Quote from: SmilerLoki on June 30, 2020, 07:01:53 am

@Khaine

Save for some nitpicking, this is pretty much my line of thinking.

One important thing to note is the fact that unarcane ground does, in fact, exist in Earwa, and the No-God famously avoided it.

I think we can actually sort of rectify this with the notion of Ark not working in Arcane situations.  First, I think we just clarify that it is unlikely that Ark completely stopped functioning.  I tend to think of it more as the AI (or, not so A I) that constituted Ark did not work under the Arcane conditions.  That is, the "circuits" did not function.

So, when Ark crashes, many of Ark's various parts still function, there is simply no more intentionality, because the directive element (possibly the No-God apparatus itself) did not function.  So, once "bootstrapped" with the Consult with an Earwa-compatible substitute "circuit" the opposite problem becomes the issue, an aversion to the Anarcane. In other words, it simply cannot function outside the particular circumstance of it's genesis, perhaps.

All that, plus I would say despite the existence of unarcane grounds in Earwa, on balance it is a fully arcane planet, save the odd exception here and there. Whereas all the previous planets visited by the Inchoroi were only partially arcane and the connection to the Outside was not strong enough for the shutting down of the world to work properly. For the same reason, i.e. not coming across a fully arcane planet, the Ark had not malfunctioned earlier.

I'll reiterate for posterity that I don't think Kellhus and Ajokli made any deals.

Interesting objection.

So when Kellhus speaks of pacts with the Pit, is that simply Ajokli speaking?

So does this mean that Kellhus was under the impression he had found a way to save the world, but Ajokli takes over and then the salting incident takes place due to Kelmonas and his plan is never put into action.

After all Kellhus himself says that his TTT fails him. I should find the reference, because at the time when I read it, I thought it was important in itself, but I forgot to highlight it in my book.

So I have been re-reading passages from the GO and the UC.

And I am trying to put everything together.

Kellhus goes mad during this circumfixion which breaks his spirit and allows the agents from the Outside into his mind.

Initially he thinks it is the No-God who speaks to him, for whatever reason. Maybe the influence of Achamian, the discovery of the Consult and so on.

Then he says that he learns to ignore the voices in his head.

"He suffered visions, certainly, but he had long ceased to trust them".

GO, p. 121, Chapter Aorsi (hard pack version)

We know that during the Unification Wars, Kellhus studies Daimos and he walks in the Outside and he comes back. Presumably during this time, he makes the deal with Ajokli.

But maybe Ajokli being the trickster god, cheats Kellhus into thinking that he is the God of Gods.

My impression is that when Kellhus reveals to Proyas that the God of Gods is the antithesis of love and that he cares not, and says that the damnation of mankind is the granary of the gods, Kellhus has in mind Ajokli, but he does not know it.

I mean this is the trickster god, surely he could trick Kellhus.

Kellhus labours under the impression that he has some deal with Ajokli-who-pretends-to -be the god of gods and proceeds with his Great Ordeal. Possibly he is under the impression that if he vanquishes the Consult and its allies, the god of gods will somehow reward him.

This line, the living should not haunt the dead is inserted a few times.

Kellhus says to the Dunyain allies of the Consult that he is an inverted prophet. This echoes his conversation with Proyas, where he says a prophet brings word of mortals to the gods.

"Then what is their purpose?"
"Is it not plain? To deliver word of Men to the Gods".

GO, p. 122, chapter Aorsi.

"I bore word of the temporal to the divine"

UC, chapter the Golden Room, p.415

Right until that point Kellhus is in control.

But then Ajoklis takes over, he is the trickster god and more importantly he reveals to the Dunyain that basically the Ark is the deepest topos on Earwa which allows him to seep through and take over Kellhus.

 

"Because in all the World, no place has witnessed more terror, more obscenity, brutality, or sublime trauma. Your Golden Room is scarcely more than a bubble floating upon the Transcendent Pit. Hell, my brothers. Hell pollutes its every shadow, smokes from its every surface, creeps through its every brace..."

UC, The Golden Room, p. 421 ( some italics were removed but you get the gist).

 
It is quite conceivable that Kellhus had a different plan altogether from Ajokli and in the end Ajokli is the one who gets undone.

Kellhus was perhaps under the impression that he would somehow strike a bargain with the gods. I will terminate the effort to shut the world, because if the Consult is successful the gods will lose, but in return the living will not be claimed by the gods or something.

And this is where my thought fails me but without having a clearer picture of the metaphysics of damnation is hard to tell what a possible bargain between Kellhus and Ajokli would look like. But we should not exclude the possibility that Ajokli manipulated Kellhus.

 

Thoughts?

Quote from: Khaine on October 02, 2017, 09:55:46 am

...

On Halos, Bakker explicitly denied us questions about halos at Zaudunyanicon... assuming this means they don't manifest because of Ajokli.

Interesting.

So simple question but I presume the answer is not. Where do these halos come from?

Is it some kind of magic? Illusion magic to give him extra charisma?
En mass hallucination by the masses?
Kellhus levelled up to Super Saiyan and his golden aura manifests in the physical universe?

 

Does it really it matter in the greater scheme?

But the idea that Kellhus behaved like a prophet - god - saint and he got the markings to prove it (like in the Wheel of Time when Rand receives his dragon tatoos if my memory serves me) is too seductive to simply let it go.

So was it Kellhus manipulating people to see these "divine" manifestations?

I can live with the idea that Kellhus did not know from the start that Ajokli was messing with his head and that maybe he thought he was communicating with the No-God.

Also going off a tangent, at some point Kellhus says that his thousand-fold thought fails him and all he perceives is darkness. Is it because of the effect of Ajokli taking him over and / or because a divine being is beyond the mundane the circuit of causation?

The blind spot to his immense mental faculty being a divine agent which is not subject to the rule that what comes before determines what comes after.

That would fit with the theme raised by other posters that this is a story about limits, blind spots and great powers being undone by things which they couldn't perceive, that is the unknown unknowns.

  (smiley is for my allusion to Donald Rumsfield while discussing Kellhus and Ajokli )

It is Inchoroin (?) for Kellhus is clearly OP and we are all doomed, a god of the Tusk walks with him...

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?

Thanks for the link.