Scott Bakker's the Second Apocalypse, the Bible and Subversive Feminism.

Obviously: SPOILERS and speculation for The Second Apocalypse.

Though be warned; this is going to get ugly and it'll be very hard to digest without a receptive attitude.

I wanted to look at a troubling aspect of the Prince of Nothing Trilogy, and the Aspect-Emperor cycle.
In a few words: this is about the rape of, violence against, dismissal and suppression of the female characters, and the treatment of women as a whole in the Three Seas society.

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I'm not talking about the acts of the Inchoroi here. I've made mention of why they are as vile as they are in the 'Personal: Road of Faith and The Second Apocalypse' post (number three). There's no need to address that here. Even so; something worth mentioning; in the scenes where they are in the picture, they tend to focus more on men than on women.

Regardless, they are not in the picture here in this post. They fall squarely under the religious aspect of the series and everything they do must fall under the 'Damnation' explanation. They are the orcs, as unmitigatedly dark as even Tolkien would not make them, but, dark without being a byproduct; they are dark, because they are the heart of the matter.

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For the longest time, I looked at these scenes in Scott Bakker's Philosophical Fantasy series with a kind of puzzled fascination.
I couldn't quite understand why Scott Bakker, who in every other way seemed to have a reason for doing what he did, and who seemed so self-aware everywhere else, would so monumentally fuck up when it comes to so volatile a subject. The mistreatment of women is a topic that tends to blow up in this day and age, regardless of whatever the context, or even regardless of who touches on the subject. There's an overexposure to it that tends to raise the hackles of even the most progressively-minded bystander, an immediate knee-jerk response, and don't deny it: you felt it too just now.

So, why would Bakker endanger his magnum opus by putting this troubling element into it, and more than that; make it such a prominent element of his fiction?

There is of course a reason for it (apart from hubris and a pathological need to be as exacting and all-encompassing as possible, of course).

From the get-go I've looked in utter bewilderment at Bakker's claims that the Second Apocalypse is pro-feminist at heart.
Usually this statement receives a rather subdued response, as people don't really want to tackle that particular line of conversation, but more often, I've seen it unthinkingly dismissed in furious, frothing scorn, followed by the throwing of bile and vitriol on his work and character.
Obviously that's the wrong action to take.
But I've also seen people outright dismiss these claims of misogyny, and discard them as fantasy fiction or bury them beneath labels, or beneath the merits of the rest of his work. And that's also a strange response to have, because there's obviously some really problematic elements here.

In these novels, women are mistreated. This is depicted and I needed to understand why, why this element is here. There needs to be a reason for it, a goal it's ultimately working towards. Because I am me, I couldn't let this go, and, in general, books who can not give me an ultimate reason, an absolute coherence, for all of its elements will be deemed as failures in my eyes. I'm looking at you American Gods...

Of course, after doing the Road of Faith Post, well along the way actually; I came to the conclusion that Bakker's books were not as I previously had thought; a reaction to Tolkien like the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, but that, like Pullman's Dark Materials, it was in fact a reactionary work to the Bible.
Specifically; to the Bible's archaic rules and tenets, to its indoctrination, to its... yes indeed: its treatment of women, to the sidelining and to the punishments: Women can't be eldest/leaders in the church, stone an adultress, but don't kill the man, submit to your husband...
The tenets that show that in this patriarchic society women are viewed as second-class citizens.

And all of a sudden. Bakker's claims of pro-feminism start to make more sense.

Do understand that feminism is not the heart of the matter.
The heart of the matter, besides being a look at the power of faith, is shining a light on the hypocrisy of the basis underlining Judeo-Christian values as the Bible lays them out to be; the idea of salvation and exaltation for a chosen minority, and everlasting pain for humanity's ultimate majority; those who choose wrong.
Bakker looks at religion, a society built on this type of religion, and only along the way hits on the side-effect; that all these things are influenced by a work written, if not by the minds of, then at least by the hands of men, and with all the inherent bias that goes along with that.

So here we go.


The status Quo

Of course in the Prince of Nothing trilogy, things start out this way as well: Women as second-class citizens. But the further we get, the less it actually remains so. Granted, it takes a while to get there.

Bakker, for starters, explores the role and position of the woman in the Three Seas society by the use of three female archetypes; Maiden, Mother and Crone.
More than that, he also goes a step further and also makes of them; Virgin, Whore and Succubus.
These archetypes exist at the heart of the characters of Serwe, Esmenet and Istriya.
These three beautiful women are also endowed with notable variations in intelligence.

Serwe

Serwe is the most problematic of these.

Maiden. Virgin. Slave.
But virgin as in untested, naive, innocent, and dumb.

Serwe, unfortunately, is the least gifted of all the female characters. She has looks, but little in the way of cunning or knowledge, nor if she had, the tools to use them, and because of this she suffers the worst abuse that the world throws at women. She is fresh off the destruction of her former owner's home and she is raped repeatedly before we've even met her. And this will continue to happen for a while, but as a tool of manipulation between two men.
Being dumb and only pretty, she can only be used. She can not dig herself out of the mess she's ended up in. She has only her charm and so tries to use it on her tormentor. But as it is Cnaiur who claims ownership of her, the same Cnaiur who is obsessed with and aware of any and all attempts at manipulation due to his own tormented past, this backfires. And he in turn escalates the hardship when he attempts to use her to rebel against the manipulations of Kellhus. And it is only when Kellhus steps in, to see how far he can go with his manipulations, and to experiment with how much he can influence people, that she is put in a better situation. There is stuff that happens along the way, but in the end, she is sacrificed on the altar of Kellhus' ambition.

Ostensibly, Serwe is the ultimate victim of the patriarchy. Hitched as she is to Kellhus and his fate, her death comes with a whole sheaf of raw symbolism, most clear of which are Example, and Martyr.
The punished wife, joining the transgressing husband in death. Woman in flames. Woman above her station...

One could argue that Kellhus, with all his capabilities, could have stopped the events that lead to their joint crucifixion.
But events had already spiraled out of control, and in the Prince of Nothing trilogy at least, it is his greatest gamble and the one to lead him nearest to death in his whole life. It is also the one to gift him with immediate status and followers... and the thing which will alter everything that comes after.
But in any case, it is wrong to label Kellhus as a man, as he is not governed by the male mindset, impulse, or even anything resembling human pathology.
Kellhus is other, one who is outside of humanity, and its inherent bias.

Serwe is the most problematic of these three female characters, and was always going to be, because she was always meant to be.
Innocence personified, she was always meant to die as an example, without cause and unwarranted, as the symbol for the worst fate a woman can have in a male-dominated society.

 Raped, abused, manipulated, murdered, sacrificed. All of these.

Istriya

Istriya is, for me least, uninteresting, and the least problematic of the three.

Crone. Empress. Succubus.

I use the term Succubus here because of what it implies, as in Wrong/Immoral/Unclean and Seducer, not because Bakker uses this actual creature in his story.

Istriya was once a powerful ruler that at the start of the trilogy had already been marginalized by her son. She is intelligent, but realized when her son was born, that the only way for her to hold on to power was by manipulating him. This fails in the end, because she settles on a clumsy and overt manipulation, using her sexual wiles in order to make him do her bidding.
But with age comes insight and as her son levers her hand off the scales of power definitively she is more than ever marginalized.
She meets her end alone and unwitnessed in her son's palace at the hands of a skin-spy assassin.

Representative of an intelligent woman in a world of men, she latches on to power and, for a while at least, builds something for herself, cleanly, on her own merit.
But this is before we know her, and the Istriya of the trilogy is a character built on compromise, and steeped in manipulation and immorality.

As I said; unproblematic, because she is so very easy to denounce.

Esmenet

Now here we come to the most interesting one of the three and the one through who we will follow Bakker's pro-feminist designs.

Whore. Mother. Lover.

Esmenet is second only to Kellhus in intelligence out of all the characters in the Second Apocalypse.

And then only because Kellhus is somewhat of a walking Deus Ex Machina, though this is incredible dismissive of the concepts and ideas at the heart of Kellhus' character, he is the lynchpin, after all, for this story to work. He is a meta-protagonist in a world of normal characters, able to see, literally, behind the facade of the world and the faces of its inhabitants, and able to act on what he sees, as he is the hand from outside, reaching in. 

The mother in the system of three archetypes, Esmenet has some obvious history behind her: I won't touch on that here.
Literally marked by the snake tattoo, symbol of the whore, in mock imitation of the goddess of love's tattoo (covert female empowerment), which gives men the license to subjugate her at will, but for a price, and if she's without a man to back her up, it occasionally means she won't be paid, as the physically strong take what they can get away with, after all.

The relationship of Esmenet and Achamian is the emotional heart of the trilogy.
Esmenet loves Achamian, for who he is, for the comfort he brings and because of the natural chemistry between them.
But also, and crucially important: Because he is a direct line into the games of power played in the Three Seas. Achamian is a Mandate Schoolman, one of the most powerful sorcerers in the Three Seas, and more than that; he is one of their spies, and as such; he is intimately in the know.
Via him, Esmenet is able to glimpse and ponder on the moving of power in the world of men, her eyes and ears on the shifting of balances and the politicking. It is this that she loves most of all.

And then of course comes the climax of the Prince of Nothing trilogy; the emotional slap in the face that Bakker delivers on its very last page: Esmenet's Choice.
It is Esmenet's story finally coming to a place where she is able to choose the thing she had desired all her life; to be at the center of power. And though she loves Achamian, she still chooses to remain at Kellhus' side. Because if she were to choose to go with her former lover she would be outcast once more, and this time irredeemably distant from that position that she craved, in fact further away from power, and even society, than ever before as she would have to follow him into the wilderness, and become a pariah along his side.
So, though it wrenches her heart, she stays where she is.

She can only look on in silent pleading as the man she loves demands that she gives up her dream; her ambition; to be at the center of things, and to waste all her talent, talent perfectly suited for this new position for her in a world that is on the cusp of revolution. She would have had to give that up. And so, even if there's a choice, it isn't much of one and she can really do nothing else. It would go against her very nature. So, even though it seems as if she's choosing between two men, she is in reality choosing for herself.

And then... 19 years pass.


Evolution

Almost two decades later, the revolution has well and truly come to pass and the entire Three Seas society has altered completely.
When Kellhus came to power, he reformed virtually every strata of Three Seas society, and one of the things he completely revolutionized is the acceptance of Witches.

In a world where Sorcerers are denounced by holy writ, as blasphemous, because of the ruling patriarchy; witches are deemed even lower than them. A woman in possession of literal world-altering power is a huge threat to the patriarchy after all.

Look at what the Bible says about sorcery: Exodus 22:18 "Do not allow a sorceress to live." (Schofield Study Bible) Stated colloquially: Burn the witch.

This was indeed a common practice in the three seas. The writings of the Tusk state it, verbatim, as if one needed more proof for the ideas at the heart of this series. And though not a lot of attention is brought to this in the Prince of Nothing Trilogy, as, really, there was already enough fuel for the fire, it was left by the wayside. But in the Aspect-Emperor cycle, things are a bit different. We are introduced to the idea that this was indeed ruthlessly done, once upon a time.

But Kellhus, in order to fulfill his goals, mindful of what is yet to come, seeing enormous amounts of powerfully talented women being killed, uproots and squashes this practice. He forms a school for witches; the Swayal Sisterhood, exclusively for women. And Lo and Behold: They become the most powerful school in the Three Seas, second to none. Imbued with Kellhus' pure knowledge of how magic works, they have an edge on everyone. And at the head of this school: Kellhus' only daughter: Serwa.

And look at her finally revealing what she is in the disturbing incest scene. It's not her brother who takes the lead, it is her; fully in power, in control, showing Sorweel her ultimate disdain for him. she is not yet another weak woman needing help, no, she wants this, she is this. He is the one who does not belong. Part Dunyain arrogance, part woman's disdain for the puffed-up, self-important machismo of a young man.

5 books in and the Swayal Sisterhood is the most powerful school, the religious underground is led by a woman who is directly empowered by the gods, Mimara is the one who forces Achamian out of his hiding hole, and Esmenet, in effect, rules the empire.

The books start out with women subjugated and frequently debased, in imitation of what is still our own mess of a society. Then the series graduates to man and women equal under the rule of the Aspect-Emperor.
Only possible because this new state is delivered by one who looks from outside of humanity, and who wishes for the most capable in it to attain his goals. True equality, delivered from a source outside of it, because humanity will never attain it on its own.


Future...

And then ultimately, somewhere down the line, when Kellhus, the hand on the scales of equality, is gone, Three Seas society will backslide yet again into one gender subjugating the other; artistically ideal would be to let the scales slide the other way, with who was previously the subjugator becoming the subjugated. And there are already seeds of this in the Aspect Emperor, with the power being pooled onto those women who work from either behind the throne or from in the shadows, presumably those who won't be consumed by the calamities to come.

But maybe not. Because I haven't even read the Great ordeal or the Unholy Consult yet.

I should've jumped into those by now, and its a miracle I've not been spoiled by anything yet. That certainly can't last, and I'll admit, I've even been tempted to just go ahead and spoil it for myself, see if am right about both the religious and the feminist aspects. But for now I've held off on that. And as for reading... well, there's always something else first, huh?

In any case: When I finally do get round to it there'll be another write-up (or 2), where I'll revisit the Faith and Feminist themes, and you'll either get a triumphant 'I told you so', or a whole bunch of  annoyed swearing.

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Small note: This initially went out unedited, and it's the worst write-up I've ever posted online.
It has since been edited. Quite a bit. The ideas are the same, though they have been re-structured, rephrased and built up more where necessary.

The problem here was that this post was very much a case of getting it out there, because this idea had been stewing around for such a long time but, since it's such a volatile subject, I didn't really want to broach it, and so get that attention on myself. But it needed doing, as I didn't see anyone defending the series like this anywhere else, and I had made a desultory and half-hearted attempt of it in a previous post; so, to get myself going, I did a rough draft, and proceeded to slowly edit it every once in a while.
Then, on a day of not much food, nothing immediately to hand, in temporary forced isolation, boredom and loads of coffee, I posted it without too much thought and in the throes of hopeful idiocy.
Then, after I had exercised and eaten properly, reviewed what I had put out and, in prompt desperation, went to work.

Esmenet and the Evolution part of the write-up do not have enough yet; as that story and aspect is not done, and I am vague on the themes of the second set of books as I've only read it once.
I'll only be able to revisit this when I re-read the Aspect-Emperor cycle, though I don't have immediate plans for that yet. Likely it'll just jump to the front when I'm feeling discontented with reading in general.

But for now, this is pretty damn done.

Personal: Road of Faith and The Second Apocalypse - part 3

The Second Apocalypse

This next bit won't be for everyone because I noticed that it might be very incoherent for anyone who hasn't read the books.
But because of some of the bleed-over of the negativity and the fact that these days it is almost inextricably linked to the Road of Faith stuff, and of course the fact that this whole Faith post has had its ultimate origin in this; because I wanted to talk specifically about the hidden end goal (by my thinking) at the heart of the Second Apocalypse's narrative, It still is the final part.

As such, this isn't a review and should maybe not be read if you haven't read the series. Because I think I'll be revealing its end, or what I hope to be its end.
For that I need to talk about crucial elements and plot developments of the books.
That means massive spoilers, people.
Or at least I think they might be spoilers; this is mostly speculation and interpretation and I might still be way off. But I don't believe that I am.

I'll put a jump-break before I begin to spoil in earnest though, because I'll first try to convince you to go and read the books yourself.

Everything but the Unholy Consult

Anyway, before I jump into it I should maybe say that if you haven't read anything about this series and you like challenging Epic Fantasy fiction, this might be something you want to take a look at.

Scott Bakker's the Prince of Nothing trilogy and the following Aspect-Emperor quartet (it was supposed to be a trilogy too, but you know how things go) together form parts 1 and 2 of the Second Apocalypse series. It's not tacked on either. The whole thing was supposed to be three books, but every book has since escalated into its own cycle.
And this is because the story needed that room. It simply has to be so, there is no redundancy here.
The books themselves aren't even that long either.

The Prince of Nothing trilogy is set in a world of religion and war. There are various forms of deliciously complicated, but structured, magic systems and an eclectic assortment of gods.
Also, for once humanity is not the worst thing under the sun; they are outstripped by vile monsters that prey on them in all the worst ways; the Inchoroi.
There is a once upon a time great and mortal race that has since, at a terrible and unforeseen price, left its mortal tethers behind; The Non-Men, who now live on at the world's fringes, possessing power and madness in equal measure.

Written by a philosophy teacher, the series has got the deep philosophizing in spades and this is reflected in the characters, who are exceedingly well realised, though they might not necessarily be likeable.

If you don't mind drowning in a tide of human filth and darkness, go check it out yourself.

Despite of that darkness, to me, the world of the Three Seas felt like coming home.

Like those times when I was reading the Bible.

I've seen the term applied willy-nilly to books before and when read afterward they have always disappointed me, but Scott Bakker's Second Apocalypse is truly 'Biblical' in scope.

Old Testament Biblical.

Like in the Bible, Bakker's world is filled with prophets, holy men and holy wars, a higher calling, faith and strife, divine purpose and divine reward and the like.
A culture near an inland sea, old sandy desserts and old sandy cities and an entire people marching from them to get to their promised destination, raping, killing and burning their way across unfamiliar lands because their gods tell them that it is right of them to do so, justified, and how the power of belief makes this possible and, of course, it talks about the darkness from where all of these things originate.

A book of Iron men and their Saints.

It's geared and designed to strike a chord with the subconscious upbringing of people raised within a Christian society, whether they believe or not. This goes so far as to include the same reverential tones even during the most dire subject matter and the manner of description, up to and including the same type of philosophical and biblical ambiguity in its various expressions.
I'm not sure how these books would connect with people not raised with christianity but I'm guessing that there might be some difficulties in identifying with them in those cases.

It bears repeating here that the books are extremely dark. This is mostly because there is little or no way to get away from the darkness, apart from the phenomenal world-building of course, the layers of the world bubbling up behind every sentence and every conjured up vista.
The acts are horrible and violent and the characters aren't likeable because the introspection present in the first Prince of Nothing trilogy is all-encompassing. It is in fact an overpowering level of introspection stripping characters bare to the dirty core of their selfish humanity. These are the most realistic characters that I've ever read, with nothing of them hidden. And at times it can be like looking into a too honest mirror, with all those things you might not want to look at or think about laid bare. They add a realism to the series that is hard to find anywhere else.
Sure there are supernatural elements, but they're mostly all evil.
And in real life there always seems to be more evidence of evil and sin anyway. That's why in fiction demons and bad beasties are generally more credible than angels or even a benevolent god. The horrors are easier to accept than any form of benign supernatural influence.

And the bad beasties here; the Inchoroi, are the most evil antagonists ever created. They can be brutally and horrifyingly over the top, but I believe there's a reason for this and I'll mention it after the jump somewhere.

The series is truly pitch dark and I can't stress enough that I am always shocked, time and again, whenever I read it.

But if you can take them, they're worth it.

Now on to that thing I was talking about.
How that it's linked to my faith and what I'm getting out of it.

Definite SPOILERS for the Prince of Nothing and the entire Second Apocalypse up next.

Personal: Road of Faith and the Second Apocalypse - Part 2

Depression and Nihilism

With the loss of a man's faith, something necessarily has to come in its place. To keep the mind balanced lest it eats itself.

But to this day, I have not succeeded in giving meaning to my life without it.
Where once was my faith, there is now a bottomless hole, and it devoures everything that is tossed in. Without divine meaning and purpose, death becomes the end, and since death is inevitable, nothing we do matter.

Without meaning I instead stand at the yawning hole of the abyss, unable to look away from its darkness. And with every distraction, capable of turning me away from its dark contemplation but a fleeting fancy, I am forever teetering on the edge.

As a pessimist by nature I usually see only the worst in things. And every worst thing leads to sorrow.

These days I mostly rationally choose to believe that nothing truly matters. There was never anything greater guiding us, there is no goal and no purpose; we lead an aimless and painful existence, and when we die, we simply end. Our brains halt and we stop functioning. We decompose and our bodies are reintegrated into the energy that is cycled throughout the living things of this world. There is no damnation and no exaltation because there is no design. And that in itself has become both excuse and goal.

Because of the above it might seem that the depression that comes and goes is entirely contingent on my relationship with my faith and upbringing. This is of course not true.

There are various factors, not all of which I'm able or willing to share.
But one major thing is that I'm a sensitive little fucker. A stray word, an odd look, a huff or a puff can unhinge me enough that my day is ruined. It becomes my mind's focus for the longest time. It makes me think and think and it's always in the direction of the worst.
I suppose I should call it 'Highly Sensitive' but labels have always been annoying to me. Nobody fits in anywhere perfectly, and when one is labeled it gives others the license to look at you one way while dismissing all that you are.

So, one of the consequences of that is that I severly overthink things. Like a dog worrying at a bone I can't stop chewing at the images and sounds and my pessimism obliges by then immediately offering me the worst case thoughts and scenarios.

That way I risk slipping further into the self-defeating spiral of depression and when that happens the nihilism comes into play.

I seek reasons to stop caring, to make the thoughts diminish,  and sometimes it is with nihilism that I take away their sting. 'Nothing matters' becomes the excuse. it becomes the balm and then in the bleakness it also becomes the goal. It is a trap and it gets me every time.
I know that, as an individual I can't go through life thinking everything is useless. It leaves me uncomitted, uninvested and very much adrift.

But I can't help it and I can't look away. The serpent bites its own tail and the venom makes its jaws lock tight.

It's something that continuously saps my strength and something I keep struggling with every day. And as someone who can't talk to others easily and whose friendships dwindle with the passing of the years, It's hard to speak of these themes and these horrors. because no-one else is willing or is unable to truly understand or has in fact no need to adress these things.

So, isolated, I try to shunt it aside and find an outlet somewhere else. Mostly, and most benignly, in fiction.

Meaning through stories

Games, tv-shows, movies, comics and above all, books.

Fiction is safe because for fiction to work, there needs to be a purpose, there needs to be meaning to the narrative.

And it is almost always made clear to us. Willing investment is a prerequisite. And immersion takes care of the rest.

Things start to matter, because we're told that it matters. We follow the characters along and their views become our views. We follow along and ready ourselves for the coming of joy and heartache. But it's always at a safe remove. And these stories will never end if we don't want them to. Things cycle and purpose becomes ever renewed.
It is Heaven.

But it's a choice. and not everyone can commit to it.

I used to be able to commit to any kind of narrative. Until I started thinking about what I read. This is not an indictment of those books or the age at which I read them. It's rather more something like wistful regret. Of a time when I didn't continuously think. when I didn't seem to have this inability to switch off. When meaning didn't need to be found and I could just enjoy the story for its own sake.
Most likely this is just another rose-tinted lens through which I view the past. I likely always overthought things too much. But I'm digressing.

In fiction there is meaning, but there was once a time when there was also meaning in my life.
So I seek out works inspired by the tenets of my upbringing because they still resonate with me. Because they can not help but connect on a very deep and almost spiritual level.
I don't think I purposely seek out these stories to find a meaning to ascribe to the reality through which I move. But I can not deny that it is the stories that could possibly slot into my past upbringing and the world-view that came along with it, that have hit hardest with me.
When you label something, a guiding influence, that was and still remains important in your life, as a fiction, everything that is associated with it or that draws inspiration from it, becomes fair game.

That's why anything demonic is so interesting because it is only tangentially related. Because as it's not the center there can be no real need for purpose here and it becomes mostly just for fun. Mythological stuff and meta narratives are also a huge draw. They don't even have to be dark.
I'm digressing again.

The thing I'm talking about is stories with Christianity as its foremost understructure, (Here read Christian Doctrine, meaning; The Bible, this is not Protestantism or even Catholicism, I always identified just as a Christian, basing myself solely on the Bible.)

Some of the things that have been special:

-Clive Barker's Next Testament, which could give an explanation for the madness of the old Testament and the 2000 year gap where it seems God isn't active.
-The Third Testament by Xavier Dorison, proposing that things were supposed to go different and God might have abandoned his ideas of apocalypse.
-The Goddamned; The Old Testament viewed through an ultra-violent lens. Noah, the same. Exodus: Gods and Kings, with God as a lunatic child.
-Hellblazer, though it rambles on and broaches alot of topics, it's very good at times. Preacher, with its crap comic that has a great central idea and nothing else, but it did give rise to a potentially very good tv-show. Lucifer, which goes too fantastic sometimes but damn me (haha) if it isn't magnificent.
-Penny Dreadful ,which was cut way too short, with its introspective look on good and evil. With the main character; the beautiful and incredibly tormented Vanessa Ives forced to take a choice between God and the Devil, it was taken from us too soon.
-American Gods and Small Gods, with their very similar takes on power through belief. Though these books aren't really about Christianity and with especially American Gods taking a coward's road in not adressing Christianity in a world filled with active gods, they are centrally about power through belief.
-Vikings, in its inclusion of gods both old and new, and how the characters deal with this. I've already mentioned the quote above, and it gives a good insight on how deep the show can go. It's mostly up to the viewer though; not everything is shoved right in your face.
-Malazan, also not about christianity per se, but it's got philosphising on anything under the sun, including beliefs and gods and how they interact with the world of men. That and I have some ideas about the Crippled God himself.

And lastly, but firstly in meaning and importance.
-The Second Apocalypse, with its secret reactionary subversion to the themes and central tenets of the Bible. I'll talk about that in the next post. But I'll be unable to do it justice regardless.

There are of course alot more narratives and types of narratives that have drawn my attention and that I have ended up loving. But this is only about those narratives that I'm drawn to because of their relation to my past faith and upbringing, though these are hardly the sole reasons why these books, comics and tv-shows are so good. Each has their own merits.

These stories will inevitably attract me because it is very much a primal thing, isn't it? As a person raised within the tenets of Christianity, draped and hung with chains and tethers of guilt and shame, sin and love, sacrifice and redemption and who, most of the time, has cast off his religious convictions and beliefs, to actually have been immersed inside all of that religious imagery and faith for half of my life, and devoutly believing it too... Regardless from what environment you're raised in and how far you end up from it; the things you were raised with as a child, never truly leave you.

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These days I have less time for fiction, and this is partially because of the blog, partially because of work. With less actual reading time and not alot of down time in between work and blogging; what I consume, inevitably gets to be ruthlessly analysed. I'm not sure yet if this is a bad thing.
As I've said before, it is my hope that the darkness will be left for a large part behind in this post.
I'll have to see how that goes. Now on to the finale.

Personal: Road of Faith and The Second Apocalypse - Part 1

This is about my Road of Faith and the things that go with that, and ultimately, finally, in the third part, how my religious upbringing influenced my reading experience with Scott Bakker's Dark Epic Fantasy Series; The Second Apocalypse.

Along the way I will be talking about my personal views, depression, nihilism, christian doctrine and some of the religious fiction inspired by it (that I've read). I've tried to keep it down where I diverged too much from what I originally wanted to talk about and I've kept it in check for the most part, but forgive me if I sometimes ramble.

You might get annoyed at what lies ahead and I urge you to please not take any offense, as this is quite personal and probably isn't even really meant for people outside of my personal circle. If it does happen to leave an impact in unknown, likeminded souls; good, it might help somebody.

Some people need the bad, in order to feel like themselves, and I've begun to fear I might be one of those people. In response to this I will be trying to condense the negativity that has threatened to de-rail the blog at several times into this one huge post (now three), so I can figuratively and literally leave it behind me here, in case of future reference, or in case somebody might be interested.

After this post it'll be a slow climb back upward into positivity, I hope, but Long is the way, and hard, that out of hell leads up into light.

The Road Of Faith

As a kid growing up in a christian household, having to go to church on a weekly basis and not much liking the congregated mass of people desperate to show their devotion; standing, singing, raising hands, forcing everyone else to join in though sheer eye-balling pressure and despite being very honest in my faith, I did not much like all the effort and being a very shy, uncertain and introverted kid, the public displays of worship smacked (true or not) of posing, of liars and deceivers.

It bears stating at this point that my native language is Dutch...I know, I'm sorry.
Original copy presented here in its very well-read condition (read: falling apart).
'Groot Nieuws Bijbel' translation.

Always pushed into bringing and reading my Bible, I began to do just that; I consistently, almost exclusively, began to read it in church, but to bury my face from the sight of the older churchgoers frowning at the kid sitting in the back when the proper form would be to stand up in front, raising your hands in the air and showing the Lord you were praising Him, shouting your devotion, singing songs of eternal love, asking forgiveness for all your horrible sins because you are not worthy you small sinful child nothing without his grace.

With humans at large generally of the opinion that more knowledge is always better, few people would feel the need to admonish the small boy reading in the ultimate book of wisdom and they would leave me be. Also, for myself, I figured I might as well learn something by reading and learning more in and of the Bible during this time of forced devotion, give or take about 2 hours on sunday morning.

As to the belief that more knowledge is always better; No, looking back over the years, it really is not...: ironically I can paraphrase the Bible here, via the rather amazingly good tv-show Vikings;

 Ecclesiastes 1: 17-18 via the 1917 Tanakh translation (I think)

He that increases Knowledge, Increases Sorrow.

 "I have seen all the works that are done under the sun. And, behold, all is vanity and vexation of the spirit. I communed with mine own heart, saying, Lo, I am come to great estate. and I gave my heart to know wisdom and to know madness and folly. I perceived that this also is vexation of the spirit. For in such wisdom is much grief, and he that increases knowledge, increases sorrow."

It is the cautionary tale of a man in torment because of his accumulation of knowledge.

As usual it's one of those passages that encourages closed-mindedness and to take the good book as the sole measure by which to view, understand and interact with the world. 

That doesn't make its core truth any less true though. More knowledge, and it's a specific type of knowledge meant here of course, leads to a soul in turmoil. This isn't about knowing how to start a car or how to build a rocket capable of space-travel.

Anyway, when I opened my book, I almost always read the Old Testament.
The dark, the violent and very much the bloodiest part of the Bible, barring the unrestrained madness that is Revelations, of course.

Tales of a God of blood sacrifice and horrific plagues, apocalyptic floods and columns of fire, of a God so petty and so sadistic that he'd send 2 she-bears to tear apart 42 children because they dared call an old man "Baldie". Of ascendancy by fiery chariot, wild visions in the dessert and of a whole people getting preferential treatment by dint of simply being the first on this blessed, blighted earth.
Of a man spilling his seed on the sand rather than granting his late brother's wife children and of God murdering him for it, because he is a voyeur who likes a happy ending.

You know, the fucking horrific tales.

Now that I'm older I wish I could say that I was fascinated by these tales because I noticed the incongruity between the bloodthirst of the First Testament and the forgiving message of the New. But that'd be a lie: It was definitely the violence, the tales of war and forced marching in deserts and God's horrific supernatural interventions in the affairs of men. I've matured enough to appreciate the difference between the two, though.

Somewhere in the years of endless questioning why, the continuous heaping up of misplaced guilt and shame; I inevitably lost my faith. This did not come down to one moment, but it was rather the consequence of alot of things. Too many things to mention or to go into really. I'm not even sure when it happened.

We can never really know all the influences that led us to make a decision, or even assuming we are capable into making a decision that is not already determined based on every influence that we are made up out of. The decision of a puppet held up by a million strings of influence is not really a decision made by that puppet.

And you know what;
maybe I still believe and this is just a protest. A refusing to acknowledge, a refusal to give credence that a being so horrifically arbitrary could or even should have this much power over me. In that case, I suppose I would be one of the people thrown into the eternal pool of fire who even in their agony, knowing the truth, would still renounce him. Helplessly, endlessly, railing at the dealt injustice.

Today

As someone who grew up inside what is probably some subsect of protestantism, I once devoutly believed in a personal, caring and loving creator.

These days, I might believe that the God of the Old Testament was a spoiled and bloodthirsty child. That the New Testament demonstrates the actions of a more mature God; still dabbling in his creation, still convinced of his own moral superiority, but with a more lenient, less blood-drenched hand.
Of these days, I might believe that God has finally attained wisdom enough that he knows better than to take an actual hand in his creation. He lets us run rampant because nothing he does can alter the wild abandon that is humanity's urge for self-mutilation.
That or he is dead. Or he has taken his bags and left in utter frustration. leaving behind an aimless, warring humanity that is sat like a bloated leech on what was once a garden Paradise, but now a dying husk. Aimless, pointless, and utterly without redemption.

In the next part I talk about nihilism and the exact opposite of believing in God and where that leads me. Oh, joy.

Book Haul: Evil is a Matter of Perspective

Here's some pictures of the grimdark villain anthology 'Evil is a Matter of Perspective' for those among you who are still on the fence about buying this book.

Sadly I was one of those people who learned about the kickstarter too late and for the longest time I figured I wasn't going to be able to get one.

Turns out that even though you might not be able to get any of the fancy editions, luckily you can get the trade paperback version still online.

Sooner ordered done than said, I says... or something.

Actually quite a hefty book.

There are about 500 pages of villainy goodness.

Bear in mind though that every single one of these tales is a part of a larger world and most likely ties into an existing storyline somewhere, someplace.
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If you are a sequential reader you might not enjoy this so much. But if you're looking for a glimpse into any of the author's worlds, you will be well served.

Taking a look at the contents I notice some names I'm familiar with.

-The Broken Dead short story ties into Michael Fletcher's Manifest Delusions universe, of which Beyond Redemption is book 1, the best grimdark book you've never read.
The short story apparently takes place after Beyond Redemption with all the spoilers that entails, so I could go and read it right now If I wanted to but I'm planning a re-read sometime in the future. I'll wait to read this till after that time.

-The Carathayan by Scott Bakker ties into his Second Apocalypse world. I absolutely love his stuff so even if nothing else gets read, this will be.

For the rest, what do I recognize?

-Teresa Frohock's Every Hair Casts a Shadow  ties into her Los Nefilim world which I thought her Miserere (which I read and really liked) was a part of but apparently it is not.

-The Syldoon Sun Ties into Salyard's Bloodsounders Arc which I was going to read this year but which has been pushed back, sadly.

Better than Breath from Stavely's Chronicles of the Unhewn Throne, the same.

Most of the other writers are at least known to me.

Janny Wurts Wars of Light and Shadow is set to conclude one of these years. I've noticed it a couple of times now and it has always intrigued me. Given time I'd love to read it the whole saga.

From what I've caight of Tchaikovsky's Shadow's of the Apt it seemed to weird for me, but the short story's inclusion here gives me pause. maybe I should give it a look.

Marc Turner's story blurb for his first book gave me huge Malazan vibes and his Chronicles of the Exile is one of things I will definitely read. Sometime... I swear. Honest.

Beaulieu's Song of the Shattered Sands might not be for me, though I have a book of his. signed and everything if you believe it.

The rest of these writers I'm not too familiar with.

Take a look to see if you recognize anything.

Also: every single short story comes with its own artwork, which is incredibly cool. And some of these look quite bad-ass.

I don't know what this story is about, but that is definitely Ozzy Osbourne.

Btw, Matthew Ward is the guy who wrote the rulebook lore
for alot of the Warhammer 40k stuff. Surprise!

Ooohw. That is GOOD artwork.

So, yeah. Looking good.

 For myself, I do wish that more of these were stand-alones. Because as they tie into so many big existing worlds already I can't bring myself to read more than a few.

Reading Update

look at Nameless basking in a white glow,
confident in its utter madness.

So again, because of the Ombria-project I haven't read anything big in a while and have been mostly whittling away at various comic books and have only read one prose book; a collection of short stories by a specific author.

I'm guessing that'll be the next post, though it really is more of a look at the book than anything approaching a review.

In the meantime I'm very uncertain about what to read next.

I've mentioned starting to read Weaveworld but that was really just a read-through of that one's introduction.

Von Bek; the second novel is still waiting patiently to be read.

Something else that has presented itself is Scott Bakker's Second Apocalypse series, which one's final book will be published within 20 days. And believe me. I've been looking forward to that one for a very long time.

I have a very personal and probably also very offensive post coming up concerning my experience with the series that explains why it strikes such a meaningful and personal chord with me. I'm still undecided If I'll actually post it but I gather that, with some cleaning up of the post, I will end up publishing it.

The entirety of parts 1 and 2 of the Second Apocalypse,
minus the Unholy Consult of course.

I made a half-hearted attempt to start re-reading the Judging Eye, but it got pretty horrific pretty quick and I was queasily dissuaded from continuing. This is mostly because over the weekend I got a little sick and I started to associate the nausea with the book.

I'm also worried about how to do the second apocalypse review posts once I've re-read the novels.
They're so deep and so horrific that it's really quite impossible to persuade anyone who doesn't read widely, and with a focus towards philosophical meandering, to read them. Or to even explain to anyone why these novels are so good, no, so necessary, without sounding like someone who likes torture porn superimposed over a background of theological imagery.

They're a blend of pessimistic ultra-realism and dark epic fantasy, geared towards advancing the writer's, who is a philosophy teacher, philosophical ideas.
Philosophy clad in a coat of grimdark, though, to quote LoopingWorld, “Grimdark” is usually used as a pejorative but it’s the greatest injustice to call this book so.
If I take a look at what Abalieno has written on the subject I feel myself sliding right out of my boots. What more can be said? The books simply can not appeal to everyone.
The dark, unflinching mirror they hold up can be sometimes be too hard to look at. And yet, it has so much to offer. The vision they present is unique.
There's nothing else like it on the market.

I remember reading the second book and at a certain point throwing it across the room in disgust and frustration. before it had stopped sliding across the floor I was already hurrying after it with a big and guilty grin on my face. There's immediate gratification coupled with disgust and exultation. But in the long term there's also something else, and idea lurking in the background of the series, that I sincerely hope Bakker keeps running with; It's possible that this idea is the central pay-off to the Aspect-Emperor part of the series, and I sincerely hope so. But I can't be sure, it might just be wish fulfillment.
I'll have to put spoiler tags at the start of the Second Apocalypse and Faith post.

It might seem bizarre and unhealthy to put so much stock on something so seemingly flimsy and obviously dark; it's just another set of books someone else might say. And I'm not disagreeing with that, but hey, everybody has their interests, and these books manage to tick all of mine. Theology, madness, metaphysics, extreme violence and an unflinching look at the dark selfishness of human nature. Also, a nightmare reflection of the Lord of the Rings, Kinda, and obvious inspiration from Blood Meridian.

Iron men and Saints, in case you're wondering,
Another big influence on the series.

And for now, in this vague time before the release of the final novel, hype and trust and hope is at a fever pitch. Anything is possible and all my hopes will be fulfilled.
What a dangerous thing hype can be.

So, despite and likely because of my excitement, I'm still not sure if I'll just plunge back into the dark, manipulative world of The Three Seas. I've been waiting a long while for the conclusion. But I could wait a little while longer If I feel like I'm being pressured, even if it's just by myself.

What can I say; I told you I'm a contrary sort of person.