Unsong Notes ~~~~~~~~~~~~ Meta-notes: -> All statements refer to the Unsong universe, unless otherwise stated. -> I have Asperger's Syndrome, and Uriel is the character I most identify with. As a consequence, he is the one I am hardest on. -> Ana is very much the sort of person that I wish I was. This may cause me to read some of my own ideas onto her. -> I made a conscious effort not to write opinions on the various theological questions that come up because that is not really story analysis. Sorry if some got in anyway. "For man is older than SUM: wiser, I swear; his myths hold more truth than Its mathematics." SUM is the computer that runs the world in Paul Anderson's novella Goat Song, and it has strong parallels to Uriel's machine: -> SUM was built to optimize world human activity, while Uriel's machine was built to optimize the world for human activity -> SUM reported history to imply it had always existed, while Uriel's machine imposed a new (apparent) history on the universe in which it had always existed -> SUM taught people to believe that only the material world existed but the supernatural survived as metaphor, while Uriel's machine reduced everything except the material world to metaphor -> the collapse of SUM's power began as a result of a man reading a Bible [implied, the book is named in the story] found in a place SUM had not considered, while the collapse of Uriel's machine began when a man read the Bible while in a place that Uriel had not considered -> the existence of SUM kept the "souls" [memory-recordings] of the dead trapped in a horrible place deep underground, while Uriel's machine kept the souls of the dead trapped in Hell -> Harper (the Messiah from Goat Song) travelled to Hell-equivalent in a failed attempt to rescue a soul there, while the Comet King travelled to Hell in a failed attempt to rescue the souls there -> Harper caused the destruction of SUM to save his wife-equivalent from Hell-equivalent, while the Comet King caused the (final) destruction of Uriel's machine to save his wife from Hell -> the destruction of both SUM and Uriel's machine caused the collapsed of technological civilization -> Harper and the Comet King both had to cause their own deaths in order to achieve their goals None of this is a coincidence because nothing is ever a coincidence. Uriel ----- Uriel seems to be a neutral angel, like Samyazaz and Gadiriel -> he isn't exactly good and doesn't do normal angelic things -> e.g. singing songs of praise -> when Sataniel claims to have a new revelation from God, he mostly ignores it -> when he turn the universe to math, he seems to have 5 motives, and all of them are morally dubious -> eliminating Thamiel, who is an aspect of God -> proving himself superior to the other archangels -> eliminating the other archangels, who he said he "would not mourn" -> eliminating himself, because he hated his life -> recreating the entire world in his own image -> the arrogance he shows is disturbing -> Uriel ends up "married" to a daughter of men (Sohu) -> this is one of the evil acts Satanial suggested the angels perform -> It seems significant that Uriel could never sing on-key -> elsewhere, this is treated as the defining characteristic of a corrupted angel It is not clear whether Uriel's machine actually improved things -> it is possible that Thamiel would have won otherwise -> it is possible that Raziel would have been able to spawn a Comet-King equivalent 5000 years earlier -> in which case, Uriel ended up causing up to 5000 years of suffering in Hell for billions of people I think Uriel broke the sephirots when he changed Adam Kadmon to add SKabMoM -> it (slightly) affected the flow of divine light through the serphirots and shattered the fourth one (plus the domino effect) -> we have been told changing atziluth has terrible consequences -> and that it is impossible (by Uriel in ch. 44 II), but that seems to have been forgotten -> Uriel didn't notice because atziluth is outside time and space, and the changes appeared retroactively throughout the entire history of the universe -> e.g. the new Bible verses were retconned in with addition dates long before the change -> or Uriel did know when Sohu first asked him, but he lied (misrepresented?) about it -> when Thamiel show Sohu a vision of Hell, the worst part for Sohu was the feeling that she had personally caused all of the suffering -> at that time, Sohu believed that the only solution was for Uriel to kill her immediately -> nothing like that is mentioned in the Broadcast, so it may well be unique to Sohu -> assumption: in the First World, Sohu still existed and became Uriel's only friend -> he still didn't want to lose her (we are told that angels have trouble with the concept of death and change) -> he reacted the same way as in the world we saw -> if so, Uriel is the reason why there is so much evil (including Thamiel becoming evil) -> at the beginning of the story, I assumed Uriel was the devil in disguise -> it became clear pretty quickly that he wasn't -> by the end, it seemed he had a fair claim to the title -> Thamiel was evil because he was damaged -> Gabriel thinks that Uriel changing the universe to math was comparable to Thamiel turning it evil -> by changing Adam Kadmon, Uriel desecrated everything that is, or was, or ever would be -> Uriel's actions were driven by his pride -> he believed that he knew better than everyone else -> he could just do what he thought was a good idea and it would always make things better -> even though Sohu kept pointing out things he didn't understand -> also selfishness -> when he made his machine, he was genuinely trying to make the world better -> here is is only doing it because it will make his own life better "Love seeketh only self to please, To bind another to its delight, Joys in another's loss of ease, And builds a Hell in Heaven's despite." Uriel being able to design a physics that duplicates (more or less) the behaviour of the divine-light-based world is impressive -> he is representing a more complex system with a simpler one, yet preserving the behaviour -> this may imply that God made the world specifically so that this was possible -> and some things (like dinosaur bones) are there specifically because they would show up in Uriel's physics When Uriel doesn't have enough diving light to give souls to everyone, it is odd that he picked North Africa -> obviously, the worst place to live is the Hellish Empire -> does Uriel know something about the judgement algorithm that we don't? (except Aaron's suspicions) Ana and Theodicy ---------------- God can make an infinite number of maximally good worlds -> countable infinity can be achieved by giving each otherwise-identical perfect world an id string of letters stretching off forever into otherwise-unused space -> uncountable infinity (the number of real numbers) can be achieved by putting two objects a real-valued distance apart -> the Planck length suggests that distances in our universe are not real-valued, but God presmably could make a universe where they were -> I think the universe IDs can be allowed to change to the same as another universe as long as theywere once different -> it was possible to destroy Hell -> this is a minor quibble because there are still more "positive good" universes than maximally good universes -> I am using the pigeonhole principle here I am glad Ana was willing to challenge God on His answer to the problem of evil -> she always refuses to be bullied or overawed on anything about theodicy -> this love of truth is probably what I like best about her -> I don't think God would have been too happy with her backing down either -> c.f. Job 9:22-24, 13:7-10, 42:7 -> and Ana would presumably know this -> my personal thought (now with improved phrasing) was on the order of "But the soul is still oracular; amid the whirlwind’s din, List the ominous stern whisper from the Delphic cave within,— 'They enslave their children’s children who make compromise with sin.'" "I'm not making compromise with sin. I just made some worlds that were less than maximally good." "Exactly what do you think compromise with sin is?" -> God's children would be the various Adam Kadmons, whose children are the people who live in the respective universes -> personally, I am waiting for an answer to the question "Why is there something instead of nothing" before worrying too much about evil specifically -> I have no problem with this answer from a story perspective -> any objections I would have had vanished because Ana was unhappy about it too The answer to the problem of evil slightly worries me -> there is a "nightmare interpretation" where God is lying to Ana -> she is just a simulation, but of has to tell her she is not to preserve the validity of the test (since God's answer is part of it) -> is there some other way God could figure out which universes He should create? -> it can't be heuristics because they miss weird the coincidences that God is judging by -> that would mean everyone (except God) in the story is a p-zombie I don't think Ana needs her (1, 0, -1) theory to explain Hell -> she believes in the idea of just desserts -> although she thinks there aren't any -> she uses the idea of God selectively withdrawing as His means of creation -> Hell is "just desserts" minus any sense of proportion -> and that is a "lessening" because multiplying by infinity results in information loss -> only bad people (however that is defined) go there, after which the degree of badness is ignored -> a Heaven where everyone is maximally happy all the time would also result in information loss -> meaning that it would be inferior to one where people were not maximally happy, I guess -> this could be avoided by "there is no justice, only friends in high places" Christianity -> because it has no information to lose -> OK, this is getting too weird Ana and Aaron never considered using SKabMoM to solve the problem of evil -> it might have been possible when they first got Llull working -> they even thought their most of the way there -> step 1: sell the vision-fixing name for lots of money -> step 2: buy one of them (assume it's Ana) a ticket on Celestial Virgin and send her through the Outer Gate -> step 3: Ana asks God the answer and relays it to Aaron telepathically -> step 4: Aaron publishes it in one of those theodicy journals Ana always sends things to Ana seems "real religious" to me -> no one seems uncomfortable around her because of this -> the people at Ithaca are uncomfortable because Eliot “Eli” Foss is real religious -> she has a real "religious" belief in God (not the scientific form most other people have) -> including an unshakable faith in God's goodness -> her obsession with theodicy has a strong sense of "love the Lord your God with all your mind" to me -> this may be my personal biases showing through (I am real religious and I like Ana) Oddly, Ana didn't think of the failed attack on Hell when she wanted to try experimental theodicy -> even though it is a prime example of a powerful name failing for contrived reasons, which is what she wanted to look for "Why does God have these Names that work miracles, but not tell us what they are?" -> that is how (almost) everything in the universe works -> e.g. math, physics, chemistry, etc. -> nitpick: God did tell the Mortal Name -> which has a feeling of "if you ever need help, press this button" to it -> before brute-forcing, the names were found by studying scripture, which is from God (and/or Uriel) -> this seems designed to limit them to sages and people who saw visions revealing them -> God may not have intended them to be widely available, or for more to become known over time -> as more knowledge has become available with time -> maybe people weren't supposed to have that much power until society had progressed to the point where people wouldn't misuse them -> e.g. the Wrathful Name should be used for nuclear deterrence, mining, changing the orbit of the moon, etc. instead of blowing up enemy cities "Why does He suffer them to be distributed throughout a namespace that can only be searched through a combination of cryptological acumen and brute force?" -> this is a false question: names can be found by kabbalistic analysis -> Ana has done this herself: that is how she found the SKabMoM -> Aaron has said that names were originally found that way -> names have also been revealed by visions -> the theonomics are attempting what is essentially a hack to find the names faster -> which is only possible because Uriel disabled the names for thousands of years while computer technology was developed "Why does He permit them to be hidden by klipot, by which they can be bought and sold without letting the customer grasp their true structure?" -> there has to be some variation allowable in how names are said because people have accents -> klipot (in this sense) may be taking the same idea to absurd lengths -> although the Mortal Name has to be pronounced exactly correctly -> there may be a special exception for that one to prevent it going off to much -> there may not be a fixed correspondence between the arrangement and the spoken sounds -> e.g. tav sounds like tav and bet sounds like bet instead of vice versa is a social construct that could have gone either way -> ditto for how the letters are written, which is not consistent across space and time (e.g. Wikipedia shows 4 forms for kaf) -> klipots may effectively be creating a new way of pronouncing/writing the language that just happens to have some mis-matched similarities to the old one "Why would He create enough magic to make the world a paradise for all living things, then place it somewhere it can be kept in a locked vault to enrich the few?" -> nitpick: no (finite) amount of magic would be sufficient over the long term -> the Fertile Name would double food production but the world population would eventually catch up to the new limit (and honestly, modern farming tech is even better than that) -> widespread use of the Purifying Name would likely produce resistant strains of bacteria -> it would be hard for God to make the magic any more accessible than "you just say the word and it happens" -> or you can write it and tear the scroll (presumably so mute people can use them) -> it is important that they don't go off by accident (this is a problem with the Mortal Name as-is) -> UNSONG depends on a lot of stuff that would not have been available without Uriel's machine (and didn't exist a few hundred years ago) -> communication technology fast enough to track down and stop offenders -> world-spanning political organization -> the concept of intellectual property rights -> an economic structure that makes sweat-shop production economically worth-while -> and as we learned later, even then it didn't work until they put a literal demon in charge of enforcement Robin and Hell -------------- "The road to Hell is paved with good intentions" I don't think Robin could have gone to Hell in the manner depicted -> you cannot go to Hell because of doing evil deeds for the express purpose of going to Hell so that your can do good there -> this is why the Comet King can't go to Hell directly -> compare the story of the Countess Cathleen (various versions, probably going back to the Middle Ages) -> Cathleen sells her soul to demons in exchange for those of her peasants -> there is a famine and the peasants have been selling their souls to demons to get money to buy food -> the demons want her badly because she is pure and virtuous and so forth, unlike the souls they normally get -> when Cathleen dies (soon after, as Robin does), she goes to Heaven anyway -> that version I have says that this is because demons judge by deeds while God judges by intent -> perhaps is was mating with Thamiel that go her sent to Hell, because adultery breaks a Commandment -> but it probably doesn't count because Thamiel demanded it as his price for accepting her soul Robin might be able to go to Hell in a slightly different manner -> instead of holding out for better terms, Thamiel tells her it won't work and what she needs to do differently -> it comes out to the same act -> she has now sold her soul for personalized advice on how to get into Hell -> betray her oath to the one she loves most -> a downside is we lose out on the very amusing scene where she tries to sell her soul for nothing and the devil refuses -> her trying to sell her soul for nothing and the devil telling her that it's not allowed just isn't as funny The Comet king seems oddly accepting of Robin's fate when he returns home and she tells him of her bargain -> given how much he love his family, I would have expected him to try to save her -> especially given what he does as the Other King -> he should teach her the Explicit Name, so that she can say it as soon as she gets there -> this could even have been her original plan, and Thamiel only told her it wouldn't work after she concluded the bargain -> he should try to send her through the Outer Gate -> step 1: buy/steal two spacesuit from Celestial Virgin -> step 2: carry her to the crack in the sky as a lightning bolt -> his clothes go with him, so he can presumably carry things -> step 3: Robin climbs into the crack -> step 4: Thamiel appears and stabs her with his bident (unfortunately), sending her directly to Hell -> the Comet King and Thamiel could fight over her, but I would expect the Comet King to win and he needs to lose -> "tried to get out of Hell by cheating" (as Nixon did) seems a plausible reason for Robin to go to Hell -> there is no reason the Comet King couldn't try both of these It seems incongruous that we are specifically told that Robin did, in fact, go to Hell -> it seems pretty solid intel because Malia, Thamiel, and the Other King all say she is there -> almost everywhere else, everyone is explicitly just guessing -> e.g. for people who go through the Outer Gate -> Thamiel specifically refuses to say what determines who goes to Hell -> we hear of famous sinners who live in Brimstone Acres from the Broadcast -> but neither demons nor police state propaganda can be trusted -> Neil Armstrong returned as the Right Hand of God -> that one is pretty solid -> it doesn't generalize to other people going through the Outer Gate because he was just being brave, while they were trying to cheat the system Thamiel makes poor use of Robin once he has her -> sending tapes to the Comet king is cruel, but doesn't accomplish anything evil -> Thamiel needs to send an offer with the tape: stop trying to destroy Hell and I will release her -> Robin (presumably) would have otherwise gone to Heaven -> her contract can presumably be dissolved by mutual consent -> this would need a new contract signed by Thamiel, Robin, and the Comet King -> agreeing could be construed as virtuous for the Comet King, with the right mental gymnastics -> utilitarianism says yes if his chance of destroying Hell is < 1/N, where N is the eventual number of inmates (e.g 100 billion) -> and his chance cannot be assigned a numeric probability -> if the Comet King agreed to this when he shouldn't have (there was still some chance), he might have got sent to Hell himself -> because he had abandoned billions of people when he could have saved them -> which might be why Thamiel never gave him the option The Comet King and Hell ----------------------- I hope the Comet King's attack on the gates of Hell didn't fail because of Uriel's machine -> when the machine failed, the Luminous Name became much more powerful -> the Explicit Name probably needed the most divine light of any name -> we know that the Mortal Name needed the least, and it is the shortest -> maybe Uriel funneled him extra divine light -> although then Uriel would have had an easier way to stop his fourth attempt -> maybe the Comet King always gets names at full power because of his heritage -> Uriel misses a good argument when he is trying to talk the Comet King out of destroying the world -> by saying the Explicit Name at Hell a fourth time with maximum power -> "this is what Thamiel wants, that is why there have been so few demons since Yakutsk" -> I wonder how Thamiel would feel about destroying the entire universe, including Hell I don't think the Comet King could have destroyed Hell in the way described -> although I can believe it was his plan -> I can see three reasons he might be considered "impure" by Metatron -> he threatened to cause Thamiel unnecessary suffering if he harmed Robin before her death: his first evil act -> his Cometspawn plan really was because he thought it was a good idea -> even though everyone else disagreed, he would up marrying Robin soon after, and she could have borne 4 children -> he was already planning his Other King atrocities (which he later said were all done for Robin) -> he might use the name for selfish reasons, so he could not be trusted with it -> saving his wife isn't exactly selfish, but it isn't maximally saintly either -> he would probably still be "impure" at the time of his death -> maybe he repented, but I saw no evidence of it -> if the Comet King was still pure, I don't think he would go to Hell -> if even people pure enough to have the Explicit Name might still not be pure enough to go to Heaven, I think the whole human race would have gone to Hell, and Thamiel explicitly denies that twice -> it is not enough that he still has the divine spark of goodness, because Kissinger must have had that in order to betray it so many times -> one of the core ideas of the story is that destroying Hell is worth any (temporal) cost -> by utilitarian reasoning -> if so, it really is worth causing any amount of suffering among the living in order to save one person (such as Robin) from Hell -> by selling her soul, Robin bought herself an infinity sign, which changed the equations so that rescuing her would be a good act, and thus became impossible -> this feels like it is creating another "perfect paradox", like the one she was trying to solve -> the Other King may have crossed the "evil" threshold if his actions resulted in other people going to Hell (who otherwise wouldn't have) -> I can imagine his rule of Los Vegas having this effect -> I would expect Metatron to show up at the end and take away the Explicit Name again -> as soon as the Comet King regains it -> unless the Comet King saying that he had hoped to do it without killing his children but he knew it wasn't enough implies that he is repenting of his Other King evils and that was the cut-off -> I believe the Comet King could regain it like this -> Ana's motives were pure because she didn't even want the name -> no one knew the Name was going to follow the mind link because they didn't know they had it We might be able to get the Comet King into Hell using SKabMoM -> or someone else who knows the Explicit Name -> we need to link someone going to Hell to someone who knows the Explicit Name -> and make sure the Hell-bound person gets priority -> dies first? dies second? did more evil than the other person did good? -> then the name can be passed between them (if needed) when they are in Hell -> the Albion linkup would probably go to Hell because Dylan (who died first) and Aaron (who died last) are both bad people -> unfortunately, we need Albion on Earth to say the Explicit Name there -> I am not sure who the Comet King could be linked to -> everyone near there except Aaron is dead (and he is carrying Albion) -> it's a shame Malia died; she probably had visiting rights to Hell -> Robin would have been perfect, but SKabMoM was only created as a result of her death, so there is no way that could work -> this would have to be done quickly before Albion-style merging kicked in It may be that the Comet King could not go to Hell in any way whatsoever because he was such a great kabbalist -> Acher could not because he was a great rabbi, and the Comet King has strong parallels to him -> in that case, some one else would have to speak the Explicit Name It is weird how the grand question by the end of the story is "How can I be sure I go to Hell when I die?" -> it is entirely justified, but it's still weird -> this is clever twist on more traditional religion It is odd that Jinxiang tried to use the Other King's true name against him -> we have been told repeatedly that speaking a human's true name doesn't do anything -> although there is an indirect way it could be used -> Elisha ben Abuyah turned against God because he couldn't understand evil, and Aaron has the answer to that Names of God ------------ I think we need to be told near the beginning that the Explicit Name cannot repair the sephirots -> because there is still too much energy hitting the 4th one and they would just shatter again instantly -> it would have fixed a lot of things and been much simpler than anything the characters tried -> probably including making Thamiel good again -> Aaron hints at this when he is analyzing "There's a Hole in my Bucket" and says that even the shortest name is too long -> I am generally doubtful of a Name having the power to change its own nature -> this should work asymptotically at best Aaron saying the Explicit Name at the End probably won't work very well -> THARMAS probably can't simulate enough because no computer can entirely represent the universe that contains it -> and it is very clear by this point that every coincidence really does matter -> there may be a workaround because THARMAS is a new kind of ensouled being, not a computer-as-we-know-it, and we don't know how souls work -> they have just destroyed the Left Hand of God -> Uriel was very clear that both Hands are essential to the proper functioning of the universe -> it may be they have only destroyed the personification of God's justice, not the thing itself -> Ana seems to have forgotten her concerns that trying to fix the world always leading to horrors (from chapter 6) -> and this demonstrably happens in-story, e.g. Nixon's treaty with Thamiel, releasing the Broadcast, UNSONG, Alvarez's fight against the world -> she now has the answer to the problem of evil, which was why she was then willing to consider doing it anyway -> they are now doing something similar on a scale far beyond anything ever attempted (except destroying Hell) -> I am worried they are going to end up creating something Hell-level bad "Ring the bells that still can ring // accept that the world is imperfect Forget your perfect offering // Albion and the Explicit Name are insufficient There's a crack in everything // something always goes wrong That’s how the light gets in." // the sephirots are still broken -> on the other hand, we do have a statement from God than may imply that whatever they do will work -> if adding SKabMoM did break the sephirots, there is a nasty bind -> Albion requires SKabMoM to exist -> only Albion (and the Come King, who is gone) can use the Explicit Name -> only the Explicit Name could repair the sephirots (if anything can) -> so everything would have to happen all at once Allowing the inmates in Hell to speak names seems a bit broken -> you said the Mortal Name doesn't work there, which makes sense (more or less) -> although it would be nice to have this explicitly stated somewhere (other than a comment) -> the Wrathful Name would cause destruction and chaos -> my guess is people hit by the blast would probably reform (as angels do) in Hell soon after -> they get a break from suffering -> they wouldn't be in their cages, etc. -> this could lead to a balance of power where the demons reserved their worst tortures for inmates who spoke the Name -> everyone else would be better off -> the demons have to maintain enough of a suffering gap or their deterrent wouldn't deter -> the Vanishing Name would mess up the demons' psychological profiling -> especially if the inmates knew about the psychological profiling, which they do because of the Broadcast -> inmates might speak other names at random just to strike back at the demons -> even though it wasn't very effective -> everything that reduces the demon's control will, on average, make things better -> but if the Explicit Name is going to work there, the others probably do too SKabMoM allows us to send people to Heaven through the Outer Gate much more efficiently -> step 1: link a whole lot of dying people together so they end up in one host body -> step 2: send the host through the gate, carrying all the souls -> I recommend using fallen angels as hosts -> they are unlikely to die while carrying the souls -> and if they do they might reform stilly carrying the souls -> they can probably handle higher acceleration (and possibly vacuum), so the rockets could be built more efficiently -> I feel sorry for the angels because they are a primitive group whose culture was destroyed by contact with the modern world and nobody seems to be helping them -> unlike most savages, the angels really were noble and good and kind and so forth -> a large number of people can be efficiently linked by making connections in a binary tree -> each person would have only two links, so it shouldn't get out of hand (2 people would have 1 link each) -> we may have personality-merging issues, but I assume God can sort it all out I assume that Uriel can speak SKabMoM because it is part placebomancy -> to look at it another way, its placebomancy is the manifestation of Uriel specifically making it so that angels could speak it SKabMoM seems to work properly between everyone except Ana and Erica -> Ana's theory that it only does male-female couples seems to be wrong -> not surprising, given that is was designed to link Uriel (neuter) to Sohu (sexually immature female) -> maybe Ana and Erica messed it up somehow Sentinel Name -> this can see the future -> because it know if someone will say the whole name in time to make people hear the first syllable -> if the listener always heard anything that might be the start of the name, he would hear every time anyone spoke the first syllable and it would drown out the important stuff -> this allows paradox exploits, such as saying the last syllable IFF the listener (who is beside you) didn't hear the beginning of the name -> this also needs to detect writing a name on a scroll -> of when a name on a scroll is activated and who originally wrote it -> otherwise the Unitarians would just write the names on their own scrolls and use those I have to assume that the Wrathful Name is more secret then most names -> otherwise we would have cities blowing up left and right as desperate people tried to earn their way into Brimstone Acres -> also, someone would probably have killed the Other King with it -> stopping his atrocities is probably worth destroying Los Vegas -> especially given how evil Los Vegas has become -> I was hoping Aaron was going to try this against the Other King at the end -> say it all except the last syllable before the Other King arrives, only finish it if the Cometspawn fail -> I get that Aaron is not a good person, but at that point Ana is dead and he has nothing left to live for -> Sohu would presumably have told him not to do it when she learned who the Other King was -> it took months before Thamiel's agents were able to steal it -> or, conceivably, someone who knew it died and went to Hell and Thamiel tortured the name out of him -> could Thamiel have just appeared (as he does) in some secret archive and personally stolen it? -> at this point it is pretty clear that demons (and Thamiel) can't possess people -> possibly only Metatron can unless the person is on drugs Thamiel and Hell ---------------- I find it hard to thick of Thamiel as small-E evil, despite the harm he does -> Uriel is clear that Thamiel used to be good, but his nature was damaged when the sephirots broke -> this make Thamiel comparable to someone went violently insane after being raped -> I mostly felt sorry for him, and it was sad the no one ever considered trying to help him or turn him good again -> especially since a lot of other things would have been easier without him in the way -> lots of commenters felt that at the end, but I thought that earlier -> although Thamiel as-is is one of my favorite characters, and has many of the best scenes Thamiel being secretly wishing for Good to triumph doesn't work for me -> it feels out-of-the-blue -> there is no foreshadowing (that I noticed) -> it implies that Thamiel was essentially a passive character -> not good in a villain -> for all his scheming abilities, he never tried to fix his own biggest problem -> it doesn't explain why Thamiel was doing so much evil -> he obviously worked really hard at it -> is this somehow tied into his two heads? -> for a lot of the book, I had assumed that his dominant head was Acher (who had traveled to Heaven to confront Metatron) and the other one was the real "justice of God" Perhaps Hell became what it was as a result of the broken sephirots -> we know that that is why Thamiel became evil -> and he rules Hell, so he could modify it -> assume Hell was originally a place where evil people were punished for their sins -> after they had (truly) repented, they were let out into Heaven -> or maybe they had to stay there until they suffered enough -> Thamiel had an intuitive understanding of how much each person should suffer and when to let them out -> to him, it manifested as "more here", "less there" feelings -> that's how human instincts work, so I assume God likes the design -> underneath, it was a complex mathematical formula involving things like type of sin, motives, circumstances, etc. -> when the sephirots broke, is turned Thamiels' equation into gibberish -> one (or more) of the constants in it changed -> there now a divide-by-0, sqrt(-1), asin(2), or something else uncalculatable in it -> this manifests as Thamiel always feeling (at maximum strength) that people need to suffer more -> a form of monomania (I don't know the modern term/concept) -> in response to these feelings, Thamiel has done everything he can to make Hell worse for the inmates -> he now never lets them out -> he applies the worst tortures to everyone, regardless of sins committed (with a few exceptions) -> he added another layer of psychological tortures on top of the physical ones -> he sacrificed the "equal wrongs for all" principle when it would allow greater total suffering -> he tries to get everyone into Hell by hook or by crook to ensure that they don't get away with their infinitely-bad sin -> from his point of view, this is correcting a divine injustice -> he tries to cause suffering among the living as well -> because it contributes to people's lifetime total (you know what I mean) -> although only when it doesn't interfere with getting people into Hell Chesterton's fence suggests that destroying Hell is a bad idea if you can't think of any reason for it to exist in the first place -> if it wasn't originally like that, that would be a reason -> a more disturbing possibility would be that Thamiel is a utility monster as a result of being a facet of God -> since he likes causing suffering, it is a net good to let him cause as much as possible -> maybe the inmates are the people who would have been less happy in Heaven for whatever reason -> standard explanations are precluded by the Outer Gate, which allows anyone to go to Heaven -> it can't be that justice requires wrongdoers to suffer -> it can't be because letting bad people into Heaven would mess up Heaven -> fortunately, God told Ana that Hell would be destroyed, which is good evidence that that is righteous behaviour -> especially since God also said He only created the world because he knew it would turn out well -> I wonder if there is some metaphysical law that means Hell cannot be destroyed until you have sufficient knowledge -> all attempts will fail for some otherwise-justifiable reason -> Aaron gave the Other King the answer, so he could after that -> if this story had been written by Stephen Donaldson, we could probably take this law as assumed -> I think I started thinking that destroying Hell might be a bad idea when we discovered what Robin's plan was and I realized that Metatron had acted to block it by taking away the Explicit Name -> it seemed very much like Metatron was acting to protect Hell Thamiel is effectively trapped in a horrible distortion of the marshmallow test -> the only thing he wants is to eat more marshmallows -> no matter how many he eats -> he is trapped for all eternity a room with an infinite supply of marshmallows -> he knows eating marshmallows is an Evil Act -> every time he does it, someone innocent suffers -> technically, someone only somewhat guilty suffers disproportionately -> Thamiel could not stand up to this and broke under the strain -> because anyone would have -> he may have withstood it for a time, and only slowly caved in, bit by bit -> if so, he is far gone by this point -> this is essentially what the demons now do to people in Hell -> c.f. Romans 7:14-24 -> thus he is so relieved at the end when the marshmallow supply is destroyed -> he will no longer be able to eat them Thamiel could have been secretly scheming to achieve his own eventually defeat -> since he is the Left Hand of God, he is presumably able to manipulate everyone lower in the Hierarchy of Being -> e.g. humans, angels, archangels, the Comet King, etc. -> although he seems to have been blindsided by Uriel's machine -> this would not be obvious, because his most important step was to maintain his persona -> this is why and how he corrupted the angels -> the "new lore" that Sataniel talked about -> he told them the truth: what he wanted really would bring about the greater glory of God -> part of the explanation was that no one could tell the real reason to anyone not already on his side -> or it would mess up the plan -> this is why Sataniel needed an another explanation -> perhaps some or all of his evil of Earth was to provoke Raziel into acting -> it would be nice if we had earlier heard Thamiel wanted destruction -> this is why he suppressed Sohu's vision -> Robin would not have sold her soul if she had known that Metatron would take back the Explicit Name from the Comet King if he became impure -> this is why he sent the Comet King video tapes -> he was trying to turn him evil -> this may be why he conceived Malia -> which he presumably could not have done on one of the damned -> to render humans more capable of opposing him, and thus reduce the harm he did -> Malia could mention that she thinks her father will be proud of her because she betrayed her own side -> the implication being that ruin, betrayal, and corruption are the goal, not what they achieve -> if Malia had gotten the Explicit Name, she could probably have destroyed Hell -> and she could have, if Aaron had given her the Vital Name -> would BOOJUM have failed if Uriel's machine wasn't destroyed at a key moment? -> I find it impossible to believe that his actions were motivated by lust -> Thamiel already has the largest collection of women ever, and (almost?) all of them will do anything in exchange for not being tortured for 5 minutes -> he didn't want the Comet King to destroy the world (nuclear deterrence) because that would have left Hell intact -> and then it would have been impossible for the problem to ever be fixed It's really Thamiel who "wins the Bible" -> the challenge in Job 40:8-14 (destroy all evil) is "higher" than the one in Job 41:1-10 (harpoon Leviathan) -> Ana's achievement is real, but of a lesser goal -> Thamiel is the Left Hand of God (not the right), but it probably still applies (his left is God's right) -> evils seeks to bring destruction (John 10:10), and presumably cares more about destroying "greater" things -> evil's greatest possible triumph is to destroy evil itself -> since it cannot destroy God -> which would include destroying Hell -> I stole (and adapted) this idea from Tales of Wyre, where the ultimate expression of the instinct to defy authority is to defy that instinct itself -> this logically must also be the last thing it destroys -> excluding causal sequences initiated but not completed -> since Thamiel could have caused his own destruction at any time (by giving away his bident), he was presumably trying to destroy Hell as well -> at the end, Thamiel reaches his apotheosis -> he has triumphed over his corrupted instincts (by destroying Hell) -> he has achieved the greatest possible "evil" (by destroying evil) -> he has fulfilled the requirements in the Job 40:8-14 test (which no one else ever got close to) -> he has fulfilled the test for godhood in Isaiah 41:21-24 (and similar scattered all over Isaiah 40-48ish) -> therefore, at the instant of his destruction, he got pretty close to being a second god Thamiel gives the impression that he might not know what determines if people go to Hell either -> this would explain why he never tells anyone -> he would be able to conduct statistical surveys on the damned -> this is limited because he cannot survey those who went to in Heaven -> the Hellish Empire seems like something a human would come up with -> instead of focusing on the few most effective techniques -> he may be not trying to give the information away It feels wrong that Aaron is unwilling to say anything to comfort Thamiel at the end -> although it is consistent with Aaron's character -> universal salvation must, but definition, include Thamiel -> or maybe it's Ana who should protest, because she is the one who insisted on "universal salvation or bust" -> if he excludes Thamiel, Aaron has already taken the most important step towards approving of Hell -> there are Schelling fences left, but none seem as sturdy as the one he jumped -> according to Jesus, that is sufficient to get Aaron set to Hell (e.g. Matthew 6:12, 14-15, for Old Testament, see Ezekiel 18:27-32) -> "universal love" sounds so nice and fluffy until you think about it -> ditto "transcendent joy", which would allow someone who had it to travel to Hell and be unharmed We tried throwing Thamiel through the Outer Gate -> my preferred way of dealing with him -> I would have expect one of three outcomes 1. he turns back into the uncorrupted Justice of God because he has escaped the influence of the damaged sephirots 2. he stays out there (and probably starts singing "holy, holy, holy") 3. he re-coalesces (in Hell?) but Uriel doesn't have to spend divine light to kill him -> conceivably, Thamiel would panic and teleport back to Hell before he went through, but that would also be interesting -> if so, we should give serious consideration to blowing the cracks as wide open as possible I really liked how the epilogue pointed out that we already knew evil had to lose -> the demons had a serphirot (severity, corresponding to the black sail on the ship) and we were told near the beginning of the book that it had been irreparably shattered -> so, of course they couldn't last either -> it fits perfectly and nobody noticed it The description of the Broadcast is one of the most disturbing things I have ever read -> much better/worse than Dante's Inferno -> and it definitely needed that double warning at the top -> I approve Jesus ----- It is pretty clear that he was not the Messiah -> he is explicitly identified as a "wannabe Messiah" in the explanation of the kabbalistic meaning of "kiss" The relevant question is not what he said (we have records of that) -> it is whether he really did miracles, especially rising from the dead (e.g. 1 Corinthians 15:17-18, John 10:37-38) -> I assume he did not rise from the dead -> otherwise the angels would know about this -> this would have taken divine light, which was mostly blocked off by that point (only the Mortal Name still worked) -> the real-world religious ambiguity survives (at least partially) -> it is not clear what would have happened if there had still been divine light, and Jesus is mentioned in the in-world scriptures Was Mary also visited (impregnated) by Raziel? -> she is credited with speaking to Gabriel, but we think Gabriel was dead by then -> she might have not known who it was -> that would make Jesus more of a failed Messiah than a wannabe one -> I wonder if Raziel made other attempts along the way Jesus may have made his own attempt at getting into Hell and destroying it -> I assume he got the Explicit Name at the Transfiguration -> he was talking to Elijah who went to Heaven "in a whirlwind", which has strong Metatron-associations -> Elijah had now returned (like Neil Armstrong?) -> he was also talking to Moses, who would presumably have seen the explicit Name on his brother's forehead -> they are specifically stated to be talking about Jesus's departure [death] -> Jesus just wanted everyone to give him their (existing) bad karma so he could spoof the judgement algorithm -> this probably uses the same metaphysics as selling your soul -> then Jesus manipulated the authorities to the point where they killed him -> this is a belief held by (some) real-world Christians -> e.g. C.S. Lewis compares it to a chess master luring another into a trap -> by not killing himself, he kept the "pure" qualifier -> since Aaron has implied that killing yourself will get you sent to Hell (when he said it was the worst possible response to seeing the Broadcast) -> my working model is that he successfully got into Hell and then got stuck -> at that point he discovered that the Explicit Name didn't work (due to lack of divine light) -> he is presumably still trapped there and the demons keep him gagged so he can't speak names -> or maybe he never got into Hell at all because he wasn't evil and his Spoof didn't work This plan would cause relatively little collateral damage -> the Comet King's plan (raise an army and storm the gates of Hell) caused a terrible war -> I think they massacred the city of Yakutsk on the way -> allegedly because the inhabitants would be better off dead, but that seems very hard to support if they then go to Hell -> although saving all those people from rule by the Hellish Empire may have justified that -> Robin's plan (corrupt the Messiah so he goes to Hell naturally) caused the atrocities of the Other King -> although Robin played fair, in the sense that she didn't cause suffering to anyone else that was worse than she knew she was causing to herself -> if Thamiel created Malia to destroy Hell, that caused UNSONG's horrors -> Thamiel may not have considered that a negative Miscellaneous ------------- I would expect the Untied States to send the refugees from the Hellish Empire to San Francisco -> it fulfills their moral obligations but costs them nothing (but transportation) -> it allows them to play their enemies off against each other -> problems from the Untied States -> the population of San Francisco would expand and they would need more land -> the blockade around the city would look pretty silly if they were letting only despised foreigners in -> although I don't understand why the Untied States has the blockade, so Chesterton's Fence applies -> the Hellish Empire could probably portray going to San Francisco as a truly horrible fate -> the Untied States keeps their own citizens out, and they are the ones who know about it -> no one who goes there comes back: it's like a concentration camp -> the people who go there change totally, like they are controlled by the Drug Lord -> there are drugs in San Francisco too -> this would not work in other countries, but they probably have odd places of their own -> e.g. Wall Drug At the end, the Cometspawn and Aaron talk about how the "sparks" from actions flow through time, eventually producing good -> God tells Job that the world has "a chain of coincidences which will grow and grow until the end of the world, when it will come to fruition". -> but during the Long March, Uriel adjusts his machine so that the moral arc of the universe no longer bends towards justice -> this feels incorrect (and way beyond Uriel's power) -> also compare Thamiel being the justice of God -> it is also odd that Aaron doesn't tell them that the eventual victory of Good and destruction of Hell is certain -> he presumably heard it from Ana's conversation with God -> around when he tells them how he wanted to be the next Comet King I like Aaron and Ana's relationship -> unlike pretty much everyone in the comments -> by chapter 5, I had the feeling that God was looking out for Ana and was setting things up for her specifically -> he provided someone (Aaron) who would be deeply devoted to her and not pressure her for what she can't/won't give -> or refer to her in ways (e.g. "girlfriend") that upset her (except by accident) -> Ana and Aaron have their own form of (non-sexual) union that allows them to show love and bring joy to each other (SKabMoM) -> especially through whale puns -> also Uriel and Sohu, another non-sexual pair -> everyone else just uses it for practical communication -> Aaron is the one man in the world who can give her a child (Sarah) through non-sexual means -> them being on Ana's bed (Ana is, Aaron is standing beside it) and using their mind link when they do it is a nice touch -> many children are conceived by parents who are thinking about something else and only realize what they did later -> they care for each other very much -> as demonstrated by the sacrifices they make for each other -> even if they don't show it in the traditional ways that Ana is uncomfortable with -> Ana is getting the important parts of a romantic relationship -> Aaron seems to be content with the relationship -> he gets to spend lots of time with her, which always makes him happy -> also whale puns, even when they are apart -> he judges that what he has of Ana is better than what he could have with a different, sexually-willing woman -> has sexual experience (notably with Erica), so he is in a position to know -> sorry that this got a bit rant-y Many of the interludes have no quotes, which is disappointing -> or they have somehow disappeared -> it is also disappointing that the quote on the table of contents being the same as on chapter 2 -> pretty much all the quotes are better than anything I could have come up with, so I am not complaining too much Aaron keeps wanting Ana to kiss him and she keeps refusing -> the kabbalistic meaning of kiss is "to betray divinity" -> at the end, Ana is pure enough to know the Explicit Name, which the Comet King says requires the divine spark -> TINACBNIEAC Sarah might count as a virgin birth, but I don't think it is likely -> Ana might be a virgin (we don't know for sure) -> assuming that receiving your first SKabMoM telepathic message is not a virginity-loss equivalent -> we know Aaron is not and he is the one who ensouled Sarah -> although Aaron was illegitimate, so he counts in a beautiful twist on the Isaiah prophecy It is odd that Malia didn't have more raw power -> she is the daughter of Thamiel, who is more presumably powerful than Raziel -> and we know it is not the means of conception because she got some power -> maybe Thamiel deliberately made her with limited powers? -> I cannot square pregnant Robin going to Hell, still being pregnant, and giving birth there with any theory of souls I know -> unless the implication is that Malia is so inherently evil that she is guaranteed to go to Hell no matter what, and God is just saving time -> Terry Pratchett points out in Good Omens that fallen angels would not pass on their fallen-ness genetically -> I assume this would also apply to fallen facets of God -> I guess Malia might have absorbed evil because she was in Hell during her formative years Angel sexual physiology seems inconsistent -> Samyazaz didn't have a penis (which is why he built his ziggurats) -> although he had 20 wives and 50 children somehow (as Raziel had Jala?) -> a demon in the Broadcast claims that the demons rape the damned -> the demons are all corrupted angels (or monsters made from corrupted Sataniel) -> Sataniel suggested that the angels lie with the daughters of men when he was trying to corrupt them -> Thamiel could either way because he can shapeshift -> he could assume a form with one even if he didn't have one naturally -> although he presumably has better things to do -> a possible solution is that angels (and demons) have a (limited?) shapeshifting ability -> we know Uriel can change size -> they can assume male sexual traits if they need them (or female, in the case of Gadiriel) -> Samyazaz feels bad because of the deficiency of his natural form It is surprising that the Cometspawn don't have children of their own -> excluding Sohu, obviously -> they are in their 30s, and they are unusually mature for their age -> their father was married with children by well before that age -> all of the Comet King's arguments about power and the greater good still apply -> and they all saw how much he cared about Robin, and how happy they were together -> I guess Nathanda and Jinxiang might have felt they could not spare the time to be pregnant, but that would not apply to Caelius -> maybe the Comet King's "children" should be taken in the sense of his descendants -> of he was worried that it meant that and warned his children It is odd that Nathanda and Caelius died cursing their father's name -> the Comet King didn't have anything to do with their deaths (that they knew of) -> unless this is because they were born in the first place (as per Job) or because the Comet King didn't kill the Other King, or similar -> maybe they cursed the Other King and that counted I enjoyed the arc on sex-craziness -> when Gadiriel introduced lipstick, everyone was worried it would turn the human race into sex-maniacs -> Sataniel tried to get the angels to become sexually active -> Aaron says at the beginning that people can't rearrange the broken sephirots into God-deflectors because they are a bunch of sex-crazed murder-monkeys -> at the end, Albion has a surprising number of members who are not sex-crazy -> Sohu and Uriel can't be -> THARMAS may not even know what sex is -> Ana is asexual -> Aaron has been practicing restraining his sexual desires since he got involved with Ana -> Sarah is complicated, but I don't think she could be sex-crazy in the normal way -> she wouldn't have human instincts Was Metatron damaged in the Breaking of the Vessels? -> perhaps he used to speak (in his ex cathedra sense) before I would find it difficult to believe Peter Singer about destroying Hell -> he already said everyone should drop everything and focus on effective altruism -> but some people who didn't listen learned something new and that proved him wrong -> he implicitly agreed he was wrong before by changing his goal -> now he wants everyone to drop everything and focus on a new goal -> I would worry that there is something else to learn that will override the new goal as well -> and if everyone did what he said, they wouldn't learn that -> I assume that Peter Singer is the Unsong version of the Elijah who is to come (Malachi 4:5-6) -> getting people to focus on destroying Hell sound like it would fall under "turn the hearts of children to their parents" -> if his argument about destroying Hell is valid, it also applies to the real world -> assuming there is any non-infinitesimal chance that Hell exists (e.g. 1%) -> that's the thing about infinity The section headings in Chapter 5 reminded me of the song "A Daisy a Day" (which no one mentioned) "He remembers the first time he met her He remembers the first thing she said He remembers the first time he kissed her ... I'll love you until the rivers run still And the four winds we know blow away" -> especially given the in-world significance of rivers running backwards and controlling winds -> Ana had died by the end, which matches the song Sadly, we never got to hear about Amnesty International writing letters to Thamiel protesting the conditions in Hell Neil Armstrong doesn't really seem powerful enough to be the Right Hand of God -> listing those (other than God) who can remake the world, we have -> Metatron (facet of God), who has the Explicit Name -> Thamiel (facet of God), who is turning everything evil -> Uriel (archangel), who turned the world to math -> when he added SKabMoM, he was at a higher level because the effects of his actions changed the past (retro-actively adding Bible verses) -> Raziel (archangel), who orchestrated the destruction of Hell from the shadows -> since he represents wisdom, I assume he planned everything that happened -> the Comet King (Messiah), who performed the destruction of Hell -> Albion (Messiah), who remade Earth in a (hopefully-better) form at the end -> Neil Armstrong is acting at a lower power level -> comparable to the Drug Lord -> he only affects a limited area -> he needs artificial aids (LSD) to exercise his power -> when Neil Armstrong comes to fight the army of demons at the end, he fights Rahab (presumably a corrupted archangel) instead of Thamiel (who should be his counterpart) -> although Thamiel should be his counterpart -> I wonder if Neil Armstrong was a replacement figure after the original Right Hand was killed by Thamiel (using the bident) -> sometime before Uriel's machine when into effect -> until Neil Armstrong passed through the Outer Gate, there was no personification of God's mercy -> that is a big part of how the world got so messed up (since both hands are needed for it to run properly) -> this could return the world to approximate balance after Albion uses the Explicit Name -> if Neil Armstrong leaves, then God will have no hands, which is presumably better than just one -> although probably still not as good as when there were two The characters seem to show a very erratic knowledge of the Bible -> especially Aaron (and probably Ana) -> when Aaron first meets Ana, they are both able to pull Bible verses from all over on demand -> when Ana is doing her presentation on Job, Aaron is surprised to discover that it is good poetry -> I would have expected him to have studied as part of kabbalah -> I found this especially noticable when Aaran and Ana were discussing Acher and whether bad people can choose to be good (chapter 58) and don't notice that there are relevant Bible verses -> that bad people cannot choose to become truly good (instead of just acting good to get a reward) (Ecclesiastes 8:8, Jeremiah 13:23, 17:9, arguably Genesis 6:5 snd 8:21 -> the inner goodness is what God cares about (1 Corinthians 13:1-3, arguably also Job 1:9-12, Jeremiah 3:10, Matthew 7:22-23) -> this bit may be my personal biases showing, since if you add that this is a very common problem (e.g. the collection in Romans 3:10-18), you wind up with the "problem statement" that Christianity (my religion) is trying to solve