[TGO SPOILERS] [TUC Spoilers!] Witness (MG Teaser #4)

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MSJ

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« Reply #15 on: April 20, 2017, 08:44:11 am »
IIRC, in the Moe/Kell stand-off, Kellhus saw that one future possibility included his assassination. So I think that, though it's possible that Moe wasn't going to off Kellhus right then and there, Kellhus saw that his Shortest Path required him to off Moe.

I was always under the assumption that he killed Moe because he thought inevitably he would go over to the Consult once learning of his damnation. I don't recall anything about him being assassinated. And, if we stick to Bakker's Layers of Revelation, doesn't it seem more a mistake that he killed Moe after his admission as much? The only rationale I can make for Kellhus killing Moe is his assertion that the TT would outgrow the incubator of it. More's TT was a plan to destroy the Consult, by means of Viramsata and bringing Inrithism and Fanimry together to unite under a common goal. Which happened, no doubt. But, I think the TT has outgrown even that. It's why H's theory that Kellhus is indeed speaking to himself in those visions seem most likely. That it's grown to make war against the God, also.
“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,

Redeagl

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« Reply #16 on: April 20, 2017, 09:03:56 am »
IIRC, in the Moe/Kell stand-off, Kellhus saw that one future possibility included his assassination. So I think that, though it's possible that Moe wasn't going to off Kellhus right then and there, Kellhus saw that his Shortest Path required him to off Moe.

I was always under the assumption that he killed Moe because he thought inevitably he would go over to the Consult once learning of his damnation. I don't recall anything about him being assassinated. And, if we stick to Bakker's Layers of Revelation, doesn't it seem more a mistake that he killed Moe after his admission as much? The only rationale I can make for Kellhus killing Moe is his assertion that the TT would outgrow the incubator of it. More's TT was a plan to destroy the Consult, by means of Viramsata and bringing Inrithism and Fanimry together to unite under a common goal. Which happened, no doubt. But, I think the TT has outgrown even that. It's why H's theory that Kellhus is indeed speaking to himself in those visions seem most likely. That it's grown to make war against the God, also.
If the Voice is a future Kellhus and the Voice told him to do that, then probably killing Moe was important for Kellhus' TTT.
“The thoughts of all men arise from the darkness. If you are the movement of your soul, and the cause of that movement precedes you, then how could you ever call your thoughts your own? How could you be anything other than a slave to the darkness that comes before?”

- Chronicler of the Chroniclers

MSJ

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« Reply #17 on: April 20, 2017, 09:34:42 am »
If the Voice is a future Kellhus and the Voice told him to do that, then probably killing Moe was important for Kellhus' TTT.

Where does it say the Voice told him to kill Moe, in TGO?
“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 #18 on: April 20, 2017, 10:26:30 am »
Right. But, does that make Kellhus right? He's been wrong before and Locke has made threads about it. So, I'm always skeptical that just because Kellhus thinks it, it becomes the Truth.

ETA: Hell, in TGO he even admits that killing Moe was a mistake. If he thinks it's a mistake after the fact, I think he realizes that Moe wasn't going to kill him.
IIRC, in the Moe/Kell stand-off, Kellhus saw that one future possibility included his assassination. So I think that, though it's possible that Moe wasn't going to off Kellhus right then and there, Kellhus saw that his Shortest Path required him to off Moe.

Quote
“And in my disorder, I listened … I did what it commanded.”
Sobs wracked the man, the convulsions of a bereaved child. But these words yanked something through Proyas, as if he had been wound by a windlass and released. The Place relaxed its grip, lowered him back to its lap. The man’s bloodshot eyes fixed him heedless of any shame or fury.
“I killed my own father,” the Place said.

Even though my initial impression of this part was that Kellhus is saying killing Moe was a mistake, upon rereading it, I don't actually see it that way any more.  He is simply horrifying Proyas with the fact that he suffers revelation from a source he does not know the origin of.  Indeed, Kellhus did "foresee" Moe eventually trying to kill him:

Quote
Kellhus had seen it many times, wandering the labyrinth of possibilities that was the Thousandfold Thought: The Warrior-Prophet’s assassination. The rise of Anasûrimbor Moënghus to take his place. The apocalyptic conspiracies. The counterfeit war against Golgotterath. The accumulation of premeditated disasters. The sacrifice of whole nations to the gluttony of the Sranc. The Three Seas crashing into char and ruin.
The Gods baying like wolves at a silent gate.

I think that a key is that the Thousandfold Thought must be singular in it's authoring.  It brooks no rivals and neither does Kellhus.
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

MSJ

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« Reply #19 on: April 20, 2017, 11:23:32 am »
Fair enough.
“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,

H

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« Reply #20 on: April 20, 2017, 11:42:03 am »
Fair enough.

I think no matter how you slice it, Moe had to die.  I don't think that Kellhus is lying when he thinks to himself that the Thought has outgrown "the soul of it's incubation" (i.e. Moe) and so I do think that the Thought would have needed him gone in that moment or a subsequent one, regardless of anything else.  I think that even with all the victories that Moe had over the world, to gain control of the Cishaurim, to engineer the Holy War, to draw Kellhus to him, and so on, he was wrong on several things.

One, he thought the world was "closed" and that the Outside was not a major influence on the Inside.  We know this is plainly false.  Two, he imagined that he possessed the Thought, when it was the opposite, most probably.  The Thought used him, not the other way around.  Three, failing to recognize both those factors, he totally misses what Kellhus will be when he arrives.  Moe imagines himself the engine, where he is really just yet another cog.

For these reasons, Moe is an anachronism in the "New World" of Kellhus.  Indeed, so are the Dunyain themselves.  They all die, necessarily.  They were tools in a bigger plan, discarded once they were of no use.

“The days are new Chigra … And far shorter than the old.”
« Last Edit: April 20, 2017, 11:43:49 am by H »
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

MSJ

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« Reply #21 on: April 20, 2017, 12:43:37 pm »
All great points, H. Thank you. See, I like I nice explanation. And, I have no problem saying I'm wrong. All that does seem to suggest Moe needed to die.

But, it's the great thing about this series. There are so many contradictory views, thoughts and so on within the narrative. It really makes you think and have to separate the bullshit that gets thrown in along with what's really going on.
“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,

H

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« Reply #22 on: April 20, 2017, 01:04:35 pm »
All great points, H. Thank you. See, I like I nice explanation. And, I have no problem saying I'm wrong. All that does seem to suggest Moe needed to die.

But, it's the great thing about this series. There are so many contradictory views, thoughts and so on within the narrative. It really makes you think and have to separate the bullshit that gets thrown in along with what's really going on.

Well, you know, far be it from me to proclaim "correctness," I merely attempt to find logical inferences that can plausibly be made from the text.

In this case, I think it is fair to read such an inevitability to what happened, even if it seemed implausible at the time.  Kind of how it seems implausible to let Akka live at the end of TTT, yet we know why he was now.

To return this to the issue of witness:

Quote
I tell you, guilt dwells nowhere but in the eyes of the accuser. This men know even as they deny it, which is why they so often make murder their absolution. The truth of crime lies not with the victim but with the witness.
—HATATIAN, EXHORTATIONS

Chapter 2 of TTT, epigraph.

While I haven't fully worked it out, I think a key to understanding the importance of the Judging Eye and so Mimara, is that the Eye is the perennial witness.  What the ultimately means though, I'm not too sure.
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

BeardFisher-King

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« Reply #23 on: April 20, 2017, 03:08:31 pm »
To return this to the issue of witness:

Quote
I tell you, guilt dwells nowhere but in the eyes of the accuser. This men know even as they deny it, which is why they so often make murder their absolution. The truth of crime lies not with the victim but with the witness.
—HATATIAN, EXHORTATIONS

Chapter 2 of TTT, epigraph.

While I haven't fully worked it out, I think a key to understanding the importance of the Judging Eye and so Mimara, is that the Eye is the perennial witness.  What the ultimately means though, I'm not too sure.

Going back to Kellhus' Imprompta sermon counseling the knight, Kellhus declares, "Witness is seeing that testifies, that judges so it may be judged." I'm guessing that the Judging Eye will be the Great Clarifier of matters in TUC.
"The heart of any other, because it has a will, would remain forever mysterious."

-from "Snow Falling On Cedars", by David Guterson

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« Reply #24 on: April 21, 2017, 08:25:03 pm »
Just a random thought I had, but it occurred to me that it is possible that Minara's role might be as the "ultimate" witness.  She will witness the No-God and be it's undoing and she will witness the fruition of the Thousandfold Thought and judge Kellhus to be somehow holy, which will sanctify everything he has done.

I'm not even sure what some of that means, but it was a stray thought I just had and figured I should post it, in case it might make sense to anyone else.
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 #25 on: April 25, 2017, 01:38:16 am »
Fair enough.

I think no matter how you slice it, Moe had to die.  I don't think that Kellhus is lying when he thinks to himself that the Thought has outgrown "the soul of it's incubation" (i.e. Moe) and so I do think that the Thought would have needed him gone in that moment or a subsequent one, regardless of anything else.  I think that even with all the victories that Moe had over the world, to gain control of the Cishaurim, to engineer the Holy War, to draw Kellhus to him, and so on, he was wrong on several things.

One, he thought the world was "closed" and that the Outside was not a major influence on the Inside.  We know this is plainly false.  Two, he imagined that he possessed the Thought, when it was the opposite, most probably.  The Thought used him, not the other way around.  Three, failing to recognize both those factors, he totally misses what Kellhus will be when he arrives.  Moe imagines himself the engine, where he is really just yet another cog.

For these reasons, Moe is an anachronism in the "New World" of Kellhus.  Indeed, so are the Dunyain themselves.  They all die, necessarily.  They were tools in a bigger plan, discarded once they were of no use.

“The days are new Chigra … And far shorter than the old.”

H IS A GENIUS