[What Came Before]

This connection has only occurred to me twice. Until now, that is. Here is my evidence for considering Cunoroi/Dunyanic interaction.

"To embrace mystery was one thing, to render it divine was quite another. What the Nonman said sounded too much like Kellhus, and too little like what Achamian knew of Nonmen mystery cults." p. 495-496, TJE

"We are Many!" the Erratic roared. "We are legion! What you call your soul is nothing but a confusion, an inability! A plurality that cannot count the moments that divide it and so calls itself One." p. 890, WLW

And now, while I was looking for a response to Blackstone's 5 tribes question:

Legion: A Dunyain term referring to the preconscious sources of the conscious thought. p. 462, TTT Glossary LE

So... Did the Nonmen found the Dunyain order? Did the Nonmen move on Ishual on force or stumble upon it? Did the Dunyain send another son to dominate, to condition Ishterebinth long ago?

Aside, have the Dunyain Pragma conditioned the very World from their fastness? Kellhus might simply be the final run on permutations considered for millennia.

[What Came Before]

Madness, that has been something stuck in my craw for some time. *What* does Akka know about Nonmen mystery cults? Do we ever get some elucidation there?

Or will this require us meeting the Intact.

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Hmm...

Crackpot theory:

Maybe that's why the Consult now control Ishterebinth and Ishual is destroyed. The Nonmen came across the Dunyain and tried to adopt their philosophies and mental control to cope with the trauma of their erraticism. The Consult got frightened and reacted quickly, dominating Ishterebinth and destroying Ishual. (They'd certainly have the resources) Kellhus is actually sending his daughter and Mog to meet up with the Ishterebinth resistance movement that is allied with the few remaining Dunyain and together they'll regain control of the Mansion, honor the Niom, and retake Dagliash.

Sci - What is a nonman mystery cult? I thought they worshiped the cracks between the Gods, which doesn't really sound like a mystery cult so much as a way of avoiding damnation.

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I think the Nonmen mystery cults probably reflect ancient human mystery cults of our own world. Orgies, Drugs, and living Transcendence .

However, sciborg, Bakker has made a definite pattern of only allowing in-context narration from our POVs. Like how Achamian clearly knows about the 144,000 of legend yet never mused upon this once until WLW or the Judging Eye - something which clearly actually has to do with historical prophecy. Now these could be things he learned in the interim. But I feel like he'd didn't do anything but Dream and chronicle for twenty years.

I just assume Achamian knows basically everything and will let us know all in good time.

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Well, I doubt he has much reason to think of some obscure legend about 144,000 souls unless it comes up in his life.

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Madness, that has been something stuck in my craw for some time. *What* does Akka know about Nonmen mystery cults? Do we ever get some elucidation there?

Or will this require us meeting the Intact.

Achamian continually knows more than we the readers are ever privy to. Need-to-know paranoia runs so deep in this man it is narrative.

[What Came Before]

Well, we have a good candidate for the founding of the Dunyain and perhaps that candidate had a good reason to do so.

Nil Giccas.  The connection of his philosophy of Legion could predate the existence of the Dunyain.  We know that The Tutelage ended because of the rape of Omindalea when Nil Giccas refused to turn over the male nonman who'd done the deed (perhaps also Nil Giccas?)

Ishterebinth was the seat of Nil Giccas and shares a prefix with Ishual (exalted grotto) and is the closest civilization to Ishual.  Nil Giccas was a great friend of the anasurimbor celmomas and may have informed him of Ishual and offered it as a gift, or they may have conspired together in its construction reasoning that the best way to hide from the Consult was right under their nose. 

Let's suggest that Nil Giccas never wanted the tutelage to end, and had started an ascetic cult in secret.  However, he didn't want to tutor men on sorcery but on theology, I think he hoped that men would master it the way they mastered the gnosis.  When Sauglish fell, he gathered those of his cult that survived and led them to Ishual. 

Kellhus has figured this all out.  He never knew about Ses' map, and just figured that the best way to help Akka and Mim find Ishual was to give them the most powerful Quya as their guide, particularly as he'd helped to found it.

Alternate/side theory:  After the rape of omindalea, Nil Giccas took in the child.  However, he could not raise it amongst nonmen at Ishterebinth because a child nonman, and female nonman would be immediately noticed.  So he constructed an exalted grotto for the only nonman female to live.  he promptly bedded her and eventually produced the anasurimbor line.  The anasurimbor kept their seat in this secret fastness for several centuries before they ventured out, conquered, and became the ur-king of the umerian empire.  The place was known only to their family, which is why ganrelka returned there to try and hide out the apocalypse.


Alternate crackpot:  When legend says that Nil'Giccas was embittered by the loss of his sons in 2132, perhaps legend means Nil'Giccas half-human sons--anasurimbor princes--rather than cunoroi sons.

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Well, look to the prologue of TDTCB. I started re-reading it today. M confronts Kellhus after killing his Sranc, observes him after hearing his name, says "I see that you are a student. Knowledge is power, eh?" (p. 27) Granted, he could easily be talking about Kell's silence at the time, but it seems a bit too, mm, convenient in that light. Given the events later in the series and this conversation, perhaps there's something more. The entire prologue is a mirror of the latter part of the series anyway: ex. Leweth and Aurang's calling the world an outrage, etc.

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I'll buy that there could be some Nonman influence on the Dunyain philosophy, but if there is it was all from prior to the apocalypse. The Dunyain had no idea that Nonmen existed when Kellhus left Ishual, as evident from Kell's reaction to (Mekeritrig?). Prior to entering Ishual, the Dunyain knew magic existed and no doubt knew that Nonmen did as well, but they erased it from their history.

The Anasurimbor existed long before Ishual did. One of the Anasurimbor's built it during the Apocalypse.

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Well, Blackstone, I'll just suggest that unless - probably until - we are able to understand more of the Dunyain hierarchy, we just don't know what the Dunyain knew. Were Kellhus and Moenghus even among the upper tiers of the Dunyain considering their ages and the ages of the Pragma? Or are they more pawns than otherwise?

As it stands we just know what Kellhus knew. As far as POV time goes, that ain't much.

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As far as connections between the Nonmen and the Dunyain go, I always wondered if there is not a bit Nonmen blood in the Dunyain people. I remember Kelhus considered having children with normal women a bit problematic and choose Esmenet because she was a good fit. And even with her, some of his offspring is pretty weird. Also the Nonmen tried having children with human concubines after the womb plague if I remember correctly. Maybe the Dunyain bred their people for compatibility with the Nonmen.

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From a Bakker post on that forum (this never made it into the official published appendix):

The Siqu are the Nonmen advisors to the ancient Norsirai Kings during the Nonman Tutelage...

You sent me digging for this one. I thought I would post this little teaser of what to expect in the apendices to TTT:

820 - The Rape of Omindalea. Jiricet, a Nonman
Siqû to the God-King Nincarû-Telesser II
(787-828), rapes Omindalea (808-825), first
daughter of Sanna-Neorjë (772-858) of the
house of Anasûrimbor in 824, and then flees
to Ishterebinth. When Nil’giccas refuses to
return Jiricet to Ûmerau, Nicarû-Telesser II
expels all Nonmen from the Ûmeri Empire.
Omindalea conceives by the union and dies
bearing Anasûrimbor Sanna-Jephera (825-
1032), called ‘Twoheart.’ After a house-slave
conceives by him, Sanna-Jephera is adopted
by Sanna-Neorjë as his heir.
- The cuneiform script and the syllabaries of
the Nonmen are outlawed and replaced with a
consonantal alphabet, c.835.

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Well, the Dunyain must all have some NonMan blood by mingling with the Anasurimbor line. As for their history prior to Ishual, they don't know it themselves as they burned all their books and destroyed all references of the past. So their philosophy might be an influence by NonMan culture that they can't trace, or their shared genetics driving them to draw similar conclusions .

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This actually makes a lot of sense. Kellhus was sent out to kill Moenghus, but the Dunyain could have already considered the route Kellhus would follow. The domination of the Three Seas and Ishterebinth could be one, large precalculated play, the end-game of which could be the domination of Golgotterath (to destroy it, appropriate the Tekne, or leave Earwa using The Ark, who knows).

However then when you look at Kellhus' character and how woefully uninformed he was at the beginning of The Darkness That Comes Before, it becomes harder to believe that they would be a part of it; unless he was raised that way for that specific purpose.

It seems to be a bit of a stretch to suppose that the Dunyain could calculate Kellhus' movements exactly 20 years in advance, and account for any possible deviations in which he might die or just do something else. However if there was anyone who do it, it would be them.

I always thought it was him who destroyed Ishual, or he simply told the consult where it was so that they could do so; or after 'launching' their Kellhus rocket, the Dunyain simply let themselves all die as their purpose had been served.

It is difficult to figure out Kellhus' goal in all of this, when by all rights none of it should even matter to him. The Dunyain aren't compulsed by anything (power, wealth, love, etc, mean nothing to him, much less the destruction of Earwa), so it leaves the question of who exactly is calling the shots behind the Dunyain; is it a Nonman, the consult, or a third party?

It is safe to speculate that Kellhus knows that damnation exists, so now that he is a shaman, perhaps he too wants to escape judgment (the only thing more absolute than the Dunyain mode of thought)?

My head hurts now so I'm going to revisit this later.

[What Came Before]

As far as connections between the Nonmen and the Dunyain go, I always wondered if there is not a bit Nonmen blood in the Dunyain people. I remember Kelhus considered having children with normal women a bit problematic and choose Esmenet because she was a good fit. And even with her, some of his offspring is pretty weird. Also the Nonmen tried having children with human concubines after the womb plague if I remember correctly. Maybe the Dunyain bred their people for compatibility with the Nonmen.

I wouldn't doubt this. I think in the glossary of The Warrior Prophet there is mention of one successful crossbreeding between humans and Nonmen. S/he could have very well been an ancestor of the Anasurimbor line. Too bad Mimara was already knocked up, or I would posit that she might be carrying Nil'giccas' child (correct me if that is the wrong name, I haven't read the books in a while).