A strong, central Dunyain character to lead the series would be boss. Dunyain made this series of books for me, and if Achamian, his child or Mimara is to lead the last set of books, I'll be gravely disappointed. Crabicus to the rescue! Also, on that point, more on the origins of the Dunyain; why they've adopted their methodology and etc. I feel like there is still some mystery there.

Other than that, a relatively happy ending. Much atrocity is bound to follow, and maybe the world will be massively messed up, but I do hope that at the end of it all, it shall be saved.

The problem was that people liked Kellhus too much, so he had to include some bits of him being a jackass to uphold some disbelief. Imagine how people would have reacted with no Kellhus POVs through to TUC lol.

That's interesting, I thought I was the only person in this forum who liked him

Quote from: Cuttlefish on December 21, 2017, 09:39:37 am

I thought he was defective due to his hand? He was only a baby when Koringhus took him, his defect was known as a baby - long before anything beyond physical could be established.

Yeah, this is what I felt as well.

All Dunyain are "defective in spirit" though.  Crabby is Dunyain by birth (a product of their breeding) but not by training, that is the distinction to be made I'd think.

Indeed, he has all the genetical superiority of the Dunyain, but very little of their ideology (probably even less than that since his dad told him it was all a lie before he died). He might grow up to be a hero or a villain in personality, and possess the Dunyain intellect.

The degree to which he has Dunyain skills is debatle, though. I don't think he could master people like his grandfather, though. Kellhus's flashbacks reveal that he went through special training to read expressions, and the crab handed boy never did. There was also that bit about him shedding the emotions he wears too early, that Koringhus remarks on warning him about.

Ok so then Kellhus is "special" - weaker than the rest because a stick confused him.

How do you know that the same would not have happened to any other Dunyain? How do you know that Moenghus wasn't overwhelmed when he first left?

Agreed.

He went out into the woods, in the winter, without a coat and without knowledge of foraging, hunting, or trapping, without knowing where he was going.
Arrogant. Hubris. Idiotic.

He went out the way he was sent; if he didn't have any survival skills, it is because the Dunyain didn't teach him any - it is doubtful whether the Dunyain themselves had any to begin with.

Some of the brilliant things that Kellhus gets himself into in 2 books:
Nearly dies from exposure, finds a ruined city for shelter just before he passes out.
Nearly dies again from exposure and hunger, he is saved by Leweth.
He goes to Atrithau, does some standard mindtricks and gets a little band to go south, nearly dies by sranc attack.
Gets rescued just as he nearly dies from blood loss by guy who randomly showed up.
Fails to see Moenghus' condition path in Cnaiur, screws that whole thing up and creates a lifelong enemy that nearly kills him several times.
Goes to the Holy War, nearly gets killed/captured again, randomly saved by random events again.
Joins holy war, finds Achamian, gets lucky that he's a skeptic and doesn't report him to the Mandate.
Gets lucky at the first battle, says some random stuff that magically makes things work out.
Nearly dies on the circumfix (his own admission - he doesn't know how he's going to survive), saved by crazy lunatic.

Nothing to imply that any other Dunyain would've fared better - Moenghus himself had been taken captive by the Sranc, and only just survived. He led himself to dead ends twice - first by scarring his arms, that made going to the Nansur impossible, and secondly by blinding himself. And I am going to go out on a limb and assume dying was not a part of his plan, so ultimately, he failed far more spectacularly than Kellhus. The failings of Kellhus could easily be the failings of any other Dunyain - in fact, other Dunyain could fail way worse than he did. He went against great odds and ultimately he came out on top (at least until the second series reached its conclusion), but that doesn't mean he was capable of mastering anything.

Who would have lost? Conphas was actively working towards using it for his own ends. So was everyone else. Conphas would have done a superb job had it not been for Kellhus. It took Maithanet, Moenghus, and Kellhus to circumvent Conphas.

So, yes, of course it would not have done what Moenghus intended - that's why he called a Dunyain from Ishual. For Moenghus to succeed, Moenghus needed a Dunyain at the helm (again pointing out, to outwit a human).

What good would have Conphas's deal been, had the Holy War lost first two of its battles, both of which were won thanks, in some part, to Kellhus, and failed to gain any advantage or land? Conphas would've gone back home, assuming he could, with whatever troops he had left, and wait for the Fanim to strike at a much diminished Three Seas and possibly conquer it all.

As for the water Miracle, it wasn't actually a miracle. He found an underground river, and I assume any dunyain could have done that.

Possibly, yes. But Conphas couldn't.

Kellhus was special not for anything he did, but because of what was given to him by others. Did he do unique and powerful things? Yes. I just don't see why literally any other Dunyain (with two functioning eyes) wouldn't have done the same or better.

Because other Dunyain are probably weaker than him, and couldn't have gone as far as he did. Possibly, at least. We don't precisely know, but by the time the first trilogy reached its conclusion, Kellhus had gone leagues ahead of them and had no reason to consider there might be others more suited to his purpose; I doubt there were any to begin with.

@Wilshire I agree with your assertion that the main purpose of summoning a Dunyain was to lead the army, not master magic, but I'm fairly convinced that you're wrong about Kellhus not being special. Three points that I've mentioned here before:

1 - Dunyain are not equals. The Survivor reminisces about the Dunyain, who, confronted with the siege of the Consult, simply stopped functioning. Some Dunyain are clearly weaker than the others.

2 - Anasurimbor line is more powerful. The Survivor remarks on this. He could be biased, but I don't think he is.

3 - Kellhus was quicker than rest of the Dunyain children. There is one notable flashback, where the Pragma takes them out to the woods and asks them what he sees - Kellhus is the only one to answer that he sees conflict, of tree roots fighting for space. Maybe it's not definitive, but I saw the flashbacks as clearly implying that Kellhus was somehow ahead of his peers.

And it's rather unfair to say that Kellhus was a bumbling fool. He has a sensory overload when he first gets out of Ishual - as far as we know, this could be the case for pretty much every Dunyain, as they've learned to pick off every detail and have been living in a very isolated space; the world is too big even for them. He does require coincidences to survive, but same could be said for any Dunyain - despite all their might, the Dunyain are not infallible and the world is overwhelmingly big and complex.

Edit: Also, it is fair to say that the Holy War would've failed without Kellhus. Especially in the second battle (whose name I forget), which was almost a defeat until Kellhus recognized that Cnaiür's plan wasn't working and intervened. Not to forget, his miracle of water that saved the Holy War later down the road.

Plenty of quotes here from Kyudea, that suggest Moe needed Kellhus the sorcerer in order to enact the TT.

Quote

“So you assumed taking up the Water would be no different, that becoming one of the Indara-Kishauri would make you godlike in comparison. And since the Cishaurim themselves scarcely understand the metaphysics of their practice, there was nothing you could learn that would contradict this assumption. You couldn’t know that the Psûkhe was a metaphysic of the heart, not the intellect. Of passion … “So you let them blind you, only to find your powers proportionate to your vestigial passions. What you thought to be the Shortest Path was in fact a dead end.”

If Moe hadn't chose the Psukhe, not knowing that the weaknesses the Dunyain do have, he would have never needed Kellhus.

Quote

“Of course, you had heard of the Consult,” Kellhus continued, ignoring his question. “And like most in the Three Seas, you thought them long dead—the stuff of Mandate delusions. But the stories you extracted from your captives … there was too much consistency, too much detail, for them to be fabrications.“The deeper you probed, the more troubling the story became. You had read The Sagas, and you had doubted them, thinking them too fanciful. Destroying the world? No malice could be so great. No soul could be so deranged. After all, what could be gained? Who follows paths over precipices? “But the skin-spies explained it all. Speaking in shrieks and howls, they taught you the why and wherefore of the Apocalypse. You learned that the boundaries between the World and the Outside were not fixed, that if the World could be cleansed of enough souls, it could be sealed shut. Against the Gods. Against the heavens and the hells of the Afterlife. Against redemption. And, most importantly, against the possibility of damnation."

This quote is two-fold in answering some question. Celmommian Prophecy. I believe it was widely known and at least part of the reason Mandati were taking to be fools. It also shows that Moe knew all about it and needed the strongest sorcerer alive to contest them.

Quote

“When did you realize you didn’t possess the strength,” Kellhus asked, “that more was needed to avert the No-God’s second coming?” “From the very first I recognized that it was probable,” Moënghus said. “But I spent years assessing the possibilities, gathering knowledge. When the first of the Thought came to me, I was quite unprepared.”

Another clue he needed a super human sorcerer, Kellhus.

Quote

“Only a true son of Ishuäl could succeed,” his father continued. “For all the Thousandfold Thought’s innumerable deductions, for all its elegance, there remained countless variables that could not be foreseen. Each of its folds possesses a haze of catastrophic possibilities, most of them remote, others nearly certain. I would have abandoned it long ago, were not the consequences of inaction so absolute. “Only one of the Conditioned could follow its path. Only you, my son.”

Quote

“No. You were the only path.”

Defense rests its case.

I don't think any of the quotes confirm the need for Kellhus's sorcery; The Thousandfold Thought, as I understand it and as I believe, is the Shortest Path applied on a much grander scale; for due to their isolation, Dunyain mastery over the circumstances is limited in scope, and the sheer size of the world required the invention of a new method, the Thousandfold Thought that was almost too much for even Kellhus. Naturally, only a Dunyain could master it; I don't believe magic is neccessarily a part of it, nor was Moenghus's understanding of magic strong enough to see the pathways Kellhus, in his sorcerous might, would pursue.

As for Moenghus needing Kellhus, it is true he would not have needed him had he not chosen Psükhe. But as I understood it, this because the Psükhe crippled him - sight is an important tool to the Dunyain, and his clear association with the Cishaurium by blinding himself would've kept him away from pursuing more promising paths, be it among the Mandati or the political echelons of either civilizations.

Crap, forgot to post this yesterday - it address much of what you posted:

The primary pitfall of the puske for Moenghus was that he had to blind himself. Because of this, he lost most of the advantage that the dunyain training gave him. That issue was compounded by his inability to actually properly use it. This mistake was what lead to him needing another Dunyain in the first place.

Because of that, he needed some other full blooded Dunyain to unite the three seas.
Once the holy war was over and a Dunyain crowed as Emperor, Moenghus could have then gone on to part 2 of this plan to save the world.

What was needed was Kellhus the place - meaning a Dunyain to forcibly unite and hold together the Three Seas long enough to mount the Great Ordeal and attack/defeat Golgotterath.

From Moenghus' point of view, Kellhus the man was just a cog in the wheel. That position could have been occupied by any other Dunyain, though I do think that place needed to be a Few Dunyain that could use sorcery properly.

From Moenghus' POV, there was nothing inherently special about Kellhus, was there?

Quote

“No. You were the only path.”

Thanks for pulling all those quotes. Very helpful . Shit, I need to go back and read that - such a good scene, the end of TTT.

This quote though, is it clear why?

I specifically didn't mention TTT up till here for a reason, because there's definitely a difference between Moenghus' version and Kellhus', and I think it adds a lot of confusion.

For Moenghus, he couldn't see the whole picture, just that there was a shaping of events that needed to take place.The reason Moenghus picked Kellhus is unclear - it could be that no matter how he computed the TT the Dunyain he needed was Kellhus. I still say that what Moenghus was someone to fill the role of Kellhus and it could have been anyone that fit thse parameters - with the possability that Kellhus was the only one available at the time that Moenghus knew of that could have done it.

Moenghus might've seen Kellhus as the only one who could pursue the Thousandfold Thought because he is Anasurimbor, the line confirmed by the Survivor as being the strongest, and because Kellhus himself seemed to be stronger than the rest - in the flashbacks to his childhood, he seems quicker than rest of his "class". In addition to that, Moenghus might just be biased in favour of his son - Moenghus himself admits that the Dunyain, despite their belief to the contrary, are not immune to the Legion Within. The Survivor confirms this even more clearly, when he realizes before his suicide just why he saved the crab handed boy - because it was his son, because he smelled Anasurimbor.

Eh, but even then, Kellhus is still Kellhus. Even if he was thrown in prison with Cnaiur - well Moenghus Sr. did fine without the benefit of his name so it would have probably shaken out similarly regardless. These 'what if' scenario's get confusing quick.

Also, thinking on this, consider the fact that Kellhus knew for a fact that the Dunyain would end up possessing the Consult. True, some are weaker than others (like the ones the Survivor mentions, that were overwhelmed and just stopped functioning when the Consult besieged Ishual), but for the most part, there is nothing in the material world that the Conditioned can't conquer.

Anyway, I am getting really off topic with these. The question is, why was it Nau-Cayuti that spoke to Celmomas at his death? There are three possibilities, to sum up what was suggested:

a) It's the Gods speaking to him as if they are Nau-Cayuti. I don't see why the Gods would do that, though, it's not like they care to manipulate him or appease a dying man. They're not that nice.

b) He is just imagining it. Doesn't seem dramatic enough to be true; in fiction, stuff like this has to fit together.

c) It really was Nau-Cayuti. Which then raises the question - how did his soul end up there after becoming the No-God?

d) It was Kellhus or another Anasurimbor. We'll need more info on this before believing it, though.

Also consider that Celmomas considers the things Nau-Cayuti says as being "sweet", IIRC. He might consider it sweet because it confirms his line won't die out, or because the implication is that it is an Anasurimbor that will save the world.