The Slog TTT - Final March: Chapters 4-6 [Spoilers]

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themerchant

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« Reply #30 on: February 25, 2016, 10:09:09 pm »
Needs to send dreams to Saubon so he leaves Carksand and takes out Conphas. Plus uses it to add another inutteral and create his teleport spell.

profgrape

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« Reply #31 on: February 25, 2016, 10:14:02 pm »
Good call on Saubon, themerchant.

I've always figured he'd reasoned that a super-charged Cant of Calling could become a Cant of Transposing.  So he wanted to start there so he could master it?

MSJ

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« Reply #32 on: February 26, 2016, 02:02:02 am »
Will sending dreams to someone without the Mark (Saubon), give them a Mark, since sorcery is being used? Like how the Pragmas said they were unclean and committed suicide (which I don't buy).
“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,

themerchant

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« Reply #33 on: February 26, 2016, 12:10:14 pm »
I doubt it,  i've always thought three things on the Dunyain.

One moe is just sending the dreams to everyone he knows as stated. that's it.

Or Moe needs someone to come to him and also wants to clear his tracks so contacts everyone he knows predicting they will kill themselves, only Dunyain that knows Moe is Kellhus now.

Moe and his pals are in cahoots.

H

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« Reply #34 on: February 26, 2016, 12:11:05 pm »
Will sending dreams to someone without the Mark (Saubon), give them a Mark, since sorcery is being used? Like how the Pragmas said they were unclean and committed suicide (which I don't buy).

No, I don't believe it will Mark them, since they haven't used sorcery themselves.

And on the Pragma, no, I think they killed themselves because they knew they couldn't keep the whole plan under wraps from Kellhus.  Someone else would need to lie to him, he would see through them directly.  That's the only way it makes sense to me, even though there are issues with that interpretation too.
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

themerchant

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« Reply #35 on: February 26, 2016, 12:46:55 pm »
Are they described as "Pragma" or just the brethren that Moe knew?

Stopping Moe from being able to communicate again. As everyone he knew in Ishual is now dead.Might be an answer. Which raises questions of it's own. Moe i think continually kept calling them, that's why they had a protocol to meet etc.

H

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« Reply #36 on: February 26, 2016, 12:55:18 pm »
Are they described as "Pragma" or just the brethren that Moe knew?

Stopping Moe from being able to communicate again. As everyone he knew in Ishual is now dead.Might be an answer. Which raises questions of it's own. Moe i think continually kept calling them, that's why they had a protocol to meet etc.

Good point.  The word Pragma is not used:

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Distant figures filed between the battlements before disappearing behind stone—the elder Dûnyain abandoning their vigil. They would wind down the mighty staircases, Kellhus knew, and one by one enter the darkness of the Thousand Thousand Halls, the great Labyrinth that wheeled through the depths beneath Ishuäl. There they would die, as had been decided. All those his father had polluted.

Your theory seems pretty probable actually.
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

profgrape

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« Reply #37 on: February 26, 2016, 03:19:33 pm »
Will sending dreams to someone without the Mark (Saubon), give them a Mark, since sorcery is being used? Like how the Pragmas said they were unclean and committed suicide (which I don't buy).

Based on that's presented in the text, Anagogic/Gnostic calling is only between Sorcerers (the Caller and Compas).  The only example of calling between a Sorcerer and a non-sorcerer is the case with Moenghus and the Dunyain.

The likely explanation is that the metaphysics of the Psukhe allow for making a different sort of connection.  Or that it's an authorial inconsistency -- it happens right in the beginning and I could imagine things having shifted by the time we get the Compass/Caller explanation in TTT.

The more fun answer, of course, is that the Dunyain contacted by Moenghus were actually Sorcerers themselves.

locke

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« Reply #38 on: February 26, 2016, 03:42:02 pm »

Will sending dreams to someone without the Mark (Saubon), give them a Mark, since sorcery is being used? Like how the Pragmas said they were unclean and committed suicide (which I don't buy).

Based on that's presented in the text, Anagogic/Gnostic calling is only between Sorcerers (the Caller and Compas).  The only example of calling between a Sorcerer and a non-sorcerer is the case with Moenghus and the Dunyain.

The likely explanation is that the metaphysics of the Psukhe allow for making a different sort of connection.  Or that it's an authorial inconsistency -- it happens right in the beginning and I could imagine things having shifted by the time we get the Compass/Caller explanation in TTT.

The more fun answer, of course, is that the Dunyain contacted by Moenghus were actually Sorcerers themselves.
kellhus could have been conditioned to receive dreams as a sorcerer receives dreams, he just doesn't know it. And no one other than kellhus had to actually receive dreams, they just had to agree with kellhus that they had received dreams as well and he believed them. :)


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themerchant

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« Reply #39 on: February 26, 2016, 05:43:52 pm »
All bets are off with a Dunyain. Maybe Akka needs a compass and caller which i'm semi-sure isn't stated as the only way anyway, just the way they do it.

Also Esme is asked by Theli "has father stopped communicating with you" and displays shock, Esme also states right at the end of her part in WLW "who do you think he sends his holy dreams to"

So Kellhus at least is thought to be able to send dreams to a non-sorcerer by his daughter.

That's without going into, it's a different magic system and he's Dunyain, with regards Moe.

H

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« Reply #40 on: February 26, 2016, 05:54:25 pm »
Yeah, it's probable that the meta-Gnosis can get around the other party needing to be a sorcerer to work.  Chances are though that the rule of needing to know them and their location probably still holds, which is why he does use it on literally everyone...
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 #41 on: February 27, 2016, 08:31:50 am »
I remember when I first started thinking about Sewatha controlling the Dunyain so to say, I speculated they have sorcerers. And I believe someone pointed out that if they did have sorcerors, Kellhus would've sensed the Mark. As he did when he first met Mek. Now, if they are hiding the sorcerers down in the Thousand Thousand Halls, with the Heron Spear and the Axlotl tanks, well I'm sure it's not impossible......

ETA: and I dont back the idea of axlotl tanks, but hey, you never know.
« Last Edit: February 27, 2016, 08:34:16 am by MSJ »
“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,

Wilshire

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« Reply #42 on: March 03, 2016, 08:57:39 pm »
Going through and participating in conversations from earlier.

Notes on page 1 of comments:

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.

I'm not so sure. The bird continues to underestimate Kellhus, believes they can wait to kill him after the holy war destroys the Cishaurim, and even dismiss the idea that Kellhus learning the gnosis is trouble.

Small tidbits from Chapter 4:

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As his mother would say, every man was a spy in the end, an agent of contrary interests.  Every face was made of fingers...
Like Skeaos.
You'd think that someone as paranoid as Xerius would realize that this line of thinking was clearly foreshadowing his demise. :-)

Xerius and Conphas seem particularly adapt at noticing when a skin spy is present. They don't know why they know, or what is different specifically, but they always seem aware that something is amiss. Granted, "The Lists" point out that everyone may notice something, so I guess that doesn't necessirly make them special.

Ironsoul is referred to as "Lord Kosoter" several times in TJE.  But as themerchant wrote, Lord Soter is mentioned in WLW:

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"...the Xiangol-eyed Jekki under Prince Nurbanu Ze, the adopted son of Lord Soter, and the first of his people to be called kjineta, or caste-noble; and the white-painted Ainoni under cold-hearted King-Regent Nurbanu Soter, Veteren of the First Holy War, renowned for his pious cruelty through the Unification Wars."

It's not inconceivable that they're related.  But definitely different dudes.

Damnit, I wanted it to be Kosotor.

Chapter 6:
Quote
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?

Not sure, but I think its important to remember that they Mandate have a... Mandate ... to relinquish the Gnosis when the end of the world is nigh.

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.
For me, it came down to the way we tend to regard qualities like "heroic" and "good" as innate -- free of cognition.  Like Colbert's "truthiness", they come from the gut.  And for whatever reason, this excuses the question of motivation; "good" people are that way because they're "good". 

In Kellhus' case, however, we know that these qualities are the result of calculation.  Which totally calls his motivation into question; every "bad" thing he does seems extra-wicked and every "good" thing is sinister, suspect. 

Like H says, we root for him despite all this because he can't possibly be worse than the Consult, right?

I think thats really the point of a lot of this. Something of a big reveal will be that Kellhus is the greater evil.

One of the other conditions of possibility.

Wilshire

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« Reply #43 on: March 03, 2016, 09:20:00 pm »
Comments on page 2

Essentially, make a meaningful world, meaningless. ;)


I think this would be a Dunyain's goal. To force the world to work the way they need it to in order to control it.
I can't say I have a prediction for whether or not this is what Kellhus is working towards.

Essentially, make a meaningful world, meaningless. ;)


I think this would be a Dunyain's goal. To force the world to work the way they need it to in order to control it.
I can't say I have a prediction for whether or not this is what Kellhus is working towards.

A couple quotes that I found interesting.

Quote
That you are being played. That you flounder in nets of your own making. The circumstances you struggle to master, Bird, have long ago mastered you. Of course you think otherwise. Like men, power stands high among your native desires. But you are a tool, as much as any Man of the Tusk.

Cnaüir is a very smart man, even though he is bonkers he has gained so much insight from his time with the Dunyain. I was reading a thread about the most reliable POV, and while Cnaüir might be crazy, his insight about the world around him seems to strike true so very often to me.

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Xinemus turned from Proyas to Achamian, as though from a lesser to a greater enemy. “He cannot heal, Akka. The Warrior-Prophet … He cannot heal.

This is the end of Xin's outburst with Proyas, Akka and Esme. Xin comments before this about how all he smells about him is shit. And being blinded has led him to the realization that Kellhus is a fraud. Only problem.....everyone thinks him mad.

I love this line. "as if from a less to a great enemy" is just awesome.
Then the brilliant insight - and it helps that he's channeling Tolkien too maybe :P, as only a true king can heal

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The “Third Phrase” was a thing of myth in Gnostic sorcery, a story handed down to Men during the Nonman Tutelage: the legend of Su’juroit, the great Cûnuroi Witch-King. But for some reason, Achamian found himself loath to relate the tale. “No,” he lied. “It’s impossible.”

So, the meta-Gnosis is not unprecedented, which is interesting, I wonder if the current Quya recall this.
Particularly important to note that Kellhus knew that Akka lied when he said no. He likely began devising the meta-gnosis from that instant. The first thing he requests to learn is the cant of calling - I think he was preparing the teleportation cant from this instant.

Maybe not unprecedented, but I doubt if it was developed into a full branch of magic that it would have been better documented. Su’juroit may have simply theorized its possibility, or devised one or two cants/wards, or had the same problem as Serwa later on (it simply being too taxing to be of practical use).

I think what Kellhus does/did is/was likely unprecedented, but he may have been preceded slightly by the greatest Nonmen Quya of old. Even if they could still recall, which I doubt, I think it would require too much mental acuity to be within the grasp of their diminished intellect.

During Conphas' ruminations on godhood in chapter 5, he concludes that "[the] famed Ikurei Conphas was not quite human."  If not human, and not god, however, then what?

There are really only a handful characters in PoN who seem even partially immune to Kellhus' ability to "make us love": Moenghus, Cnauir and Conphas.  And these are, not coincidentally, the folks that Kellhus sees as his greatest threats.

The first two have inside information.  One is a Dunyain himself.  And the other has the intellectual heft to evaluate Kellhus' actions knowing that everything he does is intentional, with purpose. 

Conphas, at first blush, is your typical vainglorious villain who from his initial introduction is set up for ignominious defeat.   But as the books progress, we realize that he’s not nearly as motivated by human passions as, for example, his uncle.  The more we learn about Conphas, the more he resembles the sort of quasi-sociopathic “Prime Mover” that we see in Ayn Rand’s novels: he believes his own bullshit to a degree that could only be regarded as pathological. 

Awfully Dunyaini, isn’t it?   Which is where his “…not quite human” comment comes in.

We’re lead to believe that Dunyain-hood is part nature, part nurture.  So if Conphas seems part-Dunyain, how did it happen?

Conphas was primarily nurtured by Istriya, and to a lesser degree, Martemas -- maybe even Skauras?  These together lead to how he’s initially portrayed: a privileged wunderkind who is largely the product of having the best training money can buy.  So I think we can rule out his Dunyain-ness coming from nurture.

This leaves nature; like Gaga, he was just “born this way.”  He is Dunyain by-nature (resisting a “down wit OPP joke” here*), hence “not quite human”.

Now, it’s not inconceivable that among the millions of births since the First Apocalypse, there are a few that just happen to possess the genetic characteristics that might approach the Dunyain ideal.  They selected to increase the probability of getting the right mix.  But that doesn’t mean it couldn’t just happen. 

The other possibility, is that Conphas is one of Moenghus’ secret other kids.  And while this theory is a nice fit in some ways, it has a number of significant issues that have been discussed in detail on the board.  As a result, I lean toward the former option, that he won the genetic Powerball.

Either way, I do think that there’s evidence supporting the notion that Conphas is at least partially Dunyain, which explains his immunity to Kellhus’ charms and why Kellhus sees him as the greatest threat to his post-Shimeh plans. 

Part Dunyain, but sadly, mostly douchebag.  Oh what could have been, Conphas?

* Other People’s Probabilities?

I think he has a one of a kind intellect, a great upbringing that expanded his mind at a crucial young age, but also, I think Conphas actually is a sociopath. I think this is the "defect from the womb" that Kellhus is specifically thinking about. He has no empathy, which is what every Dunyain dreams of, and what makes him so immune to Kellhus' charms. He appears Dunyain, but its a glimps into what a human can be, what a simple man without magic or fantasy, can become if pushed in the right direction, with the right circumstances.

Conphas' lineage is something I've often wondered. Istyria calls him her grandson, Xerias his nephew. Who was the father? The mother? One of the lost Anasurimbor brothers would be a nice twist, but I don't think so. We have seen what happens to the partial dunyain children that are not tutored, vigorously, by their fathers.

As far as genetics go, its not entire impossible, but I think functionally 0%, for someone to roll the dice and become something akin to the Dunyain's 2k years of breeding control. They'd have to genetically mutate a bunch of genes correctly, all at once, and have the exact right mixture of family genetics form both parents.

Quote
Kellhus did a interesting thing with the Mandate, he tricked Akka to not telling them of his presences until he had enough to bargin with them as equals. Kellhus may do the same thing with the Consult. He could show up at Golgotterath with TGO and a ultimatum, "Ill drive the No-God and show you how its done."

Ever since reading TJE and learning that the final book in TAE series would be called The Unholy Consult, I've been convinced that Bakker is just being clever and using a name we're all familiar with to mask a secondary meaning for the title; namely that Kellhus has crossed the span of the world to consult with the Consult on unholy things (ie, sorcery and damnation). As it has already been said, a world closed to the Outside is certainly a better environment in which to pursue the Absolute
Agree. Layers of revelations.

Why does Kellhus insist on learning a cant of calling first? Does he need to send dreams to someone immediately? I've not noticed an obvious candidate for any Kellhus-sent dreams since...


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See my earlier comment. He requests to learn it first prior to learning that 2 inutteral strings are possible. He plans the teleportation cant before he even learns the first cant.
One of the other conditions of possibility.

Wilshire

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« Reply #44 on: March 03, 2016, 09:25:11 pm »
Will sending dreams to someone without the Mark (Saubon), give them a Mark, since sorcery is being used? Like how the Pragmas said they were unclean and committed suicide (which I don't buy).

No, I don't believe it will Mark them, since they haven't used sorcery themselves.

And on the Pragma, no, I think they killed themselves because they knew they couldn't keep the whole plan under wraps from Kellhus.  Someone else would need to lie to him, he would see through them directly.  That's the only way it makes sense to me, even though there are issues with that interpretation too.
Plenty of precedence using magic on non-few people. Recall, the cant of compulsion faintly mark the victim, and the Whore's Shell marks Esmi faintly when she has it. Not to mention the obvious effects of the various war cants incinerating legions. Seems a fairly small leap to send dreams to a non-few.

I think sending a non-sorcerer certainly would mark them, but not to the degree that they would be hurt by a chorae.
One of the other conditions of possibility.