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neongrey posted:go to jail for 1000 years
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Jan 4, 2023 23:04
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my work here is done done medium rare
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Jan 4, 2023 23:07
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Probably projecting with this speculation, but I prefer the hybrid soul theory for Nona being bits of everyone. There's Harrow and Gideon and Alecto all mixed up. The reason for new birth Nona is to allow Alecto to actually understand humanity. Not from the POV of the Earth, not as a voyeur watching from over Harrow's shoulder, but to actually experience life as a human herself. Most everything we see from Alecto's point of view is alien and weird. At the end of Nona she asserts her own reality over everyone else so she hears them in biblical terms because she is a confused half-god stuck in a Hollywood Hair Barbie body (that she hates) having to put up with these annoying flesh infants. Nona will be what will allow her to actually understand them in order to deal with them for whatever ultimately happens in Alecto. Also, I also hope this will stop her from perceiving everyone in her weird way because even in the short sequence at the end of Nona, that dialogue wore thin for me. But the reason I really want the hybrid theory to be true is because I want more Nona. I loved her character. And part of that was because she seemed like a second chance for both Gideon and Harrow to have a childhood. One where they were raised by loving caregivers and they were able to make real friendships with others. Nona felt like all the best parts of both Harrow and Gideon if they were allowed to openly be themselves. And the instinctual two handed sword style, and Harrow voice "stop, you're killing her" make me think they're both in there somewhere.
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Jan 5, 2023 03:55
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Kesper North posted:huge if moo  E: oh right! just working out how many hours jail for a thousand years would be
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Jan 5, 2023 04:11
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ccubed posted:Probably projecting with this speculation, but I prefer the hybrid soul theory for Nona being bits of everyone. There's Harrow and Gideon and Alecto all mixed up. The reason for new birth Nona is to allow Alecto to actually understand humanity. Not from the POV of the Earth, not as a voyeur watching from over Harrow's shoulder, but to actually experience life as a human herself. Most everything we see from Alecto's point of view is alien and weird. At the end of Nona she asserts her own reality over everyone else so she hears them in biblical terms because she is a confused half-god stuck in a Hollywood Hair Barbie body (that she hates) having to put up with these annoying flesh infants. Nona will be what will allow her to actually understand them in order to deal with them for whatever ultimately happens in Alecto. Also, I also hope this will stop her from perceiving everyone in her weird way because even in the short sequence at the end of Nona, that dialogue wore thin for me. All really good insights and I think/hope you are right
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Jan 5, 2023 04:15
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ccubed posted:Probably projecting with this speculation, but I prefer the hybrid soul theory for Nona being bits of everyone. There's Harrow and Gideon and Alecto all mixed up. The reason for new birth Nona is to allow Alecto to actually understand humanity. Not from the POV of the Earth, not as a voyeur watching from over Harrow's shoulder, but to actually experience life as a human herself. Most everything we see from Alecto's point of view is alien and weird. At the end of Nona she asserts her own reality over everyone else so she hears them in biblical terms because she is a confused half-god stuck in a Hollywood Hair Barbie body (that she hates) having to put up with these annoying flesh infants. Nona will be what will allow her to actually understand them in order to deal with them for whatever ultimately happens in Alecto. Also, I also hope this will stop her from perceiving everyone in her weird way because even in the short sequence at the end of Nona, that dialogue wore thin for me. That would be nice if Nona continues on as part of (a less insane) Alecto
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Jan 5, 2023 04:28
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mewse posted:That would be nice if Nona continues on as part of (a less insane) Alecto I imagine if Alecto was sealed away to stop her destroying John and the universe he's created, Nona's experiences of love will eventually be what inspires Alecto to stay her hand now that she's finally free.
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Jan 5, 2023 05:14
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sebmojo posted:
Approximately 8,766,000 hours.
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Jan 5, 2023 05:35
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Everyone posted:Approximately 8,766,000 hours. Right, on it E: goddammit astral this button is broken
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Jan 5, 2023 05:45
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A sixer is 21600 seconds, and we could count each second as a thousand years
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Jan 5, 2023 05:49
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*skelly in the stands* booooooo booooooooooo
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Jan 6, 2023 00:10
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Random thought, maybe a small part of why the Emperor wants to conquer all of humanity is he is worried someone out there in all that uncontrolled humanity might repeat what happened to him and gain powers spontaneously. My personal thought is: the Emperor in those early days wasn't JUST a necromancer but his background in doing all those tests with corpses made him direct his power in that direction and he pigeonholed himself without realizing it. So if someone went through the same thing they might develop further than he managed to.
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Jan 6, 2023 12:21
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ElBrak posted:Random thought, maybe a small part of why the Emperor wants to conquer all of humanity is he is worried someone out there in all that uncontrolled humanity might repeat what happened to him and gain powers spontaneously. My personal thought is: the Emperor in those early days wasn't JUST a necromancer but his background in doing all those tests with corpses made him direct his power in that direction and he pigeonholed himself without realizing it. So if someone went through the same thing they might develop further than he managed to. I don't think that's even a little bit of his thought process. John wants revenge on people who have been dead and gone for thousands of years while avoiding the consequences of his earliest attempts to get that revenge.
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Jan 6, 2023 15:16
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They're using experimental FTL they might still be alive
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Jan 6, 2023 15:35
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Harold Fjord posted:They're using experimental FTL they might still be alive I hope not. I think that it would seriously undercut the themes of the series if John was somehow right to be doing what he was doing.
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Jan 6, 2023 16:27
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ElBrak posted:Random thought, maybe a small part of why the Emperor wants to conquer all of humanity is he is worried someone out there in all that uncontrolled humanity might repeat what happened to him and gain powers spontaneously. My personal thought is: the Emperor in those early days wasn't JUST a necromancer but his background in doing all those tests with corpses made him direct his power in that direction and he pigeonholed himself without realizing it. So if someone went through the same thing they might develop further than he managed to. That strikes me as a very broad interpretation of what the potential powers that a dying planet might imbue a person with. A reveal like that would zoom out so far past everything that's been laid out so far (seemingly with great care by Muir) that the final book would really not stick the landing.
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Jan 6, 2023 16:48
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Harold Fjord posted:They're using experimental FTL they might still be alive Who is John out conquering, if not them? Literally everyone else in the human race is descended from people resurrected by John.
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Jan 6, 2023 16:51
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Lead out in cuffs posted:Who is John out conquering, if not them? Literally everyone else in the human race is descended from people resurrected by John. People descended from them, who are not them. You don't get to take revenge on people just because their great x500 grandparents did something terrible.
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Jan 6, 2023 16:56
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Qwertycoatl posted:People descended from them, who are not them. You don't get to take revenge on people just because their great x500 grandparents did something terrible. Sorry, yeah, that's what I meant. I was just responding to the idea that they never survived to populate the galaxy/universe for John to conquer.
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Jan 6, 2023 17:08
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Also my new descriptor for the series is "a story about a sad girl who had to grow up too fast, when all she ever really wanted was her own Barbie". Also it occurs to me that Alecto/Gaia is basically just a less-hostile resurrection beast. She even has conversations with them as Nona
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Jan 6, 2023 17:23
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ElBrak posted:Random thought, maybe a small part of why the Emperor wants to conquer all of humanity is he is worried someone out there in all that uncontrolled humanity might repeat what happened to him and gain powers spontaneously. My personal thought is: the Emperor in those early days wasn't JUST a necromancer but his background in doing all those tests with corpses made him direct his power in that direction and he pigeonholed himself without realizing it. So if someone went through the same thing they might develop further than he managed to. Yeah, I absolutely think this is what's happened - John was supposed to be a D&D super-druid gifted power by THE LITERAL EARTH HERSELF, because these powers include a lot of manipulation of living tissue and not just dead things, but he was so tied up in his own perspective that he hosed it. Just like he fucks up everything else.
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Jan 6, 2023 19:34
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Lead out in cuffs posted:Also my new descriptor for the series is "a story about a sad girl who had to grow up too fast, when all she ever really wanted was her own Barbie". Yes, that's explicit.
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Jan 6, 2023 21:16
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Is anyone clear on the exact distinction between thanergy and thalergy? Thanergy seems to occur at the point of death/decay, and becomes self sustaining if it gets a biosphere to start eating away at. But if thalergy is the opposite and relates to living things then that doesn't seem to be any barrier to using it for traditional spooky skeletons and flesh mounds.
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Jan 7, 2023 00:49
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sebmojo posted:Yes, that's explicit. I guess my point is that if John could have just had a chat with them or something, rather than the whole throwing them into black holes / flushing them down the stoma at the bottom of the River thing, then maybe he wouldn't be in as much of a mess as he's in. But add that to the big pile of things John has hosed up at.
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Jan 7, 2023 01:17
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Strategic Tea posted:Is anyone clear on the exact distinction between thanergy and thalergy? Thanergy seems to occur at the point of death/decay, and becomes self sustaining if it gets a biosphere to start eating away at. I'm pretty sure necromancy is strictly powered by thanergy, even when they're producing thalergy for stuff like healing. Like the Sixth when they get back to the Ninth planet at the end of Nona, and they're all "it's a high-thanergy background, yay we can all heal ourselves".
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Jan 7, 2023 01:19
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Lead out in cuffs posted:I guess my point is that if John could have just had a chat with them or something, rather than the whole throwing them into black holes / flushing them down the stoma at the bottom of the River thing, then maybe he wouldn't be in as much of a mess as he's in. But add that to the big pile of things John has hosed up at. Did you ever watch The Black Phone? It's about a kid who is taken by a serial killer of children called The Grabber. The kid is helped by the ghosts of The Grabber's previous victims. So, considering that, is there any conversational tact that The Grabber could use to get the ghosts of the children he murdered on his side? I'm thinking no. And that's where John is. As I understand it, the Resurrection Beasts are essentially the ghosts of the planets that John brutally, violently murdered in his attempt to murder the rich people who escaped into FTL. Maybe talking to the RBs is the answer, but they're almost certainly not going to want to talk with John, the guy who, again, brutally, violently murdered them.
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Jan 7, 2023 06:06
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Everyone posted:Did you ever watch The Black Phone? It's about a kid who is taken by a serial killer of children called The Grabber. The kid is helped by the ghosts of The Grabber's previous victims. So, considering that, is there any conversational tact that The Grabber could use to get the ghosts of the children he murdered on his side? ^ John's awfulness is sort of holographic in that every book gives it another dimension and every part of it somehow contains the whole
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Jan 7, 2023 09:26
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Lead out in cuffs posted:I guess my point is that if John could have just had a chat with them or something, rather than the whole throwing them into black holes / flushing them down the stoma at the bottom of the River thing, then maybe he wouldn't be in as much of a mess as he's in. But add that to the big pile of things John has hosed up at. "I saw them all - they hurt me - where is my hunger? I eat and eat and eat without surcease, my green thing, my green-and-breathing thing Green-and-breathing thing, big ghost, the drinker, transformed, what will you eat now? Where will your body go? What did he do to you to make you this way? You eat yourself. I gorge on unliving marrow." They're well beyond a rational conversation. Half of what they say is incoherent rage, the other half is very coherent and justified rage.
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Jan 7, 2023 12:33
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I think they say In Harrow that the RBs are planet revenants, ghosts driven by revenge, and I think that revenge is against John specifically but also necromancy (esp the Lyctors) in general. It's a little more complicated than that, but they're definitely in a different category from Alecto. I just re-read the ending of Nona recently. I definitely think it's the weakest part of the book, felt too much like just moving pieces into position and the characters didn't come through as well. But the very last chapter was more fun now that I have a better understanding of what's been going on, and "Get in line, thou slut" is a great ending line and a great summary of the books in general. StumblyWumbly fucked around with this message at 05:38 on Jan 8, 2023 |
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Jan 7, 2023 17:31
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StumblyWumbly posted:they're definitely in a different category from Alecto. I think this is wrong and explicitly stated in the book. There's a reason he ate half her power and locked her away
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Jan 7, 2023 18:19
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Y’all are loving up on not spoiling poo poo again, stop that. Unrelated with Harrow and Nona spoilers included, I have a weird question. given that the example of ‘perfect’ Lyctorhood is the man who are a planet, can there be a perfect Lyctorhood between two humans that doesn’t end up like Paul? “… thou big slut”. Just for accuracy’s sake because that’s the funniest line in the book for me. DreamingofRoses fucked around with this message at 00:55 on Jan 8, 2023 |
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Jan 8, 2023 00:26
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DreamingofRoses posted:Unrelated with Harrow and Nona spoilers included, I have a weird question. , can there be a perfect Lyctorhoof between two humans that doesn’t end up like Paul? Ahhh yes, the inevitable MLP crossover
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Jan 8, 2023 00:47
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cptn_dr posted:Ahhh yes, the inevitable MLP crossover Goddamn it. Thank you.
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Jan 8, 2023 00:55
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Is it explicitly stated that none of the lyctors are or were centaurs, though?
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Jan 8, 2023 04:31
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Poor ol' Ulysses, thought of ants and died.
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Jan 8, 2023 04:37
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Harold Fjord posted:I think this is wrong and explicitly stated in the book. There's a reason he ate half her power and locked her away I'm not sure what you're referring to. What I'm talking about is that Alecto was the soul of the planet and John merged with her / ate her / Lyctored. The RBs are more like revenants, John accidentally killed them and now they want revenge. DreamingofRoses posted:Y’all are loving up on not spoiling poo poo again, stop that. I editted my post, but this seems pretty deep in the thread to use spoilers... Thanks for the correction, I knew I should have checked
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Jan 8, 2023 05:46
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StumblyWumbly posted:I'm not sure what you're referring to. What I'm talking about is that Alecto was the soul of the planet and John merged with her / ate her / Lyctored. The RBs are more like revenants, John accidentally killed them and now they want revenge.
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Jan 8, 2023 06:48
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DreamingofRoses posted:Unrelated with Harrow and Nona spoilers included, I have a weird question. given that the example of ‘perfect’ Lyctorhood is the man who are a planet, can there be a perfect Lyctorhood between two humans that doesn’t end up like Paul? To steal a line from that Will Smith I, Robot movie: that is the right question. What I get out of it is yes, and John actively hid it from his resurrected buddies. Anastasia figured it out because she “over-researched” it and he killed her cav to prevent it. (We only have John’s story, which is that he killed her cav to save Anastasia’s life when the Eightfold Word went wrong, with the result that she didn’t achieve lyctorhood.) “Over-researched” definitely fits Pal, and we don’t know what happens when two people in the right bodies who aren’t actively dying do it.
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Jan 8, 2023 10:38
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Luigi Thirty posted:To steal a line from that Will Smith I, Robot movie: that is the right question. While he's done some stupid, heinous poo poo, I think I believe John's story about what happened to Anastasia. I think Augustus and Mercymorn gave him both too much blame and too much credit. I think John's "perfect Lyctorhood" was something he stumbled into and accidentally survived. And he knows that. The "imperfect" Lyctorhood has an awful cost, but it's relatively safe, reliable and repeatable. Figure the "perfect" version only works if you actually get every last little thing perfect. And if you don't, you die. And so does your cavalier. And given the level of thanergy being tossed around probably quite a few people in your general vicinity also die.
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Jan 8, 2023 11:50
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DreamingofRoses posted:Unrelated with Harrow and Nona spoilers included, I have a weird question. given that the example of ‘perfect’ Lyctorhood is the man who are a planet, can there be a perfect Lyctorhood between two humans that doesn’t end up like Paul? I think probably not. I may be off base but I thought the others thought John had One Weird Trick to keep his cavailier alive but actually it was "just" that he used a planet rather than a person (and so a soul too big to fully eat)
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Jan 8, 2023 12:29
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