scrape_r_rational/data/cache2/5xoj1a.md

Unsong Chapter 62: That The Wide World Might Fly From Its Hinges

• Author: u/Fredlage *

• URL: https://unsongbook.com/chapter-62-that-the-wide-world-might-fly-from-its-hinges/

• Score: 45

• Created: 2017-03-05T19:25:27

Post:

Link to content

Comments:

u/GeeJo [+18] Custom Flair (an hour later)

The Joshua passage in full:

And the Lord said unto Joshua, Fear not, neither be thou dismayed: take all the people of war with thee, and arise, go up to Ai: see, I have given into thy hand the king of Ai, and his people, and his city, and his land:

All of this refers to the [city-state of Ai](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ai_(Canaan)), rather than AI as Artificial intelligence. But, well, you should know the score by now when it comes to coincidences.

u/ulyssessword [+12] (an hour later)

ELI5: apples and oranges?

u/ScottAlexander [+26] (an hour later)

[The color] orange foretells leaves falling [in autumn].

An apple foretells Eve's falling [in Eden].

So phonetically, "they both foretell leaves falling".

u/ulyssessword [+19] (2 hours later)

I know that you're cheating, and even know how you're cheating, but little passages like this make the characters feel so much smarter than other stories manage to do.

u/ItsHalliday [+4] (3 hours later)

How IS he cheating? I've always wondered that

u/ulyssessword [+23] (3 hours later)

• The author can take a week to solve something and have a character solve it in a second. Readers will assume that the character thinks fast.
• They can ask experts or research something and have the character solve it on their own. Readers will think that the character has a lot of knowledge.
• They can look into the pure facts of the matter and have the first character solve it from smaller clues. Readers will think that the character is perceptive.
• The author can create the world so that the character only faces problems they can solve. Readers will think that the character can solve any problem.

These are all ways of creating characters that are smarter than the author is, and I think Scott's using all of them in UNSONG.

u/696e6372656469626c65 [+8] I think, therefore I am pretentious. (7 hours later)

Super relevant.

u/ItsHalliday [+3] (4 hours later)

Ah, thought you meant a way Scott was cheating involving his magnificent punnery

u/chthonicSceptre [+7] Highly Unlikely (10 hours later)

In this particular instance, he cheated by having Sohu ask Aaron that specific question about apples and oranges. While writing this chapter, Scott considered all the possible pun-responses first, then discarded questions that Sohu could have asked, but which he could not generate punnery for, e.g. "How are bananas like pears?" It's entirely possible that before writing Unsong he penned a master list of 'things Aaron and Ana (and Uriel and Dylan) can say to flesh out their personalities and sound cool' and then worked them into the narrative as necessary. The readers don't see the material on the cutting room floor.

u/ScottAlexander [+16] (10 hours later)

In this case, no - that's the canonical question for this sort of thing in medicine. See eg this site, CTRL+F "similarity"

u/ulyssessword [+8] (23 hours later)

Wow, that's (not) a coincidence. Even something as simple as "...an apple and an orange" would've thrown it off.

u/GeeJo [+6] Custom Flair (an hour later)

The connection is clearer if you say the second aloud: Fortell Eve's Falling => Fortelleaves falling

u/Arancaytar [+1] (4 hours later)

Goddammit, I would never have gotten that.

u/Arancaytar [+11] (4 hours later)

What are the odds that their fail-safes didn't work (either from the start or because of the bomb), THARMAS has become intelligent and is already manipulating them with false information about a missile?

u/awesomeideas [+2] Dai stiho, cousin. (a day later)

Perhaps THARMAS just uncovered a Name for its second time! If the first discovery of a Name is the tutorial vision and Names are valid even if klipatified, then it stands to reason that a large number of generated names would be simple klipot of previously-discovered Names.

Perhaps it discovered and then rediscovered the Healing Name or the Mnemonic Name or the Accelerating Name or the Flawless Function Name or some other Name to subvert the restrictions placed on it.

u/MereInterest [+1] (a day later)

Except that klipot only work if there is an intentional code back to the Name itself. THARMAS is definitely finding things with unintentional codes to various names, but those don't count.

u/awesomeideas [+1] Dai stiho, cousin. (a day later)

Were I Thamiel, I'd get humans to write a program/spend conscious effort to klipatically match previously-found Names to what Llul spits out.

u/wren42 [+1] (a day later)

War games!

u/starsandspirals [+2] (27 minutes later)

I was wondering how we could be so close to the final arc, but this chapter definitely has the feel of moving towards a climax.

I think the most important questions right now are: if the Other King is in fact Robin West, what is she hoping to gain from the current situation with the nuclear missile? And if not, then who is he/she?

u/LiteralHeadCannon [+8] (2 hours later)

Could the Other King be Robin West and Acher?

Could Acher be Robin West?

u/Arancaytar [+2] (4 hours later)

Time travel?

u/pku31 [+7] (an hour later)

My theory: Tok didn't launch the missile, and troop movements are to get out of the way of the retaliation strike.

u/Tetrikitty [+2] (14 hours later)

Maybe the missile is aimed at Hell.

u/Zephyr1011 [+1] Potentially Unfriendly Aspiring Divinity (21 hours later)

If the Explicit name could do nothing I doubt a nuclear weapon equivalent could.

u/None [+2] (a day later)

Unless the warheads are loaded with the Explicit Name of God... and there's a bit of ritual magic going on to make it work this time. Remember the ritual that made the Kinetic Name work properly?

u/Frommerman [+1] (a day later)

So the Other King appears to be the kind of person who will go to Hell. What if they transferred that property to the missile?

u/sir_pirriplin [+2] (a day later)

https://fsmedia.imgix.net/e3/a4/af/4a/cc1e/4c45/bfd0/a19e4c78e6cd/dr-strangelove-or-how-i-learned-to-stop-worrying-and-love-the-bomb.jpeg

u/LeifCarrotson [+1] (3 days later)

Hell is in Siberia, NNW of Vegas. Colorado Springs ENE of Vegas, 90 degrees away. They could just as plausibly be aiming at Mexico and mistake the route. What's in, say, New York or Chicago that the Other King might want to obliterate?

---