[The Sharmat]

In my mind though, I think that what we are seeing there is more of a Ajokli-spiked-Kellhus, rather than just Ajokli.  To me, Ajokli making pacts with Hell really doesn't make much sense, since he (seemingly) would already have tremendous power there.

There's the tiniest spark of suspicion in the back of my mind that the truth of Ajokli's nature/origins isn't quite as simple as we've been led to believe. Yeah, Cnaiur becomes Ajokli at the end of TUC. That's pretty clear.

But just who is Cnaiur at that point? He's spent 20 years hating Kelhus, hunting Kellhus, devoting his every moment, every last smoking swazond of his crocodilian soul to seeing Kellhus brought to ruin. But hatred binds souls even more surely than love. He is still Kellhus' puppet. His soul is entirely bent around the head-on-a-pole that is Kellhus. Goaded by the hatred that Kellhus seeded in him, he has made himself into the perfect place for Kellhus to hide from the judgement of the Outside.

That's why Ajokli cannot find Kellhus' soul. Because a god cannot look inside himself. Ajokli is, at least in a sense, both Cnaiur and Kellhus, because he was created by Kellhus's soul acting upon (moving) Cnaiur's soul.

The scene in the Golden Room and Malowebi's revelation mirrors Cnaiur-as-Ajokli's blindness perfectly. Ajokli is carried into the World hidden inside Kellhus, and Kellhus is carried into the Outside hidden inside Ajokli.

And if I'm right about all that, then it actually makes perfect sense that we cannot find a logical division between Kellhus speaking and Ajokli speaking in the Golden Room scene. Because neither Kellhus nor Ajokli can tell where one starts and the other ends either. Statements that don't make sense from either standpoint exclusively are exactly what we should expect there.

I now confidently expect, at the end of TSTMNBN, to read of Mimara gazing upon Ajokli with the Judging Eye and seeing Cnaiur and Kellhus. Fucking.

(Of course, my track record with this sort of thing is abysmal, so...)

I like this a lot. They're only the Absolute as a system. Individually, each is moving/manipulating/hunting the other. Intellect and hunger. Taken as a single entity though, the system is moving itself. It bootstraps itself into existence and gives itself power from nothing.

Poor Cnaiür.

[The Sharmat]

Thought experiment: What happens if we have two sorcerers using the Cants of Compulsion on each other simultaneously? How would anyone differentiate those two souls? Would they become (at least temporarily) a single self-moving soul?.

This works both here and as potential fodder for the Shauriatas-Mutilated crackpot.

[Duskweaver]

I like this a lot. They're only the Absolute as a system. Individually, each is moving/manipulating/hunting the other. Intellect and hunger. Taken as a single entity though, the system is moving itself. It bootstraps itself into existence and gives itself power from nothing.

It's very Michael Kirkbride / Elder Scrolls, isn't it?

[The Sharmat]

At least it's not literally eating itself in violation of all natural laws like the corprus dudes.

[Madness]

In my mind though, I think that what we are seeing there is more of a Ajokli-spiked-Kellhus, rather than just Ajokli.  To me, Ajokli making pacts with Hell really doesn't make much sense, since he (seemingly) would already have tremendous power there.

This is why I prefer attributing all dialogue by Kellhus in the Golden Room to Ajokli because the implications are more interesting to consider, as far as my reading has gone.

We don't know anything about why Ajokli differs from the other Gods, why he's sometimes companion or foil, what he "sees that the other Gods do not" (as it's clearly not the No-God, as readers have long assumed, as per Cnaiur-cum-Ajokli at the end). We don't know that he doesn't have to make pacts with the agencies in the Hells to achieve his worldly dynasty.

EDIT2: It's also just occurred to me that the second Decapitant (who was presumably either Ajokli or Kellhus' own head) seems to have vanished when we return to Malowebi's PoV following Kellhus' salting.

Is that right? Most interesting.

[Khaine]

A question from a friend of mine which I think is pertinent:

How do you build a machine that ponders eternity inside space-time?

In other words how do we know the Inverse Fire shows what it purports to show?

[SmilerLoki]

A question from a friend of mine which I think is pertinent:

How do you build a machine that ponders eternity inside space-time?

In other words how do we know the Inverse Fire shows what it purports to show?

I asked Bakker pretty much the same question, just worded much more generally. His answer is here:
http://www.second-apocalypse.com/index.php?topic=2278.msg36469#msg36469

[Lonnie Slidell]

http://rantswithintheundeadgod.blogspot.ca/2017/08/the-fraud-of-theology.html

Theology is mostly literary criticism, and it's always a good idea to be mindful of that.

[Madness]

http://rantswithintheundeadgod.blogspot.ca/2017/08/the-fraud-of-theology.html

Theology is mostly literary criticism, and it's always a good idea to be mindful of that.

Slidell, I'm not sure if you've followed Bakker's blog (where Ben Cain is a sometimes guest blogger) or Cain's fiction thread here. There a number of RWTUD readers here.