[What Came Before]

I believe that Bakker has stated in one of his interviews that Serwe could potentially be the most important character in the entire SE series.

I was talking to a friend who just started the series and a theory popped into my head as to why, maybe, this could be. Or rather a few questions. First though, does anyone know:
1) where that idea came from, or rather the interview where Bakker said that (or something similar, I dont want to miss quote it).
2) is there somewhere on this forum that this has been discussed already?

Sorry but right now I dont have a lot of time and I want to be more certain before I write stuff down.

edit:
Interview:

But it was the innocence part, that struck me as the most significant and the most
redemptive. Without giving too much away, there is a manner in which Serwe is the most
important character in the book.

[What Came Before]

well she's the sacrificial lamb, more to the point, she willingly gave her life, very Aslan of her.

[What Came Before]

First apostle, though Bakker could choose to explore the Atrithi Zaudunyani.

Also, she gives her soul entirely to Kellhus, even up to death, to Zaudunyani Inrithism. I'm convinced that we don't know nearly enough about the relationship between the World and the Outside. Ascension is apparently possible, Swazond might actually trap souls a la Karsa Orlong, and belief may shape the spaces of the Gods in the Outside and certainly their requisite agency in the World.

This occluded mechanism is one of the reasons I think it is so, so important that a number of Moenghus' Sect of Cishaurim were dying for him in battle at Shimeh when he died at Sejenus' actual point of Ascension at Kyudea.

Serwe's death, her soul's fate in the Outside, might very well be the cause of Kellhus' revelations and apparent divinity.

[What Came Before]

Ah ok is is what I was thinking, more or less. I couldn't understand why she could be such an important person, then I realized that she martyred herself. I think this might have been what actually prevented saving Kell from death at that tree. Im sure that something important came of that, and now I think its al least related to his "divinity", or rather the glowing halos and what-not.

This or it has something to do with mothing lil' Moe and what becomes of his story arc, though this wouldn't seem to make Serwe some kind of all important character regardless of what he does or happens. I think it has something major to do with Kell and his revaluations.

[What Came Before]

In any closed world you'd read the Circumfixion as Kellhus going mad from an experience so emotional that it breaks his Conditioning. In an open world like Earwa her conviction unto death might have real metaphysical consequences.

[What Came Before]

well she's the sacrificial lamb, more to the point, she willingly gave her life

Huh?

[What Came Before]

well she's the sacrificial lamb, more to the point, she willingly gave her life

Huh?

Important christian connections, ala Aslan.

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I just don't remember her willingly giving her life? Frankly 'surprise' is what I remember about her in that scene?

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She was surprised but that is more or less irreverent. Her devotion is what was important, and I this that its mostly accepted that the world is  "open" and this should have some metaphysical importance that we have not had fully explained yet.

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Interesting, but not from the position I imagine I'm supposed to find it interesting from.

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I imagine I was the only one who was happy to see her go.

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Certainly not the only one. She was a bimbo by all accounts, an irritating to boot.

[What Came Before]

I also breathed a sigh of relief when Serwe bit the dust.

She filled an important role in the narrative, but her actual personality was just...airheaded and gratingly dull. Bakker could definitely have put more work into making the Serwe character more sympathetic to the reader.

[What Came Before]

Ouch.

As TPB has had some posts on - was the character not made sympathetic to the reader, or does the reader think they sympathise more than they actually do?

Granted, we come to fantasy for the dragons and swords (to put it simplistically) to grab us. So it might lack that element - perhaps if Serwe was a dragon, for example, she'd grab more at the fantasy reader. But if even then it seems the author didn't make the character a sympathetic one, maybe that's so. Or, how do you measure whether you just don't sympathise as much as you think you do?

[What Came Before]

I get tired of the blind fanaticism, really.

Yes, it's her character's point and I fully understand she's had an utterly abhorrent life. I CAN get behind that and sympathize, truly. But that fact is stamped out about halfway through Darkness and utterly vanishes in Warrior-Prophet under the tide of her devotion. There's just an irritation about her. Yes, she's hot; yes, she's desired by all men and a perfect tool for Kellhus; yes, she's a bit loony... but I just can't like her. There's too much 'hurr Kellhus hurr my life for you hurr' for my tastes.

Perhaps poorly articulated, but this is what leaps to the forefront of my mind.