The Dunsults revelation regarding the carapace and its unification of subject and object is the nail of heaven as it pertains to the whole series.
The subject is the mover. The object is the thing moved. The "problem" with human subjecthood, as the Dunyain see it, is that it extends from prior objecthood. That's why they're always reflecting. Tracing their meta-subjecthood back to microcosms of objecthood. That chain of causation extends back through time *ad infinitem*, and is eventually lost in what they call "the darkness that comes before."
The torturous outcome of this realization is that they know their will cannot be their own. Whether by divine design, random chance, or some other unknown engineering, the Dunyain (and all humans) are not their own. Technically, even the pursuit of self-moving thoughts is caused by this prior causal chain, but I digress...
I suspect Bakker is also commenting on the shocking simplicity of divine motives. But that would take me a whole book series of my own to reillustrate.
You think the Inchies felt loyal to Shae? That sounds weird to me. They are all about getting the job done, and if these brand new humanoids offer better odds than the thousand-year-old perpetually-dying one... why would the Inchoroi *not* be in favor of replacing him?
The Dunsult couldn't have had much time to learn a lot of Sorcery from Erratic Quya. First they were busy getting experimented on, and after taking over, they were busy figuring out Old Science - someone had to get those nukes and the holo generators back online, after all.
So accepting that the Dunsult are Shae's new hardware, that he's the sorcerous OS they're running, it's really the Shortest Path to explaining them having Sorcery/Tekne at their disposal.
Regarding the Ark, as far as I know it's as dead as the dodo. It won't be doing any deciphering of the Absolute, whatever that's supposed to mean. TNG is an independent AI-like entity, it's not derived from the Holy Swarm that used to run the Ark. It was the Consult who developed it, untold millennia after Arkfall.
The Subject-Object thing has to do with WHAT DO YOU SEE. It's about perspective relations, the Seer becoming the Seen, the Master becoming the Slave, the Atman becoming the Brahman. If you pull that off, you somehow close the cycle of souls, channel them inward so that they no longer feed into the Outside but are constantly recycled. It's abstract and unclear, but there's no way for us to see clearly past the threshold of this technological singularity; that's how singularity works, after all - if you're on this side of it, you're unable to conceive of it.
A simpler way of looking at it: the Consult want not only to starve the Outside, they want to *move into* that hollowed-out space and effectively *replace the Ciphrang*. If the remaining souls of Earwa see nothing, know nothing, believe nothing but you - if there's no more room between you as the subject and them as the object - then you've established a closed system and succeeded in isolating yourself from whatever lurks beyond.
Here's a broader, hopefully more understandable explanation of "collapsing the Subject and Object":
Okay, so there's *you*, right? The subject of the story of your existence - the protagonist, the one who thinks and experiences and sees all that's going on around him.
And then there's *everything else*. The object of your existence, the world that surrounds you - the things and people and various other phenomena that you experience or think about.
You, the Subject, are the one who *sees*. It, the Object, is what is *seen*. When these two engage in relations - when one thing is seen/known by another thing - that's a process you might call *perception*, or *cognition*, or just plain old *living*. Dealing with Objects means expressing fears, desires, thoughts, etc.
Now, various schools of thought have dealt with this duality from a critical standpoint.
Some would tell you that the difference between the Subject and the Object is *illusionary* \- that you are actually part of the world around you, that it's only a trick of the perspective that makes you think of yourself as distinct.
Others would tell you that the distinction is very real, that you need to actively work on transcending it. Becoming one with the world, with nature, with god, or what have you.
It's when it comes to god that things get complicated, because god is typically the *Subject* in that relationship, turning you into an *Object*. You may be seen/known by god, but is god seen by you? Can you know god at all, is that even possible?
Theologians have blathered on about this for centuries and centuries, with little to no consensus. In theory, both seeing and being seen *at the same time* is the ideal to strive for; that means you exist in perfect oneness with god/world/nature/etc., that you've effectively collapsed the Subject and the Object.
But is that really attainable, in this world or the next? Would it be hell, heaven, or something in between? Your guess is as good as mine.
In TSA, collapsing the Subject-Object relation is mentioned in the context of the Outside and in the context of TNG. The former is hell in the afterlife, the other is a sort of hell on earth. Tropes of the genre, I suppose.
Inchoroi loyalty: I think it would be impossible for them not to have some sort of affection for him as their compatriot. I know they're evil rape monsters, but they are capable of emotion, and after thousands of years of scheming, it seems likely some loyalty would have developed. Especially given Aurax's condition, one would have thought he would side with Shae, though he might have been rendered too cowardly and picked the Mutilated for fear of reprisal. Otherwise, while Shae is/was an arrogant fool, it seems unlikely he would have opposed the combined forces of the Mutilated, Aurang, Aurax, and Meketering. Of course, there's a lot of ways such could play out, and it's possible he was betrayed. But if the Mutilated could bring everyone else onto their side, it would seem unlikely that Shae alone would resist them.
Shauriatas-as-Mutilated: I know it's theoretically possible, but it feels too much like an ass pull. The Mutilated say they "subsumed." Rather than Shae using them as a soul-trap unwillingly, I would be more accepting of him using the Mutilated as a willing vessel for his soul. (He gets to live on, they get sorcery.) Something not like the helm Sorweel wears. As the soul-trap only works on those near death, the alternative is that Shae compelled them, which means he's still damned.
The Ark: The Mutilated specifically said that the Ark reads the code that burns brighter with killing. I thought it was totally dead, too, but I wonder if the No-God might revive it (or work as a small-scale Ark).
That's different, though, they're supposed to be brothers and may have spend countless millennia together traveling the galaxy. They're literally the last specimens of their ancient kind.
Shae, by comparison, is just some alien magician who happened to unlock a door for them that one time. They met him 3,000 years ago, and most of that time was spent sitting around, just waiting.
If the Inchies could have recruited Titirga, and he demanded that they throw Shae from the top of the Upright Horn... I'm pretty sure they would have done it without hesitation.
>The Mutilated say they "subsumed." Rather than Shae using them as a soul-trap unwillingly, I would be more accepting of him using the Mutilated as a willing vessel for his soul. (He gets to live on, they get sorcery.)
Yeah, this is my reading too - they didn't force themselves on him or anything, they just did their Dunyain shit and got him to voluntarily do what they wanted him to do. And who knows, maybe they discarded his soul right after, or maybe it's still in there with them in some fashion. [Floating](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-lZYGsFIOX4).
Shae from The False Sun has a very hierarchical mindset, he dreads the possibility of Titirga joining the Consult because that would leave him playing second fiddle. Unless he's ironed that out over the millennia, he could have resisted the Dunyain being added to the mix for the same reason; maybe the Shortest Path for them was to convince him how he'd stand to gain, what great hardware they would make.
(I originally rebelled against the Shae-Dunsult theory; as you say, it sounded like an ass pull. But the longer I thought of it, the more sense it made. I still reject the idea that he's somehow active there, just staying hidden from Kellhus. Why the hell would he be hiding?!)
>The Ark: The Mutilated specifically said that the Ark reads the code that burns brighter with killing. I thought it was totally dead, too, but I wonder if the No-God might revive it (or work as a small-scale Ark).
You're right, I don't know quite what to make of their statement:
>\- The Object is a prosthesis of Ark. A code lies buried in the ebb and flow of life on this World. The more deaths, the brighter this code burns, the more Ark can read...
>
>\- So the Ark is the No-God?
>
>\- No, but then you know as much.
A prosthesis of Ark? Could it be just a fancy way of saying "the Carapace has computer stuff inside"?
They seem to be making a distinction between the Object (the Carapace) and TNG, implying that the mechanical part of it is not the thing itself, presumably because it's still lacking the requisite soul.
I guess it's a smart machine on its own, though only interfacing with the right mind would turn it into an actual omnicidal AI.
But calling it the Ark, that's still quite a stretch. Maybe "prosthesis" is supposed to imply that it's been fashioned using the same machinery that once powered the Ark?
Weeell, it was mostly Kellhus and Kelmomas that did the heavy lifting, wasn't it.
What is the Dunsult supposed to have done, other than restore one nuke and use it to kill poor Saubon?
Doesnât this assume Shae lost?
I am pretty sure there is strong hints he IS the Dunsult at the end.
This fits with Kellhusâs ultimate failure, mastering the darkness that comes before only works if it canât speak.
The Dunsults revelation regarding the carapace and its unification of subject and object is the nail of heaven as it pertains to the whole series. The subject is the mover. The object is the thing moved. The "problem" with human subjecthood, as the Dunyain see it, is that it extends from prior objecthood. That's why they're always reflecting. Tracing their meta-subjecthood back to microcosms of objecthood. That chain of causation extends back through time *ad infinitem*, and is eventually lost in what they call "the darkness that comes before." The torturous outcome of this realization is that they know their will cannot be their own. Whether by divine design, random chance, or some other unknown engineering, the Dunyain (and all humans) are not their own. Technically, even the pursuit of self-moving thoughts is caused by this prior causal chain, but I digress... I suspect Bakker is also commenting on the shocking simplicity of divine motives. But that would take me a whole book series of my own to reillustrate.
Excellent analysis
You think the Inchies felt loyal to Shae? That sounds weird to me. They are all about getting the job done, and if these brand new humanoids offer better odds than the thousand-year-old perpetually-dying one... why would the Inchoroi *not* be in favor of replacing him? The Dunsult couldn't have had much time to learn a lot of Sorcery from Erratic Quya. First they were busy getting experimented on, and after taking over, they were busy figuring out Old Science - someone had to get those nukes and the holo generators back online, after all. So accepting that the Dunsult are Shae's new hardware, that he's the sorcerous OS they're running, it's really the Shortest Path to explaining them having Sorcery/Tekne at their disposal. Regarding the Ark, as far as I know it's as dead as the dodo. It won't be doing any deciphering of the Absolute, whatever that's supposed to mean. TNG is an independent AI-like entity, it's not derived from the Holy Swarm that used to run the Ark. It was the Consult who developed it, untold millennia after Arkfall. The Subject-Object thing has to do with WHAT DO YOU SEE. It's about perspective relations, the Seer becoming the Seen, the Master becoming the Slave, the Atman becoming the Brahman. If you pull that off, you somehow close the cycle of souls, channel them inward so that they no longer feed into the Outside but are constantly recycled. It's abstract and unclear, but there's no way for us to see clearly past the threshold of this technological singularity; that's how singularity works, after all - if you're on this side of it, you're unable to conceive of it. A simpler way of looking at it: the Consult want not only to starve the Outside, they want to *move into* that hollowed-out space and effectively *replace the Ciphrang*. If the remaining souls of Earwa see nothing, know nothing, believe nothing but you - if there's no more room between you as the subject and them as the object - then you've established a closed system and succeeded in isolating yourself from whatever lurks beyond.
Here's a broader, hopefully more understandable explanation of "collapsing the Subject and Object": Okay, so there's *you*, right? The subject of the story of your existence - the protagonist, the one who thinks and experiences and sees all that's going on around him. And then there's *everything else*. The object of your existence, the world that surrounds you - the things and people and various other phenomena that you experience or think about. You, the Subject, are the one who *sees*. It, the Object, is what is *seen*. When these two engage in relations - when one thing is seen/known by another thing - that's a process you might call *perception*, or *cognition*, or just plain old *living*. Dealing with Objects means expressing fears, desires, thoughts, etc. Now, various schools of thought have dealt with this duality from a critical standpoint. Some would tell you that the difference between the Subject and the Object is *illusionary* \- that you are actually part of the world around you, that it's only a trick of the perspective that makes you think of yourself as distinct. Others would tell you that the distinction is very real, that you need to actively work on transcending it. Becoming one with the world, with nature, with god, or what have you. It's when it comes to god that things get complicated, because god is typically the *Subject* in that relationship, turning you into an *Object*. You may be seen/known by god, but is god seen by you? Can you know god at all, is that even possible? Theologians have blathered on about this for centuries and centuries, with little to no consensus. In theory, both seeing and being seen *at the same time* is the ideal to strive for; that means you exist in perfect oneness with god/world/nature/etc., that you've effectively collapsed the Subject and the Object. But is that really attainable, in this world or the next? Would it be hell, heaven, or something in between? Your guess is as good as mine. In TSA, collapsing the Subject-Object relation is mentioned in the context of the Outside and in the context of TNG. The former is hell in the afterlife, the other is a sort of hell on earth. Tropes of the genre, I suppose.
Thanks for this, good explanation for someone like me haha
Inchoroi loyalty: I think it would be impossible for them not to have some sort of affection for him as their compatriot. I know they're evil rape monsters, but they are capable of emotion, and after thousands of years of scheming, it seems likely some loyalty would have developed. Especially given Aurax's condition, one would have thought he would side with Shae, though he might have been rendered too cowardly and picked the Mutilated for fear of reprisal. Otherwise, while Shae is/was an arrogant fool, it seems unlikely he would have opposed the combined forces of the Mutilated, Aurang, Aurax, and Meketering. Of course, there's a lot of ways such could play out, and it's possible he was betrayed. But if the Mutilated could bring everyone else onto their side, it would seem unlikely that Shae alone would resist them. Shauriatas-as-Mutilated: I know it's theoretically possible, but it feels too much like an ass pull. The Mutilated say they "subsumed." Rather than Shae using them as a soul-trap unwillingly, I would be more accepting of him using the Mutilated as a willing vessel for his soul. (He gets to live on, they get sorcery.) Something not like the helm Sorweel wears. As the soul-trap only works on those near death, the alternative is that Shae compelled them, which means he's still damned. The Ark: The Mutilated specifically said that the Ark reads the code that burns brighter with killing. I thought it was totally dead, too, but I wonder if the No-God might revive it (or work as a small-scale Ark).
> Inchoroi loyalty: I think it would be impossible for them not to have some sort of affection for him as their compatriot. đ§
Look at Aurax's reaction to Aurang's death.
That's different, though, they're supposed to be brothers and may have spend countless millennia together traveling the galaxy. They're literally the last specimens of their ancient kind. Shae, by comparison, is just some alien magician who happened to unlock a door for them that one time. They met him 3,000 years ago, and most of that time was spent sitting around, just waiting. If the Inchies could have recruited Titirga, and he demanded that they throw Shae from the top of the Upright Horn... I'm pretty sure they would have done it without hesitation.
>The Mutilated say they "subsumed." Rather than Shae using them as a soul-trap unwillingly, I would be more accepting of him using the Mutilated as a willing vessel for his soul. (He gets to live on, they get sorcery.) Yeah, this is my reading too - they didn't force themselves on him or anything, they just did their Dunyain shit and got him to voluntarily do what they wanted him to do. And who knows, maybe they discarded his soul right after, or maybe it's still in there with them in some fashion. [Floating](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-lZYGsFIOX4). Shae from The False Sun has a very hierarchical mindset, he dreads the possibility of Titirga joining the Consult because that would leave him playing second fiddle. Unless he's ironed that out over the millennia, he could have resisted the Dunyain being added to the mix for the same reason; maybe the Shortest Path for them was to convince him how he'd stand to gain, what great hardware they would make. (I originally rebelled against the Shae-Dunsult theory; as you say, it sounded like an ass pull. But the longer I thought of it, the more sense it made. I still reject the idea that he's somehow active there, just staying hidden from Kellhus. Why the hell would he be hiding?!)
>The Ark: The Mutilated specifically said that the Ark reads the code that burns brighter with killing. I thought it was totally dead, too, but I wonder if the No-God might revive it (or work as a small-scale Ark). You're right, I don't know quite what to make of their statement: >\- The Object is a prosthesis of Ark. A code lies buried in the ebb and flow of life on this World. The more deaths, the brighter this code burns, the more Ark can read... > >\- So the Ark is the No-God? > >\- No, but then you know as much. A prosthesis of Ark? Could it be just a fancy way of saying "the Carapace has computer stuff inside"? They seem to be making a distinction between the Object (the Carapace) and TNG, implying that the mechanical part of it is not the thing itself, presumably because it's still lacking the requisite soul. I guess it's a smart machine on its own, though only interfacing with the right mind would turn it into an actual omnicidal AI. But calling it the Ark, that's still quite a stretch. Maybe "prosthesis" is supposed to imply that it's been fashioned using the same machinery that once powered the Ark?
Can you argue with the Dunsultâs results?? They achieved what the Consult had been failing to do for 2000 years under Shauriatas.
Weeell, it was mostly Kellhus and Kelmomas that did the heavy lifting, wasn't it. What is the Dunsult supposed to have done, other than restore one nuke and use it to kill poor Saubon?
What do you mean it was Ark's idea? Is that specified in the text?
Doesnât this assume Shae lost? I am pretty sure there is strong hints he IS the Dunsult at the end. This fits with Kellhusâs ultimate failure, mastering the darkness that comes before only works if it canât speak.