TLEILAXU: DNA is relatively inert, it contains only instructions for the machines that read it to make more machines.

Ehh, I can quibble but you are mostly right. Fine, RNA then! For those who are not familiar with this topic, this has to do with a debate on the origin of life. Specifically, the question is which came first, the code (nucleic acid) or the machinery (protein)? As things stand now, the code (DNA) is, as TLEILAXU says, mostly inert; it contains the information on how, when, and in what quantity to build the machinery of life (proteins); the machines (proteins) do the works of life, including making more DNA, but contain no transmittable information. Right now they work in a perfect partnership. Most people, however, believe that it's improbable that both should arise simultaneously. One proposed solution is that in the early days of life, a generalist did both (encode information and act on it), such as RNA, and only later this job was split into two and handed to two specialists (DNA and protein).

So when an RNA molecule transmits information to itself and modifies itself, is it not in sense acting both as a subject and an object? Is not the world SEALED AGAINST THE OUTSIDE?! 

TaoHorror: ...in real time read, it wasn't hitting home with me that the entire thing could/would unravel from the Daimos. This being my favorite fiction of all time, it is imperfect and I think Bakker thought a little too much of us to get some of this

These are exactly my thoughts. Looking back Kellhus' solution makes sense, but as the story was told, there were just too many other things going on and I didn't really see it coming.

BTW this would make a good poll question (if it had not been asked before on this forum): how many people saw the Ajokli (or some sort of god) solution coming?

Also, it's interesting to trace Kellhus' possible logic. Once he began to understand the nature of damnation, Daimos, and Gnosis, he sought to "come before." But how do you come before the gods? You have to have god-like power and knowledge ("Gnosis" is thus the perfectly named double entendre). But then why did the other surviving Dunyain not come to the same solution? Maybe it's a matter of lack of time. Or they just never learned Gnosis (all the Erratics are nuts so they don't make good teachers; Aurang could have taught them, but perhaps he/it was just too busy humping some corpse somewhere?) It should be noted that Moenghus (Kellhus' old man) also did not learn the Gnosis, and Kellhus judged him to be a Consult-member-in-waiting and shivved him.

If Kellhus did sought to "come before" Ajokli, then it's interesting to speculate what his real plans were. Near the end when his head became "a jetting torch" and was ranting and raving about the world as a "pierced fruit," it's clear that it was not Kellhus but Ajokli talking. But when Kelmomas came, Kellhus seemed to snap back. This means the possession was not complete, and Kellhus was still at least in some control. So I think Kellhus' plan was to lure Ajokli into our world, use its power to destroy the Consult, and somehow stab it in the back.

themerchant: Akka's changing dreams or indeed the dreams themselves are another thing that just exists.

I think they revealed to him how to find Ishual, so there was some purpose. But I also seem to remember them implying Nau-Cayuti was Seswatha's son? If so, then Achamian and Mimara's baby was also a candidate for the no-god sarcophagus? Maybe that's why Mimara's Judging Eye was struck blind when she tried to look at her own belly.

On the other hand they are at the exact location where sorweel was overwhelmed by the joyous and continuous song that used to fill that location, he even notes how special it was to hear the voices of women and children singing there.

This.

It must be admitted that meta-gnostic may be able to defeat the collar, so sorcery is possible.  And that "fire and ruin" bit is difficult to interpret around.  Yet I think for her to just massacre all the ghouls there would be far less dramatic than for her to conquer them with her singing voice, which it's implied that she can do -- using it to remind them of their glory days, to inspire them, to make them feel once again the anguish of lost beauty.  After all, isn't that what the Erratics crave?  To feel?

Also, when Kellhus says to show his "dread portion," my first reaction was also to interpret it as meta-gnostic sorcery.  But Kellhus' other, arguably even greater, sorcery, is to conquer the hearts of others.  It seems quite possible that this is what he means.

Besides, it seems to me the sorcery interpretation has one further difficulty: it has long been clear the Ishterebinth has been seized by a pro-Consult faction.  If Serwa had wanted to destroy all of them for it and had always been able to do so (the collar was actually not effective), then why did she wait so long?

The whale-mothers thing reminded me a lot of daemoncubala from Warhammer 40k

So much heresy...

Is there any fanfiction out there where another alien race hunts the Inchoroi across the cosmos for their wickedness and finally finds them in Earwa and deliver some righteous macro cannon ammo and lance strike?  No?

Out of curiosity, what makes it not comparable to PoN?

I just mean that Prince of Nothing is an extraordinary breakthrough that pretty much has no peer in the tradition of high fantasy.  Other novels, even in the same series, just won't have that de novo, so to speak, originality.

OK, so Kellhus survived, right?  Or have I just completely messed up reading that part?

That whole italicized section right after Kellhus sees Esmenet -- what was it?  It seems to describe a chorae being thrown at Kellhus and got a glancing hit -- by whom?  Esmenet?  Then it seems to describe his death after being killed by a knife thrown by the Narindar.  I would have called the whole section one outcome of the probability trance, except the writing seems to betray no sense that this is from Kellhus' perspective.

Then later we switch to regular font, so I guess this is "for real."  Now there's no chorae.  No thrown knife either.  In fact, the text says "The Narindar shook his head, stared down aghast at his hands.  His ears wept blood."  Does this mean he couldn't even find a knife to throw?  And what does it mean to say "his ears wept blood?"  Finally, the text says Kellhus "striding out toward the Circumfix Throne," then a huge stone fell, "crashing upon the very spot where Father had stood."  "Had stood," past perfect tense, instead of just "stood," which means our most holy Aspect-Emperor has not been reduced to tomato paste, right?