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Messages - Doulou

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yeah, I interpreted Kellhus' actions as being purely logical (minus his love for Esmenet). I thought his idea to 'conquer Hell' seemed rational. If a mortal living in a universe with almost universal arbitrary eternal damnation could overthrow that, who wouldn't? But then I went to the forums and people say it was Ajokli driving him mad, and then apparently Bakker confirmed it in a Q&A? Again, I can't get to the books for a few months due to my current work but I don't remember anything specifically saying it was Ajokli.

Without Bakkers Q&A it would be a challenge to fully understand Ajoklis role in the story.

I would like to re-read the whole series bearing in mind Ajoklis involvement. I think the circumfix can be seen as a point where Ajokli gets involved because shortly after Kellhus sees the halos on his hands and also "goes mad".

As for Kellhus dialogue in the Golden Room, I don't really think there's much reason to believe it's Ajokli "talking" until Ajokli fully manifests. Taking over Hell would be a reasonable next step once he stopped the Apocalypse. I think Kellhus's dialogue about circumstance in the Golden Room is interesting. With Kellhus mastery of the Gnosis he is able to achieve a different path his father/mutiliated couldn't achieve. He can beat the Consult, stop the Apocalypse and then rule hell with a knowledge of Sorcery that the other Dunyain were not able to perform.

Problem is he just didn't "see" Ajokli coming in the way he did, and Ajoklis influence shrouded him in darkness (his quote to Proyas). So really the way I look at it is that Kellhus was trying to be as Kellhus as possible, he had his plans that were his own. But with TDTCB he was unable to understand all his actions, so putting himself in the Golden Room alone was a mistake (remember his childrens surprise at when they learn he was went alone) since he really couldn't have beat the mutilated, but he did it anyways because it felt like the thing to do.

I see it like this - If Ajokli wasn't influencing Kellhus then he would have still done most things the same. Led the Great Ordeal, tried to stop the Consult, and then ruled hell. But he would have done it better, he wouldn't have went alone into the Golden Room for example. It was Ajoklis influence that made him stray from conditioned ground because TDTCB was claiming him so he wasn't able to fully think like the superhuman he is.


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The Unholy Consult / Re: "Kellhus is dead, but not done."
« on: February 17, 2018, 06:00:31 pm »
Bakker said the following in regard to souls -

"The problems souls encounter in the Outside is that they're puny, and so find themselves trapped in intentional realities belonging to infernal and divine agencies. This is why powerful souls (think Gin'yursis) often carve out different fates after death."

It will be interesting to see what Kellhus spirit is capable of, he has immense intelligence, but Bakker has specifically said the Dunyain are spiritually weak.

Right, highly plausible.  Also consider things such as the Head-on-a-Pole, which, my own pet theory would "predict" only protects him being alive, but speaks to the fact that Kellhus (at least) was able to "inhabit" the Outside in a different way than anyone else we know of, or at least not be subject to it in the same way.  So, considering he managed to at least learn a great deal of the Daimos, if not Master it, means that he must know the peril of his soul and so him having some kind of contingency plan in place is plausible.

I like this train of thought. I think having actually walked the infernal deep Kellhus we can safely assume he has used this insight to "avoid" going to hell. 

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Very thoughtful post, Doulou; welcome!

Excellent observation on the lack of a Kellhus POV; in retrospect, that opaque "head on a pole" scene may be an interior view of Kellhus' "madness". I, too, found it impossible to think of Kellhus as truly "mad". How could a madman lead the Great Ordeal? How could a madman do sorcery?

Here's a thought: If the Dûnyain pursuit of the Logos requires the diminution of "self", as we see in TDTCB, then wouldn't an empty "place" be a likely home for a God?

It's actually kind of funny how at the beginning of every book I would read the "What comes before" Chapter and get to the bit where Bakker says Kellhus went mad and just dismiss it :D

Funnily enough I'm reading the WoT series at the moment and madness is part of a certain characters identity. Without any spoilers there's a quote from one of the books - "He might have been insane, but he could outgeneral anyone I ever saw. He never lost a battle. He never even came close to losing". Madness was Kellhus downfall in the end, but his intelligence still allowed him to overcome so much.

With Bakkers confirmation of the Dunyain being so spiritually weak it seemed Kellhus was indeed the perfect host. Smart enough to get to the Golden Room, spiritually weak enough to be possessed. Ajokli really struck gold didn't he?

Welcome, Doulou - great stuff. I think you're sporting some nice insight on what truly happened to Kellhus. Unfortunately, I'll have to rely on others to chime in specifically for as I was so duped by exactly what you said, I only found my way out reading the contemplation on the story in this forum ( i.e. simply too much went over my head ). So all I have for you is accolades and enjoyed your post very much. Much of what you spelled out has been discussed in other threads, but so nice to see more "thinking" on this story, it's been a lot of fun for me to listen and occasionally embarrass myself with erroneous contributions.

BFK - nice, I like that, the Dunyain perhaps unwittingly made themselves vulnerable to the gods with their pursuit of the logos. Some interesting takes on the meaning of that.

Bakkers writing style tends to be able to make fools of us all when we try to puzzle out his intents. Truth be told I'd be completely lost if it wasn't for the collective brainstorming of this forum churning out some great stuff and some of Bakkers AMAs to help as well.

The head on the pool scene is always going to confuse me. I flitter between thinking it as describing Kellhus's journey to hell or describing Kellhus post-Unholy Consult in some sort of safe space. But some of the dialogue like "Heart still beats" makes it seem like it took place when Kellhus was alive. It's a tricky chapter to puzzle out, if/when we see a bit of Kellhus in the No-God series it might add some clarity.

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Hi guys,

I recently finished the Unholy Consult and have been making a few posts on Reddit with my thoughts on the matter, so I'd just like to type them out here and see what everyone thinks!

In my mind, Kellhus has went through a "false" transformation in the series, one we as readers fabricated in our minds and ultimately ended up duped.

When we read the first trilogy we saw a fallible Kellhus. He came across as "Uber human", but human nonetheless. We saw how he couldn't ever truly posses Cnaiur or Conphas, how he made mistakes along the way and how his thousandfold thought almost ended before it barely even begun when he was hung on the crucifix. It was his POVs that gave us this insight into his character and saw a man who was beyond men, but still a man.

Then the Aspect Emperor was written, and we lost our insight into Kellhus. This is when (in my mind) a transformation took place. 20 years has passed! The man is almost godlike in his knowledge of the Gnosis, he has walked into hell itself, and who can say how far he has seen with 20 years to contemplate his thousandfold thought? This is when I started to assume Kellhus had all but transcended humanity and become almost godlike, and his lack of POV only bolsters this feeling. When reading the Aspect Emperor I found myself thinking constantly how everything that was happening was part of Kellhus's masterplan, that things happening on the other side of the world were all but ripples of his thousandfold thought that he had prepared for.

Then with the Unholy Consult we see Kellhus in his endgame. He faces off the Dunyain with confidence, Ajokli takes him over and this whole time we are still thinking "Kellhus knew it, he knew Ajokli was coming, it was Kelmomas that ruined everything".

To me, thinking this is where some of us (or maybe a lot of us) got it wrong. I know I did. But before I go let me just reference a few Bakker quotes -

Q: So what was Kellhuses big plan and its endgame? How did being possessed by Ajokli factor into it?

A: Kellhus's endgame was to prevent Resumption and save the World. He knew something was amiss, and that the closer he came to Golgotterath the more amiss it became, but he, ultimately, was every bit as blind as we are to the darkness that comes before.

Q: Did Kellhus fail because of his professed abandonment of Logos as the ultimate path, and his pact with Gods? In any case he wasn't truly walking the Conditioned Ground any longer? If indeed walking it is possible at all.

A: Kellhus became less Kellhus and more Ajokli the nearer he came to Golgotterath. He failed to execute on the Thousandfold Thought because he took the stability of his personal identity for granted.

Q: Was Kellhus aware that he would be literally possessed by Ajokli? Was he in his full faculties during/after their merging, or did he rather turn an unwitting pawn for the god?

A: He drifted into it, before finally being seized in the Golden Room.

Q: Who was the figure Kellhus was speaking to in his dreams/visions, on the Circumfix and onwards?

A: Ajokli seems a safe supposition.

Now bearing in mind these answers from Bakker, a different Kellhus is presented. I believe a lot of us forget that he is "far seeing, not all seeing" (another Bakker quote). Bakkers AMAs usually follow a certain theme when people ask how/why Kellhus didn't see things coming, and it's usually either he can't see what he doesn't know what to look for or he just had a bloody lot on his plate.

I think that at first glance it seems 100% nailed on that Kellhus walks into the Golden Room with Ajokli as an ace to outsmart the Dunyain, but IMO that is coming from the "Kellhus sees all angle". What I think Bakker intended (using his AMA answers to further support this) is that ever since the Crucifix his madness had been claiming him. Ajoklis whispering in his mind was slowly unravelling his sense of self, and as Kellhus says to Proyas he "no longer knows why he does things". The closer he got to Golgotterath the more he became Ajokli and the more the darkness claimed him. By the time he was speaking in the Golden Room I don't think he truly knew how he was going to win, although he speaks with confidence and retains a sense of self, he is now heavily under the influence of Ajokli.

Kellhus was powerful, and smart, but when we delve into this "Yeah, but Kellhus wanted Ajokli to take him over so he kill the Dunyain, then take back control of himself, then descend into hell and rule" we are just giving Kellhus way more credit than Bakker ever intended. In Bakkers story, Kellhus was a really smart human but the Gods overpowered him. An interestin piece to look back on is when the WLW was after Kellhus, I was so giddy at the thought of Kellhus walking a path so fine that even the WLW couldn't beat him, alas it wasnt true. It was blind luck (or fate) that Kelmomas would save him twice. Adding to that, Kellhus both times didn't even seem to realize that the gods had all but beaten him if not for Kelmomas No-God ability to be unseen. He couldn't even put 2 and 2 together and rationalize that Kelmomas was standing outside of the Gods vision. Then we can look back at other moments when we see the atomic bomb go off... Kellhus can not see what he doesn't know to look for. Kellhus is and has always been fallible. Bakker doesn't just turn the narrative of the protagonist outsmarting the antagonist on it's head, he rips out its guts and lays them on the floor. Kellhus was spiritually a mess by the end of the series and for the longest time probably wasn't even wholly Kellhus due to Ajokli causing his madness.

The problem is that it is very hard to accept Kellhus as weaker than we thought because we built up such an all powerful image of him. Part of me wishes we had a Kellhus POV a bit more so we could see the internal struggle with Ajokli, feel the madness overcoming him and ultimately see just how much he wasn't able to predict. It would have added some much needed clarity to a story that I wish I didn't have to read AMA's to fully grasp. Maybe Bakker intended us to view him as almost unstoppable, and then at the end tear it all down and have us face the harsh reality that he was not all seeing, and in fact was operating in darkness towards the end was unable to execute the Thousandfold thought because he simply didn't know what was happening to him or how to stop it.

What will be interesting is Kellhus role in the next set of books. Bakker has said he is dead. He has said Dunyain are spiritually weak. So what kind Kellhus offer us as a spirit? I can't wait to see more of what Bakker writes, his books are truly something unique. For all his flaws I am a Kellhus fan, and I hope in death we can see him "Restored", without Ajokli possessing him, maybe he can operate on truly conditioned ground once more.

Well, that's my thoughts guys. Hope you enjoyed reading it. It's took me a while to reconcile my feelings on the Second Apocalypse but Im quite happy with this interpretation of events. Would be interested to hear what others think :)

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