[MSJ]

Great post. And it all seems to make sense. I don't get into many conversations about the No-God, I have a very difficult time of wrapping my head around the idea of what it could be exactly and it's nature. This post helped a lot.

[Francis Buck]

Yeah that's a great post H, you pretty clearly outlined a lot of what I personally suspect to be the case, and the idea of the No-God as the one "eye turned upon itself" is awesome.

I almost 100% believe the "apocalypse" the series refers to is indeed semantic -- the destruction of intrinsic meaning rather than the physical world, per se. After all, we know the Inchoroi actually want to preserve Earwa itself.

You mention how the No-God strips meaning from souls. One thing I'd point out is that, in my opinion, the meaning doesn't get stripped from souls -- the souls are the meaning. They're the cosmic device that is enabling all this metaphysical shit -- gods, magic -- and ultimately the only thing that makes our universe separate from the one Bakker constructed. It's consciousness made "material", on some level, and therefore susceptible to manipulation or interaction with other things. Everything else comes from there.

[H]

Yeah that's a great post H, you pretty clearly outlined a lot of what I personally suspect to be the case, and the idea of the No-God as the one "eye turned upon itself" is awesome.

I almost 100% believe the "apocalypse" the series refers to is indeed semantic -- the destruction of intrinsic meaning rather than the physical world, per se. After all, we know the Inchoroi actually want to preserve Earwa itself.

You mention how the No-God strips meaning from souls. One thing I'd point out is that, in my opinion, the meaning doesn't get stripped from souls -- the souls are the meaning. They're the cosmic device that is enabling all this metaphysical shit -- gods, magic -- and ultimately the only thing that makes our universe separate from the one Bakker constructed. It's consciousness made "material", on some level, and therefore susceptible to manipulation or interaction with other things. Everything else comes from there.

Except that wasn't me,

I'm on board with the Apocalypse being a semantic one.  In fact, we we've known this is what the Consult has wanted all along, the destruction of the world itself was incidental.  What Kellhus wants of it is the mystery.  Is the No-God really the prototypical self-moving soul?  I'm not sure.

Thing is, seemingly, the Solitary God still exists.  The 100 exist too.  And we are lead to believe the No-God is still out there, somewhere.  What we are left to try to figure out is what is Kellhus up to with all this?

One aspect of the No-God not answered though is all the still-births, which to me, speaks to the No-God having a real "pull" on souls, not just their meaning.  In other words, the No-God really does devour souls in the literal sense.  “‘The soul that encounters Him,’” the Schoolman continued, “‘passes no further.’”

[Odium]

It was me!

I think the Solitary God exists as well, but that the Hundred are humanity's impure interpretation of the God's existence. Notice Fane was blind in more ways than one when he perceived the Solitary God - he was exiled from mannish society. H, to me, your post synthesizes my point eloquently - the No-God is probably a prototypical self-moving soul, and Kellhus is seeking the means to harness the same power and become a truer version.

As for the still-births, Ciphrank encapsulated my thoughts better - the No-God does have a real "pull" on souls, because they are the meaning. He devours souls in the literal sense by deconstructing their meaning, at least in my hypothesis.

[H]

Well, I have to temper myself here.  I feel that the No-God could be a meaning-sink, however, I can't follow that the No-God actually destroys meaning.  This is because, if it were so, then simply raising the No-God would have accomplished the Consult's end.  We know, however, that this was not the case, that the world still needed to be reduced to 144,000 and sealed.  So, there must be more to it.

I feel like there may be a parallel between the Toir’inskiri, "grave-with-no-bottom" and the No-God, in the sense that one is their surrogate world and the other is their surrogate god.  In other words, the No-God preforms the same function as a god would, collecting up souls.  The inversion of course is that the No-God is Inside rather than Outside and as such, has no way to know who or what it is itself, it simply does what it was made do.

I'm not sure I articulate this well, perhaps I need to go back to the drawing board...

[Quinthane]

Cousin to the NotNowGod.