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I call my little brother Dickhead.
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Jan 26, 2018 05:22
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skasion posted:For an author as full of himself as he seems to be, Bakker’s command of language lets him down in some weird ways. He keeps using “trod” like it’s in present tense throughout the entire thing, at least once per volume, he continuously uses the word “guttural” in a way which makes me question if he has ever seen it defined, and at some point in TGO there’s a “you hath” which it’s like, come the gently caress on, how do you write fantasy books and not know your basic archaisms. In TUC he actually used "cataracts" in its modern sense to refer to dodgy eyes, and the shock wracked me to the pith.
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Jan 26, 2018 09:43
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Well, that sure was an ending. The moral of the story is that if your kids are weird, it doesn’t matter what the wife thinks, you should probably kill them. also, I feel really sorry for Proyas’ wife and kids. Also here’s a question about it: if Kellhus was Ajokli all along(? or at least for all of the last four books) then why was he open to doing anything about Golgotterath/the potential resurrection of No God at all? I thought gods couldn’t see No God and didn’t give a gently caress about him. skasion fucked around with this message at 03:59 on Jan 30, 2018 |
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Jan 30, 2018 03:35
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skasion posted:
Yeah, so sad how they are a barely-mentioned source of brief bathos! As for the question, it seems that even if the gods can't see Mog-Pharau directly, they can still see the effect he has people/the world. It's still dumb and kinda self-defeating, but can't reach maximum edge unless every last detail is accounted for!
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Jan 31, 2018 13:26
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They can see the effects, but they don’t/won’t understand that No God has anything to do with them, which is why Yatwer/Momas/etc. go apeshit on the Empire as I understand it. Apparently during the first apocalypse they witnessed like a decade of world wide stillbirths without giving a single gently caress and wrote off all those destroyed cities with a “wow, they must have pissed off the sranc something fierce I guess”. I guess if you were possessing Kellhus you would have to know that he at least believed the No God was real since he’s got the Gnosis (and presumably the Dreams), but I guess I just don’t see where Ajokli gets off here.
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Jan 31, 2018 13:43
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skasion posted:They can see the effects, but they don’t/won’t understand that No God has anything to do with them, which is why Yatwer/Momas/etc. go apeshit on the Empire as I understand it. Apparently during the first apocalypse they witnessed like a decade of world wide stillbirths without giving a single gently caress and wrote off all those destroyed cities with a “wow, they must have pissed off the sranc something fierce I guess”. I guess if you were possessing Kellhus you would have to know that he at least believed the No God was real since he’s got the Gnosis (and presumably the Dreams), but I guess I just don’t see where Ajokli gets off here. Ajokli might not even understand what Kellhus is on about. If the gods are metaphysically incapable of grasping the no-god then a single mortal isn't really going to change that. It seems to me that Ajokli just saw his chance and hopped onboard Kellhus' soul so he could run amok in the World and eat a load of souls. As to when it happened, I haven't the foggiest idea, because Kellhus seems to only get more sane as he approaches Golgotterath, which kind of skewers what Bakker was saying about him become more and more Ajokli. This is why people need editors. Because sometimes the story you've written isn't the story you think you've written.
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Jan 31, 2018 13:51
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I don’t feel like I even have a sense of what becoming “more and more Ajokli” would look like, because by far the most exposure to Ajokli we even get is...right at the end when it’s revealed. None of the other characters really think about him that much and we don’t have any scriptural or mythic information about him. I guess back in Judging Eye, you get a little bit of Kelmomas raving about him, but I don’t recall anything in that passage that stands out in retrospect as an obvious tell. Even more than that, how the hell am I supposed to judge whether Kellhus is being weird and out of character or not, when his whole character revolves around massive weirdness and manipulating the motherfuck out of everyone else on the planet, up to and including blaspheming your own divinity to your rape victim to set him up to take the fall for any cannibal orgies that may take place down the line?
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Jan 31, 2018 14:09
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There really isn't a satisfying answer to the Ajokli stuff, even though "what is up with Kellus and what is his endgame" is the central question of the sequel series. In theory this is stuff we might get answers to if Bakker writes more books, but it's not clear if there will be more books, or if there are, whether they will tie up any of the loose strings. I read a bunch of interviews with Bakker after finishing the series and he seems to have strange views on things that still need to be explained vs. things that he feels were explained in the books.
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Jan 31, 2018 14:34
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skasion posted:I don’t feel like I even have a sense of what becoming “more and more Ajokli” would look like, because by far the most exposure to Ajokli we even get is...right at the end when it’s revealed. None of the other characters really think about him that much and we don’t have any scriptural or mythic information about him. I guess back in Judging Eye, you get a little bit of Kelmomas raving about him, but I don’t recall anything in that passage that stands out in retrospect as an obvious tell. Even more than that, how the hell am I supposed to judge whether Kellhus is being weird and out of character or not, when his whole character revolves around massive weirdness and manipulating the motherfuck out of everyone else on the planet, up to and including blaspheming your own divinity to your rape victim to set him up to take the fall for any cannibal orgies that may take place down the line? Exactly! I feel like half the book is missing. Worse, "he was possessed by the devil all along" is an incredibly boring answer to the problem of Kellhus. All his conversations with Proyas were amazing because of their ambiguity - Kellhus may have been telling the truth, he may have just been trying to manipulate Proyas, or, worst of all, it could have been both. There was a wonderful unease to all the Kellhus scenes, and I really enjoyed how all of his motivations could be interpreted in a variety of different ways. Then we get to the end and oh whoops he was just a nutter who hosed up.
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Jan 31, 2018 14:37
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I am so glad I tapped out at the judging eye this sounds hilarious. He was just possesses by Satan all along?
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Jan 31, 2018 14:49
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Ajokli read more like Loki than Satan to me. Not so much the prime figure of evil (after all the regular gods are a pretty bad lot themselves) as just a particular dickhead who is always up to some poo poo.
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Jan 31, 2018 15:00
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Lunchmeat Larry posted:I am so glad I tapped out at the judging eye this sounds hilarious. He was just possesses by Satan all along? I made it through WLW and decided I didn't need to give Bakker any more benefit of the doubt, or at least that the sequels weren't worth anticipating. I just saw that they came out, and I'm glad I quit too.
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Jan 31, 2018 16:30
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quote:I feel really sorry for Proyas’ wife and kids. I feel most sorry for Proyas. I am STILL angry over what happened to him. As for Ajokli, I don't think Kellhus was fully possessed until Golgotterath and he apparently didn't anticipate that.
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Jan 31, 2018 20:08
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Pleiades posted:I feel most sorry for Proyas. I am STILL angry over what happened to him. At least Proyas got dead before it turned out that his disgrace and sacrifice were worth gently caress all. And at least somebody still loved him. His family are probably going to get roasted and fed to each other if anyone ever makes it back to the Three Seas to rat on him. They will probably blame him for the whole debacle and accuse him of conspiring with the consult all along. He’ll be lucky if future generations (what future generations, lol) don’t consider him the loving antichrist. e: though I guess death is not really much of a respite since he is now presumably burning in hell for his crimes. skasion fucked around with this message at 20:22 on Jan 31, 2018 |
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Jan 31, 2018 20:15
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I can't remember exactly where it was, but there was a bit where Khellus talks about being a reverse-prophet, that instead of getting messages from the god(s) he was sending them. I understood that as he was warning them of the No God too, and for some reason Ajokli either was curious enough to see or actually believed him and came to stop it.
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Jan 31, 2018 20:30
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skasion posted:At least Proyas got dead before it turned out that his disgrace and sacrifice were worth gently caress all. And at least somebody still loved him. His family are probably going to get roasted and fed to each other if anyone ever makes it back to the Three Seas to rat on him. They will probably blame him for the whole debacle and accuse him of conspiring with the consult all along. He’ll be lucky if future generations (what future generations, lol) don’t consider him the loving antichrist. Well, it depends on what the remaining survivors decide to do. I also worry about the family, but we know nothing about them and it's really a question of WHO gets there first. No way Esmenet and Akka (ESPECIALLY AKKA) would buy Proyas being part of the Consult. And the Kellhus hologram appeared BEFORE the No God appeared, so some people might end up blaming Kellhus himself. Honestly, given what happened to Proyas, he might as well have been the one to become the No-God. Would have been some sweet irony and far better than what happened to him. still bitter...and tbh, because of all that, I was quite pleased that the "sacrifice" was worth gently caress all. Pleiades fucked around with this message at 21:20 on Jan 31, 2018 |
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Jan 31, 2018 21:16
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The fundamental problem of the second trilogy is the gods driving the story. They're really boring and bring absolutely nothing to the table. We don't get any insight into damnation or spirituality beyond "lotta ways to get damned huh??" and in exchange we abandon the relative closure of the first trilogy's logic (everything that happens can ultimately be attributed to an agency with known motives within the story) for a lot of aimless mimara babies, endless murder kid chapters, excruciatingly unlikable white-luck warriors, and Ajokli popping up to say "i like it when stuff is kill"
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Jan 31, 2018 22:18
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In Consult Golgotterath, Logos apprehends you
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Jan 31, 2018 22:20
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Has there been direct confirmation of whether Kellhus is a decapitant, or somehow inhabiting mimara's baby? With plans to join in a hypostatic union similar to the incarnation of Jesus upon earth, in christianity. I was reading about the Crocodile dilemma and attempting to see if it had anything to do with these thoughts. Along with Kellhus' encounter with a Crocodilian son. The Great Ordeal posted:So he seizes the lake and the thousand babes and the void and the massing-descending Sons and the lamentations-that-are-honey, and he rips them about the pole, transforms here into here, this-place-inside-where-you-sit-now, where he has always hidden, always watched, where Other Sons, recline, drinking from bowls that are skies, savouring the moaning broth of the Countless, bloating for the sake of bloat, slaking hungers like chasms, pits that eternity had rendered Holy... At one point: The Unholy Consult posted:Cnaiur was watching him when Moenghus regained consciousness, sitting naked in the light showering through the yaksh entrance. The King-of-Tribes slouched forward, his arms hooked about an upright knee. His swazond appeared to scale him---such was the contrast between shadow and the white morning bright---rendering him something crocodilian.
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Jan 31, 2018 23:04
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quote:Has there been direct confirmation of whether Kellhus is a decapitant, or somehow inhabiting mimara's baby? Decapitant is the most popular theory. Baby Kellhus was dismissed by Bakker himself in a reddit AMA.
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Feb 1, 2018 00:11
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That motherfucker.
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Feb 1, 2018 01:26
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papa horny michael posted:That motherfucker. Bakker has a weird habit of revealing/confirming/denying stuff in random spots online. For example there’s an interview he did with some random fantasy blog in like 2011 where he explains that the Tusk was made by the Inchoroi to trick ancient men into fighting the Nonmen. Why spill the beans on this kinda interesting piece of background on a blog and not weave it into the story? 
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Feb 1, 2018 01:41
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Was I the only one who thought of the white-luck warrior during the dream sequence in the last Star War? Very similar image.
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Feb 1, 2018 03:48
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I thought of Donnie Darko
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Feb 1, 2018 03:53
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Bold Robot posted:Bakker has a weird habit of revealing/confirming/denying stuff in random spots online. For example there’s an interview he did with some random fantasy blog in like 2011 where he explains that the Tusk was made by the Inchoroi to trick ancient men into fighting the Nonmen. Why spill the beans on this kinda interesting piece of background on a blog and not weave it into the story? And yet the Tusk accurately describes real gods?
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Feb 1, 2018 14:16
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Syzygy Stardust posted:And yet the Tusk accurately describes real gods? Iirc the tusk is a codification of all the extant myths but the rape aliens inserted a line about how the nonmen are evil and must be destroyed
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Feb 1, 2018 14:24
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Lunchmeat Larry posted:I am so glad I tapped out at the judging eye this sounds hilarious. He was just possesses by Satan all along? TUC ending spoilers: During his confrontation with the Consult (who have been taken over by all the Dunyain they captured after assaulting Ishual) Kellhus reveals that he used the meta-daimos to travel to the Outside to bring knowledge of Mog-Pharau to the Gods (who cannot perceive the No-God, as infinite beings cannot grasp things that exist outside of their own infinity. Or something) and that he brokered a deal with Ajokli. He then gets possessed by Ajokli, grows demon horns, is able to take control of the Consults Chorae (which is a nice "oh poo poo" moment) then gets immediately salted by Kelmomas sneaking up behind him. Turns out Kelmomas is the No-God and is therefore invisible to all the gods (and also Kellhus, for no apparent reason) and a chorae is somehow able to dislodge Ajokli despite it being explicitly shown in TJE that chorae don't do anything to sufficiently powerful Outsiders. The Consult then strap baby Kel into the carapace, No-God wakes up, rock falls, everybody dies, the end. There's some fun moments, like Saubon making a valiant last stand against waves of sranc before getting blown up by an ancient Inchoroi nuke :metal101: but the whole tetralogy feels like it was a colossal waste of time. Bold Robot posted:Bakker has a weird habit of revealing/confirming/denying stuff in random spots online. For example there’s an interview he did with some random fantasy blog in like 2011 where he explains that the Tusk was made by the Inchoroi to trick ancient men into fighting the Nonmen. Why spill the beans on this kinda interesting piece of background on a blog and not weave it into the story? Non-Men even refer to it as being faked in TUC, which doesn't make a lick of sense to the reader unless they've read Bakker's blog. For all his cock-ups with eye colour and hip size, at least GRRM never forgot what bits of story he'd actually written about.
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Feb 1, 2018 14:29
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Strom Cuzewon posted:TUC ending spoilers: I remember the second part a little differently. The Consult have a bunch of skin spies holding chorae surrounding Kellhus. The Ajokli thing happens and Kellhus/Ajokli is able to hold/control the skin spies, who stop advancing on him. Kelmomas has been sneaking around and runs up behind the Dunyain Consult dudes and starts stabbing them - iirc he thinks he's helping, like with Sorweel. When this happens, Kellhus's concentration and/or possession is broken and he goes "K-Kel?" The interruption has caused his control over the skin spies to slip, and the closest one touches him with a chorae. Not that it really makes any more sense or provides more resolution this way, though.
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Feb 1, 2018 15:13
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Feb 1, 2018 15:39
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I think it’s generally more in keeping with Kelmomas’ character that he would gently caress everything up for everyone by mistake trying to get daddy to love him, than that he would gently caress everything up on purpose in exactly the way he intended. Though who knows if Kelmomas’ character has any further relevance. Also, maybe my eyes glazed over and I totally missed this being explained, but how the gently caress did Kelmomas even get there? Didn’t Kellhus have to like, fly in?
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Feb 1, 2018 15:42
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skasion posted:I think it’s generally more in keeping with Kelmomas’ character that he would gently caress everything up for everyone by mistake trying to get daddy to love him, than that he would gently caress everything up on purpose in exactly the way he intended. Though who knows if Kelmomas’ character has any further relevance. Kellhus flew in yeah. I think there might be like one scene where Kelmomas sneaks into one of the lower levels of the ark (or maybe just sneaks away from the camp?), but how he got to the top doesn’t get an explanation that I remember. To be fair, it’s well established that Kelmomas is really good at sneaking around.
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Feb 1, 2018 17:23
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Bold Robot posted:Kellhus flew in yeah. I think there might be like one scene where Kelmomas sneaks into one of the lower levels of the ark (or maybe just sneaks away from the camp?), but how he got to the top doesn’t get an explanation that I remember. There's a seen where one of the skin-spies grabs him.
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Feb 1, 2018 17:25
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Bold Robot posted:I remember the second part a little differently. The Consult have a bunch of skin spies holding chorae surrounding Kellhus. The Ajokli thing happens and Kellhus/Ajokli is able to hold/control the skin spies, who stop advancing on him. Kelmomas has been sneaking around and runs up behind the Dunyain Consult dudes and starts stabbing them - iirc he thinks he's helping, like with Sorweel. When this happens, Kellhus's concentration and/or possession is broken and he goes "K-Kel?" The interruption has caused his control over the skin spies to slip, and the closest one touches him with a chorae. Not that it really makes any more sense or provides more resolution this way, though. I think we're both half right. He definitely takes control of the Chorae, it describes the chorae pinning the skinspies hands down like nails. Which makes even less sense. Kelmomas blundering in somehow knocks Ajokli out of Kelhus' body, leaving him vulnerable to the chorae. I agree with GB, the god-stuff is too vague and meta-wanking to be really satisfying. I really enjoyed the little hints and drips we got as the characters themselves tried to figure it all out (Mimara senses an objectively benevolent presence, baby kel sees the same person looking out of dying peoples eyes) because it fit with all the stuff he'd introduced before hand, and it actually advanced the characters and their plots. That was much more enjoyable than literal lectures about the afterlife and lots of heads on poles behind you.
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Feb 1, 2018 19:39
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It's aggravating to me that both trilogies begin with a set of propelling questions. In the first you've got 'do the Consult still exist', 'who attacked the Scarlet Spires', and 'what is happening to Kellhus' (plus the more basic plot question of 'what will happen to the Holy War?') All of them get interesting answers. In the second trilogy you've got 'why did Achamian's dreams change', 'why do the Consult think Mimara's baby is important', 'why are we spending so much time with this murder kid', and 'what's Kellhus ultimately planning?' About half of those get answers. The baby, the Judging Eye, and the dreams feel like they never really came to anything.
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Feb 1, 2018 19:42
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General Battuta posted:It's aggravating to me that both trilogies begin with a set of propelling questions. In the first you've got 'do the Consult still exist', 'who attacked the Scarlet Spires', and 'what is happening to Kellhus' (plus the more basic plot question of 'what will happen to the Holy War?') All of them get interesting answers. In the second trilogy you've got 'why did Achamian's dreams change', 'why do the Consult think Mimara's baby is important', 'why are we spending so much time with this murder kid', and 'what's Kellhus ultimately planning?' About half of those get answers. The baby, the Judging Eye, and the dreams feel like they never really came to anything. Part of what helps the first trilogy hold together is that the basic plot is a deceptively straightforward retelling of the First Crusade. Even beyond the idea of “vaguely Christian dudes attack vaguely Muslim dudes,” the timeline, description of locations/cities, and battles map pretty closely onto what actually happened. Several of the characters must be based on real historical figures, most clearly Saubon but also Proyas, Xerius, even Kellhus, etc. I agree that aggravating is a good word to use. There’s a lot to like in these books, especially in the first trilogy, but the more I think about it the less satisfying the ending feels.
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Feb 1, 2018 22:00
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Strom Cuzewon posted:I think we're both half right. He definitely takes control of the Chorae, it describes the chorae pinning the skinspies hands down like nails. Which makes even less sense. Kelmomas blundering in somehow knocks Ajokli out of Kelhus' body, leaving him vulnerable to the chorae. Less knocks out of and more who is actively running things. I think the idea of a possessed person being briefly reached is a pretty common trope for possession stories. Ajokli controls the Chorae, but is Kelhus touched by one at any point before that?
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Feb 1, 2018 22:20
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It’s interesting to me how despite the fact that the first and second series both have a kind of foregone conclusion plot structure (if you know your medieval history you can probably guess that they’re gonna get to Shimeh and manage to win the war somehow; if you’ve ever read Tolkien or any Tolkienian fantasy plot of the epic quest world tour variety you can probably guess that Achamian is at least going to get to Ishual and the Ordeal is at least going to get to Golgotterath) the first one works a lot better with it than the second. I don’t know if it’s really all in the payoff, but building to “Kellhus wins lol” is less cathartic to me than “Kellhus hubristically doomed civilization and died like a bitch lol” though I imagine some people might disagree. I think the second series also lacks economy of plotting a bit. The subplot about the embassy to the elves is cool and I really enjoy it, but it takes up a lot of space and in the end it accomplishes nothing of worth (not in in-universe terms, but like dramatically).
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Feb 1, 2018 22:25
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skasion posted:I think the second series also lacks economy of plotting a bit. The subplot about the embassy to the elves is cool and I really enjoy it, but it takes up a lot of space and in the end it accomplishes nothing of worth (not in in-universe terms, but like dramatically). Jeffrey of YOSPOS fucked around with this message at 22:33 on Feb 1, 2018 |
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Feb 1, 2018 22:31
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Jeffrey of YOSPOS posted:It's more relevant than anything that happened south of sakarpus. There is certain amusement value to watching Esmenet ruin everything, idk. The whole plot line with Fanayal is eye rolling tho e: I read a theory by a dude on reddit who thinks that the Kellhus hologram or whatever at the end is not actually just the No God trolling everyone for shits, but a quantum superposition of Kellhus/No God that requires the infallible external observer of the Judging Eye to collapse it into win or fail, and that this is why Malowebi doesn’t finish narrating the climax of the scene properly but rather it’s revealed to us retroactively once everybody knows poo poo’s hosed: because it’s literally retroactively taking effect. I don’t know if that’s true or not but it seems like the kind of thing Bakker would cream himself for, so maybe that was the point of the Eye. skasion fucked around with this message at 23:08 on Feb 1, 2018 |
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Feb 1, 2018 22:32
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quote:There is certain amusement value to watching Esmenet ruin everything, idk. The whole plot line with Fanayal is eye rolling though. And worse---BOOORING.
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Feb 1, 2018 22:41
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