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2461
Chapter 7:

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“Sompas says lights were sighted on your private terrace,” Conphas remarked. His tone was offhand in the probing way of devious family members. “What was it?” he asked, glancing at the man. “Some four or five days ago?”

I presume these were lights from the Synthese?

Not much else in this chapter I found for analysis.  The whole episode with Conphas escaping and reinforcements arriving, I don't know that Kellhus would have actually predicted this, but I think he knew something was going to happen.  Setting Cnaiür and Conphas against each other and apart from the Holy War, I think Kellhus figured that one would destroy the other and so leave him with only one problem in the end.

2462
Atrocity Tales / Re: The inverse fire.
« on: February 17, 2016, 08:05:01 pm »
Nothing deceives so completely as does truth.

Especially when the "truth" is brought to you as exactly what you want to hear.

No one wants damnation, but what the Inverse Fire shows, perhaps, is so factual, so seemingly determined, that it grants you escapism through the most extreme nihilism.  Damnation is insurmountable, salvation seemingly unobtainable, so hence why the Consult takes the alternative route of disabling damnation, not seeking salvation.

2463
I think it is plausible to think that perhaps Kellhus is actually working to defeat the Consult, but at the same time, achieve their same goal (minus all the murder).

I feel there is a good chance that what Kellhus wants is the sealing off of the world from the Outside, this way everything is calculable, everything is determinable and so being truly self-moving is possible.

2464

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So, I wonder if Kellhus really spoke to Seswatha?  Or, was it simply a trick to get Akka to be more submissive in the face of Seswatha?

You know, I've noticed that so far we've haven't had any POV's from Kellhus and I find myself wanting to believe everything he says and that indeed he has come around to the cause of good. Or, how should I put it? That he doesn't have other plans for the Holy War, that everything he says is sincere. You have to continually remind yourself.

Yeah, I find myself having to "snap back" after the fact.  Like, reading Kellhus' words basically leads you right where he wants you, it's only after that I say, wait a minute, I know there must be something else going on...

Relevant quote from Scott:

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We humans tend to be a credulous of everything save our credulity -- something I forgot while writing the first draft of The Warrior-Prophet. Originally, my idea was to slowly 'externalize' Kellhus, to move away from his POV and show more and more of his manipulation from the outside. I'd have a wicked gleam in my eye as I wrote, thinking 'What a sneaky bastard!' But my readers kept coming back to me with things like, 'I'm so relieved Kellhus is coming around!' It turned out that Kellhus was duping them as thoroughly as he was duping the characters! They knew he wasn't trustworthy, just as we all know commercials aren't trustworthy, and yet the instinct to think 'Ah, it's OK,' is just so strong (which is why advertisers continue using the tactics they do).

This was perhaps the second greatest difficulty I had writing Kellhus: depicting him in such a way that my readers would always have a sense of the distance between his claims and his intentions. I'm still not happy with the way I resolved this problem.

I've said before, that even since my first read of TWP, I felt like there was something up with the "Kellhus-as-the-good-guy" idea.  The fact that the Consult so so clearly "not good" certainly leads us to side with Kellhus, since we can say, "well, he's not as bad as them."  In the end though, neither of them is "good" which always leads me to my (mostly joking) idea that the No-God is the real hero.

2465
Chapter 6:

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“There’s beauty—so much beauty—in what we see,” he said with mock eloquence. “But there’s truth in what we smell.”

While Zin says this as a joke, it has an air of truth about it, considering how we know blindness to be important to the Psukhe.

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With a shrug, Achamian gazed at the weapon, found himself captivated by the multiple ghosts that formed about the spinning blade’s axis. He had the sense of watching silver through dancing water, then …

So, I wonder if Kellhus really spoke to Seswatha?  Or, was it simply a trick to get Akka to be more submissive in the face of Seswatha?

2466
Also, Kosoter isn't a Lord though, right?  At least, as far as we know.

2467
Achamian notes two dreams in particular manifest while teaching Kellhus, and notes that he can almost see the pattern of their dreams:

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Strangely enough, the Dreams themselves had become more bearable. Tywanrae and Dagliash continued to predominate, though as always he couldn’t fathom why they should follow this or any other rhythm of events. They were like swallows, swooping and circling in aimless patterns, sketching something almost, yet never quite, a language.

We touched on Daliash in the last thread, the battle at Tywanrae fords was a huge defeat in the First Apocalypse, due to Akssersia relying only on Chorae alone to combat the Consult's sorcerers. In the first book, Simas analogizes this battle to what would happen if Maithanet called a Holy War against the Fanim, as they were unaware of the object of the Holy War and the Scarlet Spires' involvement at that point. If the dreams are warnings, it might suggest there will be no sorcerers who can match Kellhus, repeating what happened at Tywanrae.

This is a quote I like in general but also was one of the passages that led to my Inchoroi Crash Space theory which I posted in the inverse fire thread:

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Nothing, Achamian had long ago decided, was quite so dangerous as boredom in the absence of scruples.

Here's something that just occurred to me about the dreams of Dagliash.  Akka's situation could bee seen as an inversion of Seswatha's at Dagliash.

So, where Seswatha is captured, Akka goes freely.  Where Seswatha is tortured, Akka is instead compelled.  All with (essentially) the same aim, acquiring the weapon needed to defeat the No-God (Consult), which was once the Heron Spear, but is now the Gnosis.

Alright, that might be a stretch, but just came to me as I finished chapter 5.

The meeting between Cnaiür and the synthese is particularly important.  I think that Aurang does actually come to realize that they have been played with this Holy War at this point.

As for Crash Space Incoroi, the transhuman aspect of the series, both Inchoroi and Nonmen, was something I had brought up before (although I am not sure if someone else did before that too).  I think that the allegory is pretty real in the series, the danger of attempting to master one's nature and the law of unintended consequences.

2468
H., I believe Kellhus is referring to Inri Sejenus there.

Ah, yeah, that makes more sense.  And yet, a deeper implication too, because we know why he is really going to Shimeh?

2469
General Earwa / Re: the No-God, the Logos, and Zen Koans
« on: February 15, 2016, 01:20:33 pm »
Well, I didn't mean to imply that the No-God is a Zen construction or something, just that the phrase was no doubt inspired by the Koan.

2470
Atrocity Tales / Re: The inverse fire.
« on: February 15, 2016, 01:09:36 pm »
Yeah, it can definitely be both true and a goad at the same time. My point with the Nonmen though is that they never claim to have joined the Consult to save their souls. As Mekeretrig says:

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  “These . . . these Sranc are our children now. But before! Before, you were our children. Our heart had been cut out and so we cradled yours. Companions to the ‘great’Norsirai kings.”
  The Nonman stepped nearer.
  “But no longer,”he continued. “As the ages waxed, some of us needed more than your childish squabbles to remember. Some of us needed a more exquisite brutality than any of your feuds could render. The great curse of our kind—do you know it? Of course you know it! What slave fails to exult in his master’s degradation."

Also, Wutteat mentions the 144,000 reductions as something they've done on other planets, suggesting that the Revelations of Ganus the Blind is another example of the Inchoroi engineering Three Seas culture. It also makes it sound legitimate, but it could also just be a part of the farce they play on planet to planet.

As always, great points H. This is just another one of my crackpots that I think would be fascinating if it upended everything we thought we knew about the series.

Sent from my SCH-I605 using Tapatalk

Well, one "problem" we have, so far, is that we really don't know much about the Nonmen that aren't Erratics.

While it isn't presented as such, the mystery of Ishterebinth is a pretty big one, since your question of why more Nonmen aren't in the Consult is a pretty good one.  My best guess is that the Siqu came up with something to keep them at least somewhat intact.  Perhaps because of this, because Ishterebinth remembers, they are poised between two hard choices: accept damnation or join those who damned them.  The envoy they send to Kellhus certainly seems rather intact.  He remembers Dagliash and more importantly remembers Hanalinqu.

This could explain why most of Ishterebinth isn't in league with the Consult, but we know from Aurang that they have spies there.  Perhaps the weaker willed among those Nonmen left do fear for their souls.  Perhaps those with weaker memories, or those that didn't lose wives or daughters to the Womb-plauge.

One thing I think is a linchpin of most of my theories is that I disbelieve that Aurang is an outright liar.  In fact, I think he is often rather truthful, in so far as he presents facts.  Why he is the "Angel of Deceit" though is because the facts are laced with incompleteness.  He didn't lie when he offered immortality, he simply didn't present to Cû'jara Cinmoi all the side-effect that would come with it.  Let's be real though, I'm sure Cû'jara Cinmoi didn't even bother to ask and even if he had, I'm sure Aurang would have spun something up to obfuscate the real implications.

2471
On to Chapter 4 this morning:

It begins with the skin-spy Istriya killing Xerius, not much new learned there.

The next part is curious, it's an awfully long section that is seemingly just to tell us that Maithanet traveled.  I can't help but feel there must be something I am missing here, but I have never been able to find it.

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Whenever Achamian asked him why he continued to march on Shimeh when the Fanim were no more than a distraction, he always said, “If I’m to succeed my brother, I must reclaim his house.”

Curious that Kellhus refers to Moe as his "brother" and I think this is in part to keep Akka from knowing his true intentions.  There is also the possibiliy that Kellhus really does regard Moe more as a brother than a father, considering that, in reality, he was raised by the Pragma not his father (or, presumably, his mother).

Chapter 5 tomorrow though.

2472
General Earwa / Re: TSACast (SA Podcast)
« on: February 12, 2016, 05:36:55 pm »
I don't remember where Scott said it, but he also said that Mek's statement "for and against the No-God" should have actually said "for and against the Consult."

2473
I felt like it was Kellhus.  Sure, word of mouth would have taken it to him also, but not on Kellhus' terms and schedule.

2474
In Caraskand, Serwe asks Kellhus for his father's name and is surprised when he replies "Moenghus".  So at that point, Serwe still thinks that Kellhus' father is Aethelarias, king of Atrithau. 

Is Cnaiur the only one who knows the truth of Kellhus' mission?  He mentions Moenghus in his ravings toward the end of TWP -- maybe within earshot of the skin-spy?

Well, Aurang doesn't seem to know Moënghus' name though.  He just refers to him as "The Dûnyain."

I think Aurang must have pieced it together from what they learned from the Serwe encounter.

2475
General Earwa / Re: On the Nature of the No-God
« on: February 11, 2016, 05:55:57 pm »
H., I like the parallel there with purgatory. The Wight was neither living or a demon (ciphrang) of the outside. So, while I don't know exactly what happened there, the chorae seemed to hold it in its place (purgatory). Rather than killing it or banishing it to The Outside. That actually makes a ton of sense.

YOU SHALL NOT PASS!!!!

It also sort of explains why the Battleplain is referenced in the glossary with the following line: “[The] soul that encounters Him passes no further.”  It's not just the Battleplain then, that just happened to be the biggest and most famous topoi (besides Golgotterath, but no one that goes there really comes back).

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