On Fire And Faith

I had occasion to look at Fire and Faith recently. I had a few thoughts.

> I made inquiry as to the state of enlightenment among the people he spoke for. He answered that with respect to the theories of Kagrenac, there was but one scholar near who could guide the people through the maze that leads to true misunderstanding.

I'm struck by "true misunderstanding". "Misunderstanding" is a notion that crops up repeatedly in connection with the Dwemer. We see the same idea in Hanging Gardens, for instance:

> "Put down your ardent cutting-globes, Nbthld. Your Aldmeris has the correct words, but they cannot be properly misinterpreted."

So that makes me wonder if the important words here are not so much "misunderstand" and "misinterpret" as "proper" and "true". As if there were a great many ways to misunderstand the universe, but only one of them correct. Although, that does raise the question of "correct for what purpose?".

Of course, we know that changing the way you view the Aurbis can drastically change your relationship with it. The obvious examples are CHIM and Zero-Sum. Maybe Kagrenac's teachings were founded on a similar insight. Only, I'm not sure "insight" is the correct word in this case. Misunderstanding though ... it seems to suggest a wilful misconstruing of the evidence, like a trial lawyer who uses a poorly worded law to argue the opposite of the law's intention. The Dwemer knew what the world was supposed to mean, but they deliberately chose to misunderstand that, and to misunderstand it in a certain way. Hence the "maze that leads to true misunderstanding". You're not supposed to be able to consider the world in this way, and there are lots of false misunderstandings placed along the way and getting to the correct wrong view of the universe takes time and study.

No wonder the Dwemer seemed so strange.

> ... studying Kagrenac's words and giving consideration to their place in the life to come

Now there's a recurring theme. The Mythic Dawn and the Thalmor also wanted to bring about a new world.

> and where neither planar division nor the numeration of amnesia nor any other thing of utility more valued than the understanding of the self and its relationship to the Heart.

Two interesting contradiction of terms here. You can't count the number of times you've forgotten everything, and as a mathematical concept, you can't divide a plane. It's infinite in two dimensions and of zero size in all the others. We could interpret this as talking about how the Plane(t)s are organized and the number of creational subgradients of any given thing ... but it would be nice to think that these impossibilities are essential to True Misunderstanding and that is why the Dwemer find them to be things of utility.

And, as a side note:

> I was gracious enough to receive this as a high compliment, and, removing my helm, I thanked him and departed with an infinity of bows.

Who the hell was Nchunak anyway? How could he take that as complimentary to himself? I could cope with the "infinity of bows" as a poetic way of describing exaggerated politeness and respect, perhaps. But taking the Dwemer philosophy as being complimentary to himself might suggest that Nchunak was some sort of godlike figure. Could it be Lorkhan, or one of his shezarines perhaps? I can imagine how Lorkhan might have approved of Kagrenac's teachings, especially given how important Numidium was going to be in his return to formal divinity...

No particular conclusions, just some odd thoughts which I thought I'd share.