What are the letters of the Name-Which-Burns?

Sunless Sea
1

As in, what exact letter is each of the seven in the Name-Which-Burns? Is there any indication of the Name’s spelling anywhere in SSea? Do any of you have personal theories about it? I don’t know of any first-party lore covering the specific contents of the Name, but here’s a few ideas I’ve come up with after thinking it over:

  • T H E N A M E is a quite literal-minded answer[/li][li]although the old theories about a connection between Salt and Mr. Eaten don’t hold much water, both C A N D L E S and M R E A T E N have seven letters. I think it’s a cute coincidence.[/li][li]alternately, Failbetter didn’t ever bother to come up with a single particular spelling and decided on 7 letters for the significance of the number

edited by Anchovies on 5/2/2017

2

The Name-Which-Burns is composed of seven letters of the Correspondence, if I recall correctly (given the nature of Salt, this only makes sense), and therefore shouldn’t have an English or even human equivalent. Good catch about Candles and Mr. Eaten having seven letters each though; I don’t know if it was coincidental or intentional, but it’s nice either way.

3

If you wrote down the 7 correspondence letters of the Name-Which-Burns, you would probably become the Scholar-Who-Burns.

4

There’s also the icon for the &quotLetters of the Name-Which Burns&quot quality, as shown here.

Unless this sigil appears elsewhere, I’d say it’s reasonable to consider it a transcription of the Name-Which-Burns. Perhaps it is written with seven strokes? It’s tricky to figure out which parts of it make up individual strokes, but here’s my take on it. The only significant assumption I make is that the two pairs of fang-like marks are each a single stroke, inscribed with some sort of double-pronged implement.

Left island, spiral, right branch, center spiral, underline, center fangs, bottom fangs. Boom, seven, done. Thoughts?

5

I highly doubt that, being seven letters in the Correspondence, the Name-Which-Burns could be transcribed as only one. It seems far more likely to me that FBG just used a random symbol to illustrate the story, as they tend to do in both SSea and FL, rather than putting in the work to make seven unique symbols just for this. I checked the game files and this does only show up around the Name-Which-Burns storyline, but then again one of the other symbols only shows up in one context, and it may well appear in FL where I can’t search for it. (And judging by other Correspondence symbols and the narrowing towards one end a la brushstrokes, I’m pretty sure both those fangs are two strokes, making it nine total. It would be pretty cool if it was seven strokes exactly though, nice thinking. I wonder if any of the other symbols are…)

6

Let me just solve this debate once and for all. Listen up, appetizers, I will only write this once.

That doesn’t mean it’ll be here when you read it again.

The name is as follows…

The first letter means &quotM&quot and &quotC&quot at the same time.

The second letter is portrayed as a &quotR&quot and an &quotA&quot.

The third letter is supposed to mean &quotE&quot, but it was once known as &quotN&quot. No one wants to finish that argument.

The fourth letter, &quotA&quot, and the fourth letter, &quotD&quot, are cousins. No one is around to finish that argument.

The fifth letter, &quotT&quot, can only be used when referring to a verb. Otherwise, the fifth letter means &quotL&quot.

The sixth letter means &quotE&quot and &quotE&quot. Both are pronounced independently from the other. Not pronounced differently, independently.

The seventh letter, commonly (read: mistakenly) referred to by the Church as &quotsin&quot is actually &quotS&quot and &quotN&quot. Remember this trick to help remember: The Name ends in SN, the name ends in sin.

There you have it. The stuff Failbetter didn’t want you to know.

7

[quote=Torchwood202]Let me just solve this debate once and for all. Listen up, appetizers, I will only write this once.

That doesn’t mean it’ll be here when you read it again.

The name is as follows…

The first letter means &quotM&quot and &quotC&quot at the same time.

The second letter is portrayed as a &quotR&quot and an &quotA&quot.

The third letter is supposed to mean &quotE&quot, but it was once known as &quotN&quot. No one wants to finish that argument.

The fourth letter, &quotA&quot, and the fourth letter, &quotD&quot, are cousins. No one is around to finish that argument.

The fifth letter, &quotT&quot, can only be used when referring to a verb. Otherwise, the fifth letter means &quotL&quot.

The sixth letter means &quotE&quot and &quotE&quot. Both are pronounced independently from the other. Not pronounced differently, independently.

The seventh letter, commonly (read: mistakenly) referred to by the Church as &quotsin&quot is actually &quotS&quot and &quotN&quot. Remember this trick to help remember: The Name ends in SN, the name ends in sin.

There you have it. The stuff Failbetter didn’t want you to know.[/quote]
Alright, it’s time someone weaned you off the Prisoner’s Honey.

8

The name-which-burns most closely translates into English as “be sure to drink your Ovaltine”.

9

Hmm? Since when?

10

B R A N D O N
(pops collar)

11

Another theory: perhaps we do learn the Name-Which-Burn’s letters in-game. A single Correspondence sigil represents an entire concept. Speaking (or writing, or otherwise enacting) a seven-letter sequence of Correspondence sigils enacts their composite product upon the world. Perhaps the reverse is also true: carrying out the product of a Correspondence sequence imparts knowledge of its letters. The seven letters of the Name-Which-Burns are “Touch of the South”, “Western Stigma”, “Scars of the North”, “Mark of the East”, “that fierce old thing in the dark”, “that place of white and black, so cold after its season of heat”, and “the East”. Salt wrote the name in Frostfound, before it became TRAVELLER and went East. By following in Salt’s footsteps, the player character can go to Frostfound, write the name, and become the TRAVELLER RETURNING before journeying East once more.

12

An interesting thought! Though wouldn’t that mean two different letters were about the East?

13

Just joined the forums, but have been playing FL for a couple of years now. I would say SS, but I only played it for 2 hours when I first got it (and joined Fallen London) and haven’t touched it since until a couple of days ago.

&quotMark of the East&quot and &quotthe East&quot mean two different things. The noun in the first phrase is &quotmark&quot, with &quotof the East&quot serving as an adjective. &quotEast&quot itself is a noun.

14

Just joined the forums, but have been playing FL for a couple of years now. I would say SS, but I only played it for 2 hours when I first got it (and joined Fallen London) and haven’t touched it since until a couple of days ago.

&quotMark of the East&quot and &quotthe East&quot mean two different things. The noun in the first phrase is &quotmark&quot, with &quotof the East&quot serving as an adjective. &quotEast&quot itself is a noun.[/quote]
It would mean that two different letters were about the same concept. One would be the Mark of the East, attained by entering Salt’s domain. The other would be the East, Salt’s domain. While they don’t mean literally the exact same thing those are two very very close concepts.

Though I suppose you could argue that the Mark of the East is for going East a first time while East is what you need to go back. The traveller is always returning.

15

Here’s a thing from Kingeater’s Castle.

[quote]The Name-Which-Burns is stitched in fire across the black air. The Exile falls to her knees. Without hesitation, your crew joins her. Your name bursts scalding from your throat. You will always bear the scars.[/quote]So Frostfound is where the Name-Which-Burns is learned, and Kingeater’s Castle is where the Name is spoken. The Name isn’t mentioned while the captain makes their sacrifices, so I think the sacrifices are not themselves part of the Name. If your past and memories are your offering to the Kingeater, then the Name is the fire which consumes the offering. The Name is not being burned; the Name is doing the burning, and what it is burning is you.

16

The name which burns. Seven letters.

I think Alexis was playing fair on this one, actually.

17

That idea has a lot of poetic appeal to me but it doesn’t quite seem to fit. If the Name was the method of sacrifice, why would you need to go to Kingeater’s to do the sacrifice? Why not just do the sacrifice at Frostfound when you first get the Name? If this sacrifice isn’t destined for the general eldritch hungriness at Kingeater’s that seems to enable every other sacrifice there, could it even be a sacrifice to the Kingeater?

18

Perhaps the original sacrifice was offered to the Kingeater because it was the only thing in the Neath capable of devouring a Judgement’s metaphysical identity. Subsequent travelers would need to use the Name in the same manner, or else it wouldn’t work.

It’s also possible that the Kingeater not only devours but wholly obliterates the sacrificed past-self. When a thing is consumed, it is usually incorporated into whatever consumes it, and Salt needed its past to be truly gone before it could go East.

As for why the Name is necessary for the sacrifice to be made, I’d say it’s because a being’s past - not just their memories of the past, but the past itself - is not something which can be easily separated from that being. Another sacrifice which may be made at Kingeater’s Castle is the lives of three zailors. Separating a zailor from their life can be done by slitting a throat; separating yourself from yourself could require speaking a Name. The Name might be better likened to a sacrificial knife than to an offering pyre.

19

[quote=Tystefy]Let me just solve this debate once and for all. Listen up, appetizers, I will only write this once.

That doesn’t mean it’ll be here when you read it again.

The name is as follows…

The first letter means &quotM&quot and &quotC&quot at the same time.

The second letter is portrayed as a &quotR&quot and an &quotA&quot.

The third letter is supposed to mean &quotE&quot, but it was once known as &quotN&quot. No one wants to finish that argument.

The fourth letter, &quotA&quot, and the fourth letter, &quotD&quot, are cousins. No one is around to finish that argument.

The fifth letter, &quotT&quot, can only be used when referring to a verb. Otherwise, the fifth letter means &quotL&quot.

The sixth letter means &quotE&quot and &quotE&quot. Both are pronounced independently from the other. Not pronounced differently, independently.

The seventh letter, commonly (read: mistakenly) referred to by the Church as &quotsin&quot is actually &quotS&quot and &quotN&quot. Remember this trick to help remember: The Name ends in SN, the name ends in sin.

There you have it. The stuff Failbetter didn’t want you to know.[/quote]

I know this is an old thread, but I found it while checking wikis with Google, but basically, the thing they’re trying to make here is that the name is both MR EATEN and CANDLES at the same time. Pretty clever way of doing it, but that’s the twist here. Not nonsensical as it might seem at first glance.

20

[quote=AbsolxGuardian] snip
I know this is an old thread, but I found it while checking wikis with Google, but basically, the thing they’re trying to make here is that the name is both MR EATEN and CANDLES at the same time. Pretty clever way of doing it, but that’s the twist here. Not nonsensical as it might seem at first glance.[/quote]

Someone finally heckin’ got it.