I wonder about Kellhus ripping his heart out..........

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« Reply #30 on: April 25, 2013, 06:29:20 pm »
Quote from: SATXZ
Quote from: Wilshire
Yes it does read "Serwe's heart", great job for reading the text, I'm impressed.
how could you read so much into something, and not even notice the text?

The question, if you assume that it is indeed Serwe's heart, is: how did he get her heart? A man who has been hanging upside down for 3 days without food or water would have trouble tearing a flower petal off of a dried flower. A heart from a corpse would be more difficult.
its a fictional story, and Kellus plays Superman plus Professor X.  How could he dodge arrows and crossbow bolts during night time and dust storms with low visibility?  He's fictional, durrr.

There are many cases of the text being purposefully misleading or just simply wrong, as the characters in the book are fallible and prone to error. If you'd like to know more about the argument about this subject, you'd probably have to read some posts rather than just restating your own thoughts.
I have read through these posts.  Including one where THE AUTHOR says he screwed up and didn't like the wording.  So then you feel you can judge others?

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« Reply #31 on: April 25, 2013, 06:29:53 pm »
Quote from: Wilshire
If you read the whole section from the book you'd notice it was ambiguous.

Yeah its fictional, but that doesn't mean it has no rules. Yeah he's like superman, but he also is much less 'super' since he can be hurt by things, like not eating or drinking for 3 days. Its illogical, in Earwa, to think that someone so near death could brute-force their way into somebodies chest.

Who's judging?

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« Reply #32 on: April 25, 2013, 06:29:59 pm »
Quote from: Madness
Quote from: Capt.Croaker
another thing,i have read no mention of Kellhus having seswathas apocalypse dreams,although he is a mandate.could be he is possessed by seswatha.........i can hardly wait for the unholy consult.this is worse than waiting for the last Dark Tower book(that book was the worst let down in my life)

Capt.Croaker, I feel like no one addressed this for you but Kellhus is the only person to get his hands on the Gnosis without completing the ritual Grasping, where Mandate
(click to show/hide)
must hold Seswatha's Heart to bind them to the Dreams... Oddly topical, that.

anor (wb ;)) & SATXZ, again, clearly SA thrives on making the simple complex.

I personally agree that it is Serwe's Heart and pre-TAE, I would have argued along with the two of you. However, it's preceded by the equal linguistic evidence: his breast, chest, etc.

Now the pieces of this puzzle might not be available to us yet. However, it matters whether or not Kellhus accomplished something metaphysical (sorcery or thaumaturgy) vs. mundane (Dunyain), specifically.

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« Reply #33 on: April 25, 2013, 06:30:17 pm »
Quote from: Wilshire
haha I believe there is a post somewhere that I told lockesnow that he was making things unnecessarily complex. The shoe is on the other foot now i suppose.

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« Reply #34 on: April 25, 2013, 06:30:24 pm »
Quote from: lockesnow
:lol:

And the Gods said, let there be text, and behold, there was text

Quote
Crying out to one another in eager terror, the Nascenti cut the Warrior-Prophet from his dead wife. A hush, it seemed, had settled across the whole of Caraskand.

He knew he should be weak unto death, but something inexplicable moved him. He rolled from Serwë, braced his arms against his knees, then waving his frantic disciples away, stood impossibly erect. Hands wrapped him in a shroud of white linen. He stumbled clear of Umiaki’s gloom, lifted his face to sun and sky. He could feel awe shiver through the masses— awe of him. He raised his palms to the great hollows of the earth, and it seemed he embraced all the Three Seas.

I think I see, Father …

Cries of rapture and disbelief rang across the packed reaches of the Kalaul. Several paces away Cnaiür stood dumbstruck, as did Eleäzaras a length behind him. Incheiri Gotian staggered forward, fell to his knees and wept. Kellhus smiled with boundless compassion. Everywhere he looked, he saw men kneeling …

Yes … The Thousandfold Thought.

And it seemed there was nothing, no dwarfing frame, that could restrict him to this place, to any place … He was all things, and all things were his …

He was one of the Conditioned. Dûnyain.

He was the Warrior-Prophet.

Tears roared down his cheeks. With a haloed hand, he reached beneath his breast, firmly wrested the heart from his ribs. He thrust it high to the thunder of their adulation. Beads of blood seemed to crack the stone at his feet … He glimpsed Sarcellus’s uncoiled face.

I see …

“They said!” he cried in a booming voice, and the howling chorus trailed into silence.

“They said that I was False, that I caused the anger of the God to burn against us!”

He looked into their wasted faces, answered their fevered eyes. He brandished Serwë’s burning heart.

“But I say that we— WE!— are that anger!”


Bakker, R. Scott (2008-09-02). The Warrior Prophet: The Prince of Nothing, Book Two (Kindle Locations 11807-11826). Penguin Group. Kindle Edition.

First things first, this is the VERY LAST THING we hear from Kellhus' perspective until the climax of TTT begins, there will be hundreds and hundreds of pages where we are not privy at all to his perspective.  So don't go looking for enlightenment from a Kellhus perspective in the beginning of the next book. 

Second:  False is capitalized.  Could be a connection to non-men, and how False accusations of Falseness have some sort of resonant menaing.

Third:  This centers around SEEING, which is an important motif laced throughout the first two books. 

Fourth:  Beats of blood causing stone to crack after they fly off a heart recently pulled out of a chest has been seen in the series before, Inrau did the same trick, but to another body.  That description has the prefix of 'sorcerous speed' but Inrau was also hearing the voice of Onkis in that scene, so perhaps he had a similar god-given capability there that he didn't know how to utilize.

Fifth: Kellhus perceives his own hand as having a Halo.

Six: Kellhus perceives himself to be beyond place--being nothing but "place" was the revelation of Dunyain superpowers at the end of the first book. 

Seventh: Kellhus perceives himself to be beyond frame--being beyond the strictures of a frame and able to assert your own frame is the revelation Mimara experiences at the end of TJE when her TJE superpowers are first unleashed.

Eighth: He was all things and all things were his:  This can quite literally and simply be interpreted as Kellhus is Serwe's heart in this instance and Serwe's heart is his heart.  He's saying he perceives himself to be beyond the places and planes and frames of the world, and can pretty much do anything in this moment because he is omnipresent like a god.

Ninth: Note how Eighth is similar to Odin, World Tree, Baldur--my understanding of which all stems from reading and rereading American Gods, but sacrificing a son on a tree seems to lend divinity and great power, so Kellhus may have stepped into a vortex that temporarily ennabled the Heart thing.

Tenth: Along with eight, he raises his hands and seems to embrace the entire three seas, this linguistically fits with 'he was all things and all things were his.

Eleventh: perhaps most importantly, Kellhus describes his ability to move as 'inexplicable' More than that, he describes his movement as SOMETHING.  That is to say, for a Dunyain to describe that something outside themselves moves them is a repudiation of everything it is to be Dunyain.  If SOMETHING is moving Kellhus, it is likely to be related to the divine (which one I don't know). And along with this, Kellhus describes his ability to stand as "stood impossibly".  Kellhus' perspective views these two things--his inexplicable movement and his impossible standing as the most remarkable thing of this section, all that radical, crazy, bizarre business with Serwe's heart?  Kellhus describes that in perfectly matter of fact terms.  Nothing remarkable there.  Very interesting, that.

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« Reply #35 on: April 25, 2013, 06:30:33 pm »
Quote from: Callan S.
I just wonder, in as much as topoi hinge on the extreme misery of hundreds of thousands, whether strange effects could occur when someone is hinge of hope for hundreds of thousands.

Anyway, clearly teleporting (first shown by practitioners of the Psukhe - a magic based on passion) is possible. Instead of a whole teleport, it just teleports one organ from a still, dead body in a very known location to Kellhus's hand. Remember the psukhe would sometimes manifest around blind people in extremes of situation - blind people with absolutely no training. Weve got an extreme situation, I think, with the circumfix just behind him. And I'd be willing to think a theme of the book is some kind of blindness coming across him at that point (I mean, what's the whole 'he glimpsed Sarcelluses uncoiled face' bit?).

That's probably 90% of it.

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« Reply #36 on: April 25, 2013, 06:30:41 pm »
Quote from: Madness
4 & 11 are your most salient points, lockesnow. Thanks, by the way, interesting breakdown.

Everything else could just be description, ambiguity, or madness... on the part of Kellhus.

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« Reply #37 on: April 25, 2013, 06:31:42 pm »
Quote from: Wilshire
pg 118-127TDTCB, english small edition. Inrau's death.
I thought parts of this section were relevant to the discussion.

p112. Description of Onkis:

 "At first glance she appeared to be the severed head of a woman, beautiful yet vaguely common, mounted on a pole. Anything more than a glance, however, revealed the pole to be a miniature tree, like those cultivated by ancient Norsiar, only worked in bronze. Branches poked through her parted lips and swept across her face - nature reborn through human lips. Other branches reached behind to break through her frozen hair. Her image never failed to stir something within him, and this is why he always returned to her: she was this stirring, the dark place where the flurries of this thought arose. She came before him"

p122 Inrau talking to the statue of Onkis

" 'Please . . . Speak to me.'
Nothing.
Tears branched across his face. He raised his arms, held them open until his shoulders burned.
'Anything!' he cried.
Run, his thoughts whispered. Run.
Such a coward! How could he be such a coward?
Something behind him. The sound of flapping wings! Like the flutter of clother among the towering pillars.
He turned his face to the shadowy cieling, searching with his ears. Another flutter. Somewhere up in the clerestory. His skin prickled.
Is that you?
No.
Always doubting. Why was he always doubting? "


p125. Inrau after he recalls 'the words'

"Turning with sorcerous speed, he punched two fingers through Mujonish's chain mail, crackled his breastbone, then seized his heart. He yanked his hand free, drawing a cord of glittering blood into the air. More impossible words. The blood burst into incandescent flame, following his sweeping hand towards the Synthese. Shrieking, the creature dove from the railing into emptiness. Blinding beads of blood cracked bare stone."

p124 the Synthese
" 'He knows this form is but a shell,' the Synthese said to Sarcellus, 'but I don't see Chigra within him.' The pea-sized eyes- little beads of sky blue glass - turned to Inrau. 'Hmm. Boy? You don't dream the Dream like the others, do you? If you did, you would recognize. Chigra never failed to recognize me."

Inrau is a Mandati that doesn't dream the Dream but can still cast sorcery. wtf is that about.

Lots of stuff about trees and Onkis. Maybe She was working through Kellhus?

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« Reply #38 on: April 25, 2013, 06:31:51 pm »
Quote from: Wilshire
So that section with Inrau is pretty interesting post AE series. It seems far more likely that he was actually being told to run by Onkis herself. Though that would imply that Onkis could see some kind of danger, which implies that a god could see the consult.

That doesn't fit with a cannon very well, nor does that fact that Inrau didn't undergo the grasping yet still knew 'the words'.
That whole section is worth a reread for those of you who haven't.

Anyways, it is very coincidental that there is all this important put on trees in this section, and in Kellhus's dilemma, and then at the end of both we have the "blood cracked bare stone" visualization. Someone once told me that there are no coincidences in books though, so maybe its a clue to something? But what? Is Kellhus/Serwe/Tree related to Inrau/Onkis/Tree in some metaphysical way?

This may warrant a new thread is it diverges away from the topic at hand though.


Also
Quote from: Callan S.
I just wonder, in as much as topoi hinge on the extreme misery of hundreds of thousands, whether strange effects could occur when someone is hinge of hope for hundreds of thousands.


I have wondered this many times and posted similar questions before to no avail. Fact is there is no evidence to support it. I think though that having an anti-topoi built on hope/happiness would be pretty cool. Like a heaven foil to hell.

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« Reply #39 on: April 25, 2013, 06:32:15 pm »
Quote from: Capt.Croaker
Quote from: Madness
Quote from: Capt.Croaker
another thing,i have read no mention of Kellhus having seswathas apocalypse dreams,although he is a mandate.could be he is possessed by seswatha.........i can hardly wait for the unholy consult.this is worse than waiting for the last Dark Tower book(that book was the worst let down in my life)

Capt.Croaker, I feel like no one addressed this for you but Kellhus is the only person to get his hands on the Gnosis without completing the ritual Grasping, where Mandate
(click to show/hide)
must hold Seswatha's Heart to bind them to the Dreams... Oddly topical, that.

thanks,i'll take your word for it.i must have missed that somehow............... :cry:

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« Reply #40 on: April 25, 2013, 06:32:22 pm »
Quote from: Callan S.
Inrau just knows the basics of the gnosis - he just does a hand to hand attack, after all. Not some far reaching, wide ranging attack that slices whole units into cubes.

Quote
So that section with Inrau is pretty interesting post AE series. It seems far more likely that he was actually being told to run by Onkis herself. Though that would imply that Onkis could see some kind of danger, which implies that a god could see the consult.

That doesn't fit with a cannon very well
Good spotting, Wilshire!

Quote
Anyways, it is very coincidental that there is all this important put on trees in this section, and in Kellhus's dilemma, and then at the end of both we have the "blood cracked bare stone" visualization. Someone once told me that there are no coincidences in books though, so maybe its a clue to something? But what? Is Kellhus/Serwe/Tree related to Inrau/Onkis/Tree in some metaphysical way?
Don't forget the twig that shows up near the start of Kellhus's journey, which he looks at blankly (does not get it), but then finds again just before
(click to show/hide)
and sees a green branch on the twig, and seems to understand this time.

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« Reply #41 on: April 25, 2013, 06:32:50 pm »
Quote from: Wilshire
Yeah there is no doubt that there are at least a lot of references to trees. The Inrau scene is just another example, and it provides us with a deity that is closely associated with trees.

How much do we know about Onkis? Is she special somehow, or maybe Ajoli's sister or some such?

pg 475 TTT english hardcover edition:
Quote
Onkis - The Goddess of hope and aspiration. One of the so-called Compensatory Gods, who reward devotion in life with paradise in the afterlife, Onkis draws followers from all walks of life, though rarely in great numbers. She is only mentioned twice in the Higarata, and in the (likely apocryphal) Parnishtas she is portrayed as a prophetess, not of the future, but of the motivations of Men. The so-called "shakers" belong to an extreme branch of the Cult, where they devotees ritually strive to be "possessed" by the Goddess. Her symbol is the Copper Tree (which also happens to be the device of the legendary Nonman Mansion of Siol, though no linked has been established).

A few things that jump out right away:
"Portrayed as a prophetess, not of the future, but of the motivations of Men"
"Her symbol is the Copper Tree (Which also happens to be the device of the legendary Nonman Mansion of Siol"

Which was Siol again? And who's Mansion did Moe and Kell have their encounter?

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« Reply #42 on: April 25, 2013, 06:32:58 pm »
Quote from: Madness
It's never mentioned explicitly, Capt.Croaker. Something it seems we're supposed to extrapolate - also stuff that Bakker clarified on Zombie Three Seas.

I've always been about Onkis telling Inrau to run in TDTCB and that only AE could have primed us for that truth. However, it's likely Onkis can see Aurang and the other Ensoulled members of the Consult.

Quote from: Cu'jara Cinmoi, 2006
This question really morphed!

Yes, Inrau IS damned. And this is the basis of his conversion. There's always hope that the scriptures just overlooked some kind of loophole, or that by praying real hard...

Part of the problem is that we see Inrau primarily through Achamian, and if you think about it, Achamian tends not to go into the details of his damnation - or that of any of those he loves. For instance, why doesn't he ever wonder about Inrau's soul? This omission becomes more and more explicit the more implicated Achamian becomes in Kellhus's world. Think of TTT. I wanted this to be the one thing he cannot grasp without the protection of vague intellectual abstraction.

Check out the thread: Inrau's Sorcery[/b] for more speculative tidbits - though, none other by Bakker, like unJon's quote about Denotaries...

However, I know there's direct quotation elsewhere about the Grasping... can't find it though :(.

EDIT: I realize I'm hardly addressing everything but Siol, Wilshire, is one of Cu'jara Cinmoi's Mansions of the Nation of Injor-Niyas, of which Ishterebinth is a second Mansion. We know that Nin'janjin ruled the Nonman nation of Viri, which controlled two Mansions to the north of Ishterebinth, whereas Cu'jara Cinmoi ruled three to Viri's south.

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« Reply #43 on: April 25, 2013, 06:33:05 pm »
Quote from: Callan S.
I guess if the gods fight each other, then even if some can see, it doesn't mean the rest listen.

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« Reply #44 on: April 25, 2013, 06:33:20 pm »
Quote from: Curethan
I think that quote about Inrau strongly implies that sorcery really does cause damnation. 
I think that my theory on bruising the onta being a surefire way of attracting the interest of demonic interest is a strong contender for as to why.  Which certainly leaves the Psukhe as *possible* way to weild sorcery and escape damnation - (probably metaphysicaly independant of Fane's associated religious teachings)...

@ Wilshire - I believe the assertion is that the hundred are blind to the no-god.  From Shae's PoV in the False Dawn we are led to believe that consult are free of the influence of the gods.  That is they can't influnce or predict their actions because the IF has completely blackened their souls.  Think of it as little moving black spots that gobble up their followers - Onkis can't intervene directly, she can't tell what they are going to do but she can tell where they are if one of her followers are there and so can warn Inrau...
Furthermore, the Celmoman prophecy 100% flies in the face of that idea (and a lot of other semi-canon metaphysics). 

Tangentaly, think of how the Storks track the Sranc.  Storks do not have a soul either, but Yatwer(?) can use them to track Sranc as extensions of her awareness.  Similarly, the No-god can use Sranc as extensions.  Why does Yatwer need to track the Sranc?  Because she doesn't know what they are going to do.  Not only are they souless, but also free of the influence of the outside (TDTCB)...  For a being that exists out of time they must certainly look like lies.

Meanwhile, on topic, we have quoted the scene where Khellus produces Serwe's heart.  But I think it's important to attend to the circumstances of how they are taken and bound to the Circumfix to appreciate how impossible it is for even Khellus to acquire and hide Serwe's heart via sleight of hand.  Refer two chapters before that scene iirc.