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Yeah, I'm doing this again, before a certain someone's whining drives me insane. Anyone who mentions my old shames gets promptly sent to the gulag for the rest of forever.
I also notice that this is the third thread made by me involving this tier in a row. Gotta see if I can keep up the current score, I suppose.
If you want a summary of the cosmology and proposals, go to this post.
Introduction
As outlined in the previous thread, it's actually implied multiple times throughout Twin Peaks that there is in fact something above the god-tiers of the setting, which were the ones to be upgraded to High 1-A in it. At the time, I decided to not give these things a tier and put them at Unknown, mostly due to a combination of laziness + Lack of concrete information about them.
Yeah, so, I was wrong on the last part. and I did an update on my cosmology blog for the verse to account for the additional information I found. Of course, I wanted that blog to focus less on tiers and more on explanations to keep it independent from whatever rating was present on the profiles, so it's also filled with verse-specific philosophical blah blah that doesn't really matter that much for tiering, and thus, I'll obviously be filtering it out for this thread.
The Additions
Like I mentioned before, it's a pretty recurrent thing in the verse for spirits to reveal something beyond their "physical" forms by removing their own faces like masks: For example, the entity possessing Sarah Palmer tears off its own face to reveal a second layer behind it, presumably its abstract, invisible form, who was already shown to be able to reach places which are beyond its "physical" self, as seen when it breached into The Fireman's Home and manifested through his gramophone. That itself being a realm where its aforementioned physical form was seen as being just part of a movie.
JUDY's counterpart, Laura Palmer, also does the same thing as a spirit in the Lodge, this time to reveal a formless mass of light behind her face.
Likewise, it's shown that The Fireman also holds something behind his face, as he gives birth to Laura by projecting a stream of golden light directly from it. That in itself is obviously way too vague to be given any tier other than Unknown, but the books do provide some additional context that can lead us to something. Namely (For reference, the quote is from the tie-in book, The Secret History of Twin Peaks):
So, summing it up: This is basically saying that "God" doesn't actually exist as an individual entity, so much as an all-encompassing state in which everything in the universe partakes, as every living thing is in fact a particle of God, which paradoxically exists in unity with the source at its core. Hence the old saying quoted in the speech above, Every Man and Every Woman is a Star, every number is infinite, there is no difference, meaning that every individual entity is equal to the oversoul of the Godhead at their core, and any distinctions between them are illusory.
This is not exactly a concept that the series only mentions once and never again, by the way, considering there are also statements like this:
Of course, this relates to the Fireman by virtue of the fact he is already strongly connected to the figure of a "God" in the context of the setting. For instance, he was worshipped by Native-American tribes as a supreme deity known as "The Great Spirit Chief," responsible for the creation of the world, whose counsel could be sought by going to a sacred site described as "a place of smoke by the mountains," later shown to be the direct entrance to the Fireman's Home.
Further than that, we also have the testimony of a man who managed to access the transcendental realms of the Lodge while under the influence of special drugs from an obscure tribe, where he describes interacting with an extremely tall (Noteworthy, since the Fireman's defining characteristic in the series is his height), benevolent entity holding much greater authority than other Spirits, which he identifies as "god" energy.
As seen above, the all-encompassing "God" which Jack Parsons describes is also explicitly symbolized by the color gold, and the alchemical concept of "transmutation into gold" is then just a representation of an individual's spiritual evolution: Lead being a mundane, unenlightened soul, and gold being a spirit that gained awareness of its relationship with God and transcended past all limits and restrictions, achieving oneness with the source in the process.
That detail is relevant because of how gold is itself a very important recurring symbol in the series' mythology, and often appears in scenes involving souls and spiritual ascension. For instance, a dead boy's soul is portrayed as a golden flame leaving his body and going up to the sky, and the Log Lady says that "her log is turning gold" as she lies on her deathbed, the log itself being an object which was described as containing several spirits throughout the show. There are also a few more examples of gold popping up as a symbol, some of which are way more comedic than others, but that are still references to the alchemical meaning of gold, nonetheless, as said in the scans.
Most of all, though, The Fireman and his domain are themselves fairly heavily associated with gold, too. The essence that comes from behind his face and shapes Laura Palmer's soul into being is golden, and likewise, the testimony of a man who went to the sacred site containing the gateway to his realm describes gold emanating from everything, right before he is taken into it.
By the way, all of the usages of gold as a recurring symbol in Season 3 are certainly intentionally tied to the alchemical concept described in the book, considering that Secret History itself is supposed to be a tie-in book to accompany it, and it actually foreshadows many important concepts that would later appear in the series (Such as Mother's existence.) The fact that the book was written and published in 2016, by the time Season 3's script was already finished, should make this pretty evident as well.
Coupling all of that with the Fireman being pretty clearly associated with the figure of a supreme being in the context of the verse, it'd be fairly reasonable to say that the golden light behind his face is the "God" described by the excerpts above, much like how The Experiment has a void containing a smile behind its face, and Laura has a mass of white light behind hers.
Of course, that the two are different things speaks for itself, given how The Fireman is fairly clearly portrayed as a personal creator deity who "exists" as an individual entity and governs the universe from his Home, being worshipped as the Chief God by Native-American tribes, while "God" is written as being more of an all-pervading wholeness that has no particular identity, but is rather the culmination of all identities, hence why "In order to stand beside God, you have to first reject the idea of 'God.' Then, and only then, will you come to realize that you are God." So the two will obviously remain as separate keys.
So, to summarize it, "God" in Twin Peaks is an absolute totality that encompasses all things, and is completely boundless and devoid of limits and restrictions even when compared to the inhabitants of the purple sea, which all participate in it to the same extent as everything else does, even regular humans.
Although, I should note here that this doesn't refer just to a difference in size compared to the rest of the cosmology, as "transcending all limits" in this case refers to ontological limitations in general, and while the phrase is indeed spoken from the perspective of a human (Hence him giving emphasis on how transcendence over space and time is achieved by merging with God there), we do know that there are several layers in the setting that stand in-between the human world and God's boundlessness, which would all be encompassed by it, anyway, so these descriptions also apply in relation to the whole cosmology, too.
Naturally, this would give them Omnipresence, but, given how all of the descriptions of transcendence up there apply relative to a High 1-A reality (The purple sea, in this case), I am pretty confident this would qualify for Tier 0.
As for characters which that would scale to, we have exactly one: That being Mother, since her true form is a direct counterpart to God that exists as its shadow-self. This, in turn, leads to another point:
So, a pretty central theme to Twin Peaks as a whole is that of duality, as well as the conflict between two opposing extremes: The duality between the White Lodge and its shadow-self, the Black Lodge, is a fairly prominent example that applies to the entirety of the series' lore, for instance, and likewise, the entire plotline of The Return revolves around the conflict between Dale Cooper and his doppelgänger originated from the Red Room, Mr. C. The occult narrative underlying it also frames both Laura Palmer and JUDY as being counterparts to one another, light and dark, respectively.
We also have the dichotomy between MIKE and his arm, as well as the one between God and Mother, and, really, even the name of the show already expresses this theme.
However, an important thing it notes is also that all dichotomies are merely reflections, and all things are ultimately one in the end, with equilibrium and balance between opposites being this the core theme of the series as a whole. This idea of all dualities being aspects of an omnipresent oneness was brought up in the introduction of the finale of the original series, where Mr. C was first introduced as Cooper's opposite:
This notion is already present in a lot of things in the series: Cooper and Mr. C are just two versions of the same person, for example, and MIKE and The Arm are both two aspects of the same entity, with the only difference being that the latter is the chaotic version that was severed from the whole once MIKE was "purified" by God. JUDY and Laura are also repeatedly alluded to exist as two sides of the same coin, as I outlined in the blog linked above.
Given all of that, it's only logical that God and Mother, too, would abide by this same principle, given how they themselves exist as reflections of one another, and are directly contrasted by MIKE's testimony regarding his purification. Which, then, leads to this:
For context, this quote is a passage from the Tibetan Book of the Dead, meant to be recited to those who are about to pass away in order to assist them on their way to the next world:
The "Clear Light" mentioned in both passages, by the way, is essentially what an individual's consciousness is to experience as they pass away: Being in the process of shedding away their own selves, they begin to partake into the primordial, unmodified state of pure being which underlies everything and from which everything is originated, perceiving the true "Reality" of the Void. In this case, it is described as colorless and transparent because it is devoid of characteristics and attributes.
Given how it is defined as the point in which all forms of duality and distinction end, and how it is explicitly described as a "transparent vacuum" that lacks form or color, then it would logically have to be apart from God and Mother, as they are still a distinction represented by colors, these being gold and black, respectively.
So, since it's a perfect, undifferentiated oneness that lacks attributes or characteristics even in relation to entities such as God and Mother, I'd be inclined to say that the transparent fullness of the Clear Light is 0, too, though I'm a bit indifferent as to whether or not it gets a key on the profiles.
The latter part is probably a bit controversial, but I should note, though, that I am only making use of that due to how the series itself explicitly mentions the Clear Light and describes it using passages lifted verbatim from the original text. Aside from that, I'm not using anything else from it.
The only possible complaint in that regard, as far as I see, would be questioning how we can be sure that the Clear Light is actually a part of the verse's cosmology, rather than just an in-universe philosophical idea, but the fact that (As said above) the idea of an all-encompassing oneness was already brought up in the series, coupled with how every concept that mankind has ever thought of is explicitly derived from the Lodges and the realms beyond them in some way, makes it a non-factor, in my view.
Oh, yeah, and just so I don't (completely) piss off the inevitable wave of mass-pinged staff members with bad high-tier thread: It was also agreed on this thread that Mr. C's 9-B and 8-B ratings are both bunk and ought to be removed, since the feat listed on his profile is 9-C and the 8-B feat is inapplicable and coming from a bad calculation built on weird assumptions. For whatever reason, this was forgotten, so I'm bringing it up again.
I also notice that this is the third thread made by me involving this tier in a row. Gotta see if I can keep up the current score, I suppose.
If you want a summary of the cosmology and proposals, go to this post.
Introduction
As outlined in the previous thread, it's actually implied multiple times throughout Twin Peaks that there is in fact something above the god-tiers of the setting, which were the ones to be upgraded to High 1-A in it. At the time, I decided to not give these things a tier and put them at Unknown, mostly due to a combination of laziness + Lack of concrete information about them.
Yeah, so, I was wrong on the last part. and I did an update on my cosmology blog for the verse to account for the additional information I found. Of course, I wanted that blog to focus less on tiers and more on explanations to keep it independent from whatever rating was present on the profiles, so it's also filled with verse-specific philosophical blah blah that doesn't really matter that much for tiering, and thus, I'll obviously be filtering it out for this thread.
The Additions
Like I mentioned before, it's a pretty recurrent thing in the verse for spirits to reveal something beyond their "physical" forms by removing their own faces like masks: For example, the entity possessing Sarah Palmer tears off its own face to reveal a second layer behind it, presumably its abstract, invisible form, who was already shown to be able to reach places which are beyond its "physical" self, as seen when it breached into The Fireman's Home and manifested through his gramophone. That itself being a realm where its aforementioned physical form was seen as being just part of a movie.
JUDY's counterpart, Laura Palmer, also does the same thing as a spirit in the Lodge, this time to reveal a formless mass of light behind her face.
Likewise, it's shown that The Fireman also holds something behind his face, as he gives birth to Laura by projecting a stream of golden light directly from it. That in itself is obviously way too vague to be given any tier other than Unknown, but the books do provide some additional context that can lead us to something. Namely (For reference, the quote is from the tie-in book, The Secret History of Twin Peaks):
So, summing it up: This is basically saying that "God" doesn't actually exist as an individual entity, so much as an all-encompassing state in which everything in the universe partakes, as every living thing is in fact a particle of God, which paradoxically exists in unity with the source at its core. Hence the old saying quoted in the speech above, Every Man and Every Woman is a Star, every number is infinite, there is no difference, meaning that every individual entity is equal to the oversoul of the Godhead at their core, and any distinctions between them are illusory.
This is not exactly a concept that the series only mentions once and never again, by the way, considering there are also statements like this:
Of course, this relates to the Fireman by virtue of the fact he is already strongly connected to the figure of a "God" in the context of the setting. For instance, he was worshipped by Native-American tribes as a supreme deity known as "The Great Spirit Chief," responsible for the creation of the world, whose counsel could be sought by going to a sacred site described as "a place of smoke by the mountains," later shown to be the direct entrance to the Fireman's Home.
Further than that, we also have the testimony of a man who managed to access the transcendental realms of the Lodge while under the influence of special drugs from an obscure tribe, where he describes interacting with an extremely tall (Noteworthy, since the Fireman's defining characteristic in the series is his height), benevolent entity holding much greater authority than other Spirits, which he identifies as "god" energy.
As seen above, the all-encompassing "God" which Jack Parsons describes is also explicitly symbolized by the color gold, and the alchemical concept of "transmutation into gold" is then just a representation of an individual's spiritual evolution: Lead being a mundane, unenlightened soul, and gold being a spirit that gained awareness of its relationship with God and transcended past all limits and restrictions, achieving oneness with the source in the process.
That detail is relevant because of how gold is itself a very important recurring symbol in the series' mythology, and often appears in scenes involving souls and spiritual ascension. For instance, a dead boy's soul is portrayed as a golden flame leaving his body and going up to the sky, and the Log Lady says that "her log is turning gold" as she lies on her deathbed, the log itself being an object which was described as containing several spirits throughout the show. There are also a few more examples of gold popping up as a symbol, some of which are way more comedic than others, but that are still references to the alchemical meaning of gold, nonetheless, as said in the scans.
Most of all, though, The Fireman and his domain are themselves fairly heavily associated with gold, too. The essence that comes from behind his face and shapes Laura Palmer's soul into being is golden, and likewise, the testimony of a man who went to the sacred site containing the gateway to his realm describes gold emanating from everything, right before he is taken into it.
By the way, all of the usages of gold as a recurring symbol in Season 3 are certainly intentionally tied to the alchemical concept described in the book, considering that Secret History itself is supposed to be a tie-in book to accompany it, and it actually foreshadows many important concepts that would later appear in the series (Such as Mother's existence.) The fact that the book was written and published in 2016, by the time Season 3's script was already finished, should make this pretty evident as well.
Coupling all of that with the Fireman being pretty clearly associated with the figure of a supreme being in the context of the verse, it'd be fairly reasonable to say that the golden light behind his face is the "God" described by the excerpts above, much like how The Experiment has a void containing a smile behind its face, and Laura has a mass of white light behind hers.
Of course, that the two are different things speaks for itself, given how The Fireman is fairly clearly portrayed as a personal creator deity who "exists" as an individual entity and governs the universe from his Home, being worshipped as the Chief God by Native-American tribes, while "God" is written as being more of an all-pervading wholeness that has no particular identity, but is rather the culmination of all identities, hence why "In order to stand beside God, you have to first reject the idea of 'God.' Then, and only then, will you come to realize that you are God." So the two will obviously remain as separate keys.
So, to summarize it, "God" in Twin Peaks is an absolute totality that encompasses all things, and is completely boundless and devoid of limits and restrictions even when compared to the inhabitants of the purple sea, which all participate in it to the same extent as everything else does, even regular humans.
Although, I should note here that this doesn't refer just to a difference in size compared to the rest of the cosmology, as "transcending all limits" in this case refers to ontological limitations in general, and while the phrase is indeed spoken from the perspective of a human (Hence him giving emphasis on how transcendence over space and time is achieved by merging with God there), we do know that there are several layers in the setting that stand in-between the human world and God's boundlessness, which would all be encompassed by it, anyway, so these descriptions also apply in relation to the whole cosmology, too.
Naturally, this would give them Omnipresence, but, given how all of the descriptions of transcendence up there apply relative to a High 1-A reality (The purple sea, in this case), I am pretty confident this would qualify for Tier 0.
As for characters which that would scale to, we have exactly one: That being Mother, since her true form is a direct counterpart to God that exists as its shadow-self. This, in turn, leads to another point:
So, a pretty central theme to Twin Peaks as a whole is that of duality, as well as the conflict between two opposing extremes: The duality between the White Lodge and its shadow-self, the Black Lodge, is a fairly prominent example that applies to the entirety of the series' lore, for instance, and likewise, the entire plotline of The Return revolves around the conflict between Dale Cooper and his doppelgänger originated from the Red Room, Mr. C. The occult narrative underlying it also frames both Laura Palmer and JUDY as being counterparts to one another, light and dark, respectively.
We also have the dichotomy between MIKE and his arm, as well as the one between God and Mother, and, really, even the name of the show already expresses this theme.
However, an important thing it notes is also that all dichotomies are merely reflections, and all things are ultimately one in the end, with equilibrium and balance between opposites being this the core theme of the series as a whole. This idea of all dualities being aspects of an omnipresent oneness was brought up in the introduction of the finale of the original series, where Mr. C was first introduced as Cooper's opposite:
This notion is already present in a lot of things in the series: Cooper and Mr. C are just two versions of the same person, for example, and MIKE and The Arm are both two aspects of the same entity, with the only difference being that the latter is the chaotic version that was severed from the whole once MIKE was "purified" by God. JUDY and Laura are also repeatedly alluded to exist as two sides of the same coin, as I outlined in the blog linked above.
Given all of that, it's only logical that God and Mother, too, would abide by this same principle, given how they themselves exist as reflections of one another, and are directly contrasted by MIKE's testimony regarding his purification. Which, then, leads to this:
For context, this quote is a passage from the Tibetan Book of the Dead, meant to be recited to those who are about to pass away in order to assist them on their way to the next world:
The "Clear Light" mentioned in both passages, by the way, is essentially what an individual's consciousness is to experience as they pass away: Being in the process of shedding away their own selves, they begin to partake into the primordial, unmodified state of pure being which underlies everything and from which everything is originated, perceiving the true "Reality" of the Void. In this case, it is described as colorless and transparent because it is devoid of characteristics and attributes.
Given how it is defined as the point in which all forms of duality and distinction end, and how it is explicitly described as a "transparent vacuum" that lacks form or color, then it would logically have to be apart from God and Mother, as they are still a distinction represented by colors, these being gold and black, respectively.
So, since it's a perfect, undifferentiated oneness that lacks attributes or characteristics even in relation to entities such as God and Mother, I'd be inclined to say that the transparent fullness of the Clear Light is 0, too, though I'm a bit indifferent as to whether or not it gets a key on the profiles.
The latter part is probably a bit controversial, but I should note, though, that I am only making use of that due to how the series itself explicitly mentions the Clear Light and describes it using passages lifted verbatim from the original text. Aside from that, I'm not using anything else from it.
The only possible complaint in that regard, as far as I see, would be questioning how we can be sure that the Clear Light is actually a part of the verse's cosmology, rather than just an in-universe philosophical idea, but the fact that (As said above) the idea of an all-encompassing oneness was already brought up in the series, coupled with how every concept that mankind has ever thought of is explicitly derived from the Lodges and the realms beyond them in some way, makes it a non-factor, in my view.
Oh, yeah, and just so I don't (completely) piss off the inevitable wave of mass-pinged staff members with bad high-tier thread: It was also agreed on this thread that Mr. C's 9-B and 8-B ratings are both bunk and ought to be removed, since the feat listed on his profile is 9-C and the 8-B feat is inapplicable and coming from a bad calculation built on weird assumptions. For whatever reason, this was forgotten, so I'm bringing it up again.
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