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The Unwritten: Utu and Enlil profile deletion and some other things

Sandman31

Sandman31

VS Battles
Retired
1,479
601
Here
1) Deletion of Utu and Enlil profile due to limited info and likely inaccurate statistics
2) Some slight update/correction regarding how dimension is treated in the series
3) The Leviathan and the Cetacean Hierarchy -

The only real revision here is 1 and 2. 3 is just me providing my reasoning for the Cetacean Hierarchy and proving that I'm not just pulling things out of thin air, as many have claimed. If anyone has any objections then we can discuss it right here to provide a more accurate tier.
 
Ned_the_outer_god said:
Warren actually PMed me his reasoning for the unwritten being downgraded a while back. I still have it up
Click to expand...
Could you post it? Haven't read his downgrade reason, since I wanted to ask him but forgot.

But from what I heard from other people, isn't the main reason why people want to downgrade the leviathan is its infinitely above baseline H1A rating?

Contains an infinite hierarchy of his entire species within him, with each whale containing the previous whale inside them.
Click to expand...

From what I gathered, most people seem fine with H1A, its just that it seems to be baseline H1A, rather than infinitely above it, since the statement above doesn't really imply transcendence. According to them, at least.
 
Found it:
Thoughts on Cetacean Hierarchy.

"My problem with the Unwritten is the two hierarchies - The Hierarchy of Stories and the Cetacean Hierarchy.

What you said about the CH is 100% right (Context to what the person said: No scan indicates that each whale in the CH transcends the last), and in fact, there is proof of the opposite.

The Leviathan species is infinite in number and each is inside one another, their relationship is described as symbiotic and parasitic, with each whale being bigger than the last, and it ends in the Leviathan, the greatest of them all.

These descriptions imply that the idea that each whale transcends one another is nonsense and they not only are affected by a lower whale, but they somewhat depend on them.

A numerical example would be instead of each whale transcending one another (1 --> 2 --> 3, ad infinitum), it would be that each whale is slightly greater than the previous one as it holds the other whale in them (The numbers being, 1.0 --> 1.1 --> 1.2. . . --> 2). So in the end, the Leviathan would only be about 1 level of transcendence, not infinite+.

So that's my problem with the current interpretation of the CH".

As I said, I also have problems with the HoS:

Thoughts on "Hierarchy" of Stories

"You know, I actually finally spent the time to read over The Unwritten blog - and it's very interesting.

The idea that perception dictates reality is at the center of it all, - I think that is very innovative as it is a personal philosophy of mine.

Although, I do question Sandman's interpretation of the dimensional structure of what a "story" is, from Mike Carey and his co-author's description of the nature of the plot that Sandman included in his blog - it gives me the feeling that a story is a parallel universe, and not a higher-dimensional space.

Just having your current setting be fiction in another doesn't equate to a fiction-reality dimensional difference, or else DBH would be Low 1-C and DC and Marvel characters would be heavily inflated due to alternate worlds having their adventures as comics.

The only thing that even really implies higher-D stuff, is the structure of the stories (stacked on top of one another like a wedding cake), but that can be interpreted as everyone on planet Earth has their own individual stories which birth stories which birth stories etc, and they are all right next to one another, stacked on top of one another. It's even described as a knot once, and I think that's perfect.

Overall, it is a decent read, but I feel due to the vagueness of Mike Carey's writing that Sandman might have inflated the tiering on the profiles on the wiki, I have already mentioned my problems with his interpretation of the Cetacean Hierarchy previously.

Like stuff like this:

"Mike Carey: There's a sense that ultimately that we don't live in the real world. We live in the narrative that we create in that world, overlapping and interacting with other people's narratives. Everyone's narrative is a little different. When two people are in a relationship, they see that relationship in different terms. They each have a story and those stories interlap, but they don't exist in the exact same space."

"Carey: What we're doing is that we've picked up on what Tom has learned from the "Unwritten Fables" arc. There is a crucial scene at the end of the arc where he is talking to Frau Totenkinder, and she basically challenges his superficial distinction reality and fiction and says, "It's not really like that." The stairwell of the world has no top and no bottom. You can't imagine that your world is somehow more privileged over all of these other worlds. As we go into "Apocalypse," Tom is trying to make his way back home to his reality, his baseline"

"They're Fables. From another place, from another world"

"Everything will be so different after you've conquered these other worlds and universes"

"The Worlds are tied in a big knot that cannot be loosened. What's real in one is a Fable in the next."

Do you see what I mean?

It's "another place", not a "higher/lower place"

"Worlds" are right next to and conjoined to "universes", implying that they are the same or similar things.

Creation is a "big knot" in which someone who is real in one story is a fable "in the next", instead of "above/below", which implies it's physically next to another.

And Mike Carey's description of the work kinda directly states that one world is not superior to another."

"Now, granted, I haven't read the series - so maybe my knowledge is flawed, but this is what I got and interpreted from Sandman's blog with the sources that he showed, which are the ones used to tier the profiles, so I think that my complaints are valid.

This page definitely implies that each world possesses higher dimensions and greater physical space or something like that, and I think there might be one or two more as well (I am too lazy to search for them, sue me, lmao).

But I don't see how the HoS has each world is transcendent of another - especially with Mike Carey discussing how each in each world, everyone is their own hero and everyone lives in such a world and that all worlds interact with one another and none of them are inherently superior to another.

So yeah, I have some real problems with The Unwritten profiles."


I discussed this with a person who is actually reading The Unwritten currently (and agrees with my interpretations) and he mentioned this:

"I'll try and respond to your post in the morning (tho I agree with it, as it seems pretty on point on what the story made the narratives look like, at least up to where I am in the series), but before then here are the scans for Leviathan's first appearance in the story, with full pages (no cropped scans like in the blog, so people could only see what Sandman wants to). Those scans are very interesting, as Tom meets Leviathan inside stories.

Hmm, after re-reading them it almost looks to me like Leviathan itself is just a story....."



So yeah, that the main part of the discussion I had on The Unwritten, my analysis of the information presented, what I think is wanked/improperly tiered, and why.

As for what their ratings would be, I have no idea.
 
I'll respond properly later since I'm on mobile but I believe I can show that the Unwrittens HoS are transcendent to each other.

I'm also aware of HoS being described as being both a knot and a stack. I interpret it as there are infinite worlds, there's really no "reality" all of them are all stories as an infinite hierarchy will be something like a "loop", that Tom's idea that he's "real" is false as there can't be a reality in an infinite story difference hierarchy. All of them are just stories, you can't be real in that type of cosmology as there will always be someone above you

I don't really see them contradicting each other.

Do you see what I mean?

It's "another place", not a "higher/lower place"

The stories being merely alternate universes is definitely not the case or else the ending wouldn't make sense.

"No metaphors Fullman. This is the literal truth"

"Yeah, now you're getting it. Someone told me once the world are stacked like cordwood in a barn"

Well, we just dropped 1 level into the stack and there's no coming back"

At the end of Unwritten: Apocalypse which is the finale, the world of stories was described to be a stack. That they became fictional and just dropped 1 level into the stack becoming trapped in a story that was written by Tom's father.

Also, here's Peter Gross saying that humans are God in comparison to the fiction/worlds they create.

Gross: If I gave any credence to the idea of there being a God, it would be that we are the gaming creations of some other reality. [Laughs] We're like "Sim City" becoming self aware. And we're going to end up creating our own reality, which we will be the god and then they will become aware and then they will create theirs. Maybe we're just this series of toys..

The comics even says that the world's being stacked and transcendent to each other is the "literal truth"
 
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The Leviathan species is infinite in number and each is inside one another, their relationship is described as symbiotic and parasitic, with each whale being bigger than the last, and it ends in the Leviathan, the greatest of them all

This is not referring to their relationship to each other but their relationship to stories/human host. The young of Leviathan feeds on where the mind touches stories. That scan is Madame Rausche explaining why the horror stories written by a kid was turning into reality.

This was when Leviathan was already dying. There's no more hierarchy as the hierarchy is maintained by Leviathan. Leviathans being wounded basically f*cked everything up.

They also don't rely on the whales below them. You can check the blog I posted above. Without the Leviathan reining them, the young of his species began tearing apart reality and creating their own world which exist outside the rules of the old one.
 
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The Leviathan species is infinite in number and each is inside one another, their relationship is described as symbiotic and parasitic, with each whale being bigger than the last, and it ends in the Leviathan, the greatest of them all.

These descriptions imply that the idea that each whale transcends one another is nonsense and they not only are affected by a lower whale, but they somewhat depend on them.

Sorry, but this is pure nonsense. The scan about relationships doesn't even refer to the whales relationship with each other. They refer to the relationship of the fry of Leviathan to the minds of the humans they infected

https://2.bp.blogspot.com/yxWKSSp9x...Po5qxVxhUPrkXy6zPdQzbUnEOLbTPX9jYvHA70w=s1600
"Humanity has picked up a parasite. The young of Leviathans species, nesting in our minds and tearing the walls of reality. You need to kill them so the world will hold together long enough for Leviathan to heal"

And this only happened because the Leviathan is wounded, without it to set order, the hierarchy of stories begins to get all mixed up and the young of its species began infecting the place where human mind touches stories

"Now Tom is lost, and the beast has hidden from our sight. In its place, the young of its kind come to feed upon us"

"The Darkness will swallow up the land but this tower will endure"

https://2.bp.blogspot.com/J5vuaHurv...JNKeY38coCHZp9AjJwcBS5AvechYc9z4db4QKlQ=s1600

https://2.bp.blogspot.com/J5vuaHurv...JNKeY38coCHZp9AjJwcBS5AvechYc9z4db4QKlQ=s1600

"If he wins the world ends"

"A world ends. For me, and for mine, that will not be so great a tragedy"

https://2.bp.blogspot.com/UCqXI_vvf...WSpJssMUULDaZDypDV42yLUgsbn-k30o5lCgt4A=s1600

"The fry of Leviathan.."

https://2.bp.blogspot.com/30pImhPPu...n6L3NQ_yyVRLSA58i67DBg7n5NKa-ZDrk9YuqQg=s1600

"Do you understand now? We don't live in your world. The rules are what we make them"

https://www.cbr.com/trade-waiting-carey-gross-open-the-wound-on-the-unwritten/

The species of Leviathan are not dependent on the whale below them


But I don't see how the HoS has each world is transcendent of another - especially with Mike Carey discussing how each in each world, everyone is their own hero and everyone lives in such a world and that all worlds interact with one another and none of them are inherently superior to another.


All the world's doesn't interact with each other. There's just a common point where all these realities "touch", not physically but through themes. This is the reason why you can just stick the magic doorknob into an ocean and go to whatever story you want. It's because oceans are something common across all stories.

https://www.cbr.com/carey-and-gross-on-the-unwritten-and-the-ship-that-sank-twice/
Carey: There is that moment in the Leviathan arc where the Frankenstein monster basically tells Tom that there is only one ocean. There are so many, many stories which the ocean features, you can use it as a conduit to go from one story to another because the ocean is always the same. So in that sense, there is an organic, unbreakable substrate underlying all of the fictional worlds. That was one of the reasons why it was cool to have Leviathan be an aquatic beast.

The only time that the world "interact" with each other is when The Leviathans power is being used by people like Toms father, Tom, Madame Rausche and Pullman.

The only time that these worlds physically interacted was when Leviathan was wounded.

The stories being called "other places" doesn't mean that there cant be a reality fiction between them.

The stories being called universe also doesn't mean that there cant be reality fiction difference between them. Universes can transcend each other, a 5 dimensional universe transcends a 3D one so that doesnt disprove anything.

Frau Totenkinder quotes about the stories can be interpreted either way. This was when they were being purposely vague between the relationship between the stories but the ending dispelled all doubts. All the stories/worlds not being special doesn't mean that its automatically parallel universe

I interpret it as there are infinite worlds, there's really no "reality" as all of them are all stories. An infinite hierarchy will be something like a "loop", that Tom's idea that he's "real" is false as there can't be a reality in an infinite story difference hierarchy. All of them are just stories, you can't be real in that type of cosmology as there will always be someone above you. Its just like how we don't rate humans as 1-B in an infinite dimensional universe, when you think about it, if you lived in an infinite dimensional universe you should 1-B/low 1-A since there are infinite dimensions below you, but we dont rate them as such as they're not "special" in that type of cosmology

I don't really see them contradicting each other.

Do you see what I mean?

It's "another place", not a "higher/lower place"

The stories being merely alternate universes is definitely not the case or else the ending wouldn't make sense.

https://2.bp.blogspot.com/YSIFxeFmI...htUCGD3KmAXkcmzvUBjebuCjSkqwp8tnEkHihLg=s1600
https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-PwPzEW5N...nwPesribH8ASUK6ZQ5c6rY4-ha30RtJdmxQxrTA=s1600

"No metaphors Fullman. This is the literal truth"

"Yeah, now you're getting it. Someone told me once the world are stacked like cordwood in a barn"

Well, we just dropped 1 level into the stack and there's no coming back"

At the end of Unwritten: Apocalypse which is the finale, the world of stories was described to be a stack. That they became fictional and just dropped 1 level into the stack becoming trapped in a story that was written by Tom's father.

Also, here's Peter Gross saying that humans are God in comparison to the fiction/worlds they create.

Gross: If I gave any credence to the idea of there being a God, it would be that we are the gaming creations of some other reality. [Laughs] We're like "Sim City" becoming self aware. And we're going to end up creating our own reality, which we will be the god and then they will become aware and then they will create theirs. Maybe we're just this series of toys..

The comics even says that the world's being stacked and transcendent to each other is the "literal truth"

Another proof that the world is stacked

Forgot her name, but she was touched by Pullman's hand and was sent outside the world through the ecosystem of Leviathans species to the Leviathan's stomach

1

"And the world-the world just broke"

2

"You know how they show acid trips in 60s movies? Well I fell through places that looked like that. There were oceans but they were stacked up like towers"

These stacked oceans are substrate (substrate means a layer underlying another layer) underlying all the fictional worlds.

https://www.cbr.com/carey-and-gross-on-the-unwritten-and-the-ship-that-sank-twice/

Carey: There is that moment in the Leviathan arc where the Frankenstein monster basically tells Tom that there is only one ocean. There are so many, many stories which the ocean features, you can use it as a conduit to go from one story to another because the ocean is always the same. So in that sense, there is an organic, unbreakable substrate underlying all of the fictional worlds. That was one of the reasons why it was cool to have Leviathan be an aquatic beast.


"I'll try and respond to your post in the morning (tho I agree with it, as it seems pretty on point on what the story made the narratives look like, at least up to where I am in the series), but before then here are the scans for Leviathan's first appearance in the story, with full pages (no cropped scans like in the blog, so people could only see what Sandman wants to). Those scans are very interesting, as Tom meets Leviathan inside stories.

Hmm, after re-reading them it almost looks to me like Leviathan itself is just a story....."

a 4
Mike Carey: Yes, they’ll all be different styles as we shift between those texts. And there is a point to it, it’s not just, “Let’s have another whale.” There is kind of a key here to what’s going on. Actually, the key lies in Hobbes’ Leviathan, which of course is not a whale at all, it’s a metaphor for the human race, for people

Gross: And we tried to suggest in the last issue by going back to it that one of the reasons "Moby Dick" exists is almost to serve as a place where Leviathan can be healed over and over again. Mike put a great line in there: "[It's] the only story where the whale wins." There is almost a metaphysical reason for Moby Dick to exist in the pantheon of literature.

It seems like he didn't understand what that chapter was trying to tell. The Leviathan is not inside a story, that's the whole point. Tom Taylor thought that the Leviathan or " The Source" is in the story of Moby Dick but what happened was that he discovered that that's not the Leviathan. There's no "singular" Leviathan, all of these whales, including the one he met and even Hobbes Leviathan, is only a metaphor. He didn't meet Leviathan in a story, he met one of the metaphors connected to the Leviathan

This is not even Leviathan's only a story with "Leviathan" in it. There's also the story of how Kondili became the first whale. Or that Leviathan is also the whale in the in-story series written by Tom's father, he's also Moby Dick, Hobbe's Leviathan and the whale in the poem written by Rudyard Kipling (How the Whale Got His Throat). None of these are really Leviathan, these whales/creatures which are supposed to be Leviathan are just symbols and metaphors as the Leviathan is not a whale or serpent at all.

I didn't cop out anything to hide context, that scan tells everything, why would I need to post the whole chapter when I only need the revelation? The point of that chapter is to subvert expectations revealing that the Leviathan isn't actually what we thought it was. No need to post all that fluff when one scan tells everything
 
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Lohx07 said:
So, now they're what? Which tier, exactly?
Click to expand...
The Utu and Enlil profiles gets deleted.

As for the tier, if that's the reason for the downgrade then I just answered all of them. I see nothing new and I dont think the verse should be downgraded because of that. The reasoning should be tweaked but I haven't seen anything convincing to downgrade the Leviathan below High 1-A
 
This page definitely implies that each world possesses higher dimensions and greater physical space or something like that, and I think there might be one or two more as well (I am too lazy to search for them, sue me, lmao).

The worlds actually have 4 layers,

These are all the layers of each individual worlds.
  • Story Spaces - story spaces are the physical part of the worlds/stories. This is basically where the world is.
Story space


"If we exist as flesh here, nonetheless we exists in another place only as words"



Narrative space
"The words fell too. Invisible rain from some domain of pure concept"

This realm is something similar to Plato's Realm of Ideas

Plato

https://www.cbr.com/carey-and-gross-on-the-unwritten-and-the-ship-that-sank-twice/

There is an important scene in the book involving a blank piece of paper where Tommy solves Tulkinghorn's version of the Kobayashi Maru. Does the blank slate represent the stories that have yet to be written or those that have been left unwritten? Am I digging too deep?

Gross: I think it comes down to the question that we've been asking from the beginning: Are we all part of a story? Are we all making up the story, or are we all characters in the story? Yes, I think that's part of what's going on with that blank slate. Who makes up the stories? And what are the consequences of them

Non being



  • Negative Space - Nothing is much known here other than that this space is where "the truths that a story cant acknowledge" resides

  • The oceans - This ocean is basically the base layer of stories which underlies all of the worlds
1

"And the world-the world just broke"

2

"You know how they show acid trips in 60s movies? Well I fell through places that looked like that. There were oceans but they were stacked up like towers"


https://www.cbr.com/carey-and-gross-on-the-unwritten-and-the-ship-that-sank-twice/

Carey: There is that moment in the Leviathan arc where the Frankenstein monster basically tells Tom that there is only one ocean. There are so many, many stories which the ocean features, you can use it as a conduit to go from one story to another because the ocean is always the same. So in that sense, there is an organic, unbreakable substrate underlying all of the fictional worlds. That was one of the reasons why it was cool to have Leviathan be an aquatic beast.

These stacked oceans are the substrate (substrate means a layer which underlies other layers) underlying all the fictional worlds. Just like the Hierarchy of Stories, these oceans were shown to be stacked on top of each other.

​

 
Sandman31 seems to make sense to me, but I would greatly appreciate further staff input.
 
Point 1 seems alright, I agree with the deletion of the profiles.

On the rest, I guess the dimension stuff and Hierarchy of Stories is passable, but I don't see anything pointing to each Whale in the Cetacean Hierarchy completely transcending the last to the point to qualify for a higher layer of High 1A, as we are considering them right now, and just baseline High 1A for the entire Hierarchy (Leviathan included).

I've discussed with Ultima on this for a bit, so I'm mostly waiting for his response here, at the moment.
 
I know absolutely nothing about this verse, though I'm always skeptical of high tiers. I honestly don't think it's right for me to speak on it though, since knowledge of the verse on my end is nothing short of zero.
 
Ovy7:

Thank you for helping out.

Sera:

Okay. No problem.
 
I'd prefer to wait for someone more knowledgable on how the system works before I make a judgement on the hierarchy, but I agree with the deletion of those profiles.
 
I always felt that these character profiles were unnecessary, it's good that they are getting removed. I also don't think there's anything wrong with th cactean heiracrchy and I fully trust Sandman on these vertigo comics.
 
Thank you to everybody who are helping out.
 
What Sandman is saying seems to make sense to me, too. And, for the record, I agree with Ovy in that there isn't much evidence pointing towards each whale of the Cetacean Regression actually transcending each other, and you'll need much better evidence than them containing one another to prove this. The fact that the Leviathan itself is described as having evolved from smaller whales also seems to lend credence to the idea that all of them exist relative to one another, same with the writers saying that the Leviathan who was wounded is just the "current" mother of all whales, and that any one of its fries could theoretically evolve to that level.

I don't really follow the logic behind the whole "Each Leviathan corresponds to a layer in the hierarchy of stories," and the fact that the Leviathan proper is said to be the fictional unconscious that encompasses and transcends every world seems to contradict that. Could you elaborate on this?
 
Thank you for helping out Ultima. I appreciate it.
 
I agree with the deletion of the profiles. I don't really see the point of what you were trying to do with the dimensions? I didn't see how that's relevant to the hierarchy here. And I largely agree with Ultima with the last bit, as the one comment in the blog seems to be alluding that they are existing on the same level as well
There is that moment in the Leviathan arc where the Frankenstein monster basically tells Tom that there is only one ocean. There are so many, many stories which the ocean features, you can use it as a conduit to go from one story to another because the ocean is always the same. So in that sense, there is an organic, unbreakable substrate underlying all of the fictional worlds. That was one of the reasons why it was cool to have Leviathan be an aquatic beast.
Click to expand...
 
Ultima_Reality said:
-snip-
Click to expand...
I don't really follow the logic behind the whole "Each Leviathan corresponds to a layer in the hierarchy of stories," and the fact that the Leviathan proper is said to be the fictional unconscious that encompasses and transcends every world seems to contradict that. Could you elaborate on this?


I don't think it really contradicts anything. The Leviathans lives in another "world" different from the hierarchy of stories. They live in stacked "oceans" which is basically the substrate that causes stories to exists. These two worlds are different but they stood side by side with each other, its not that the the Leviathan's are limited by the hierarchy of stories as these two worlds exist apart from each other.

This likely a metaphorical way of explaining the cosmology and should not be taken literally which is why we should delete the profile for the gods but it tells here that there are two "worlds"

ObtBnyqTTMkzAsRcwJYKlpVvy_wrxD3dXlR1M9cfSMjlX8UY1HtigLizBYE78OF49Vk1QVSHMG8B5w=s1600


If the Hierarchy of Stories is a hierarchy of, well, stories then these oceans are something like a "hierarchy of truths" as shown below.


"It grew into a monster. And being neither flesh nor spirit, gained dominion over both. Over life and death and heaven and earth and truth and lies"

"Stories come down like a cloud to hide it from you. You see what you expect to see. What's underneath? wouldn't you like to know? To see the truth just for once? Hold it in your hands, and really know?"


1

"And the world-the world just broke" - This is when she was touched by Pullman's hand and was thrown in the "oceans"

- This is when she was touched by Pullman's hand and was thrown in the "oceans", this is similar to the one experienced by Danny when he was hired by the Unwritten Cabal in which he was suddenly thrust into "The Grid"
1

2


"But Anselm spoke of "a consciousness behind the world and the word, greater than both"

And Hegel of "the mind so vast it has no boundary, and therefore bleeds perforce into our own"

The Thing I'd seen--it was too real. Too solid. It made the world seem like a dream. Like a bubble stirred in the water. All of us. Just bubbles"

"The walls--seemed to fall away. As though they weren't real"

So, as shown above, the "oceans" or wherever the Leviathan's live (the ocean and the appearance of the creatures itself are incomprehensible, they're all just symbols and metaphors) exists outside/beyond the hierarchy of stories.


2
"You know how they show acid trips in 60s movies? Well I fell through places that looked like that. There were oceans but they were stacked up like towers" -

Then it was stated that these oceans are stacked up like towers, indicating that there's some sort of hierarchy. Mike Carey, in an interview with CBR explained what these oceans meant


https://www.cbr.com/carey-and-gross-on-the-unwritten-and-the-ship-that-sank-twice/

Carey: There is that moment in the Leviathan arc where the Frankenstein monster basically tells Tom that there is only one ocean. There are so many, many stories which the ocean features, you can use it as a conduit to go from one story to another because the ocean is always the same. So in that sense, there is an organic, unbreakable substrate underlying all of the fictional worlds. That was one of the reasons why it was cool to have Leviathan be an aquatic beast.




To see the Leviathan's relationship with each other, its important to know what the Leviathans are

https://www.portlandmercury.com/Blo...01/07/an-qanda-with-the-unwrittens-mike-carey

Mike Carey: Yes, they’ll all be different styles as we shift between those texts. And there is a point to it, it’s not just, “Let’s have another whale.” There is kind of a key here to what’s going on. Actually, the key lies in Hobbes’ Leviathan, which of course is not a whale at all, it’s a metaphor for the human race, for people


"And I know you can't answer me. Speak with one voice or anything. Because you're not one voice. You're all of them. Hobbes's whale, not Sinbad's or Jonah's, or Munchhausen's. And Hobbes whale was just a symbol. It stood for the power of masses. A billion living things making up one huge entity"

https://www.cbr.com/commentary-track-carey-gross-on-the-unwritten-apocalypse-1/

Gross: I think there is an urge in humankind to create surreality. In our stories, we are always trying to create another reality; in our art, we are trying to create another reality. Look what you can do with movies and 3D printing. We're trying to create another reality alongside the other reality that we have. It's our basic nature. It's like striving to become God. There's something going as we are able to create virtual realities.

Gross: If I gave any credence to the idea of there being a God, it would be that we are the gaming creations of some other reality. [Laughs] We're like "Sim City" becoming self aware. And we're going to end up creating our own reality, which we will be the god and then they will become aware and then they will create theirs. Maybe we're just this series of toys...

The gist of it is that the Leviathan is like the fictional unconscious, it symbolize the power of the masses, its the sovereign that rules both truth and lies. The Leviathan or humanity, creates these worlds which we will be the God of, then the humanity in these world will become "aware" and will strive to be God themselves and the chain goes on.

The Leviathan represents the collective power of humanity, it will create another reality and humanity giving rise to another God. It's basically Leviathan/God creating another Leviathan/God to which we are the Leviathan/God of

- The fact that the Leviathan itself is described as having evolved from smaller whales also seems to lend credence to the idea that all of them exist relative to one another, same with the writers saying that the Leviathan who was wounded is just the "current" mother of all whales, and that any one of its fries could theoretically evolve to that level

This isn't saying that the Leviathan evolve from smaller whales, the Leviathan is the first whale, as shown in the story of how Kondili became the first whale. The smaller whales is just a comparison to evolution, the general gist of it is that first there's the Leviathan which then lead to the "birth" of the other Leviathans. The Leviathan is the "truth" that makes it all function. The only way a fry of Leviathan can evolve to something similar like it is if the Leviathan loses power or dies. What happens is that the entire cosmology breaks down which is like what happened in Marvel when Lord Chaos and Master Order usurped the LT's place in the hierarchy.

tldr
  • There's two worlds which exists side by side. The "Material" and "Spiritual" world
  • The Leviathan is humanity's collective power/fictional unconscious, as shown above the Leviathans dominates two 2 realms as they tend to swallow the lies/story and truth (The "ocean" which allows the existence of stories and is the substance which Leviathan swims and feeds on). These Leviathans are only transcended by the Leviathan which they originated from, the "Mother" Leviathan being the source of everything which was why when it was dying there's some sort of cosmology reset that almost happened
note: I'm sleep deprived right now so there's some things that I probably didnt articulate that well
 
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Ogbunabali said:
I agree with the deletion of the profiles. I don't really see the point of what you were trying to do with the dimensions? I didn't see how that's relevant to the hierarchy here. And I largely agree with Ultima with the last bit, as the one comment in the blog seems to be alluding that they are existing on the same level as well
Click to expand...
That's relevant to the hierarchy because that shows that the difference between the stories are not just the difference between dimensions.

The oceans are the same in the sense that its a common theme in stories. That there is this theme present in all these stories. The oceans where the Leviathans lives in, like the Hierarchy of Stories, were shown stacked upon each other, clearly showing that a hierarchy is present

2
"You know how they show acid trips in 60s movies? Well I fell through places that looked like that. There were oceans but they were stacked up like towers" -
 
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Antvasima said:
Would any of you be willing to help out here?
Click to expand...
Well if it was just the story itself I wouldn't be for anything other than 1-A.

The oceans being stacked is a bigger thing, since that can be reasoning for High 1-A but since the Leviathan just lives there rather than transcend or contains it I'm more hesitant on the rating.
 
I heard that unwritten is only part of the story hierarchy.
I heard that unwriten exists as a book in the higher story hierarchy.

So the cetacean hierarchy mentioned in unwritten is also included in the story hierarchy?
 
The HoS was already accepted to be High 1-A structure. The debate here is if the Cetaceans transcend each other, which I think they do.
 
The oceans being stacked is a bigger thing, since that can be reasoning for High 1-A but since the Leviathan just lives there rather than transcend or contains it I'm more hesitant on the rating

The Leviathan doesn't just live there, the ocean is a metaphor for the unconscious dreams and stories which is also what the Leviathan represents, the Leviathan is the collective unconscious. The Leviathan was also stated to be "a consciousness behind the world and the word, greater than both" and that it has gained dominion over both truth and lies.

The Leviathan does more than swim there, if the Leviathan dies then that hierarchy also collapse. Saying that he just lives there is an understatement based on what we were shown.
 
Qawsedf234 said:
I that case no. I don't think they transcend each other in that way.
Click to expand...
Please elaborate.

They we're stated to "contain" a "whale" containing the next whale. The stacked oceans and as I shown above, the Leviathan's represents humanity's collective power/unconscious. Humanity creates another humanity to whom which they are God and so on.

It's pretty clear that the Leviathan's transcend each other and has hierarchy of their own separate from the HoS as the Leviathans had no allegiance neither realms which allows them to be greater than both
 
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Sandman31 said:
The gist of it is that the Leviathan is like the fictional unconscious, it symbolize the power of the masses, its the sovereign that rules both truth and lies. The Leviathan or humanity, creates these worlds which we will be the God of, then the humanity in these world will become "aware" and will strive to be God themselves and the chain goes on.

The Leviathan represents the collective power of humanity, it will create another reality and humanity giving rise to another God. It's basically Leviathan/God creating another Leviathan/God to which we are the Leviathan/God of
Click to expand...
None of that seems to indicate that each layer of reality has its own Leviathan, though. From what the scans themselves say, it just seems like the Leviathan himself is the fictional unconscious of humanity across every world, hence it encompasses all stories to begin with, rather than every version of humanity having its own version of the fictional unconscious.

The stuff about humanity "creating God" just seems like it refers to how the inhabitants of the fictional worlds that they write down will eventually become self-aware and create their own fictional worlds, which they will control like Gods, and then the inhabitants of those will create other fictional worlds, and so on, infinitely. There's no mention of the Cetacean Regression in here.

The oceans being stacked like towers could be good supporting evidence, but it doesn't work as the main body of an argument. With the Hierarchy of Stories, at least, the layers have explicit statements describing them as transcending one another, and without those, them being stacked "like the tiers of a wedding cake" wouldn't be evidence for anything other than the way which they are arranged. Same thing applies to the Cetacean Hierarchy: There's evidence that each whale is more powerful than the last, but not that each whale is infinitely more powerful than the last.
 
just seems like the Leviathan himself is the fictional unconscious of humanity across every world, hence it encompasses all stories to begin with, rather than every version of humanity having its own version of the fictional unconscious.

The Leviathan is the source of all stories (probably "contains" all of them too) and the fictional unconscious of humanity but the Leviathan was also stated to specifically own the the old stories/characters, which means that the other Leviathans also "own" their own stories


The Leviathan originally owned the oldest stories told by the first humanity, which then lead the creation of other stories and other humanities (other Leviathans) and that chain continues to infinity.

The Leviathan is the most powerful of them all as its the "originator" and is the foundation of both hierarchies/chains but the layered ocean being the substrate beneath all stories as well as humanity becoming "conscious" and striving to become "God", I think points out that each humanity also has their own Leviathan

The stuff about humanity "creating God" just seems like it refers to how the inhabitants of the fictional worlds that they write down will eventually become self-aware and create their own fictional worlds, which they will control like Gods, and then the inhabitants of those will create other fictional worlds, and so on, infinitely. There's no mention of the Cetacean Regression in here.

That's why I explained what the Leviathans are, the Leviathans are the fictional unconscious of humanity, as Mike Carey said, the Leviathan is a metaphor for humanity. Humanity becomes conscious (Become able to create stories) and become God (God here is Leviathan, as the Leviathans represents humanity's collective power), then they create another humanity/reality which they will then become God.

It will make sense if you think of the Leviathan's not as only whales/creatures but the embodiment of humanity's collective power. Mike Carey was basically talking about the chains of fictional worlds and chain of Leviathans/humanity here

The oceans being stacked like towers could be good supporting evidence, but it doesn't work as the main body of an argument

I mean its not the only evidence. There's the whales containing each other (Which in the context of the Unwritten means a reality-fiction difference told by the prophetic unicorn which never lies), humanity becoming conscious of stories and creating another humanity to whom which they are God of and then the stacked oceans and how it corresponds to the hierarchy of stories.

The whales were stated to contain each other in their stomach, with the Leviathan being the final whale in the chain clearly indicates some sort of transcendence since the stories being in the "whale's stomach/belly" is also a metaphor commonly used in the series to explain the transcendence of the Leviathan to stories. I say its a metaphor for transcendence as the Leviathans being whales is also just a metaphor

And also about this.

https://www.cbr.com/commentary-track-carey-gross-on-the-unwritten-apocalypse-1/


Gross: I think there is an urge in humankind to create surreality. In our stories, we are always trying to create another reality; in our art, we are trying to create another reality. Look what you can do with movies and 3D printing. We're trying to create another reality alongside the other reality that we have. It's our basic nature. It's like striving to become God. There's something going as we are able to create virtual realities.

Carey: It's a turning point in human evolution. The moment when we learn to make counterfactual worlds, what would happen if I poked that beehive with a stick? What would happen if I piled rocks up in the streams? The water level would rise up and create something different. It's that ability to leap outside of what's really there to what might be there that allows us to manipulate the world -- to turn the world into our tool. It's both our greatest strength and our greatest weakness. We're storytellers before we're anything else.

Gross: If I gave any credence to the idea of there being a God, it would be that we are the gaming creations of some other reality. [Laughs] We're like "Sim City" becoming self aware. And we're going to end up creating our own reality, which we will be the god and then they will become aware and then they will create theirs. Maybe we're just this series of toys...

Carey: Links in a chain.

Mike Carey is talking about humanity, about how we strive to become God. I think this scan perfectly illustrates what Mike Carey was saying about how we strive to become God. The Leviathan, which is the representation of humanity's fictional unconscious/collective power, "evolves" alongside humans, growing more powerful as humanity becomes more self aware, we see the Leviathan grew in power until it eventually became the God that dominates every duality. The humans in the worlds the previous humanity creates then become self aware and thus the process repeats itself.


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Mike Carey is not just talking about the chain of stories but also the chain of humanity, about humanity's power as storytellers which is what the Leviathan represents.
 
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Qawsedf234 said:
The scans you've provided just don't convince me that the Leviathan is transcendent over its smaller kin rather than more powerful.

I'm in agreement that he would be High 1-A though, since the oceans are considered as such.
Click to expand...
This is the way that I interpreted the information as well.
 
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