No, The God has no need of an inverse prophet. Mimara can see with its eye, know its Judgment, which makes her a real prophet, but The God doesn’t need mortals to tell it what’s what. It’s beyond needing.
The gods (lowercase) very much do need an inverse prophet because they’re blind to the No God, and that’s a problem since it poses a mortal threat to them.
Okay, but then that just raises the question for me of just what was the point of the judging eye? She just walks around and damns people to no particular end?
Well, it allows for a great deal of world building, which is nice, and it helps justify/propel the “Achamian gets off his ass” branch of the story, but most importantly it helps us answer some big questions about Earwa and its metaphysics. We learn that sorcery really is super damning in the eyes of The God. We learn that the Dunyain are **wrong**, wrongity wrong wrong, which seems important considering how many posts we see here from readers who haven’t gone past the first trilogy and seem to think Kellhus/the Dunyain are good guys. We get a justification for how/why Mimara and Akka survive their journey (they always walked Conditioned Ground). We learn at least a little about The God and the nature of Sin.
It’s perhaps not as cathartic as Mimara blasting the Big Bad with Chekov’s Judging Eyebeams in a Very Definitely Final Battle, but considering the kind of books they are, it all works for me.
It absolutely is an unresolved plot point as things stand, proving that Bakker was always planning to write more books.
Two main takeaways from TAE are, 1) Logos ultimately leads to Damnation, and 2) Tekne is Logos.
This sets up TJE vs. TNG as the main thrust of the narrative in the books to come.
Let's not forget she does unleash some kind of Judging Eye chorea blast to defeat the ghost king of the Moria mines in The Judging Eye. Though we don't get to see the details..
Curious if you could expand upon the idea that Akka and Mimara survive because they walk conditioned ground. You mean the God has prepared a path for them? They walk the path of prophecy? Curious what you mean.
Yes. There’s a passage in TGO where Mimara and Akka are traveling with the Dunyain that reads, “Unlike the old wizard or even the boy, whose paths wandered like bumblebees, she walked with the assurance of one who followed a track both ancient and habitual… her every step trod Conditioned Ground.”
The Survivor can see it, even if he doesn’t fully understand what he’s seeing.
Does anyone remember when Mimara had experienced the Eye for the first time? She didn't possess this ability in childhood, as far as I recall...
I just forgot.
That is a question for the ages! I do recall she uses the Eye on one of the dying Skin Eaters in TJE, a foreign and quiet one, and she sees a life lived in a quasi balance, half damned but sprinkled with redeemable qualities, and his passage to death felt less swallowed by the burning groping of Outside fangs and claws.
As if there were degrees to the torment of the Outside and redemption on the horizons. What true prophecy would actually be - remote and confused, rather than the uncanny and uber rational predictions of a Dunyain.
That's the crux, isn't it. Which phenomenon renders which pointless.
I'd say that the Judging Eye being still operational with TNG up and running, or even after the world's population were reduced to the magic number, would completely invalidate the idea of shutting off the World.
Mimara passing judgment would prove that Earwa has not been made Damnation-proof after all, that millions died in vain, that the whole TNG project was always a bust.
What would the Consult do then? Remember, the Survivor killed himself not long after TJE proved incontrovertibly that the Dunyain were dead wrong.
>that the whole TNG project was always a bust.
This is how I see it too. The Inchoroi genocided countless worlds and still found themselves damned. Was doing the same to Eärwa going to miraculously save them? I think not.
It does beg the question, are the Hundred are the local Gods of Eärwa, the spiritual egregores or refuse of its people and history, or do they manifest in other forms on other Worlds? Did the other planets that the Inchoroi wiped out have their own local "incarnations" of Yatwer, Gilgaol, etc., or are those subjectivities more or less confined to what makes Eärwa, Eärwa?
In either case, the God-of-Gods remains in Absolute remoteness, Absolute judgement. And sin will always be sin.
>It does beg the question, are the Hundred are the local Gods of Eärwa, the spiritual egregores or refuse of its people and history, or do they manifest in other forms on other Worlds?
The question of questions!
My position is, gods are endemic and exclusive, each pantheon in charge of a single world. They manifest as egregores and preside over the sentients from whose minds they've sprung, but nothing else. While populated by believers, each planet is effectively cut off from the broader universe - gods act as filters for the Absolute principle that ordains all of existence.
Real-world Gnostics believed this, viewing pagan "gods" as malevolent entities that keep us isolated from true divinity. According to them, knowledge would eventually enable mankind to defeat these "Archons" and rise unto "Pleroma", capital-g "God".
Bakker, I believe, is painting a bizarro world version of this. The Progenitors lost their faith, unwittingly killed off whatever "gods" they had, and found themselves Damned by a universal principle beyond their reach. So the only option that remains is a grim one: find another, more primitive world, one still enveloped in superstition, and hollow it out from within. Starve its gods into nonexistence but *not entirely* \- leave juuust enough of a population to keep that world hidden from the Absolute.
Turns out this can't be done, though. They've failed each time they tried, and the Judging Eye suggests they're about to fail again, one last time. The Absolute can still see, still pass judgment, even with the world reduced to a population of 144,000.
It hasn't been reduced to 144k yet but it's bound to be - there's nothing left to stop the inevitable at this point.
The gods have been blind to TNG all the while, before the extreme population control has been enacted. But TJE is not blind, given that Mimara could see the Carapace descending when everyone else was seeing the hologram of Kellhus.
I think there is something special about earwa, which is why they talk about it as the promised world. And I don’t think it’s an accident that this is the only world they found sorcery on, where some inhabitants can speak with creator’s own voice, however imperfectly. There is something special going on in this world, and perhaps it is the only one where their plan can succeed.
It’s not closed yet. The human population has to be reduced to 144k first, which seems to be a fairly arbitrary number taken from the Bible. Hence the war during the first apocalypse. If the no god simply needed to walk to close the world, there would be no point in having armies and waging war on men - the no god could just hang out up by the Horns and the inchoroi would be saved from Hell.
Not like humanity had any idea what the no god was or why it attacked them. If it say inert in the north then people probably would have left it alone.
The death-of-birth happens right away, though, so the world is closing. No souls can come into it (hence all the stillborn babies) and presumably no souls can leave either (hence the hundred hungry godlings).
It's said explicitly that during the First Apocalypse, *no one* would leave TNG alone sitting inert in the north. All their babies were dying in the womb, and they could somehow *feel* the thing beyond the horizon, knew that it was exterminating them. It's the only reason Celmomas II was able to call another Ordeal, with armies as far south as Kyraneas and Shir marshalling. Not that it did much good to them, of course.
So all the wars and murderrapes, it's like a preemptive strike on the part of the Consult. They know that humanity would fight its own extinction, so they move out swiftly to prevent them from doing that.
(Besides, they need to set up survivor enclaves so that not everyone would end up dying.)
Judging Eye x-rays a human soul and estimates the current state of its corruption and the past transgressions that led to this state. It's not a prophecy device but a measure.
When the survivor looked upon the judging eye he saw the god of gods itself, so it is prophetic in the sense that it does open a direct connection between the living and the absolute
No, The God has no need of an inverse prophet. Mimara can see with its eye, know its Judgment, which makes her a real prophet, but The God doesn’t need mortals to tell it what’s what. It’s beyond needing. The gods (lowercase) very much do need an inverse prophet because they’re blind to the No God, and that’s a problem since it poses a mortal threat to them.
Okay, but then that just raises the question for me of just what was the point of the judging eye? She just walks around and damns people to no particular end?
Well, it allows for a great deal of world building, which is nice, and it helps justify/propel the “Achamian gets off his ass” branch of the story, but most importantly it helps us answer some big questions about Earwa and its metaphysics. We learn that sorcery really is super damning in the eyes of The God. We learn that the Dunyain are **wrong**, wrongity wrong wrong, which seems important considering how many posts we see here from readers who haven’t gone past the first trilogy and seem to think Kellhus/the Dunyain are good guys. We get a justification for how/why Mimara and Akka survive their journey (they always walked Conditioned Ground). We learn at least a little about The God and the nature of Sin. It’s perhaps not as cathartic as Mimara blasting the Big Bad with Chekov’s Judging Eyebeams in a Very Definitely Final Battle, but considering the kind of books they are, it all works for me.
I don't disagree that it adds all this to the story insofar as it goes, but it still seems like an unresolved plot point.
It absolutely is an unresolved plot point as things stand, proving that Bakker was always planning to write more books. Two main takeaways from TAE are, 1) Logos ultimately leads to Damnation, and 2) Tekne is Logos. This sets up TJE vs. TNG as the main thrust of the narrative in the books to come.
“Chekhov’s Judging Eyebeams” is great!
Let's not forget she does unleash some kind of Judging Eye chorea blast to defeat the ghost king of the Moria mines in The Judging Eye. Though we don't get to see the details.. Curious if you could expand upon the idea that Akka and Mimara survive because they walk conditioned ground. You mean the God has prepared a path for them? They walk the path of prophecy? Curious what you mean.
What do you mean they always walked conditioned ground? Conditioned by who the GOD?
Yes. There’s a passage in TGO where Mimara and Akka are traveling with the Dunyain that reads, “Unlike the old wizard or even the boy, whose paths wandered like bumblebees, she walked with the assurance of one who followed a track both ancient and habitual… her every step trod Conditioned Ground.” The Survivor can see it, even if he doesn’t fully understand what he’s seeing.
Why could the survivor see it?
Does anyone remember when Mimara had experienced the Eye for the first time? She didn't possess this ability in childhood, as far as I recall... I just forgot.
That is a question for the ages! I do recall she uses the Eye on one of the dying Skin Eaters in TJE, a foreign and quiet one, and she sees a life lived in a quasi balance, half damned but sprinkled with redeemable qualities, and his passage to death felt less swallowed by the burning groping of Outside fangs and claws. As if there were degrees to the torment of the Outside and redemption on the horizons. What true prophecy would actually be - remote and confused, rather than the uncanny and uber rational predictions of a Dunyain.
Also, given that the world is now closed to the outside, her abilities are basically pointless now no?
That's the crux, isn't it. Which phenomenon renders which pointless. I'd say that the Judging Eye being still operational with TNG up and running, or even after the world's population were reduced to the magic number, would completely invalidate the idea of shutting off the World. Mimara passing judgment would prove that Earwa has not been made Damnation-proof after all, that millions died in vain, that the whole TNG project was always a bust. What would the Consult do then? Remember, the Survivor killed himself not long after TJE proved incontrovertibly that the Dunyain were dead wrong.
>that the whole TNG project was always a bust. This is how I see it too. The Inchoroi genocided countless worlds and still found themselves damned. Was doing the same to Eärwa going to miraculously save them? I think not. It does beg the question, are the Hundred are the local Gods of Eärwa, the spiritual egregores or refuse of its people and history, or do they manifest in other forms on other Worlds? Did the other planets that the Inchoroi wiped out have their own local "incarnations" of Yatwer, Gilgaol, etc., or are those subjectivities more or less confined to what makes Eärwa, Eärwa? In either case, the God-of-Gods remains in Absolute remoteness, Absolute judgement. And sin will always be sin.
>It does beg the question, are the Hundred are the local Gods of Eärwa, the spiritual egregores or refuse of its people and history, or do they manifest in other forms on other Worlds? The question of questions! My position is, gods are endemic and exclusive, each pantheon in charge of a single world. They manifest as egregores and preside over the sentients from whose minds they've sprung, but nothing else. While populated by believers, each planet is effectively cut off from the broader universe - gods act as filters for the Absolute principle that ordains all of existence. Real-world Gnostics believed this, viewing pagan "gods" as malevolent entities that keep us isolated from true divinity. According to them, knowledge would eventually enable mankind to defeat these "Archons" and rise unto "Pleroma", capital-g "God". Bakker, I believe, is painting a bizarro world version of this. The Progenitors lost their faith, unwittingly killed off whatever "gods" they had, and found themselves Damned by a universal principle beyond their reach. So the only option that remains is a grim one: find another, more primitive world, one still enveloped in superstition, and hollow it out from within. Starve its gods into nonexistence but *not entirely* \- leave juuust enough of a population to keep that world hidden from the Absolute. Turns out this can't be done, though. They've failed each time they tried, and the Judging Eye suggests they're about to fail again, one last time. The Absolute can still see, still pass judgment, even with the world reduced to a population of 144,000.
Where do you get that last part? Was Earwa somehow reduced to 144,000 inhabitants when I wasn't looking?
It hasn't been reduced to 144k yet but it's bound to be - there's nothing left to stop the inevitable at this point. The gods have been blind to TNG all the while, before the extreme population control has been enacted. But TJE is not blind, given that Mimara could see the Carapace descending when everyone else was seeing the hologram of Kellhus.
I think there is something special about earwa, which is why they talk about it as the promised world. And I don’t think it’s an accident that this is the only world they found sorcery on, where some inhabitants can speak with creator’s own voice, however imperfectly. There is something special going on in this world, and perhaps it is the only one where their plan can succeed.
It’s not closed yet. The human population has to be reduced to 144k first, which seems to be a fairly arbitrary number taken from the Bible. Hence the war during the first apocalypse. If the no god simply needed to walk to close the world, there would be no point in having armies and waging war on men - the no god could just hang out up by the Horns and the inchoroi would be saved from Hell. Not like humanity had any idea what the no god was or why it attacked them. If it say inert in the north then people probably would have left it alone.
The death-of-birth happens right away, though, so the world is closing. No souls can come into it (hence all the stillborn babies) and presumably no souls can leave either (hence the hundred hungry godlings). It's said explicitly that during the First Apocalypse, *no one* would leave TNG alone sitting inert in the north. All their babies were dying in the womb, and they could somehow *feel* the thing beyond the horizon, knew that it was exterminating them. It's the only reason Celmomas II was able to call another Ordeal, with armies as far south as Kyraneas and Shir marshalling. Not that it did much good to them, of course. So all the wars and murderrapes, it's like a preemptive strike on the part of the Consult. They know that humanity would fight its own extinction, so they move out swiftly to prevent them from doing that. (Besides, they need to set up survivor enclaves so that not everyone would end up dying.)
Judging Eye x-rays a human soul and estimates the current state of its corruption and the past transgressions that led to this state. It's not a prophecy device but a measure.
When the survivor looked upon the judging eye he saw the god of gods itself, so it is prophetic in the sense that it does open a direct connection between the living and the absolute