Last month, while some people were perhaps developing this odd idea that there was some sort of "feud" brewing (people being so melodramatic and such, said with a nudge-nudge and a wink-wink, saying nothing more but with a chuckle in mind, as nothing could be further from the truth, at least in my eyes...), I submitted a few questions at the request of Pat of Pat's Fantasy Hotlist (with Adam Whitehead of The Wertzone participating as well) for a joint interview of Scott Bakker. Bakker finally answered recently and Pat just posted the resulting interview.
Now for a fun game: See if you can pick out which questions I asked. There's something in common in how I phrased my questions (hint: If the word "whilst" is used, it was Adam asking those questions. Pat asked a few others and those are of the sort that come from being in repeated contact with the author, which I haven't been recently.) that ought to make it easy for people to pick mine out (another hint: when I interviewed Patrick Rothfuss almost two years ago, he and I were poking fun at a certain element in my questions, one that is easily seen in the current interview). So up for having fun?
Now back to wondering if I'll wake up in the morning with the temp in the positive or negative Fahrenheit range and if school will be held (most of the counties east of me have closed due to the near-record cold).
The Empirical Approach to Learning
1 day ago
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i'm guessing every question where a term is put in quotation marks and then dissected is yours. also most of the multiple-sentence questions but there were a couple that didn't have your vocabulary or effusiveness and hence could have been one of the others. :)
Pretty much ;) Didn't think it'd be hard to guess, but that perhaps it might be fun to tease me about doing that so often. I sometimes read what I've written and wonder when did my syntax morph to that of someone attempting to translate a florid style of Spanish? :O
Probably when you developed a fluency in spanish. los dos son mezclando. it happens. i experienced the same thing in my last year of high school when i was taking spanish lit. being an english major who APed out of any foreign language requirement in college got me back on track though. :)
enough with the quotes already :)
They cancel school because of the cold?
Weird.
They didn't for my county (unfortunately :P), but they did for several others because of several students having to wait 15 minutes or so outside for the buses to arrive. With a wind chill below zero (F), plus with the cost of keeping school open an entire day running in the tens of thousands (electricity, sub teacher payments, but especially cafeteria meals), some counties decided to err on the side of caution (and saving money in a year of shrinking budgets) today.
Funny, when reading the interview I was also looking at whether or not I could discover who asked what question. Not that it matters much but the question came up in my mind anyway.
I think you asked:
"Some have observed in the past that one of the hallmarks of epic fantasy is its tendency to make metaphors into actualized, concrete representations. To what degree, if any, is this true of your writing?"
A Larry question.
"Power is a theme you explore in several ways, especially in your latest Eärwa novel. In particular, at times it seemed as though you were making the case that power is a form of discourse in which the "willing" and "unwilling" have more active (albeit largely subconscious) roles in creating said structures. Is this observation true, or are there elements to be addressed in the series that will cast a different light on the nature of power and how someone such as Kellhus gains and maintains his power?"
"There seems to be a a complex relationship between the World and the Outside. What are some of the ways in which the World influences the Gods/Outside and will we see more of a metaphysical exploration of what seems to me to be a symbiotic relationship between the two?"
"What is "blindness" to a divinity? Can the Hundred Gods be fallible, or is this something beyond the ken of the people of Eärwa?"
"Which would be closer to the "darkness" that comes before: a symbol, a representation, or the "meaning" of an object, person, or event? Depending on the one chosen, could it be presumed that if one grasps an "essence," that one could gain a semblence of control over how that symbol/representation/meaning is applied in say religious or political affairs in Eärwa?"
Am I right? The only one I'm less sure of is the question between the relationship of the World and the Outside, that could have been Adam or Pat as well.
Yes, those are all indeed my own, but I believe I also asked these:
- Considering that the "darkness" that comes before has been discussed in several ways over the course of your novels, how does prophecy fall along the lines of what comes before and perhaps after?
- Damnation is a recurring topic among the sorcerers. Will we see any of the mechanisms behind the judgments related to this damnation as the series progresses?
And like you said over at Westeros, Scott did seem to be quite evasive to a lot of those questions, perhaps because he knows that I'm going to quiz him on thematic issues much more than plot ones and he'd rather not give readers that much information to speculate upon, I would guess.
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