Unsong Notes ~~~~~~~~~~~~ Possible Quotes --------------- "It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life." ~ John 6:63 Applicable to Sarah chapters, especially 41. Go Love Without The Help Of Any Thing On Earth "And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it." ~ Isaiah 2:2, also Micah 4:1 Might be applicable to 54. My Course Among The Stars "Thus saith the LORD; If heaven above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth searched out beneath, I will also cast off all the seed of Israel for all that they have done, saith the LORD." ~ Jeremiah 31:37 Seems applicable somehow, although I am not sure where. Note that both criteria are fulfilled in-world and Israel has effectively been replaced by the Untied States in the divine plan "My analyze over the ocean "My analyze over the sea "My analyze over the ocean "Oh bring back my anatomy." A common parody of "My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean", many sources Applicable to 25. Lie Down Before My Feet, O Dragon or most chapters set on the Not a Metaphor "Teach them to taste the stinging spray. Show them all the things out patrons never did. "It will be out gift -- we happy damned -- to those who know no joy in heaven." ~ Yowg-wayuo (Alvin's father), Infinity's Shore, David Brin Applicable to chapters set on the Not A Metaphor, especially 27. The Starry Floor, The Watery Shore Note: The book also has a character named Uriel who built an unusual computer that runs on light. This is not a coincidence. "What does finding the Horn count if I abandon Egwene to this? If I did that, the Horn couldn't save me. The Creator couldn't save me. I would damn myself." ~ Rand Al'thor, The Great Hunt, Robert Jordan Applicable to Aaron deciding to save Ana from the Drug Lord in 37. Love That Never Told Can Be "Further, I tell you there is no blame for us in the wisdom or folly, victory or defeat, of the way we have elected to defend the Land. We are not the Creators of the Earth. Its final end is not on our heads. We are creations, like the Land itself. We are accountable for nothing but the purity of our service. When we have given our best wisdom and our utterest strength to the defense of the Land, then no voice can raise accusation against us. Life or death, good or ill - victory or destruction - we are not required to solve these riddles. Let the Creator answer for the doom of his creation." ~ Mhoram, The Power that Preserves, Stephen Donaldson Applicable to the Cometspawn brainstorming post-Uriel defenses in 69. Love Seeketh Not Itself To Please "But my arts are also pure, as a circle is pure, and in a flawed world purity cannot endure. Thus within each of my works I must perforce place one flaw, or else there would be no work at all." ~ Kasreyn of the Gyre, The One Tree, Stephen Donaldson Seems very applicable to the metaphysics. Note: The series (the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant) has enough parallels to Unsong that there are a near-unlimited number of quotes that seem sort-of applicable. However, many of them have too many world-specific details/terminology in them to make sense to someone who hasn't read the books. "Time means nothing to me, only the long moment between the asking of that riddle and its answer." ~ Eriel, Heir of Sea and Fire, Patricia McKillip Applicable to Ana, although I don't know where Context: The riddle in question (which the reader does not yet know) is "Where is the High One?" (essentially the god of the story). Eriel (essentially a demon) is trying to force him out of hiding by threatening the Star-Bearer (essentially the Messiah, although the reader doesn't know yet). "I can imagine no man who will look with more horror on the End than a conscientious revolutionary who has, in a sense sincerely, been justifying cruelties and injustices inflicted on millions of his contemporaries by the benefits which he hopes to confer on future generations: generations who, as one terrible moment now reveals to him, were never going to exist. Then he will see the massacres, the faked trials, the deportations, to be all ineffaceably real, an essential part, his part, in the drama that has just ended: while the future Utopia had never been anything but a fantasy." ~ Fern-seed and Elephants, C.S. Lewis Applicable to Dylan Alvarez, although most of his chapters already have quotes. 53. Lover Of Wild Rebellion might work, since it has Mark trying to talk Erica into deserting BOOJUM Possible Plot Arc Involving Malia and UNSONG -------------------------------------------- If Malia and UNSONG are going to play a larger role, they need to be doing something more complex (so there is more to reveal) and world-shaking (so it matters more). A possible plot arc: 0. UNSONG has a reputation of kidnapping people who are then never seen again -> No one can prove it was them -> Officially, they work within the law (as mentioned by Aaron when he is talking about security) 1. When Aaron is captured by UNSONG, he can't tell where the /wrongness/ is coming from. When Ana breaks in, she can't either. -> To protect Ana, Aaron says/implies that it was only he who was using Names 2. UNSONG sends agents to carry off Ana's family -> Malia compared notes with her agents who attacked Ithaca earlier and determine that Ana was there too, and so conclude that she is involved -> Until that point, they assumed that they only wanted Aaron -> They can find Ana's family because it was her name on the house -> Everyone else was renting from her unofficially, so there are no records of who they are -> Erica was using a false name because she is paranoid about UNSONG -> UNSONG has not openly ignored the law like this before (at least in the Untied States) -> We know that they are very interested in Aaron, Ana, and what they found -> Erica's family finds out what happens (because they are related) and tells her, she sends a message to Ana (via cell phone?) who eventually gets it and tells Aaron (via SKabMoM) -> We probably find out what happened when Ana or Aaron does -> This might be later in the story, depending when Ana gets the message -> If Erica and Ana get non-SKabMoM communication going, that better explains how she got a conscious copy of the Spectral Name -> She didn't get a conscious copy of the Vital Name -> Right now, she just has it in 42. Whose Whole Delight Is In Destroying without any explanation even though we have been repeatedly told that her SKabMoM link with Ana doesn't convey more than vague impressions 3. Rename Lin (on the Not a Metaphor) to Nomed. Then, when he is in the Panama Canal, he turns into a demon instead of disappearing. -> Nomed's appearance doesn't change in any way, but he immediately starts tempting Ana to abandon the unconscious people and swim to shore with him -> He claims he knows people nearby (in Darién Gap?) and how they can survive and get back to the Untied States safely -> Nomed starts radiating /wrongness/, but Ana doesn't realize it is caused by him. Instead, she assumes it is related to whatever happened to everyone else. -> Ana doesn't realize about the letter-reversal until after she has refused/defeated Nomed. His actions may contribute to her understanding what is going on (like when Lin disappeared). -> If Nomed survives (and doesn't e.g. get sent "back" to Hell), he might decide that he is getting off at the next port, giving all his money to a convenient poor person, and devoting to rest of his life to prayer -> Being briefly turned into a demon is probably even worse psychologically than seeing the Broadcast -> If he really knows people in Darién Gap, he might jump ship immediately -> Side Benefit: We get to see a power comparison between the forces of Hell and our characters. As is, we have no clear comparison on demons vs. Names, for example. -> Side Benefit: We get to see an individual demon acting in the world. As is, they are either a) in Hell, or b) behaving as an amorphous mass in Thamiel's armies. -> Side Benefit: "Lin" sounds like a girl's name, and I and at least one other person had forgotten he was male by that chapter, which was a bit confusing 4. Erica joins BOOJUM because of UNSONG's actions -> She believes that UNSONG is chasing her and she hopes BOOJUM will keep her safe -> She wants help for a rescue and/or revenge (Dylan's preferred response) -> This may be why BOOJUM decides to assassinate Malia just then -> As is, it feels a bit contrived -> BOOJUM would thus be going in in the belief that they might be facing low-power demons as well as human guards -> They would know what it was Ana stopped one with at Panama (probably the Sanctifying Name) -> This may be why BOOJUM is doing a dress rehearsal even though they never have before -> If they had done it before, the more experienced members would know the drill 5. Ana talks to Aaron after he is with the Cometspawn and tells him that the /wrongness/ is caused by demons. -> They conclude that Malia must be working with demons, and there were some in the UNSONG secret site -> Malia is probably sacrificing people to them in exchange for their support for her political power-seeking -> This would fit neatly with Barak Obama being a demon in disguise if he sold out the Untied States so that UNSONG is really running things now -> Obama being a literal demon, but still the best president in decades, is funny but doesn't really fit with the themes -> They could believe that this is what they are planning to do to Ana's family 6. Aaron and Sarah (mostly Sarah) hack into the Cometspawn's computer system -> Since the Cometspawn are working with UNSONG -> They discover that UNSONG has lots of supercomputers ready to go with an improved Llull -> This is confirmation that UNSONG is hunting them because they have the Vital Name -> Improved Llull is optimized with lots of Kabbalah to search for the Explicit Name as efficiently as possible -> Evidence the Cometspawn do not have it, which could lead to an explanation of how the Comet King lost it -> This might come out later -> Sarah is horrified, glad Aaron is trying to stop it, and later feels betrayed when he wants to do the same thing -> This is why the Cometspawn are later able to ensoul THARMAS so quickly: UNSONG already had everything else ready -> UNSONG may have a way to control computer speakers remotely -> Possibly a virus, back door they got inserted into other software, etc. -> This would allow their ensouled computers to speak Names anywhere -> I assume that they Name would take effect (near) where the sound comes from, not at the ensouled computer's seat of consciousness -> This sounds really dangerous in the AI-out-of-control sense -> She has practically built Skynet (including nukes) on purpose -> Could lead to discussion about Caelius trying to limit THARMAS -> This could be seen as an alternative to spreading knowledge of the Names around -> They would be "spoken" too fast for humans to understand, which would function as klipah -> There is a restricted area in the UNSONG headquarters in New York that is blank on all the maps -> Presumably where Malia conducts her dark rituals -> This means Malia may be duping the Cometspawn, which makes Aaron more willing to work with them -> Or the Cometspawn know that Malia cannot be trusted, but are working with her anyway -> Also note that Erica is now working with BOOJUM, which makes Aaron refusing to work with the Cometspawn hypocritical 7. Ana may confront Simeon Azore (of Countenance) with the evidence that UNSONG is under the control of Hell -> Would he still argue that they are a force for good? -> I assume yes, since he already knows they do horrible things sometimes -> This could lead into a "hypothetical" question about how he would respond if it was possible to find the Names without theonomics -> This would have to be before they reach New York and Uriel dies 8. Eventually BOOJUM breaks into UNSONG's headquarters to assassinate Malia -> Malia reveals that she is a half-demon herself, rather than dealing with other demons -> She is the source of the wrongness aura -> She is working against Hell -> Malia reveals that she has been trying to rip out people's souls and stick them into computers -> This is what has been happening to the people who disappear -> So far, it hasn't worked -> If she could get the Vital Name, she wouldn't have to do that anymore -> Malia probably wants to find the Explicit Name and use it to destroy Hell -> As a half-facet-of-God, she would have the ability to speak it -> As a half-demon, she can probably enter Hell -> This cannot work because Malia is not pure in heart and Metatron would stop her, but she doesn't know that -> Erica might be inclined to bargain with Malia at that point -> She doesn't know the name herself (because Sohu erased it), but she has contact info for Ana and Aaron, who do -> In exchange, she probably wants her/Ana's family set free -> If she does this, BOOJUM would probably execute her as a traitor -> This would have to be after Dylan dies so she can absorb his soul -> It might be good to have Erica's purer motives (overthrow evil) eventually put her in conflict with Dylan (who just wants to destroy) -> As is, it just feels like she is slowly turning more evil Possibly related: When Ana is praying, she seems to have very little sense of what her real sins are -> This strikes me as odd, especially since she (and Aaron) understood sin just fine when they were talking about immigration from the Hellish Empire -> I would list her sins (that we have seen) as: 0. Not (always) believing on God -> I don't think we have seen her doing/saying this until now (or after either) -> I wouldn't count questioning what absurd things God is up to as a sin because a) she genuinely wants to know (rather than just expressing anger at God), and b) she is loyal to Him anyway 1. Being a jerk to Simeon Azore because she disagrees with his political views 2. Ditto to Edgar Crane 3. Keeping Aaron on a shifting standard of how closely involved they are so she can always have the relationship she wants at that exact moment -> e.g. she doesn't let him call her his wife, but insists that he watch what happens between him and Jane because he is married to her 4. Hurting innocent people/groups as part of her political activism -> e.g. lying to her family to get them to subsidize Ithaca -> e.g. when she steals letters from the "Cash For Gold" sign even though that store is not what she is against 5. Almost never praying, even though she may well believe "prayer changes nothing but that it is very important that you do it anyway" -> she is not clear on whether she agrees, but it is the idea she thinks of -> Incidentally, I don't how she got from "many prayers are not answered" to "praying is certain not to work" -> Confessing sins implies the intention to at least try to do better -> Ana might not think of it consciously, but it should show up in her behaviour 0. Consistently believing in God (this should be easy after seeing a miracle) 1. Apologizing to Simeon Azore (which she already does in the next chapter we see her in) 2. Nothing direct (because he's dead), possibly being more tolerant next time 3. Being more open with Aaron -> Aaron just recently stated (Ch. 37) how he would never tell Ana that he loves her (even though he knows she already knows) -> I would enjoy seeing them drawing closer (non-sexually), but I doubt it will happen -> Ana would probably resolve to be less jealous instead -> This might be relevant if he gets her permission to make a SKabMoM-link with Sohu before suggesting it -> Or she could even suggest it to him -> I felt sad that he agreed to that without even considering how it would affect his relationship with Ana 4. Being more careful (I have no details) 5. Praying more in the future, especially saying a thank you prayer after she actually gets miraculously rescued -> I might have misunderstood this bit, and Ana is just delaying because she is afraid -> God either will answer or He will not, and either will upset Ana's mental state -> This all goes double if Ana has just faced down a demon -> She would have been shaken even farther out of her life-as-usual mental state and into worrying about personal eternal stuff -> Although she nearly died to the Drug Lord and/or inadvertently contributed to the ruin of the Untied States, so she is probably worrying anyway Possibly related: When Aaron and Ana are discussion what to do with the Vital Name, they never consider giving it to the Cometspawn -> I know Aaron cares too much about his own status, but Ana should think of it -> And being the person who found the Vital Name, would probably confer some status -> There is the possibility of bartering it to the Cometspawn in exchange for the Cometspawn dropping their support for UNSONG -> The Cometspawn presumably still have considerable moral authority, and if they said "No more UNSONG!", the world might well listen -> Getting to talk to the Cometspawn in person might be difficult -> Perhaps the Singers believe that the Cometspawn have betrayed their father's legacy by continuing to support UNSONG after Malia corrupted it -> When Simeon Azore asks Ana to explain why the Comet King supported UNSONG, she could say that it wasn't evil back then -> Aaron might sort of go along with this, but not really (he is not a very good Singer) -> Instead, he secretly wishes for a reason to believe that the Cometspawn are good -> He might then be strongly against them, because it is so horrible that /they/ of all people would turn evil -> We know he looks up to Sohu very much -> This might be relevant to the idea at the end about how the Comet King's sparks/legacy have spread across the world Possibly Related: Why don't they make copyrights on Names shorter? -> There is little value to having lots of Names to fight demons, etc. with if nobody knows or is allowed to say them -> Is there some clause we haven't heard about that makes the militarily-significant Names purchased by UNSONG generally available? -> This seems like another thing that could come up between Ana and Simeon -> There is a parallel to computer stuff because old file formats tend to become unreadable after about 10 years if the people who own the software don't continue to update it -> Excluding important formats like .gif that new software still uses -> If the software dropped out of copyright, the open-source community could make it work on newer computers ("Would they?" is another question) If you make UNSONG do more evil stuff (instead of just enforcing copyrights), you upset the balance of ideas between Ana and Simeon -> Because there are now other reasons to oppose UNSONG -> A possible balance to this would be to make Ana have to confront flaws in the Singer movement -> Possibly that most of the people in it aren't really trying to make the world a better place by spreading suppressed knowledge (their stated goal) -> Aaron is in it for status (and cheap rent, and to impress Ana) -> Erica would rather burn the system to the ground, rather than tinker with it -> They say they are fighting for the will of God, but they don't seem to care about the will of God in any other situation -> Erica seems to have had no qualms about seducing a seminary student in order to get some holy water to give to an angel -> Aaron doesn't seem to have any sense of "honor" for his mother, who gave him a decent upbringing, even if she did have selfish motives -> He has a good cases for not having to honor a father who was never there -> The only people they seem to help with their bootleg Names is themselves -> There doesn't seem to be any farther plan than that the Singers will learn the Names -> We never hear of them using their Names to help others -> In Robin Hood terms, they have got the "steal from the rich" part down, but are lacking in "give to the poor" -> I assume that you were trying to keep the issue ambiguous Another possible use for Malia is to drop hints that she is really the Comet King in disguise -> Another red herring about what he did after faking his death -> This would make the most sense if Malia first appeared soon after the Comet King died, but that is too soon -> There could be a hint of some sort that Malia knew Robin -> It might be possible to change your appearance in yetzirah -> Because you-who-looks-different is just as good a metaphor as you-who-looks-the-same -> We already know some yetzirah-users can shapeshift (e.g. Thamiel, Uriel changing size, Raziel turning into a comet and back?, Samyazaz?) -> This would also serve as a hint for the Other King -> This would be a plausible response for the Comet King after failing to destroy Hell: keep Thamiel from getting Earth as well -> It is not clear why he couldn't do that publically (hiding from Thamiel?) -> I think Erica might be willing to kill him anyway, since he set up UNSONG (which she hates), and she is less introspective than Ana -> This might incompatible with the suggested arc above -> If the Comet King were incognito, he would have to stay away from demons because it is Thamiel he is mostly hiding from -> Although Aaron, Ana, Erica might not know he was hiding from Thamiel -> If it is combined with above, it might be that Erica decides this while Ana and Aaron believe the other theory Ana could realize that they need demonic power before the Not a Metaphor reaches New York -> She could give Erica the task of trying to grab something suitable and bring it to them -> Especially if they believe that there are demons in UNSONG HQ, where Erica is going -> Erica fails at this, but Mark turns out to have Malia's blood -> If Malia gets turned into someone else, Erica might find something and give it to Mark to bring to the ship before they fight Malia -> Then him falling out the window at the right time has double placebomatic significance Robin and Hell -------------- The Comet King could probably argue that Robin's deal with Thamiel is invalid based on Numbers 30:10-15 -> She is forbidden to bargain away anything of his over his objections -> Since Numbers 30:13 specifically includes "every binding oath to afflict her soul", sending herself to Hell probably counts -> She is married to him, so she belongs to him, so she can't sell herself -> My guess would be that the Comet King has a decent claim on her body but a poor one on her soul -> Which would probably mean Thamiel should have to wait until she dies of natural causes -> The concept of soulmates may be relevant -> I am not an expert on Judaism, so this may be wrong -> If the Comet King tries to save her through some other manner (e.g. sending her through the Outer Gate), he has implicitly approved her contract -> Thamiel could point this out Thamiel's contract with Robin is probably not binding because she agreed to it under duress -> He has threatened to "[kill her], [wear her] body like a suit, and slowly [poison] the lives of everyone [she] have ever loved until they scream for death" if she doesn't do it -> He even threatened her before she did anything suspicious -> If he could do this, why didn't he as soon as he lost Yakutsk -> He already knew the Comet King would fail -> Corrupting Royal Colorado seems an ideal way to eliminate his most dangerous opponent, regain a surface Empire, and reduce the chance of people supporting future Empires of Good -> Thamiel really feels like he is shooting himself in the foot here -> Since he has fooled the world into believing that he is bound by pentagrams, he should not reveal otherwise unless he has a good reason -> He is throwing a lot of hard work away for nothing -> Why doesn't Robin have a summoning mark like Sohu does? She is more valuable to the Comet King and (by now) much more vulnerable. When Thamiel forcefully reads Robin's mind, he feels like he is breaking character -> He seems panicky, and normally he is confident and self-controlled -> Even when he is discussing nuclear deterrence with the Comet King -> He is supposed to be very proud (as he said when he addressed the UN) -> If he reads her mind, he is implicitly admitting that he can't figure it out on his own, and that would require him to admit it to himself -> In my personal preference, "the devil is undone by his pride" works better than "the devil is undone by something he discounted as too unlikely to worry about" -> Since her husband is the world champion mind reader, he might well have taught her to block that Malia's true name is presumably Malia West, since she is Robin's daughter -> She might be Malia Minstrell, but I assumed that Robin took her husband's name -> When confronted on her true name, Malia could say that she doesn't use it because she doesn't want people to think she's Cometspawn (which she isn't) -> I don't think Thamiel even has a last name Despite Thamiel's claim (in the Broadcast), the damned do change in Hell -> This is why he has his "bioethics" expert(s) who consider how to make people evil -> I think the damned would develop a mental resistance to pain over time, even it was limited -> Thamiel can (presumably) stop their bodies from adapting, but I doubt he stop changes in their minds without also blocking the changes he wants Another possible explanation for the "Hell wasn't always that way" answer to Chesterton's fence -> Someone was doing experimental theodicy, as suggested by Ana, and they removed something that turned out to be important -> Hell, or the modern form of it, was the Very Bad Thing that the other lesser evil was there to prevent If Malia was not Robin's daughter, that would mean that Robin hadn't accomplished anything while in Hell -> I really enjoyed the idea that she had been an agent of good there, rather than just a victim -> Robin doesn't have the right personality to be a damsel in distress -> Inciting the sequence that led to UNSONG getting a huge list of Names was a very impressive accomplishment for her -> And completely unexpected -> It felt like good closure to her arc (well, the real closure was when the Comet King got her out, but we knew that was coming) Destroying Hell --------------- The puzzle as I see it: 1. The Explicit Name must be spoken in Hell -> Suitable speakers include the Comet King, probably Sohu or Malia, possibly other Cometspawn, nephilim, etc. -> Honestly, I don't think finding someone suitable would be the sticking point, especially since the damned can pass the Name around between them 2. Only the pure in heat can know the Explicit Name -> Otherwise, Metatron will appear and erase it from the speaker's mind before s/he can use it 3. The pure in heart cannot enter Hell 4. The Explicit Name is learned from face-to-face contact with Metatron, who is not in Hell 1. "Speak the explicit Name in Hell" workarounds: -> It should be possible to achieve the same effects using other kinds of kabbalah while in Hell -> e.g. the Vanishing Name (assiah) has a similar effect to lightning-teleportation (yetzirah) -> Uriel mentioned that changing atlizluth could destroy the world, which sounds similar to the Explicit Name but with fewer safety features -> He does something similar when adding SKabMoM -> If Uriel could fully enter Hell, he could probably destroy it that way -> Side Note: I wonder of Uriel could add an Redeeming Name (get out of Hell free!), possibly with 60+ letters -> Since the higher kinds of kabbalah are progressively harder to use, probably the higher equivalents to the Explicit Name are effectively unusable except to destroy everything -> Could someone affect Hell indirectly by changing this world? -> The Comet King got partially into Hell by jumping down the shaft -> e.g. Fill the hollow sphere at the center of Earth with solid iron. Does Hell get filled in as well? -> If changing the center of Earth also changes Hell, and I paint the Explicit Name on the ground in big letters, can they see it in Hell? 2. "Pure in heart for the Explicit Name" workarounds: -> Kill Metatron -> There is now a window until he recoalesces when anyone can know the Name -> You would have to have someone pure in heart hold the Name until Metatron dies -> Probably anyone who willing cooperated with this plan would count as impure enough to lose the Name -> Interestingly, Metatron had just been eaten by leviathan when the Comet King got the Name back -> However, no one in the comments caught this and I only thought of it after months, so if it was intended, it was too subtle -> And the Comet King got the Name from Aaron/Ana/Albion, who did not know they had it, so they were not trying to trick the system -> I expect Metatron planned this -> Say the Name really fast before Metaton can take it from you -> In the extreme form, a pure-in-heart rememberer says the name and the qualified speaker repeats it syllable by syllable -> The explicit Name fails for the rememberer, having no effect -> The qualified speaker never knows what it is -> SKabMoM would let you send it any distance -> Even into Hell if you could get someone linked-up in while still while alive (as Robin) -> Telepathy (chashmal) would let you send it a limited distance across barriers -> Write down the Name before losing pure-in-heart status -> This feels weak, since Metatron could destroy the written record as well -> Could the explicit Name be written on a scroll by someone pure in heart and then torn by someone else? -> Who would choose the effects it had? -> Fool Metatron into thinking you are pure in heart -> There are Confounding and Amnesiac Names -> I doubt it would work to memorize a klipah for the Name and a reversal function -> Metatron would see through that 3. "The pure in heart cannot enter Hell" workarounds: -> Fool the judgement algorithm into thinking you are not pure -> This is what I suggested for Jesus's (failed) plan in my other set of ideas -> Metatron would probably have to be aware of what you were doing so he wouldn't be fooled as well -> Use SKabMoM to link someone pure in heart to someone who isn't, and get them sent to Hell as a unit -> This would have to be done fast before the souls merged (which would begin happening as soon as one person died) -> In Hell, the pure person could come to the front -> Metatron might nix this, especially after the souls began merging -> Regain "pure-in-heart" status after going to Hell -> This doesn't explain how you get the Name after -> There may be some people who have a "natural" ability to enter Hell (e.g. demons) -> This is what Malia is doing in my possible plot arc above -> Make a bargain with Thamiel (or a lesser demon?) -> This is what Robin did 4. "Learn the Name from Metatron, who is not in Hell" workarounds: -> The Name could be found in Hell by brute-force search -> The damned have sufficient time for this -> To solve the coordination and memory problems, I recommend that everyone just says candidate Names at random -> Eventually, they will find all Names on the "infinite monkeys" principle -> Thamiel boasts that Hell allows the free practice of all religions, which would include kabbalistic Judaism -> As long as one person in Hell still holds to the True Faith and the goodness of God, the fall of Hell is guaranteed (although it might take a very long time) -> This would mean Thamiel is lying about the "abandon hope" sign, but that is in character for him -> He put up the sign, and the commentary in the Broadcast is designed to reinforce it (despite appearances) -> It would probably happen eventually anyway, since all combinations will eventually come up in ordinary speech -> More sophisticated searches are possible -> Get Metatron into Hell and ask him there -> If he comes to take the Explicit Name away from someone impure who found it, ask him to give it to someone else there who is pure -> Would it be possible to corrupt Metatron himself? What would be the result? -> Details are sketchy, but I doubt Sataniel originally got any farther into Hell than the Comet King did. He only got the rest of the way (if ever) after he met Thamiel. -> Metatron returned the Name to the Comet King after taking it away, so it might be possible to get him to return it to someone after he has gone to Hell -> Assuming the damned speaker becomes pure in heart again -> Metatron is demonstrably very good at arranging to get the Name to where he wants it How can the Comet King lose pure-in-heart status? -> I don't believe the current explanation that it was because he was doing it for Robin -> The total eternal suffering of one person (Robin) is greater than the temporal suffering he caused to millions as the Other King -> He is doing it for Robin, but his plan still includes saving everyone else in Hell as a side effect -> He isn't really abandoning the rest of the damned -> This is a change of emphasis, not of purpose -> I could believe the Comet King was trying it, but it would seem a bit silly to have Aaron have to point out it won't work, since the COmet King is smarter than Aaron -> Ideally, Robin would still play a critical role in this -> According to the story earlier (58. And Now The Form Of Enion, Part III), it is impossible to become truly good in order to get good consequences -> So it should also be impossible to become truly evil in order to gain good consequences 0. Killing his own children -> Possible reasons why this is evil (with arguments against) -> Because it is killing people (he killed many other people) -> Because it violates the sacred trust that parents have to care for their children (many parents kill their children, especially if you count infanticide in ancient cultures) -> Because he precluded the golden age they otherwise would have created (he argues convincingly would have been the worst disaster in history) -> Because he had destroyed what he loved most (he loved Robin most) -> Because he invoked Moloch, a false god (he really invoked a Bible verse referring to Moloch as evil) -> This doesn't rise to full evil-ness because he is clear that he only did it because otherwise Thamiel would -> "I couldn’t let Thamiel kill my children, I couldn’t. If they had to die, I would do it myself." -> He is still trying to protect them -> In Aaron's internal debate about dealing with the Drug Lord for Ana, (almost) every argument says that sacrificing the few for the many is the right thing to do -> Although Aaron points out the exception, so that isn't a problem 1. Acher's method: Recite "There are two gods! T-W-O G-O-D-S!" -> Preferably at Metatron, but that would be tricky because Metatron is hiding and dead 2. The "Job's wife" method: Curse God and die (Job 2:9) -> c.f. Isaiah 8:21-22, which seems to imply that those who curse God go to Hell 3. Figure out what the sin against the Holy Ghost is and do that -> Risky, since the New Testament isn't very reliable -> The being Unsong, the sin would probably have to be something a bit silly 4. Arrange things so that other people go to Hell who otherwise wouldn't -> Los Vegas seems like at decent attempt at this -> As does some of the stuff he made his armies do (e.g. mass crucifixions) -> We don't know if this is even possible (Aaron suspects not in Interlude: Hell On Earth) -> Even this may not be enough, since his plan would get them out again 5. Make some sort of binding decision against God because of Robin -> He is half way there already there with "I was like Acher, pushed past the point of no return. My poor Robin, taken from her nest. How could I let God let that pass?" (ch. 72) -> In a stronger form, he swears he will not go to Heaven because the God who permitted Robin to trapped in Hell is there (or something like that) -> This seems like a real gamble, because the oath might work and the rescue not -> I suspect that such oath have no power to compel God, but the attempt might count as evil -> He has turned his back on God, and is now going to solve things himself, even if it is against God's will -> On the reasoning that if it happens, that is proof that God willed it to happen, so God wanted Robin trapped in Hell -> As Uriel pointed out in Ch. 16. If Perchance With Iron Power He Might Avert His Own Despair, the Comet King was half way there already -> Now he will do it himself, and take the credit himself, and say it was because God was evil and/or lazy 6. He has changed so that his main motivation is now revenge on Thamiel -> He won't really reduce the total suffering; he will just make all of it happen to Thamiel instead -> Hell as-is gives the impression of an existing system adapted to cause suffering, not one designed to cause it -> Compare to a brain attached to a very large number of always-on pain neurons and with no other I/O -> Saving the damned would be a side effect of his goal (and thus morally less significant if the doctrine of double effect is in play) -> The Comet King will make Thamiel watch him destroy everything he ever cared about (including Hell, which is Thamiel's collection of souls) -> This puts Albion killing Thamiel at the end in a new light, which might not be wanted -> A counterargument against this is that Thamiel is a (warped) avatar of justice, so he may well approve of himself being punished for his evil deeds\ -> To truly defeat him, you must destroy his works, not duplicate them (Proverbs 25:21-22) There seems to be a parallel between the Comet King and Nehushtan (Numbers 21:4-9, 2 Kings 18:4) -> Compare to the recurring parallels between the Messiah and a serpent, starting in 13. The Image Of Eternal Death -> Another parallel is that Nehushtan was originally helpful, but later became a source of evil Possibly Thamiel's primary head should be dead/missing/unconscious/whatever in the epilogue -> As a result of being killed by Uriel's 10 sephirots power, which he earlier said would kill Thamiel for "a few weeks or months" (in 16. If Perchance With Iron Power He Might Avert His Own Despair) -> This is why the second head can now speak Facets of God ------------- I think Metatron has to be a facet of God -> He is probably the most powerful figure in the universe -> We know he is the one most like God, since only he can speak for God -> To have an archangel more powerful than a facet of God violates the Hierarchy of Being -> For Sataniel to recognize Thamiel as "a new facet of God", he has to have already met one (preferably two or more to have a category name) -> It can't be something he learned from Thamiel because the other angels know what he is talking about -> Metatron's species/origin is inconsistent -> In 20. When The Stars Threw Down Their Spears, he is the most powerful archangel and has been there since Creation -> In 71. But For Another Gives Its Ease, he is Enoch, who returned from Heaven (as per Neil Armstrong) -> I had been assuming that he had the 4 "center" sephirots that didn't belong to the Right Hand or the Left Hand, but that isn't actually stated anywhere -> It is possible that Metatron only has Kether, and some other facet has Tiphereth, Jesod, and Malchuth, but it seems unlikely I suspect that anyone killed by Thamiel's bident is sent beyond time and space (i.e. to Heaven) -> We know they are not merely dead because angels don't re-coalesce -> And I doubt that the angels are getting judged (as humans), or we would see damned angels in Hell -> I doubt that Thamiel has the power to destroy souls -> There are names that create souls, but nothing else (natural) seems to affect them directly -> SKabMoM can merge souls, but it was added by Uriel -> And it was very hard to add -> This explains why Thamiel doesn't use his bident more -> There are still large numbers of common angels but almost no archangels -> This suggests that Thamiel was eliminating them selectively -> I don't think we ever see him use it on a human (except Sohu, nonfatally) -> He tries to stab Sohu at the end, but only when he has to get rid of her to achieve a strategic objective -> This would not be common knowledge -> Possibly only Thamiel (and Metatron?) know I have argued before that Neil Armstrong is too weak to be the Right Hand of God -> I suspect he is a neutral angel (like Samyazaz and Gadiriel) who is lying about his identity -> I will add that both Metatron and Thamiel were around for all of history, but Neil Armstrong showed up just before the apocalypse -> Thamiel was trapped in Hell for a lot of that time, but that was where he was supposed to be If all facets of God were once human, that raises the question of who Thamiel was -> Neil Armstrong was an astronaut -> Metatron may have been Enoch -> My guess is that Thamiel was Acher -> We know he traveled to Heaven (to talk to Metatron) -> He is famous for saying there were two gods -> He apparently didn't go to Heaven or Hell when he died Facets of God seem to have a special role, a related superpower, and a major flaw from the Breaking of the Vessels -> Thamiel is in charge of Hell and carries the bident -> He has stopped "directing and purifying" and is now trying to maximize suffering -> Metatron guards the Explicit Name and can speak for God -> He (almost) never speaks, and I suspect that that is the result of the Breaking -> Uriel was cut off (by Thamiel arriving) before he could finish his explanation of the middle pillar -> The Right Hand also needs a role, superpower, and flaw of similar significance -> The distinction between a role and a superpower is a bit fuzzy -> Possible Role: Answering prayers -> He would have judged them and answered the ones that would make the world net better -> Possibly with weighting functions towards those closer to the pray-er and/or holier people -> This is why prayers now get ignored -> Uriel implies that he (and the other angels?) once answered prayers, but he doesn't anymore because it was too hard -> God (outside time) still hears/knows all prayers and takes them into account when creating (or not creating) possible universes -> His flaw is that he now answers (and ignores) prayers at random, producing chaos -> Possible Role: Giving visions/prophecies -> It is not clear where these are coming from as-is -> I doubt it is God Himself reaching into the universe -> Problem: These don't really seem arbitrary (e.g. a Chinese peasant who was about to find a terracotta army got the name to turn them into golems) -> Possible Superpower: Giving people universal love and transcendent joy -> Like he now does in San Francisco, but without geographical limitations -> If Thamiel stole most of his power during the War in Heaven, one city might now be the limit of his strength -> Or perhaps his flaw is that he now always does it in the same place instead of spreading it out like he used to -> If he once did this in Hell, it would give another possible way how Hell wasn't always so bad -> Any of the damned who truly repented of their evil ways would be given a big dose -> Transcendent joy would mean that they were OK despite their circumstances (e.g. being tortured by demons), especially if they knew they were serving a good purpose -> Universal love would make them want to help the other damned, even if it meant they had to be in Hell to do it -> Having the happy, repentant damned nearby would provide the others with a compelling reason to reconsider their sinful ways -> Possible Superpower: Raising the Dead -> This is a nice balance to Thamiel's bident -> If good people can be brought back, this requires the ability to pull souls out of Heaven, beyond time -> And Thamiel is demonstrably bound by time, in that he cannot spread his evil back into the past -> If he were killed by Thamiel in the War in Heaven, Thamiel might have taken his power -> This is why the damned in Hell never get out; Thamiel is perpetually resurrecting them -> There probably isn't an associated artifact because then Thamiel would have to a) carry it at all times) or b) stash it at the top of his tower, and neither seems secure enough -> This would make it clear that Thamiel's side is growing stronger, not just the other growing weaker -> We might hear about it from Gabriel in Part Ch. 20 Part III -> This might be relevant to necromancy -> Problem: Accounts of people being raised form the dead continue long after the War in Heaven If the Right Hand was around during the War in Heaven, he probably helped both sides indiscriminately -> Possibly in rough proportion to their population -> This is what arbitrary blessings means -> We would hear about this in 20. When The Stars Threw Down Their Spears -> In Part I, he might be mentioned as absent (as Raziel was) -> In Part II, he would be included Gabriel and Michael's list of unhelpful major powers -> In Part III, he was the one that breached Zadkiel's fortress -> I assumed that the "stray sunbeam" mentioned was a kind of lesser angel -> Thamiel's forces couldn't win in direct combat, but all he had to do was wait for the Right Hand to upset things -> I wasn't sure why one of the good angels suddenly turned traitor -> If Thamiel did kill the Right Hand (or absorb him, or steal his power, or whatever), it would have been after the archangels were defeated Why didn't Thamiel kill Metatron long ago? -> The Explicit Name appears to be the one threat to Thamiel's eventual victory -> Option 1: He tried, but Metatron cannot be killed by the bident -> He has 4 sephirots, making him more powerful than Thamiel -> Option 2: Metatron is hiding from Thamiel, which is why he is so hard to find -> Option 3: Metatron is deliberately appearing irrelevant, so that Thamiel will ignore him -> This seems a bit repetitive, since Raziel is also doing that -> After Thamiel ignored Uriel and nearly died as a result, I would expect him to be a bit more cautious now If Thamiel was just Sataniel after he got the bident, I would Raziel to be able to defeat him, assuming we could get Raziel to come and do it -> Raziel is higher-ranking, and thus presumably more powerful -> Also Metatron, but I suspect Metatron could do that anyway and just doesn't as part of the "never speaks" thing Name-Related Stuff ------------------ The Comet King didn't really know zillions of secret Names -> Instead, he used applied kabbalah (yetzirah) -> We know he was very good at that -> People who didn't understand such things probably assumed it was Names -> Aaron might only learn this from the Cometspawn -> If he had known all those Names, he would have shared them with his children -> And then UNSONG would probably have got them, and then the Singers The Drug Lord's armies would have a limited ability to use Names in combat -> He has some minions who can speak Names, and they could write scrolls for the possessed to activate -> This would still be far inferior to being able to say them on demand -> Especially since living kabbalists should use the Kindling Name to trigger the scrolls someone else was carrying -> Kindling Name doesn't appear in the story, but is listed on https://www.reddit.com/r/unsong/comments/4h7hcp/names/d2ol98h/ The Comet King's repeated attempts at using the Explicit Name could be made more distinct 1. He just says it (existing) 2. He draws on divine light directly from (one of the?) sephirots (currently #4) -> In order to bypass the limiting effect of Uriel's machine -> I think that Uriel's dam between Yesod and Malkuth is normally considered part of his machine 3. He draws lots of glyphs in around him to focus the power (existing) -> I would like to see the cracks in the sky spread as a result 4. He makes some sort of connection to Uriel's reservoir that will allow him to use all the stored divine light at once -> At this point, everyone except the Comet King should be able to tell that this is a bad idea -> And even he would know, if he calmed down enough to think about it calmly -> This is why even the mistargeted backlash would easily shatter the world -> The Comet King's obsession has reached the point where it is leading him to do evil in the name of good -> This is why the demons gave up most (all?) resistance after the fall of Yakutsk: it is a temptation -> Uriel shows up and stops him (existing) Thoughts on the theonomic sweatshops getting the Names their employees find -> There might have a wide-spectrum adaptation of the Sentinel Name -> You have to write a "*" (or equivalent) on the listener's forehead -> The effective range is much less (essentially just the one building) -> Or maybe you have to mark the area somehow, perhaps with a placebomatic circle around the edge -> To stop the employees who find the Names knowing them, they could use the Confounding Name on employees who find a Name -> It may be that there is a noticeable effect when someone gets the "man page" for a name -> Maybe they glow with "a blaze of glory" [in every word] -> Aaron can learn the Vital Name without Countenance realizing if he speaks the last "Meh" after stepping out of the building -> This would be after he has gone through the "leaving" protocol -> I think we see characters delaying the last syllable of a Name elsewhere, but I don't remember where -> Sweatshops could go all-out and use the Amnestic Name (as in the UNSONG black site) on employees sometimes -> But too often for it to just be when they learn a name -> This has interesting options regarding Singers vs. UNSONG -> There is the question of what else is going on in those sweatshops -> I assume that the Singers would have done a statistical analysis and determined the beautiful young women get their memories erased the most -> Because there are always people in authority who misuse power -> This would give Ana something else to be mad at Simeon about -> We also have the question of "has Aaron been involved with anything dark in the bits he forgot?" -> Presumably, he wouldn't have done anything then he wouldn't have at other times, but Aaron is not a very good person -> Aaron and Ana could crack this using SKabMoM Pig Latin is a klipot, so saying Names in it will activate them. Unfortunately. The Vital Name doesn't necessarily include all the characters from the last candidate Name Aaron was said -> It could start part way through -> It could include some letters from the end of the previous candidate Name It would be nice to have it clearly stated early on that only some names cannot be used from a scroll (for practical reasons) -> e.g. the ones that animate a golem have to be written on the golem -> e.g. SKabMoM requires a placebomatic ritual, which cannot be written -> We eventually learn that the Explicit Name is one of these -> The speaker must hold the desired form of Adam Kademon in his mind for it to activate -> This is why we cannot write the Explicit Name on a scroll and drop it into Hell (as per an IKBM) If Erica/Valerie is using a false name (and the other is her real name), that might be why SKabMoM didn't work well between her and Ana -> She used Valerie in the ritual, but her name is now Erica (possibly because that is what she thinks of herself as) -> Note that Captain Nemo gets reversed to both an omen and a dog, but not a nortatem -> Or both names were wrong because she sort of thought of them both as hers -> Given that this Name was designed by Uriel, it would not be surprising if it couldn't handle people using false names -> c.f. the Palestinian Anomaly, which has trouble with obscure religions -> This might be related to how Aaron knows Erica's real name -> He got it from Ana's memory of the ritual -> No one else at Ithaca knows -> If you want to play up the close relationship between Ana and Aaron early on, say that Ana told him (telepathically) as a token of trust -> Some commenters complained that there was no (not enough?) evidence that Ana cared for Aaron until later It might be good if getting the "man page" for a Name makes it permanently rememberable (except if you are confounded, etc.) -> Otherwise, a lot of Names are probably going to be lost -> This already seems to happen sometimes -> The Chinese peasant who overthrew Mao remembered the golem name -> Aaron/Ana remembers the message for the Explicit Name without any tricks, and the Comet King can remember the Name itself after hearing it once -> Ana and Aaron remember the Names they get form Sarah no problem -> This wouldn't help the Singers because they already knows they are Names, so they get the effect instead of the man page I am surprised that SKabMoM isn't more letters (currently 28) -> It merges souls, which seems comparable in power to adding a soul to the world (58 letters) -> 28 wasn't unreasonable when Ana thought it just granted telepathy -> If it was 40, those would be the same letters written around it -> It may be out-of-place because Uriel added it Uriel and Sohu -------------- Uriel mentions at some point that DNA is base-4, but he never mentions that those 4 letters are used to specify 22 amino acids -> This is probably not a coincidence I found the fan explanation of applied kabbalah (yetzirah) and celestial kabbalah (briah) that respectively compared them to doing chemistry and changing physics very helpful -> http://unsongbook.com/chapter-44-a-world-within-opening-its-gates/#comment-26623 -> It would be nice if this could be promoted to canon (probably Uriel would say it) -> Extending the analogy -> Using Names (assiah) is like using physical objects -> Changing atlizluth would be like altering mathematics (e.g. changing the value of pi) -> This is why it "would probably destroy the world" -> This is what the Explicit Name does, and that is explicitly stated to destroy the world and recreate it -> This would suggest that Uriel cannot take 8 down for maintenance while working in briah Reality probably diverged from the Scriptures due to the Breaking of the Vessels -> Before that, the scriptures accurately recorded what happened (excluding those parts ot meant to be taken literally) -> I would expect a larger divergence as time went on -> We see this, with the stuff about Moses being pretty accurate, and Jesus much less so -> There also seems to be more divergence in events and less in speech -> Or else the speech also changed, but it didn't matter because the old stuff is generally still applicable We never get any payoff from Sohu making all the rivers in the world run backwards whenever she tries to do anything in briah -> This could be used when she confronts Thamiel at the end -> The rivers are already running backwards because she fixed radio -> When she confronts Thamiel, she is standing in a lower spot in the mountains and the water level is rising around her -> There are parallels to what happened when the Comet King first stopped Thamiel ("if this was a story", the sword appears, etc.) -> Thamiel spots the parallels and fixes the rivers before he loses his demon army to holy water again -> Despite Uriel's claims, we know Thamiel can also work in briah, at least a bit, because he made VHS tapes work -> Sohu tries to take advantage of his distraction to grab his bident away, but it doesn't work -> Thamiel realizes that it was a trick -> Similarly, we could have Sohu try to use Aramaic letters (in yetzirah) against Thamiel -> She is hoping that he won't be able to change them -> It doesn't work because Thamiel is not an angel -> Things could happen between the points when the different demonic choirs get challenged by different forces of good When Uriel went to the Madrid conference, Sohu was probably on watch for Thamiel attacking the hurricane -> If Thamiel came, she was to warn Uriel (how?) and he would come back immediately -> Sadly, this is before Sohu learns to turn into a lightning bolt -> This is why it was safe for him to leave -> But Thamiel outsmarted Uriel by being at the conference -> If you want to remove the eclipse sequence, Uriel could have Sohu on guard instead -> This is the "first time [Sohu] can help [him] with something important" -> We would lose Thamiel fighting Sohu, which would be sad, because that scene does a good job of showing how she has grown in power Wall Drug could have been (accidentally?) caused by Sohu doing things in Briah -> Even Uriel couldn't figure out how to fix it -> This is why Uriel banned her from entering it unsupervised (currently mentioned in Chapter 52. The King Of Light Beheld Her Mourning) -> Or possibly Sohu and Uriel did it on purpose, trying to trap Thamiel, but it didn't work -> It would be nice to replace the summary of events in Ch. 52 with something more story-ish -> A later scene with Sohu and Uriel would allow you to mention the prior events in passing -> Then we could see how briah works, which is currently never really explained -> I assume that Wall Drug has something to do with Da-at, but it would be good to have a non-metaphorical explanation as well -> Although the Panama Canal doesn't have one of those -> Side Note: It needs to be clear that radio, etc. also can't send away from Wall Drug -> And presumably lighting-teleportation and the Vanishing Name, but those might have been judged too dangerous to test Miscellaneous ------------- How I would describe Unsong -> An adventure set in an alternate history where the Apollo 8 mission broke the crystal sphere and, afterwards, there were angels and demons and whatnot -> The author is not a Christian (or Jew) AFAIK, and this allows him to include all the things real believers would be to chicken to include. Things done, attempted, or discussed include: -> Travel to Heaven by rocket -> Storm the gates of Hell -> Marry an angel -> Catch the leviathan and put it in an aquarium -> Sign a military alliance with the devil -> Find a lost book of the Bible -> Copyright prayers -> Use computer hacking to change physics -> Elect a demon as President of the United States -> Discover the true pronunciation of God's name -> All tied up with high adventure, whale puns, ridiculous kabbalistic analyses, and some of the most serious consideration of the Problem of Evil in fiction -> There are two new answers to the problem of evil (at least new to me), which may be a record -> You certainly take the Problem of Evil more seriously than any of C.S. Lewis's writings, for example There may be legal issue about using the UN logo, even with an aleph superimposed in it -> I know the online game NationStates used to have their own United Nations (with the real logo) and they got in legal trouble for it It would be nice to have a map of the Untied States in 2017 -> Partly for those of us who don't know US geography very well -> e.g. where a train from LA to New York has to go through -> It would show the now-important stuff -> Places like Wall Drug and the NORAD bunker -> Where the current borders with Mexico and the Hellish Empire are -> The boundaries of the (rump) United States, the Other Kingdom, Royal Colorado, etc. -> I assume the parts of Canada that were not conquered by Hell joined the Untied States Most character's plans play out pretty directly -> I wasn't bother by any of this in Book I, which felt like a fine opening, getting the characters away from home and onto their adventures -> Not Aaron and the Vital Name, that one is twisted -> Although there is long, straight stretch in Book II (captured by Jane) -> I didn't get this feeling in Book III because his and Sohu's attempts to recover the Vital Name mostly serve as background for his interactions with Ana and Sarah -> Ana gets on the Not a Metaphor, they set out to catch Metatron, and they do -> They have to overcome the Drug Lord's attack, the Panama Canal, replacing lost crew, and catching leviathan, but the basic goal does not change -> And they just keep sailing according to their existing plan -> They are learning how to work the sails, but they have 6 when Ana joins and the 7th one just drops into their lap when they need it -> I think it needs more complexity -> Erica joins BOOJUM and they assassinate Malia -> We don't see a lot of this, so it probably doesn't need more twists (unless it gets longer) -> It seemed odd that Dylan broke out Mark from jail just before he met Erica -> Possibly he did it specifically because he thought they needed a(nother) placebomancer for the attack on Malia -> I think Sohu and Uriel is fine -> They don't really have any goal except "keep doing this as long as possible", and in the end it stops (when the Other King nukes the hurricane) -> The focus on these chapters is Sohu (and thus the reader) learning about Unsong Kabbalah, and we do -> Uriel falling in love with Sohu (sort of) is a good twist that doesn't interfere with the plot -> Uriel's grand plan is also fine: he essentially had one idea (turn the world into math) and ran with it until it failed -> The Comet King's (first) attack on Hell is very linear -> Again, I don't think this is a problem because it is direct and short -> The intermediate stuff we see is mostly tangential, and really about his relationship with Robin -> We eventually discover that this is because Thamiel knew that the plan would fail, so he wasn't worried about it -> The second attack on Hell is also very direct -> This time it doesn't work so well -> Robin develops a plan and it works -> The closest thing to a complication it has is when Thamiel rejects her bargain, and she solves that quickly -> The Comet King fakes his death, commits many atrocities, and kills himself when he has enough bad karma to get into Hell, essentially with no serious challenges along the way -> And when he was stalling about killing his children, Aaron comes along with the Vital Name and provokes him into getting back on track -> I almost get the feeling that someone/-thing is looking out for him -> The fact you needed to hide knowledge of Robin's plan when the characters had it is a bad sign -> I am surprised that Thamiel didn't act to stop him, or try to make an alliance with him, or something -> Thamiel seems to have been passive ever since the attack on Hell -> Since this is a twisted, madly-contrived plan (which is fine), I would expect him to have to desperately fix/adapt it for unexpected circumstances/discoveries -> A simple way to add twists is to say that the character was originally planning to do something different that starts the same. Then the character changes his mind to do what you really intended before the two plans noticably diverge. -> In a variant, the character tried something different, but it didn't work, so he did what you wanted him to instead. The Book of Jezuboad -> Was probably supposed to be part of the Book of the Twelve/Thirteen -> So there are still 22 books -> The part we get sounds like the rest of the story, rather than the (King James) Bible -> Existing text (in 3. On A Cloud I Saw A Child) 1) And it came to pass that in the eighth year of Ahab, Jezuboad made a burnt offering in the Temple of the Lord 2) and he spoke saying “O God, whose wisdom spanneth the heavens and the earth, I am learned in Scripture, yet much still troubles me. 3) Why the many apparent contradictions? Whence the emphasis on ritual purity? And which books are literally true and which meant only to edify?” 4) Then out of a fiery cloud before him there appeared the Archangel Uriel, whose eyes shone like the sun. 5) And he said with a mighty voice: 6) “OKAY, LET ME CLEAR ALL OF THIS CONFUSION UP RIGHT NOW, SO NO ONE ELSE EVER HAS TO WORRY ABOUT IT…” -> Possible 1) The account of Jezuboad, a scribe in the days of Ahab, king of Israel. 2) "Oh Lord, whose wisdom spanneth the heavens, why dost thou speak of purity, rather than the fist of wickedness and hands full of blood? 3) "Thou, oh Lord, does not change, wherefore doest thy word contend against itself? 4) "When doest thou speak in parables, and when doest thou shew the former things, what they be, that we may consider them?" 5) And behold, there appeared before him the Archangel Uriel, whose eyes shone like the sun. 6) And he said with a mighty voice: 7) “OKAY, LET ME CLEAR ALL OF THIS CONFUSION UP RIGHT NOW, SO NO ONE ELSE EVER HAS TO WORRY ABOUT IT…” -> Draws on Isaiah 1:1, 1:18, 41:22, 58:1-4, Daniel 8:3, Amos 1:1, Habakkuk 1:1-3 -> I probably messes up the oldish English, which I don't know Enochian is allegedly the language of angels, but it seems like Hebrew is what is important -> Uriel uses Hebrew (and English) the most, and other languages some, but never Enochian -> Theoretical kabbalah is based on Hebrew letters -> When Ana talks to God, He uses Hebrew letters in his examples -> It seems very strange that angels preferentially speak an irrelevant language when they can also speak the one that matters It would be good to mention that angels have no knees early on in the story. A number of jokes require you to know this. I am surprised that the tetractys/tetrad doesn't get a mention in the story -> It reveals the hidden meaning of 4, which is 10 -> It may also have a (real) relationship to the Kabbalistic Tree of Life -> This one is seriously not a coincidence The Cometspawn should had accompanied their father on his crusade -> They were old enough, even if they had only developed at a normal rate -> This was the end-game of the Comet King's plan, so he wouldn't have kept them in reserve -> They weren't needed to run the country while he was gone, because Robin was doing that -> Parting the Bering Strait seems a bit beyond the Comet King's power, but Sohu could do it from briah -> We have been told that that gives her powers beyond anyone except Uriel, but we don't get to see her doing things her father can't (except when she fixes radio after Uriel's death) -> She could activate the same part_sea function that Uriel developed to help Moses -> If she is indeed the Star that had the key to the Abyss, she should be the one to smash the supernatural defenses at Lake Baikal in 55. None Can Visit His Regions There could be a theory out there that the "Comet King" who returned from Hell was really a demon (Thamiel himself?) in disguise -> He declared failure and made no second attempt to destroy Hell -> His wife (who knew him best) died in mysterious circumstances within hours of his return -> This is when he set up UNSONG (I think?), which is widely agreed on as evil -> His kingdom went into decline soon after, and once that was irreversible (except with the Vital Name), he died mysteriously in a battle he should have won easily It is not clear (in hindsight) why Aaron and Jane cannot reach Colorado in their flying kayak while using the Spectral Name -> Even if that was not Jane's original plan -> At the time, Aaron suspected that they were really going somewhere else -> Perhaps Colorado has angel allies and the Other King's forces are using radar to shoot them down -> It might be possible to go around the battle lines to the north, but that might take them to close to (or over) the Hellish Empire -> I don't think it is ever clear what happened to the Hellish Empire after the Comet King's crusade -> And we don't know how Wall Drug works while you are flying -> If nothing else, this might be too slow for Jane -> Maybe the kayak is slow and Jane thought this way would be faster? The song (on the start-of-part pages) is inconsistent -> Parts 1, 3, and 4 are about the Comet King, while Part 2 is about Ana -> No one had been on the ship before he Comet King -> I am not sure if this is a problem When Thamiel destroyed Zadkiel's cloud-fortress, he missed a perfect opportunity to corrupt it instead -> It would then become Leng (this presume that it was at the south pole, although the story never says which one) -> There must be many slain angels that Thamiel could have corrupted into horrors (shuggoths?) with his bident -> Leng would need a lot of divine light, so it isn't fully in the world while Uriel's machine is active -> Those who go there would only see mirages, although that might be enough to drive everyone out of Antarctica (and maybe drive them mad?) -> I think the only mentions to the South Pole is that there was once a Wall Drug sign there and Uriel wishing he hadn't put a continent there (which he didn't; it was there before his machine) -> People know it is bad, but no one really knows why -> This would be one of those horrible things that Simeon is going to hide from in his bunker -> He mentioned that there was more than Thamiel and the Drug Lord -> We would probably hear about it as part of the list of things Uriel worries about in 63. My Wrath Burns To The Top Of Heaven -> Uriel could mention that he had destroyed all the other demon-mastered clouds long ago, but that Leng was beyond his power When the Not a Metaphor goes through the Panama Canal, it is unclear how the flipping at the true center works -> The name on the ship that makes it speak becomes permanently active -> Probably it was physically reversed, and that doesn't count as a klipot because it wasn't that way when it was written -> I wonder if the entire ship and everything on it was reversed -> The would have the long-term effect of making Ana left-handed (or right-handed if she was already left-handed) -> The control displays would be interesting to read after, since some parts would flip and some wouldn't ->E.g. any sensors would still be sensing on the correct side because the sensor and the display were both flipped -> If these were the old ones from when the Comet King had the ship, they would have been backwards before, which would be a clue -> Everyone with a non-reversible name gets knocked out for the duration, but that seems to be different -> Lin is permanently gone, which is odd (as many people have pointed out) -> I hope he didn't reappear way back where he disappeared and then drown because there was no ship and no way onto shore Ana asking for theodicy and getting the Explicit Name thrown in reminds me of Solomon asking God for wisdom and getting everything else too -> In contrast, the Comet King (probably) asked for the Explicit Name, and that is all he got -> Interestingly, it didn't even work when he used it, but it did when he used Ana's copy -> Effectively, he asked for the destruction of his enemies, which God praised Solomon for not asking for -> Ideally, the story about Solomon would be mentioned earlier as foreshadowing I wonder if the people of San Francisco have a program to help the fallen angels -> As is, they don't seem to be doing much -> God put Adam in the Garden to work it and take care of it, so just sitting around and singing "holy, holy, holy" probably isn't the divine plan (at least for the living) -> If you remove law enforcement, marketing, tax accountability, and all the rules and regulations you need to make them work, you free up a lot of labour-power -> I assume they have the Fertile Name (or something even better) to help with food production -> Rhey might have even neutralized the curse on the land of Genesis 3, in which case growing food would be really easy -> I suspect that fallen angels living in San Francisco would eventually recover because they would no longer be exposed to the nasty bits of human nature that damaged them -> Like how some insane people recover when they are put somewhere safe where other people are kind and helpful -> The angels would then then stay in the city, where they would not be exposed to the other kind of human -> Or they could have cloud-fortresses nearby -> These angels would then show up the battle Thamiel at the end -> Having the humans show up with the power to fly in space and to defeat demons was strange -> New Jerusalem is traditionally a city of perpetual peace, where no evil thing can interfere with their happy lives -> This might contribute to why the area is blockaded by the army -> The Untied States is worried about losing their angels, and they are the ones they are focused on keeping out -> Stopping humans from entering is only a side benefit -> Killing people because they try to do something very dangerous seems overkill I think Aaron not doing a lot of high-powered stuff before becoming Albion is necessary to make the story fit with Bible stuff -> As the story currently is (although people complained about it) -> "Then he answered and spake unto me, saying, This is the word of the LORD unto Zerubbabel, saying, Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the LORD of hosts." ~ Zechariah 4:6 -> Even King David has a sense of this, and he is the closest thing the Bible has to a stereotypical hero of good Breaking down the Passover chapter and analysing it in sections -> I was the guy who accidentally missed this chapter when reading the book and said the story worked OK without it 1. Ithaca crew -> I get nothing of value from this; it seems like it just serves to introduce Section 2 -> Maybe it is supposed to introduce Passover itself to people who don't know about it? -> I am afraid I don't really care about the people at Ithaca (except Aaron, Ana, and Erica); they don't seem important 2. Aaron's analysis of the Goat Song -> This is enjoyable to read (at least to me, I love Aaron's silly analyses of stuff) -> Introducing the idea of God creating the world by withdrawing is probably valuable -> It is mentioned in Interlude: Man On The Sphere (earlier), but not explained -> Also the idea that any universe that is not just God must have some evil in it -> This strokes me as a valuable contribution to (real-world) theodicy (that I have never heard elsewhere) -> Both come back in Interlude: Binary, where you are assumed to know about them -> When I read the book without this chapter, I could figure out what was going on there but it was a lot of ideas fast (and I already knew about infomation theory) -> This could replace Interlude: The Code of the World, but that is personal preference 3. Dylan and co. -> This is very amusing writing (especially the explanation of Passover as terrorism), but I don't think it adds anything to the book -> We get to see who is in BOOJUM, but it is a long time until we see them again, so I think your readers would just forget them 4. Sohu and Uriel -> I always enjoy Uriel talking about things, but I don't think this adds anything to the book -> Why didn't Uriel shrink himself down so he could eat with Sohu properly? -> As he did at the Madrid conference -> I am not sure if this is meant to be introducing the next section (as the story Uriel told to Sohu) 5. Moses and Uriel -> This feels weak to me, although clearly a lot of other people enjoyed it very much -> I don't know what it is supposed to be adding to the story; possibly that Uriel is doing "divine" interventions -> I am not sure who he is filling in for: God or Metatron -> I would guess this is the section in the book most likely to offend religious people -> You are saying the Bible is wrong and mocking both Moses and the Law -> Everything else is just character's opinions and guesses (except the bit about Job, but that ends with God telling Job to write something else instead) -> It seems odd that Uriel can't just quote the Torah to Moses, since it is well-established that he (Uriel) knows it -> He is always using it for kabbalistic correspondences -> He gave out the other books of the Bible (except Jezuboad and Revelation) -> The explanation for banning same-sex relationships doesn't work -> The Gale-Shapely algorithm is for the stable marriage problem, which requires pairing two distinct groups (e.g. men and women) -> The stable roommates problem would work for same-sex pairs (run twice for male and female) but is not stable (as pointed out by comments) -> Same-sex pairs would not stop Uriel running his algorithm, it would just mean that everyone got a heterosexual partner, regardless of orientation/preference -> Homosexuals (and asexuals) probably get paired together, because heterosexuals don't want them -> The reason you should stay out of same-sex relationships it is that you are guaranteed to end up with the wrong person -> If two gay men take up together, that leaves two unmatched women, who might go out and claim two different men, disrupting the correctly-handled pairings -> Soulmates are "better" than solving the stable marriage problem -> The point of soulmates is that everyone gets their top choice -> The stable marriage problem is a fallback solution for when that isn't happening -> Expect religious people who know a bit about math and are opposed to homosexuality to notice this (because they will be looking) 6. The Comet King and co. -> I don't particularly like this one; it makes the Comet King feel like a jerk -> Although he often is a jerk at other times too, so I guess that is fair -> I think Robin is dead (more or less) at this point, which would be relevant, but we haven't even heard of her yet -> He always gets angry at people trying to make him more human, even though he tells them he want them to -> It is odd that the Comet King can't see the parallels between the Exodus and what he is trying to do -> Notably, Moses's first attempt to free the slaves failed, but he later made a second, very different one -> If this was supposed to be foreshadowing, it might have been too subtle -> A day to remember that God is out there, and has plans of His own doesn't seem out-of-place -> Evil can be beaten and the enslaved can be rescued -> Thamiel and Hell are not the ultimate truth of the world, even when it looks like there is no hope -> If this had been before Robin's death, the Comet King could ask why, if Moses was so good (in the moral sense), he didn't use the Explicit Name himself and destroy Hell -> Then he leaves before anyone has a chance to respond -> This would count as foreshadowing that the Explicit Name isn't going to work -> I think you are still hiding what the Comet King wants the Explicit Name for at this point in the book -> As is, I don't think this section contributes anything to the story There are certain Bible verses that suggest that God is hiding something important -> Especially Daniel 12:8-9: "And I heard, but I understood not: then said I, O my Lord, what shall be the end of these things? And he said, Go thy way, Daniel: for the words are closed up and sealed till the time of the end." -> More subtle verses -> Daniel 8:26, 12:4, possibly continued in Revelation 22:10 -> Ecclesiastes 3:22b, 8:17 -> Revelation 8:1 -> Revelation 14:3 -> That God has hidden things on purpose -> Deuteronomy 29:29, and paralleled by John 14:22-24 -> Isaiah 6:9-10, and continued in Luke 8:9-10 -> Isaiah 29:11-12 -> 2 Corinthians 12:3-4 -> Revelation 10:3-4 -> Although I think Revelation is not canon in Unsong (because Uriel didn't have time to give it to John, so John just make it up) -> I would guess that the hidden thing is why God created the universe -> Which is explained by God to Ana -> My second guess would be that these are hints that God has some plan to deal with Hell, but doesn't want people to know that -> Presumably because belief in Hell makes people good: https://reason.com/2012/08/10/belief-in-hell-makes-people-act-better-h/ -> This plan was then enacted by the Comet King -> This is an actual, real-world belief I have, but it seems applicable to Unsong -> One of these verses could come up somewhere in discussion (probably between Aaron and Ana) as foreshadowing