Cishaurim

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« on: May 15, 2013, 12:10:11 am »
Quote from: Octavian
I just finished a reread of the first series I and I have to say that I found the Cishaurim to be more interesting this time around. Notably in the raw power that they yield. The Scarlet Spires thought them to be less powerful than Anagogic Schools but the battle for Shimeh proved that to be otherwise and I totally forgot about the way that they assassinated the former Grandmaster of the Scarlet Spires.

With that said, I am surprised that the Probability Trance did not show Kellhus a way to implement them in TTT. More maybe it did but was not beneficial? I understand that there was no way to keep them alive being that they were the priests of a heretic religion, but the fact that their sorcery was markless is something that captivates me.

We know that some gods at least war against Kellhus, yet the Cishaurim bare no mark and it was never stated that the gods were blind to them as they are to the no god. Yet they were not actively against them, even though they took away many of their followers. Does they attest to the rightness of Fanim? If so, what does it mean now that it is gone. Thoughts?

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« Reply #1 on: May 15, 2013, 12:10:17 am »
Quote from: Callan S.
I think, circumspectly, it's said that the gods are blind to the Cish. Essentially the gods cannot tell the difference between the emotional outburst of a Cish using magic, and the gods own emotional outbursts/the world. Maybe someone with a higher lore stat will be able to correct me on that?

Much like his father, I suspect Kellhus's store of 'waters' is low. And the fact it's not all that compatable with his operating system means he didn't want to rely on it (too much a variable).

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« Reply #2 on: May 15, 2013, 12:10:22 am »
Quote from: sciborg2
Who knows the role Meppa plays in the TTT? ;-)

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« Reply #3 on: May 15, 2013, 12:10:26 am »
Quote from: The Sharmat
I'm not convinced Moenghus' aquifer didn't run far deeper than he let Kellhus believe. It could be propaganda, but Mallahet was apparently quite a big deal.

This metaphor is getting strained.

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« Reply #4 on: May 15, 2013, 12:10:31 am »
Quote from: Sideris
He was well respected, if I recall, among the Cish. Yet watched at with a wary eye. He didn't have the full capability to play them like fiddles without his eyes. He may have been lying, but he most likely isn't such a beast with the water. But he had more than enough spry energy (combo'd with the waters) to wipe the floor with the skin spies. The Cish fascinated me since I started reading the books. Hell, I half thought Xin would receive the waters (in a somewhat typical high fantasy mindset at the time, which was odd, because I'd not had a flash of that old thinking in years).

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« Reply #5 on: May 15, 2013, 12:10:36 am »
Quote from: Octavian
In regards to Big Moe's power with The Water I find myself caught somewhere between what the Scarlet Spires believe it to be and what Kellhus said they actually were. I don't have the books on hand, but I remember him wanting Cnaiur to do something that seemed like it would have saved him, or at least he was wanting to try it.

Also the entire time he was speaking with Kellhus, Kellhus thought him to be without his snakes, but when he stabbed him, they came out of the walls. What did he gain by not having them on his person?

@Callan

I can understand them being blind to the Cish, but did they not sense that they suddenly started to lose a ton of followers who are now actively worshipping something else? The Fanim came to dominate a huge part of the Three Seas.

Also, during my reread I totally forgot that the No God was described by Kellhus as he was hanging from the tree. Or was that something else?

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« Reply #6 on: May 15, 2013, 12:10:43 am »
Quote from: Sideris
I always took that as some trippy-ass vision brought on by delusional horror, but knowing Bakker, it may have been real. Kellhus had been going a bit mad ever since he left Ishual.

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« Reply #7 on: May 15, 2013, 12:10:48 am »
Quote from: lockesnow
Kellhus says that Cishaurim rely on emotion, Bakker says Cishaurim rely on intention. 

If Kellhus is right, Moenghus is weak in the water.  If Bakker is right, no Dunyain should have trouble changing the intention of their utterals/inutterals (or whatever the Cish equivalent is for water) and Moe should have mastered/invented the Meta-water.

We should also consider that Moe has probably interrogated Seswatha as well, as it would be easy for him to capture a mandati and then persuade it to let him speak to the homonculus.  Moe doesn't need to have ever used the gnosis, but the knowledge would be helpful, as would the knowledge Seswatha has of the apocalypse.  That knowledge would be essential to his probability trance and in understanding the skin spies, so I can't imagine he'd leave that possibility unexplored.

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« Reply #8 on: May 15, 2013, 12:10:53 am »
Quote from: Madness
I think assuming that Moenghus captured a Mandate Schoolman is a little presumptuous, lockesnow.

Also, Octavian, I would argue that Moenghus doesn't have his snakes until the end because he knew exactly how every moment of their interactions would unfold up until that point.

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« Reply #9 on: May 15, 2013, 12:10:57 am »
Quote from: Sideris
Moenghus, after all, did have thirty years in the world of Men to know how all of this would unfold and machinate as he willed.

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« Reply #10 on: May 15, 2013, 12:11:03 am »
Quote from: Octavian
But he did not. The Probability Trance failed him as to what would happen to Kellhus after he was crucified. He knew Kellhus would come to him, but did not know the state he would be in and thought him bat shit crazy when Kellhus told him that he heard voices.

As stated, Moe had 30 years in the world, 30 years of structuring TTT. I don't know, it just seems weird to me that we did not come to the conclusion that Kellhus want see that he would eventually side with the Consult. Or maybe he did expect Kellhus to see that and thought that he would join him?

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« Reply #11 on: May 15, 2013, 12:11:08 am »
Quote from: lockesnow
Presumably Moe had reached the limits of what he was capable of within the structures of the Cish, within the strictures of being on the fanim side of things.  Within the strictures of disfiguring his body as a scylvendi.  That's why he needed/summoned Kellhus and didn't send Kellhus straight to Shimeh, but diverted him through an inrithi path.  Note, that Moe tried to educate Kellhus with visions of wars and histories but the dunyain all dismissed all those dreams, other than the 'send me my son' command.

It's a pretty big assumption to think he needed Kell because he had reached limits, though. one I think that is wrong.

Crackpot, was Moe out of sight, but up in the Demua mountains when he summoned Kellhus?  No Sranc bothered Kellhus--which is insane considering the hundreds of miles he traversed.  He managed to get to the outer edges of Atraithau country and even landed in Leweth's lap--almost as though he were being herded.   Then he was herded directly to Cnaiur's settlement, probably by Sranc under Moe's control. 

It could even be argued that Moe had engineered the Scylvendi/inrithi battle so that Kellhus' path would be even more clear.

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« Reply #12 on: May 15, 2013, 12:11:13 am »
Quote from: Madness
In The World Conspires thread we were discussing the coincidences, a little, that led Kellhus to Skiotha's mound. That aside.

"I bear a message from your Father. He says, 'You walk the Shortest Path. Soon you will grasp the Thousandfold Thought.'" p.579, TWP

"Sooner or later the caste-nobility had to move against you. Crisis was inevitable ... This," the eyeless face said, "was where the Probability Trance failed me..." p.338, TTT LE

"How," his father finally said, "could you know this?"
"Because I know why you were compelled to summon me."
Scrutiny. Calculation.
"So you have grasped it."
"Yes ... the Thousandfold Thought." p. 340, TTT LE

Moenghus lied to Kellhus in TTT and Kellhus seems deceived by this.

"His father, Kellhus realized, had finally grasped the principles of this encounter. Moenghus had assumed his son would be the one requiring instruction. He had not foreseen it as possible, let alone inevitable, that the Thousandfold Thought would outgrow the soul of its incubation - and discard it." p.374, TTT LE

Except it seems the Conditioned Ground was Moenghus' that day. In TWP, he explicitly lets his son know that he will grasp the Thousandfold Thought but then, in the conversation in TTT, he does not mention it until Kellhus does, even though he knows Kellhus has indeed grasped the Thought.

Then there is the snake issue. Why would Moenghus not have his snakes, if not due to premeditation?

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« Reply #13 on: May 15, 2013, 12:11:19 am »
Quote from: Callan S.
Quote from: Octavian
@Callan

I can understand them being blind to the Cish, but did they not sense that they suddenly started to lose a ton of followers who are now actively worshipping something else? The Fanim came to dominate a huge part of the Three Seas.

Also, during my reread I totally forgot that the No God was described by Kellhus as he was hanging from the tree. Or was that something else?
Yeah, well that's fiddley. People can be damned for not believing the right things, but unlike a sorcerer, they don't get a mark upon them for doing it. So you could be damned for following Fane (I don't know if the worlds characters are, just saying you could), but as usual show no mark for that 'false' belief. So perhaps Cish are damned, but not sorcerers mark damned, as they are free of that.

'damned' being shorthand for captured by a giant torture machine, I'll note in my quest for meaninglessness, lol...... ...

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« Reply #14 on: May 15, 2013, 12:11:25 am »
Quote from: Madness
Quote from: Madness
It's pretty explicit from the texts that Shauriatas is surviving Grandmaster of the Mengaecca from 1123 when the School is outlawed because "Shaeonanra, then Grandmaster of the Mangaecca, had discovered a catastrophic means to undo the scriptural damnation of sorcerers." (p.464, TTT LE)

Shaeonanra becomes known as Shauriatas, Cheater of the Gods, some four hundred years later.

Also, it's interesting to note that the Inchoroi themselves are responsible for the belief in the "scriptural damnation of sorcerers." And Nonmen, for that matter. Though the Judging Eye suggests that Achamian is damned - whether that is because of his sorcery or not, the text is ambiguous.

This from my post in the How Strong Is the Tekne thread. My bolding for context here.

I think that this is something Bakker has just slipped in subversively. Though the ideas that Sorcery and the Nonmen are damned have drastically shaped human society in Earwa, even our perspectives and experiences of the books, the Inchoroi were the ones who added these imperatives to the dogma when inscribing Mankind's beliefs on the Tusk.

Perhaps sorcerers weren't ever even damned? Unless, of course, they enslaved a Ciphrang.