders, so this is clearly more than just a tale Kellhus is spinning to control his new religion. This doesn't invalidate any of the teachings on damnation - fragmented Gods war against each other as fragmented men do, and they gleefully feast on human souls. Mimara's Judging Eye allows her to see the sins and virtues of people, unlike the vague sense of unease from Sorcerous marks she gets actual, verifiable information on people's crimes, which leads me to thinking that morality is an objectively definable thing. Besides, Bakker's not boring enough to fall into moral relativism. The Consult have stumbled onto the answer, but haven't fully understood it. The Inchoroi have murdered hundreds of worlds but still find themselves damned. The Consult are creating the No-God as a sort of AI (somewhere between the Geth and Chinabrain) - unifying all the Sranc into one will, but what they've actually done is create an artificial demon. The No-God behaves exactly like the Ghost of Cil'Aujis - it's immune to chorae, and speaks by possessing multiple people at once: the Ghost possesses Akka and one of the Skin Eaters, and the No-God possesses all sranc everywhere at once. It also gives an explanation of the Death of Birth that the No-God causes. It's clearly not magical, or chorae would stop it, sorcerers would see its mark, and only the Few would be able to sense it's presence. But extremely powerful demons are able to bring part of the Outside with them, which would allow the No-God to affect the whole world. It would also explain how it causes the topos at Mengedda - like the Ghost it wore a hole into the Outside. Moenghus only walked part of the way along the Thousandfold Thought. He never grasped the fact of his damnation, so he simply developed his master plan to save Earwa from the Consult. But Kellhus is going to go one step further, and save their souls. If the fragmented souls of men can be yoked together like sranc souls are, then a new Ur-god can be created, and a new Outside, a new afterlife. The Dunyain idea of a self moving soul is utter nonsense - you can't reject both outside influences AND your own passions - and so many of the characters (Inrilatas/Conphas, Thelli, Cnauir) show that there is simply no way to function without allowing something to influence you. But time doesn't exist in the Outside in the same way it does in the world - how else could the White-Luck Warrior see his future selves? (as an aside - this is weirdly close to the Nonman religion, but I can't see a direct connection) how else could the Judging Eye be a result of a still-birth that hasn't happened? How else could Celmomas II prophesise Kellhus? This gives the Dunyain a way to cheat. By creating their own God they can step outside the circle of cause and effect. All the Biblical language (logos is obvious, self-moving soul is a riff on Aristotle's unmoved mover/primum movems) points to a suitably Biblical conclusion.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 6, 2016 21:32
|
|
|
I thought the kindle wasn't til September? I'm loving importing the hardback from the states.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 7, 2016 10:01
|
|
|
Libluini posted:Not where I live. German philosophers are more known for using impenetrable language to make sure only other philosophers can understand them. You mean they're condescending pricks who don't know how to talk to people? :sokal burn:
|
|
#
¿
Jul 9, 2016 13:06
|
|
|
The Vosgian Beast posted:I've done it. I've proved people in the humanities have an ungrounded belief in the good faith engagement of physicists in their discipline and are willing to forgive shoddy work in the hope of mending the rift between the two cultures-Alan Sokal Did he say that or are you saying that?
|
|
#
¿
Jul 9, 2016 17:30
|
|
|
The good: Proyas and Saubon are back The bad: Sometimes whole chapters pass without Proyas or Saubon appearing.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 20, 2016 21:28
|
|
|
kcroy posted:Not sure what spoiler rules are so.. The white luck warrior can see himself in the future and the past, which is why he moves with that Unnerving Grace - he sees himself do something, and then he does it. The outside is some combination afterlife and spirit realm - it's where souls and gods reside. It exists in some way outside of time, which is how prophecy is able to exist and how WLW can do his thing. One of the major mysteries is how exactly the outside relates to the inside - whether gods cause humans or humans cause god. The zero/infinite thing is a weird spin on omniscience and the "can god make a rock so heavy he can't lift it?" because if the God is infinite and all knowing, then he's unable to be surprised, unable to experience the panoply of human emotions that depend on not knowing. More disturbing, if the god sees all then, like the WLW, it has no will, he does what he will do (oh hello Muad'Dib, didn't see you there). The WLW goes catatonic because Kellhus has somehow found a way to break free of prophecy, to exist outside his visions. WLW can't kill him, because he can only see the false future where he's killed him. Ditto the no-god, because he (may) destroy the outside by murdering the world the gods can't see him - if you're infinite, you can't conceive your end.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 21, 2016 10:23
|
|
|
The most vital question - did kellhus bugger saubon?
|
|
#
¿
Jul 27, 2016 10:12
|
|
|
The Vosgian Beast posted:Oh he was all up in there. I like to think he didn't, because Saubon knows there's no way Proyas will believe him, and that shame and powerlessness would gnaw away at him so much.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 28, 2016 23:37
|
|
|
In place of earth, sranc. In place of distance, sranc. The mobbing scenes and the cull are awesome, as well as the psychology of fighting such an endless foe. But like most of Aspect it gets repeated far more than it needs. Fun game - how many times does Kosoter execute someone for breaking the rules of the slog? I think it's 7 loving times
|
|
#
¿
Aug 1, 2016 18:15
|
|
|
genericnick posted:Possible. There is also a mention of the four horned brother or whatever it was called seeing what the other gods don't see. And little Kel is connected to it since the very first scene he appears in. I don't remember too clearly but in the stories about people beseeching the Ankokji(sp?) they always get the most catastrophic outcome. Ajokli. It's weird that he's the one who appears to claim Celmomas' soul, not Gilgaol. Also Celmomas had a stillborn twin brother, so it would seem kind of plausible that Kelmomas is his reincarnation, and that his vision of Kellhus was wrong, Or the Zero god. Which is different from the no god. Because zero is infinity and one is zero and one is infinity. Or something.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 10, 2016 13:13
|
|
|
genericnick posted:Didn't catch that. Some Seswatha dream? Akka dreams the Celmomian prophecy from Celmomas' perspective - a god appears and shows him Kellhus. Celmomas identifies him as Gilgaol, but "A crown gleamed above his brow, four golden horns, clutched in the arms of four nubile virgins - the Spoils" Unless the gods are all a bit funny about putting four horns on things, that sounds like it's actually Ajokli. Edit: Nobody's ever mentioned reincarnation as far as I can remember - but as all souls are the same it seems perfectly reasonable. Strom Cuzewon fucked around with this message at 16:28 on Aug 10, 2016 |
|
#
¿
Aug 10, 2016 16:25
|
|
|
genericnick posted:The description sounds very specific for it to be a case of mistaken identity. Still something to keep in mind. Just like Onkis being a head on a pole. Which is also a skull on a tree. The ancient Norsirai practiced tree burial, so Onkis could be the god of death. Is it possible that the Inrithi have got their gods completely jumbled up? Nobody mentions reincarnation, but I don't see how the soul chopping completely precludes reincarnation.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 12, 2016 19:56
|
|
|
Well Kellhus 's realisation that all souls are one would support the idea that the gods are just aspects of The God, so Inri can't have been too far out. Which raises the question of how and why he was able to come to those conclusions.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 12, 2016 22:49
|
|
|
Jeffrey of YOSPOS posted:Yeah actually, was he the one who first said that sorcery causes damnation? We do know that to be true so maybe he was on to something. The implications of the judging eye are much more interesting now after the third book than they were when it was introduced, though it kind of seems like "cheating" the same way sorcery is. Does using the judging eye cause damnation? Is she invisible to the gods and about to give birth to the no-god? Nah, damnation was something that the tusk mentions a few times - it's in the same bits about prostitutes that Esme thinks about. The Judging Eye is interesting because it seems to say that morality is a measurable thing, that damnation is an objectively observable phenomenon. It's fundamentally different to sorcery, because it's concerned entirely with the Outside, and doesn't have anything to do with the Onta. Where are you getting the implication about Mimara being damned and giving birth to the no-god? I never got that impression.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 12, 2016 23:30
|
|
|
Number Ten Cocks posted:I think you mean Kellhus' claim that all souls are one. He was still working to manipulate and control Achamian when he told him that. And obviously he synched his speech with Achamian through Dunyain mind reading, not because he was actually linked to him through the ur-soul. C'mon. He was very persuasive. Although I will admire the gumption if it turns out everything Kellhus has said is a complete fabrication.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 14, 2016 22:59
|
|
|
Did it get bright? I thought it appeared before they arrived, which screams "wormhole" to me. I also like the idea that for all their scifi trappings, the Inchoroi don't have a sense of outer space having physical dimensions, and that they don't consider planets to be part of the same universe.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 16, 2016 18:47
|
|
|
Book one is an awful lot of prologue - it's basically everyone traveling to Momemn to prepare for the Holy War. The Warrior Prophet has all of these disparate characters in one place and bouncing off one another, and is hands down the best fantasy novel I've ever read. If you liked the war scenes then definitely give the next book a go. Especially if you want more of Akka being angsty and Cnaiur being crazy.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 19, 2016 20:16
|
|
|
For all of his flaws, GRRM has the best grasp of character of almost anyone working in fantasy today. Bakker is a close second, mostly for the trio of Achamian/Cnaiur/Esme reacting to Kellhus. Unless my experience of modern fantasy is unusually shite. Also Proyas. Fuckin Proyas. And Saubon. He's such a dick. But a believable dick.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 19, 2016 21:33
|
|
|
Even though Xin resigns like a boss, lays a verbal smack down on Proyas, and leads a daring rescue mission his most awesome moment will always be kicking the fire at Dinch for being a dick to Akka. Lord Cyrahzax posted:Conphas was pretty fun too. Wish he was still alive plotting his return. Conphas and Saubon are basically the same person in different environments. If Saubon had been the first born, and if Conphas had been the seventh son, they'd have just switched places. Both (erroneously) consider themselves self-moving souls, it's just the rest of the world plays along with Conphas and tells Saubon to shut up and sit down. Strom Cuzewon fucked around with this message at 21:05 on Aug 21, 2016 |
|
#
¿
Aug 21, 2016 21:03
|
|
|
Heck, give me silly masks, leather kilts and the knee kissing you can shake a stick at, and I won't even care if they cut out hordes of orcs with rampant erections
|
|
#
¿
Aug 26, 2016 14:58
|
|
|
Libluini posted:Some authors just have this one weird thing you start to notice after reading their books for long enough. Or indeed for any time at all.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 9, 2016 16:17
|
|
|
Number Ten Cocks posted:Discussion of the new book never really picked up like I expected it to. What if the Nogod IS the god of gods? Maybe the consult have dragged the god down into a physical form, and the reason for the constant WHAT AM I is because, as an infinite being, the god is incapable of perceiving itself and the world.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 27, 2016 19:10
|
|
|
Cardiac posted:So by imprisoning God, judgement is denied to all and therefore no one goes to hell. Would explain all the Chorae on the sarcophagus. If the chorae can contain The God then something weird as gently caress is going on - the whole point of the Aporetics is to keep the universe going in the direction the god intended (which explains why they're forbidden - in a culture that worships becoming what can be more taboo than stasis?)
|
|
#
¿
Sep 27, 2016 21:38
|
|
|
General Battuta posted:That reminds me, did we have any hints about the existence of the Tall before this book? I remember loads of nonman heroes wrestling dragons and poo poo, but I don't remember any hints that they were literally Very Large Nonmans None whatsoever.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 1, 2016 20:28
|
|
|
General Battuta posted:The ground pitched a chapped marmoreal rind A preternatural cataract of chortles.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 2, 2016 15:30
|
|
|
Hieronymous Alloy posted:I got a request to rename this thread but I never read this thread or these books. Suggestions? Was the request someone fed up with seeing BLACK DEMON SEED next to their wizard books, or someone from this thread who thought we'd get more readers if we re-branded?
|
|
#
¿
Dec 7, 2016 20:30
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 28, 2024 10:18 |
|
|
Collateral posted:Does this series get better? I am halfway through the warrior prophet and the entire book seems to be characters telling other characters how much they absolutely love Kelhus. Like thiiiiiiiiis much. Or crying because other characters are telling them "Nu huh I love Kelhus the mostest." There's also Saubon's "nobody looooooooooves me, why can't they see how great I aaaaaaaaaaaaaam" I loving love Saubon. Petulant poo poo.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 18, 2017 19:56
|
|