The Slog TDTCB - Part One: Prologue & The Sorcerer [Spoilers]

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Wilshire

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« Reply #45 on: December 03, 2015, 01:15:38 pm »
Chapter 3.

I found it odd that Achamian was so able to articulate his thoughts about the new Shriahs voice patterns. Probably a requirement for story telling, but it seemed that Achamian was almost aware of the super-humanness of his voice.  I'm probably just peering too deeply. (ie gone mad)

Maithanet is described as walking on foot from the deep south, and his mysterious origins being a great advantage. I feel like that ploy works out sj greatly that other non dunyain should be able to take advantage of it. But maybe it only really works because it's ubexpected, and because dunyain.

The Tusk says the False Prophet is the worst abomination. Is there a specific reference to a specific person, or I'd that used generally like 'antichrist' is used in the bible?

Edit:

H, I agree that scene makes it seem like Sarcellus is already replaced. I do t thinK his pig comment makes sense otherwise. However, since the skin-spies and identify Chigra, if possible he was speaking to that effect and did not know specifically of Akka.
« Last Edit: December 03, 2015, 01:21:33 pm by Wilshire »
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MSJ

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« Reply #46 on: December 03, 2015, 01:30:44 pm »
Sarcellus has already been replaced, and he's speaking to Seswatha not Akka. Also note everytime a Skin-Spy is near the POV notes the smell of jasmine or Myrrh or both. No time to quote but I will shortly.
“No. I am your end. Before your eyes I will put your seed to the knife. I will quarter your carcass and feed it to the dogs. Your bones I will grind to dust and cast to the winds. I will strike down those who speak your name or the name of your fathers, until ‘Yursalka’ becomes as meaningless as infant babble. I will blot you out, hunt down your every trace! The track of your life has come to me,

Wilshire

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« Reply #47 on: December 03, 2015, 03:03:03 pm »
Please do find quotes MSJ.

Chapter 4.
"It is their strict custom to never begrudge travellers water, even if they me enemies" - all is fair in love and war then.

Esmi mentions that she has heard Akka speaking strange tongues in his sleep. Casting spells while asleep in the Quya tounge?

Akka on Maithanet "to canny to be what he seems". Well, he's not wrong.


Inrau's death is such an incredible scene. This time around, lots of strange sorcereries I missed before.
"She can before him" Inrau says this when considering the movements of his soul. What an odd phrasing. Where might have this dunyain phrase come from. We're the Dunyain once part of the thousand temples?
"Run.... No" to bad Onkis spoke directly to Inrau, answering his prayers, but he did not recognize.

"The uncertainty, always so powerful within him, was snuffed out". I believe this line implies Onkis had been directly involved Iin his life for quite some time, but right here abandons him to his fate.

Inrau does not initially see the mark on the Synthese. When he does he describes it as something minor. I think think he is inconsistent with how it's described later.

Inrau casts something on the heart after its ripped out of Mujonish. After this, it is given some strange qualities that have sparked conversation in the past, specifically the drops of blood cracking stone. I think the fact that it has been esorcelled has been missed or omitted from those conversations.

A chorae touches Inrau directly on the cheek, no barrier of any kind. Direct skin contact, and he lives with only a small abrasion and a tiny bit of localized salting. This is the first I've realized that.

Noteworthy spells: sorcerous  speed, hands punching through metal and bone, burning blood and blood breaking stone (all these from Inrau). From synthese, levitate, water choking, silvery bubbles, water/drowning [might all be one spell], Relent potentially a can't of compulsion.
« Last Edit: December 03, 2015, 03:51:36 pm by Wilshire »
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locke

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« Reply #48 on: December 03, 2015, 04:07:21 pm »
Selection bias, but if there is another player, a second foundation, and moe and kellhus are tools within a greater design then they could be orchestrating events such that the known factions and kahiht are simply playing their parts Ina complex viramsata. Rereading, I feel like it is so far ambiguous enough to suggest the possibility of a second foundation but then again, why (on my part) desire to imbue this sensation with agency, what I could be noting is perhaps nothing more than the author slipping in the presence of the thousandfold thought and lacks agency.

But my larger point was whether those killing mandate spies and skin spies are part of an unknown faction or the result of the consult and cishaurim as we believe, both actions seem well controlled and timed to yield specific useful outcomes.

So what I was getting at was that it doesn't matter if the consult was killing mandate spies or if someone else was (and legit freaking out Simas as well as nautzera) because if the consult did it, they were directly manipulated into it to yield the mandate turtle outcome, and if the consult did not do it, the mandate were manipulated into the turtle outcome as well.

As for who might be killing mandate spies, well we know one mandate spy who had a 1 on 1 battle with a power capable of killing a mandate spy and did not succomb. Perhaps that was an assassination attempt within the larger program of assassinating mandate spies?


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The Lost Dunyain

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« Reply #49 on: December 03, 2015, 04:13:04 pm »
Great analysis guys! This is my second re-read of the book and before I knew it, I had blasted through the entire part I and half of part II. I am still amazed at how well-written and deep this series is, with fantastic world-building and complex plotting backed up by strong philosophical themes. Not to forget insane characters and epic battles.

Anyways, one thing that stuck me was the issue of forgetting ancient things and events. We know that the non-men try to create situations to jog their memories and remember ancient traumatic events of their past. On the other hand, we have Seswatha broadcasting all the traumatic events of the first apocalypse in the dreams of the mandate schoolmen every night, to make sure that they do not forget them. Couldn't the non-men have used a similar mechanism to ensure that they do not forget their past? I think we still don't know how (or why) the mandate schoolmen have their dreams, but could this require some form of magic that is even beyond the non-men? This could also be related to the eljus used by non-men. Maybe a sorcerous elju has the power to remember and then broadcast events in perfect detail?

Wilshire

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« Reply #50 on: December 03, 2015, 04:23:31 pm »
Sorcery involved in eljus seems reasonable. Not sure how else you might get a sranc to function as a holder of menories.

I think i see what your getting at locke, but that's too many circles with circles for me to discuss coherently. Just looks like a fractal to me, you can keep zooming in but the pattern remains. Hidden plots with hidden plots, ad infinitum.

Edit
Also, locke I think you mentioned about Kellhus having some trauma to incite the sorcerous vision. Are there any other instances of this happening? I read the scene with Akka first seeing the Onta in this first part, and he was just looking over a beautiful vista.
« Last Edit: December 03, 2015, 10:04:18 pm by Wilshire »
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rnblut

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« Reply #51 on: December 03, 2015, 08:02:37 pm »

"Right, its Simas. Who else would know the locations of all Mandate spies."

The other person would the Shriah who was busy uncovering the emperor's spies at least in Summa.  Also the "tell" of Simas as the skin spy is his reading in the dim light.  A similar "tell" comes up when the emperor's nephew walks up the stairs with Skeos (sp?).

MSJ

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« Reply #52 on: December 03, 2015, 09:39:01 pm »
Geshrunni and Skin-Spy:

Quote
The Javreh Captain smiled. Maybe he’s just a fool. A dangerous, drunken amiability seized his manner. He walked up to the man, placed a callused hand on his padded shoulder. He could smell jasmine.

Sarcellus, with Akka and Inrau:

Quote
The Shrial Knight negotiated the intervening tables and patrons in a brusque manner, pausing once to firmly press a stumbling teamster from his path. He was lean and patrician tall, clean-shaven with short jet -black hair . The white of his elaborate tunic seemed to shrug off every shadow, but for some reason his face did not. He arrived bearing the scent of jasmine and myrrh.

Those are the ones in I've come across so far, I believe I have others highlighted throughout the books.
« Last Edit: December 03, 2015, 09:45:36 pm by MSJ »
“No. I am your end. Before your eyes I will put your seed to the knife. I will quarter your carcass and feed it to the dogs. Your bones I will grind to dust and cast to the winds. I will strike down those who speak your name or the name of your fathers, until ‘Yursalka’ becomes as meaningless as infant babble. I will blot you out, hunt down your every trace! The track of your life has come to me,

Wolfdrop

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« Reply #53 on: December 03, 2015, 10:36:22 pm »
I think Sarcellus had been a skin-spy for a long time.

The skin-sky who impersonated him first, Gaortha, has his own TTT glossary entry, whereas the entry for the real Cutias Sarcellus gives his year of death as 4099, some 11 years before his encounter with Achamian or Geshrunni.


MSJ

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« Reply #54 on: December 04, 2015, 03:25:11 am »
As to who would be killing Mandate spies the answer is clearly the Consult. Think about it, they are positioned everywhere. Skeaos, has the Emperor's ear, Sarcellus that of the Shriah, the King of High Anion is himself a Skin-Spy. They have Simas in the Mandate and are using him to eliminate the only people in all of the Three-Seas that even believe in the Consult. One thing does bother me about it though, why let Akka live?

Also, they can see Seswatha through them. So they know who's Mandate right off the bat.
« Last Edit: December 04, 2015, 10:22:48 am by MSJ »
“No. I am your end. Before your eyes I will put your seed to the knife. I will quarter your carcass and feed it to the dogs. Your bones I will grind to dust and cast to the winds. I will strike down those who speak your name or the name of your fathers, until ‘Yursalka’ becomes as meaningless as infant babble. I will blot you out, hunt down your every trace! The track of your life has come to me,

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« Reply #55 on: December 04, 2015, 12:02:43 pm »
Those are the ones in I've come across so far, I believe I have others highlighted throughout the books.

There are a couple more:

Quote
But she recognizes the smell: myrrh through the reek of entrails...

Soma.

So there is a definite connection.

On the Mandate spies, even the sin-spy that kills Geshrunni says:

Quote
“Mercy?” the thing laughed. “Mercy is a luxury of the idle, fool. The Mandate has many eyes, and we have much plucking to do.”
Where’s my face?

They aren't just eliminating the eyes the Mandate has, they are replacing them as well.

I read chapter 4, nothing really struck me though.

One thing does bother me about it though, why let Akka live?

Also, they can see Seswatha through them. So they know who's Mandate right off the bat.

My theory would be that with Simas in the Quarum, Akka is really, in effect, an unwitting double agent of the Consult.  Not only that, but the spy you know is much better than the spy you don't.  Why not allow Akka to prowl around?  Anything he finds will be known the the Consult, so if it is potentially harmful, he could be eliminated then.  Realize Aurang's plan is actually pretty good, since it gives them a heads up on Kellhus they wouldn't have had otherwise.  Sure, it falls apart later, but there is no way Aurang could have foreseen everything.
I am a warrior of ages, Anasurimbor. . . ages. I have dipped my nimil in a thousand hearts. I have ridden both against and for the No-God in the great wars that authored this wilderness. I have scaled the ramparts of great Golgotterath, watched the hearts of High Kings break for fury. -Cet'ingira

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« Reply #56 on: December 04, 2015, 08:50:15 pm »
Quote
They aren't just eliminating the eyes the Mandate has, they are replacing them as well.

But, how can the impersonate a sorceror without a soul, and therefore without the Mark? As far as we know Simas is a total anomaly.
“No. I am your end. Before your eyes I will put your seed to the knife. I will quarter your carcass and feed it to the dogs. Your bones I will grind to dust and cast to the winds. I will strike down those who speak your name or the name of your fathers, until ‘Yursalka’ becomes as meaningless as infant babble. I will blot you out, hunt down your every trace! The track of your life has come to me,

geoffrobro

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« Reply #57 on: December 05, 2015, 02:06:12 am »
I'm sorry if I am backtracking here but my greater question is why was the "rotund" skin-spy framing Achamian  with the murder and removing  of the faces of SS  slaves? He killed Geshrunni  after he gave akka the info of the SS  secret war with the Cishaurim.
Let's say it was part of Simas' plan to kill or get rid of mandate spys, but he is also aiding the SS. If akka  hadn't been called back to Atyersus  he would of most likely  died in that setup in Carythusal  and not later on when confronted  in the Holy war.
Or was the meeting with Geshrunni  the setup, just akka could get that info to give to the mandate. But why remove his face?
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Wilshire

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« Reply #58 on: December 05, 2015, 02:54:01 am »
Like H said, they are likely replacing the spies, not just killing them.

It would be awkward if the body showed up, so they removed his face... Didn't work that time but this was probably the plan.
Alternatively, framing Akka so that the SS knows that the Mandate or someone is spying on them. Anything to make the Mandate look bad.

No direct confrontation between the Consult and Mandate at this point. They didn't remain hidden for 300 years by do something obvious like killing a sorcerer of the rank.

Probably incidental that Akka was able to get some info out of Geshrunni before he was killed. Or, its possible that the Consult didn't realize that Geshrunni would prove to have any useful information. Once they found out he was going to be a good source of information, it was time for him to die.
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« Reply #59 on: December 05, 2015, 07:39:57 am »
The only thing I've been compelled to post thus far but this should be a fairly innocent observation.

There's been a bunch of debate over the years as to why the skin-spies remove the faces of their targets. It's kind of settled on the consensus that it was a complicated idea to supplant people, later retconned. However, Bakker has a cheeky note tucked into one of Eleazaras' POVs about another faceless corpse that was discovered in Carythusal, preceding Geshrunni. And it's has always made me wonder if maybe the skin-spies deface their marks so that their bodies aren't later identified, and so aren't assumed missing or dead, and that that first corpse was in fact the noble Chepheramunni, who refuses the lure of Chanv (and who ironically is not identified by Kellhus because of the mask worn by the Ainoni for their obsession with jnan, which Esmenet later appropriates for her showdown with Maithanet).

EDIT: Of course, I didn't bother to read Wilshire's post where he said exactly that with about a tenth of the words.
« Last Edit: December 05, 2015, 07:43:17 am by Madness »
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