Apparently, we've missed something about the Consult that we should have noticed

  • 57 Replies
  • 22637 Views

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Wilshire

  • *
  • Administrator
  • Old Name
  • *****
  • Enshoiya
  • Posts: 5935
  • One of the other conditions of possibility
    • View Profile
« Reply #30 on: August 01, 2017, 04:51:03 pm »
Bakker is a master of the cagey, non-informative-answers when he wants to. We'll be circling this for some time.


Someone teaching the Dunyain is definitely something to consider.
One of the other conditions of possibility.

The Sharmat

  • *
  • Old Name
  • *****
  • Horde General
  • Posts: 779
    • View Profile
« Reply #31 on: August 01, 2017, 11:36:30 pm »
Maybe the obvious thing we've missed in regards to the Consult being undermanned/stupid is that the Dunyain take over was not remotely bloodless. Shauriatas may have been the only Old Name that was undone but it doesn't mean Golgotterath didn't run red (violet?) before the five became the leaders of the Consult. And I don't think they set out to recruit the Dunyain. It's just, Erratics are rather unpredictable, and Dunyain can be good at learning what noises to make to keep them engaged.

littlegrice

  • *
  • Suthenti
  • *
  • Mandati
  • Posts: 59
    • View Profile
« Reply #32 on: August 01, 2017, 11:55:46 pm »
They may have destroyed Dagliash to hide something?  That pause that Kellhus takes while staring at the device bugs me.  Apparently, it's what showed him he was striving against Dunyain, but maybe me missed at least a piece of what they were up to.  Did they find something in Viri after all?  Something work destroying vice potentially being discovered by the enemy?

Probably off topic, but there was a forum where Bakker almost casually mentions that the Tusk was a Consult contrivance, and it has steered men since their passage from Eanna(misspelled?), basically demanding the death of the Nonmen, and sorcerers, but acknowledging the existence and even the names of the Gods. Why would it do that?  The Consult wanted the Cishaurim dead.  And that God.  Damned.  Nail of Heaven floating around that I KNOW can't just be a star.  Too much about the Consult we just don't have the right perspective on to allow us to even ask the right questions.  It's an itch, but I'm not sure where it is, so I can't scratch it.  Drives me crazy, but in a good way.
Well, he no talkie good like me and you, so his vocabulistics is limited to 'TELL ME...' and 'WHAT DO YOU SEE?' and, 'WHAT AM I?' Exclusively in that order.

The Sharmat

  • *
  • Old Name
  • *****
  • Horde General
  • Posts: 779
    • View Profile
« Reply #33 on: August 02, 2017, 12:15:52 am »
It was probably easier to insert modifications to existing oral scriptures than to make up myths whole cloth and hope the five tribes would swallow them.

Cynical Cat

  • *
  • Kijneta
  • ***
  • Posts: 227
    • View Profile
« Reply #34 on: August 02, 2017, 01:34:46 am »
Probably off topic, but there was a forum where Bakker almost casually mentions that the Tusk was a Consult contrivance, and it has steered men since their passage from Eanna(misspelled?), basically demanding the death of the Nonmen, and sorcerers, but acknowledging the existence and even the names of the Gods. Why would it do that?  The Consult wanted the Cishaurim dead.  And that God.  Damned.  Nail of Heaven floating around that I KNOW can't just be a star.  Too much about the Consult we just don't have the right perspective on to allow us to even ask the right questions.  It's an itch, but I'm not sure where it is, so I can't scratch it.  Drives me crazy, but in a good way.

You've completely missed what's going on with the Tusk.  The Inchoroi put all of humanities myths on the Tusk and inserted a few of their own to direct them against Nonmen and sorcery.  If the Inchoroi hadn't covered the Tusk with human myths, humans wouldn't have regarded it as a holy object which means the Inchoroi have to be sparing with their editions for it to be accepted as authentic. The Cishaurim didn't exist back then and the reason why the Consult wanted them dead was because Moenghus was finding their skin spies.

[EDIT Madness: Fixed quote tag.]
« Last Edit: August 02, 2017, 02:10:04 am by Madness »

Madness

  • *
  • Administrator
  • Old Name
  • *****
  • Conversational Batman
  • Posts: 5275
  • Strength on the Journey - Journey Well
    • View Profile
    • The Second Apocalypse
« Reply #35 on: August 02, 2017, 02:15:17 am »
Probably off topic, but there was a forum where Bakker almost casually mentions that the Tusk was a Consult contrivance, and it has steered men since their passage from Eanna(misspelled?), basically demanding the death of the Nonmen, and sorcerers, but acknowledging the existence and even the names of the Gods. Why would it do that?  The Consult wanted the Cishaurim dead.  And that God.  Damned.  Nail of Heaven floating around that I KNOW can't just be a star.  Too much about the Consult we just don't have the right perspective on to allow us to even ask the right questions.  It's an itch, but I'm not sure where it is, so I can't scratch it.  Drives me crazy, but in a good way.

R. Scott Bakker interview (part 2)
The Existential Scream
Weaponizing the Warrior Pose - Declare War Inwardly
carnificibus: multus sanguis fluit
Die Better
The Theory-Killer

Wilshire

  • *
  • Administrator
  • Old Name
  • *****
  • Enshoiya
  • Posts: 5935
  • One of the other conditions of possibility
    • View Profile
« Reply #36 on: August 02, 2017, 11:35:51 am »
Something maybe that's been missed, it at least people have pointed out yet:
Another juxtiposition if events, another example of history repeating.

The Ishroi plunder of Min Uroikas and the subsequent survival of the Inchoroi who then later come back as friends to the Nonmen, ultimately leading to their demise.

The Consult plunder of Ishual, an event that just like above takes years, and the subsequent survivors eventually subsume the Consult.

These two events are extremely similar, the survivors of a moribund race devastating the victors - snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
One of the other conditions of possibility.

stuslayer

  • *
  • Suthenti
  • *
  • Posts: 25
    • View Profile
« Reply #37 on: August 02, 2017, 12:05:28 pm »
Hello,

I've been reading the series for the past few years and this is the first time I've posted here, though I've lurked and read the many threads about here lots of times. It's such an amazing series that can provoke such discussion and musings as you good people have over the last few years. It need not be said how much i love this series - I'm here posting, right?

Anyway, a few things that just occurred to me as possibilities on this question, were: how do we know that the Consult were not aware, perhaps even had a hand in, the foundation of Ishual in the first place?

We know that the Anasurimbor are peculiarly predicated to provide the 'missing link' for the No-God to be initialised. The consult and the Inchoroi play the exceedingly long game. It seems clear that Nau Cayuti is the original 'circuit' for the No-God, and we are told through Achamian's Dreams that Celmomas set up Ishual as a stronghold for the preservation of the Anasurimbor. But how much stock should we put in Achamian's Dreams, when we are not even sure what their origin is?

Further, we learn in TUC from the Mutilated about the need for an Anasurimbor, how they think they have 'subsumed' the Consult, and that the Consult captured them to take them back to Golgotterath for their own ends. What if those ends are exactly what has happened, i.e. that the Consult realised the best possibility to ensure an Anasurimbor was available to resurrect the No-God was to capture some Dunyain and use them against Kellhus?

Kelmomas is named for Celmomas, the prophecy of the Return was his prophecy, surely there isn't a coincidence here. And we also know that Kelmomas is one of the Few. Also significant in this context, I think.

How did consult find and destroy Ishual so quickly? (20 years is not a long time in the scope of their 'long game') Or, did they already know it's whereabouts because they had a hand in it's foundation? It seems strange to me that the Dunyain in their own fortress should be so easily overcome, yet the captured Dunyain be so easily able to overcome the Consult in their own house.

Further to the above, the Logos and the Tekne are certainly related to each other - the Mutilated coming to the conclusion that the Tekne is equivalent to the Logos to me could suggest that this was the point all along - Ishual was for the Consult a kind of insurance policy, in case their own designs to bring about Resumption using the Tekne failed, they would also have a sect devoted to reaching the Absolute, essentially seeking a different path to the same end.


Anyway, I'm putting all this together sat at work without the books in front of me, so it may be missing important information that negates some of the above, but it seems to me that the thing we could be missing is that the long game of the Consult far outstrips even the Mandate mission against the Consult, and that with so much time to plan, perhaps everything has worked out as they originally intended.

Madness

  • *
  • Administrator
  • Old Name
  • *****
  • Conversational Batman
  • Posts: 5275
  • Strength on the Journey - Journey Well
    • View Profile
    • The Second Apocalypse
« Reply #38 on: August 02, 2017, 12:36:22 pm »
Welcome to the Second Apocalypse, stuslayer. I hope you're not here hunting our Stus ;).
« Last Edit: August 02, 2017, 12:42:57 pm by Madness »
The Existential Scream
Weaponizing the Warrior Pose - Declare War Inwardly
carnificibus: multus sanguis fluit
Die Better
The Theory-Killer

H

  • *
  • The Zero-Mod
  • Old Name
  • *****
  • The Honourable H
  • Posts: 2893
  • The Original No-God Apologist
    • View Profile
    • The Original No-God Apologist
« Reply #39 on: August 02, 2017, 12:43:48 pm »
How did consult find and destroy Ishual so quickly? (20 years is not a long time in the scope of their 'long game') Or, did they already know it's whereabouts because they had a hand in it's foundation? It seems strange to me that the Dunyain in their own fortress should be so easily overcome, yet the captured Dunyain be so easily able to overcome the Consult in their own house.

First of, welcome to the forum, great first post.

Now, the issue of the Consult founding the Dûnyain, is in my mind, a question of, if they did why didn't they remember?  Aurang recalls all sorts of things from his "past selves" but forgets something that important?  If it was Shae or Mek that did it in secret, again, why do it in secret?

On Ishuäl itself, well, the Dûnyain were protected far more by secrecy than by any fortress.  From what we latter learn, it did take them something like 4 years to clear the place though, so I wouldn't really call that easy.  Many things are solvable with nearly a million dispensable troops, not to mention disposable sorcerers though.

Thing is, I am not so sure the plan wasn't to bring those who would become the Mutilated into the fold.  Of course, what they failed to realize is that by doing so, they were sowing their own demise even as they furthered their own goal.
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

Dunkelheit

  • *
  • Suthenti
  • *
  • Posts: 48
    • View Profile
« Reply #40 on: August 02, 2017, 12:49:00 pm »
Probably off topic, but there was a forum where Bakker almost casually mentions that the Tusk was a Consult contrivance, and it has steered men since their passage from Eanna(misspelled?), basically demanding the death of the Nonmen, and sorcerers, but acknowledging the existence and even the names of the Gods. Why would it do that?

I think it's interesting that like the Dunyain the Consult controls with the truth (that Nonmen and sorcerers are damned). As for why it acknowledges the gods? Well, the gods are real and as we have seen they don't take to kindly to fals prophets (though some disagree with that interpretation). If they had gone "Kill all the Nonmen and sorcerers, and by the way the gods are bullshit too", first of all they probably would not have been believed. Secondly, the gods would probably have intervened and the Tusk wouldn't have remained as a holy text for this long. It's better to play on the believes that already exist and make them work for you.

Dunkelheit

  • *
  • Suthenti
  • *
  • Posts: 48
    • View Profile
« Reply #41 on: August 02, 2017, 12:54:11 pm »
Many things are solvable with nearly a million dispensable troops, not to mention disposable sorcerers though.

Yes, and both Kellhus and Moe sr. was pretty flippant about revealing who they were at the beginning. Kellhus actually had a small following somewhere north prior to meeting Cnair. Pretty sure the Consult found those people and convinced them to share what they know.

The Sharmat

  • *
  • Old Name
  • *****
  • Horde General
  • Posts: 779
    • View Profile
« Reply #42 on: August 02, 2017, 01:39:27 pm »
Didn't all of the Adunyani from Atrithau accompany him south as meatshields and end up dead?

ThoughtsOfThelli

  • *
  • Great Name
  • ****
  • Thelli's Revenge
  • Posts: 492
  • Approximation of a Human
    • View Profile
« Reply #43 on: August 02, 2017, 01:41:16 pm »
Didn't all of the Adunyani from Atrithau accompany him south as meatshields and end up dead?

I think this was the case, yes. I don't think the Consult got any information from them.
"But you’ve simply made the discovery that Thelli made—only without the benefit of her unerring sense of fashion."
-Anasûrimbor Kayûtas (The Great Ordeal, chapter 13)

"You prefer to believe women victims to their passions, but we can be at least as calculating as you. Love does not make us weak, but strong."
-Ykoriana of the Masks (The Third God, chapter 27)

H

  • *
  • The Zero-Mod
  • Old Name
  • *****
  • The Honourable H
  • Posts: 2893
  • The Original No-God Apologist
    • View Profile
    • The Original No-God Apologist
« Reply #44 on: August 02, 2017, 02:15:23 pm »
Didn't all of the Adunyani from Atrithau accompany him south as meatshields and end up dead?

I think this was the case, yes. I don't think the Consult got any information from them.

Sure, but the Consult knew the name "Dûnyain" after this.  Not to mention, Kellhus was not shy in telling it to everyone in the Holy War too.

Aurang (now we can probably safely assume it was him) in the end of TWP is pretty adamant on finding out out more about them.  It is very hard to find a needle in a haystack.  But it is impossible to find a needle in a haystack when you don't know there is a needle, let alone a haystack.  Once the Consult realizes there is a place in the North where the Dûnyain come from, presumably somewhere near Atrithau, their near unlimited manpower can solve the problem of finding it.
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