More information on the Prince of Nothing

For months now, I've puzzled over how to articulate exactly how I understand the world of the Prince of Nothing.  I can't find anyone to read it (!), so I can't bounce ideas off anyone, so I can't understand this extremely complicated, philosophically inclined series.  And then I found this:
http://forum.three-seas.com/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=39359

This essay PERFECTLY sums up exactly what I was trying to say about my opinions about Kellhus.  The fact that he is both prophet and NOT a prophet is 100% my interpretation.  However, what it all means is still a bit up in the air.  He could still very much be the No-God, and I don't agree with the interpretation that the No-God is some person, twisted and maimed by the Tekne.  Rather, that Kellhus embodies the same principles as the No-God, and is unaware of what he is in much the same way.  Why has he determined that the paths are not equal?

It's pretty clear that he planned for every step up to the Circumfixion...while he sits underneath the tree (gaining knowledge ;) ), he sees his seduction of Esmenet and Serwe's death at Cnaiur's hands, however indirectly.  It is particularly telling that he sees a "dead wife" in his vision, and obviously has no feelings or thoughts about Serwe in this manner whatsoever.  But the Circumfixion changes all.  And it seems strange that so much of that vision is tied so tightly to the No-God's confusion about himself, which to me sealed their connection.  Now add to that Esmenet's constant association with the Consult-- bedded/raped by Aurang, lover to Sarcellus, that time she left Sumna and felt that the whole world was somehow more near at night, and that Achamian told her that the Consult believed something similar, her possession by...Aurang?-- it's unnerving, to say the least.  I'm not ruling out his potential as a vessel of the No-God.

Because then I figured this out.  The Logos, as the essay points out, is derived from a complex Greek term that has many meanings.  It is certainly possible that Nietzsche was influenced by these same interpretations of the Logos, as show here, and as we know, Kellhus is the embodiment of Nietzsche's Ubermensch, and the overall belief system is very heavily influenced by Nietzsche.  However, the Logos, in Judeo-Christian and even Islamic terms, has a very different meaning, as seen in first John in the New Testament.  As Wikipedia puts it:

Philo of Alexandria

Philo (20 BC – 50 AD), a Hellenized Jew, used the term Logos to mean an intermediary divine being, or demiurge.^[6] Philo followed the Platonic distinction between imperfect matter and perfect idea, and therefore intermediary beings were necessary to bridge the enormous gap between God and the material world.^[27] The Logos was the highest of these intermediary beings, and was called by Philo "the first-born of God."^[27] Philo also wrote that "the Logos of the living God is the bond of everything, holding all things together and binding all the parts, and prevents them from being dissolved and separated."^[28]
The Platonic Ideas were located within the Logos, but the Logos also acted on behalf of God in the physical world.^[27] In particular, the Angel of the Lord in the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) was identified with the Logos by Philo, who also said that the Logos was God's instrument in the creation of the universe.^[27]

And, most interestingly:

The concept of Logos in Sufism is used to relate the "Uncreated" (God), to the "Created" (man). In Sufism, for the Deist, no contact between man and God can be possible without the Logos. The Logos is everywhere and always the same, but its personification is "unique" within each region. Jesus and Muhammad are seen as the personifications of the Logos, and this is what enables them to speak in such absolute terms.^[76][77]
One of the radical and boldest attempts to reformulate the Neoplatonic concepts into Sufism was due to the philosopher Ibn Arabi, who traveled widely in Spain and North Africa. His concepts were expressed in two major works The Ringstones of Wisdom (Fusus al-Hikam) and The Meccan Illuminations (Al-Futūḥāt al-Makkiyya). To Ibn Arabi, every prophet corresponds to a reality which he called a Logos (Kalimah), as an aspect of the unique Divine Being. In his view the Divine Being would have for ever remained hidden, had it not been for the prophets, with Logos providing the link between man and divinity.^[78]
Ibn Arabi seems to have adopted his version of the Logos concept from Neoplatonic and Christian sources,^[79] although (writing in Arabic rather than Greek) he used more than twenty different terms when discussing it.^[80] For Ibn Arabi, the Logos or "Universal Man" was a mediating link between individual human beings and the divine essence.^[81]
Other Sufi writers also show the influence of the Neoplatonic Logos.^[82] In the 15th century ʻAbd al-Karim al-Jili introduced the Doctrine of Logos and the Perfect Man. For al-Jili the perfect man (associated with the Logos or the Holy Prophet) has the power to assume different forms at different times, and appear in different guises.^[83]

References here, because apparently I write research papers in my spare time. :P

Now this is MOST interesting, because when you look at the Logos in this interpretation, then Kellhus's status as prophet is inevitable.  Following the principle of before and after, or causality, and becoming a self-moving soul, for the Dunyain is to embody the Logos, the BE the ground that comes before.  To then become this thing, to reach the Absolute, is to almost become the Logos, and that is to become the perfect man, to BE the figure that is between the divine (the Outside) and the mundane (or the worldly).  Obviously not everyone could do so, because Moenghus failed in this regard...he grasped all the principles and missed the greater picture, as it were, and therefore could never BE the Logos.  He was able to apprehend the Thousandfold Thought (which, in Thorsten's view, is a type of God), but unable to live it and act it, and hence needed his son.  But if the Thousandfold Thought is in fact a superconsciousness, a God that lives, then Kellhus is also the embodiment of THAT, he IS more than a mere Dunyain and might, in fact, be the savior that everyone believes.  So then the question is, what happens if he fails?  What, exactly, is he protecting, and at what cost?  Why does he choose to follow the path of life, why is he following the shortest path to save humanity...because he received direction from Outside, as determined by those he now needs to save, or because...you know, I have no answers, and it's deliberate.

Thorsten's view on Chorae was particularly interesting, especially in light of the Judging Eye.  Mimara, as one of the Few, has the ability to alter reality and see it AS IT IS...and her conviction of absolute belief alters the reality of the Chorae by changing her perception TO reality.  The Judging Eye is her ability to perceive the perceptions of others that have therefore created a reality, and her ability to SEE these things renders her belief absolute, and being one of the Few she is in a unique position to ACT on this absolute belief.  I really enjoy his interpretation because it has been abundantly clear to me from the appearance of the halos around Kellhus's hands (and, more tellingly, Serwe seeing them around false Kellhus/Sarcellus) that belief determines reality in Earwa, She BELIEVES that Kellhus, like the Sufi interpretation of the Logos, can appear in many guises (witness Achamian's weird rape? scene), so it is possible that her belief that his form was fluid and rather his essence would come through regardless would negate the reality of the skin-spy, but it seems more likely that her intense devotion and belief drew the halos where they had no business being.

This is a huge relief...if only someone I could actually talk to would read this!  Any takers?

Anticipating the White Luck Warrior

I am so in love with R. Scott Bakker's series.  Or whatever the plural of series is.    The Prince of Nothing was amazing, it was the first thing that really made me think that I could enjoy this "new fantasy" in a way that Martin and Erikson just didn't.  (Btw, as a side note, upon re-reading Martin's novels, I've found that the tone that I found so offensive is actually not as bad as I recall, and I find myself somewhat sheepishly pulling back on my vehement criticisms that I posted in a previous entry.)  I've told all my friends about it, even though I highly doubt any of them (with the possible exception of David) would be even remotely interested.  It's so brilliantly written, and from a critical standpoint, vastly interesting, even if it does become a bit ponderous and bloated on itself.  It's one of the few books I absolutely HAD to read twice to understand fully....that's how awesome it is.  I literally read all of the Prince of Nothing and The Judging Eye back to back because I was so hungry to delve deep into the world.

Having said all that, though, it makes me a bit afraid for myself.  Bakker poses many questions about the nature of humanity and free will, indeed the belief that we are all free-thinking individuals acting out of deep truths that we believe with our souls.  But for all that, I feel....I feel like I'm missing something.  His work, while interesting, doesn't seem to make me "question" things in the intense way that the author himself, and many critics and reviewers, seem to think that I should.  It doesn't come as any surprise to me that humans are constantly serving their own needs, blinding themselves to things that are contrary to their view of the world...isn't that like, obvious?  Maybe I'm even more cynical than I thought, but I am not at all surprised that humans are automatically dismissive of anything that doesn't confirm their own ideas about morality.  The only thing that made me stop and go "Whoa" is the idea that there is no absolute morality.  Kellhus has no moral framework, only a goal that must be achieved in the most effective way possible.  The things that society considers morally abhorrent-- infidelity, murder, disregard for the life and well-being of those you consider close-- are only tools.  The idea that there is only a goal, to distance yourself from all things that bind-- and that morals are things that bind-- made me reel.  I grew up Christian, and in this society, many of the Christian ideals are also societal norms...kindness to others, putting yourself last, being humble and meek, etc.  But the concept of those things not being somehow universally correct, the idea that these are just THINGS that keep me going around in the same circle, and that there is no reason to think of things as "right" and "wrong" other than because someone decided what those terms meant, was a bit of world upheaval for me.  Picture it like this: murder is wrong, right?  Taking a life is wrong.  Everyone knows this.  But people only know it because the idea that someone could take YOUR life is unsettling, and therefore all lives must be protected.  What if we lived in a world where murder wasn't wrong, it was simply a means to get what you needed?  And some people DO think like that, certainly, but we think of those people as abnormalities...but only because we have been conditioned to believe that taking a life is wrong.  What if there were no stigma on murder-- try to imagine a world in which there was no moral judgment, in this life or any number of afterlives.  See?  Messes with your head.

In his blog, Bakker repeatedly talks about how his goal is to do just that-- to make people question their assumptions.  He proposes that the sometimes violent negative reactions that he receives from his work is due to the way that what he paints challenges a person's viewpoint, leading them to automatically despise and belittle it.  Isn't it possible to just dislike something?  But anyway, regardless...I DO love his work, but I think he sometimes gets a bit...preachy?  He takes a lot on himself, certainly...an endless crusade to show the blind masses just how blind they are.  Do his assertions mean that we are incapable of changing our minds, of ever recognizing that we are wrong?  Sure, it's painful, and I catch myself deceiving myself about things all the time...but does the fact that I recognize the deception mean that I am simply reinforcing my own beliefs, like everyone does, or am I one in a billion in that I am able to recognize the apparent validity of a system that differs from mine?


Bakker's philosophy means that, no matter what happens to you in your life, no matter how different experiences apparently change you, they never really do...because who we are, and what we believe, is a function of a worldwide and societally blind conditioning.  You are never cultivating an opinion based on careful reasoning or a weighing of facts...you believe only what you have been taught, and that forming an opinion from any other means is impossible.  You can never escape the conditions you were born into, unless you step back and deliberately expose yourself to things that are contrary to your beliefs...and even then, most people will never change, because most people believe, in their core of being, that they are correct, and while listening to opposing viewpoints is interesting, we automatically assume that they are incorrect.  So how do you break free?

And how is his criticism of "literati" any different than what he claims people take issue with in his novels?  His usual reaction to negative criticism is to, well...I don't want to say "belittle", but lets, for lack of a more appropriate word.  He claims that people dislike his work because it challenges their assumptions, and that university canon is disdainful of fantasy and sci-fi because it breaks from the traditions that said canon has cultivated over centuries, despite the fact that the themes that fantasy and sci-fi explore are the oldest in history.  But isn't that a little bit, I don't know...chip-on-the-shoulderish?  It's like saying "Well you don't appreciate it because you don't understand it."  Or am I misinterpreting?  Isn't that exactly what he takes issue with?  Couldn't he recognize the possible validity of their arguments about his work?  Or is he so convinced he's right that he dismisses their criticisms?  See?  It's unnerving, once you see your conditioning, because the implication is that, even if you can see it, you lack the tools to beat it.  But isn't recognizing it the first tool?

George R. R. Martin and Responsibility

Here's the thing that I'm sure many fantasy fans, if any of them read this, will be upset with me for: I didn't really like A Song of Ice and Fire.  There, I said it.  I didn't!  I don't know how I'm supposed to get behind a series where everyone the author invites me to like dies!  Usually at the hands of someone they trusted, or in some otherwise grueling fashion that is just heart-wrenching.  And yes, I know that that is EXACTLY why many people praise his series; it does away with convention.  GRRM is arguably one of the fathers of "gritty" fantasy that has come to dominate much in the fantasy scene nowadays.  When a new "dark fantasy" hits the scene, it is inevitably compared to ASoIaF, although with only four books in the last ten, twelve years or so, that spot is rapidly giving way to Steven Erikson and the Malazan books.  And I always kind of wonder why.  The former, that is, not the latter, because that's a kettle of fish for another blog.

GRRM is a good writer, but he isn't great.  He suffers from what the majority of fantasy writers do, a self-inflated, pondering tone that makes me cringe.  But to his credit, it is minimal, and the storyline is often good enough to make me forget that "I'm trying really hard to be legitimate even though I've picked a field that will never be so and I'm ok with that REALLY and who the hell decided what legitimate was ANYWAY screw the literati" tone.  I do like, to a certain extent, that he is willing to kill off his characters, because it does add a certain element of tension that is often missing from most fantasy.  I have always been a sucker for the classic fantasy journey story, the one where there are medieval princes and princesses and evil to be destroyed and your hero always faces insurmountable odds and comes away scott-free in such a way that isn't at all realistic but hey, it's fantasy, so who cares.   But even with the departure from that in A Game of Thrones where the main character *SPOILER ALERT* dies at the end, I enjoyed it.  It fit the story, it made sense, even if it was sad.  JK Rowling is a master at that, choosing which characters die in a fitting, believable manner without destroying everyone her audience has followed faithfully for years.

By the time Martin reached Storm of Swords, I literally couldn't go on.  It took me two tries to finish that book, and I never have finished the last currently published novel, A Feast for Crows.  I've tried too, and I'm not usually one to leave a thing unfinished.  I can only read so much death, can only take so much tension, before the reading stops being enjoyable.  I'm sorry, I know that that is often "how life is" (or was, in the case of fantasy), but fantasy IS partially escapism, and I don't want life to bitch slap me around and then go read about how it bitch slaps a bunch of other people around worse.  Eventually it got to the point where I knew that the characters were going to die off, most likely all of them, so I thought to myself, "Why bother?"  I guess he hadn't made me care enough about the living ones to see if they would make it, or maybe the copious amount of death wore me down until I couldn't actually believe that anyone would survive.  And maybe in that respect he is extremely successful in recreating a medieval sense of existence in his reader, because I can believe that that was how daily life was for someone in that time.  But guess what?  I don't HAVE to feel like that, and when I read a novel, I do it for enjoyment, not so I can feel like everyone I knew will just end up in a gutter somewhere, or hanging off a tower, or being enslaved, or raped, or whatever.

ANYWAY!  Having said all that, I am EXTREMELY excited for the debut of HBOs miniseries based on A Game of Thrones.  They got some good quality actors, and the trailer is here.  I don't have HBO though, so if you do, please invite me over so we can watch it!  I promise it'll be good!  But as with most things that I have read that make it to some form of screen, I get really excited and immediately re-read the book, not only to refresh my memory, but also so I can have the satisfaction of knowing what's coming and pointing out all the little details that are wrong.  Yep, I'm that kid, and really white about it.  Sue me.  But I hesitate to do that with ASoIaF simply because it isn't finished.  And doesn't look like it will be anytime soon.

But wait a minute, you say...haven't you been reading Wheel of Time for like, ten years?  And it's not finished!  Right, well, the thing with WoT is that I always knew it would BE finished.  I picked that series up around 1999, right after Path of Daggers came out the year before.  In the time that it took me to catch up, Winter's Heart came out in late(?) 2000.  And then Crossroads of Twilight in 2002ish.  And then Knife of Dreams several years later.  The point is, there were three books published since I began the series, not to mention two more AFTER the author died.  The last SoIaF book that was published was the aforementioned Feast for Crows, which came out in 2005.  We are still waiting on A Dance with Dragons, six years later.  And like any self-righteous fan, I get incredibly angry when I read Martin's haughty posts about how all the e-mails and encouragement and demands in the world won't make him go any faster.  I can get behind that, really...part of being a fan is being blindly devoted and ravenously devouring of all the work related to your fandom, and with that comes a callousness to anything but what the author can provide, his product, and not his life as a person.  As a Stephen King fan as well, I have been lectured on this by the author numerous times.  But I think that, when you write something that is obviously meant for popular consumption, when you develop a fan base that is so devoted, you inherit a certain amount of responsibility TO that fan base.  I would be angry, but understanding, if Martin had truly been working non-stop on this thing for the last six years and things in his life had simply gotten in the way.  It happens.  The thing that pisses me off, though, is that he's written whole other books within that time frame!  He's been traveling to cons, and writing reviews, etc...part of his career, blah blah blah.  In fact, he wrote a a very angry message a few years ago to people like me that don't like that he can take the time to do all this other stuff, but not find time to finish a series that thousands of people are clamoring for.

Yes, he has a life and a career that is not ONLY about this one thing.  I get the feeling that he kind of hates it now, or else why would it take him so long to fall back into it?  Every writer I've ever read of a long series expresses that love/hate thing, but the common thread in all of them is that it is like coming home when they pick it back up.  It never feels like work, really, even when it is.  I don't get that feeling from Martin in his posts, I merely sense a hostile, pressured man who is doing this because he is contractually obligated.  I could be wrong, I don't know him personally, of course, but hey; it's like being a celebrity.  When you choose that career, you must understand that the trade off is never ending prying into your personal life.  You have a responsibility to be the public figure YOU YOURSELF chose to be.  Should it be like that?  Probably not, but if you want to be a movie star, you have to accept the culture that goes with it because it is a reality.  And it's the same, to a much lesser extent, with authors.  Except fans don't care at ALL about your personal life, and only about the lives of the characters you have chosen to bring to life.  It isn't fair, at all...but it IS the nature of the beast.  And when you decide to bring your vision to light, when you decide to take this creative impulse and give it to the masses, you implicitly accept the responsibility of providing to that fan base.  You can choose to end it, of course, and NOT give the fans what they crave...he could leave ASoIaF unfinished forever.  But he'll lose lots of fans, and therefore money, and I doubt he would even be creatively satisfied, because at that point it'd be like cutting off your nose to spite your face, wouldn't it?

Ah well....if any of his much more devoted fans read this and are offended, I'm sorry, but you know, that's kind of the point of a blog, isn't it?  To express your feelings, regardless of how others might react?  Good luck, GRRM...I hope you rediscover the passion that led you to create Westeros, and forgive your fans their disregard for you as a person.  To a certain extent, you are the god that created this world, and gods are ever impersonal and resented among the mortals.  Such is the price.