Earwa > The White-Luck Warrior

Kellhus: good or evil?

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What Came Before:

--- Quote from: Wilshire ---Is he trying to save the world or destroy it? To kill the consult, or to save them? Close the world to the gods or keep that bridge unburned.

Anyone thoughts?

I realize that good/evil is not clear at all in the book. We don't even know what being damned even means, or saved for that matter. In the end, everyone may just go to some kind of eternal suffering at the hands of the gods or whatever.

That aside, what is Kullhus' goal? In TTT I felt like Moe was more or less in agreement with the consult, and he wanted to shut the world. And he seemed to think Kellhus was crazy, not only because of his visions and the halos, but also because Kell wanted to stop the consult from succeding. Though maybe I totally blew that interpretation.
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What Came Before:

--- Quote from: Francis Buck ---Well, obviously I don't really think that concepts such as good and evil can be applied to someone -- or really, something -- like Kellhus. That being said, I do believe that Kellhus, in some sort of remote way, is working for the "best of humanity". To me, that's what makes his character work; he strives to defend humanity at all costs. How he treats individual people to further his goal is meaningless. It's the whole that counts.

Now, the question is, what actually IS best for humanity? Is it better to kill almost every living person in an effort to shut off the Outside and thus save untold numbers of souls from an eternity of horrible damnation? Or is that result not worth the cost of all those lives? It's a tough question to answer.

Personally though, I think the Consult (and by extension the Inchoroi) are the lesser of two very great evils. To me, the Gods are completely unsympathetic. The small portion of souls that the Gods "reward" is irrelevant compared to the vast quantites that they punish. And that's just on Eärwa. We don't know if that applies to all of the life in the Bakkerverse (though I suspect it does), and if that's the case then it makes the Inchoroi's goal even more reasonable. In a sense, Kellhus and the Consult are similar in that they're both trying to end the tyranny of the Gods, no matter the cost, because the cost will always be less than the cost of failure. At least that's the way I see it.

I think we'll see this concept realized through Achamian as well. When Kellhus tells Achamian that the next time they see each other, Akka will kneel before him, he really means it. Except it won't be a gesture of submission; Akka will kneel beside Kellhus's dying body on the battlefield of the No-God, realizing that despite all his seemingly "evil" actions, Kellhus was ultimately working to save humanity (and perhaps life in general) from eternal damnation.

So yeah, I guess Kellhus is "good". Sort of.
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What Came Before:

--- Quote from: Mog Kellhus ---I believe that Kellhus is still a Dunyain deep inside and so his ultimate goal is to achieve the Absolute and become a real God.To do so he must obtain the Tekne to extend his lifespan or even achieve some kind of immortality like the Consult.I think that the Ordeal is just a big ruse so he can infiltrate Golgotterath alone and achieve his goal destroying the Consult members in the process.The fate of his army and humanity in general is irrelevant to him.

So is Kellhus good or evil?I believe he is just a Dunyain.
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What Came Before:

--- Quote from: Callan S. ---I think Kellhus is contained by no particular borders that we'd look upon as good. Or for that matter, he is contained by no particular borders that we'd look upon as evil. And he is mad. Apparently.

Anyway, how do you navigate when those borders, those compasses, are gone? He's definately still moving. But is it like a epileptic seizure? Just one long spasm, but Kellhus is complicated enough that his spasm seems to us intentful practice?

Even as a spasm, I guess the question remains - where does this spasm ultimately end up? It seems composed of atleast components of the actions we think in, so if one spasmodic component follows another, is there an order? Or will he just suddenly run out at some point? Or take some non sequetuer angle at random?


--- Quote ---he strives to defend humanity at all costs. How he treats individual people to further his goal is meaningless. It's the whole that counts.
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I'm pretty sure that's what the gods do as well.

Such a hole.
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What Came Before:

--- Quote from: lockesnow ---I think it doesn't really matter because I think that:

The gods are a falsehood that really just nom nom souls after death

Kellhus is constrained because he can't restructure the beliefs of the entire world to save the souls of the world from getting munched, post death. 

Ironically, Kellhus has realized that the Consult's goal of shutting the world is also a theory to save the souls of the world from getting munched, post death, but in practice, the theory fails because the species dies out.  Stupid programming bugs.

The solution is to modify the process such that Kellhus can control the reproductive element, while also protecting the souls from munching.  This probably means something like he's going to go outside and shut the door behind him.   

In other words, he will shut regions of the outside to the world. (different from shutting the world to the outside)  Meaning, he's going to disenchant the world.  This would echo what the Dunyain attempted to do in "disenchanting" Ishual when they arrived there.   Long term, Kellhus' actions should protect the species for the forseeable millenia, while also saving the souls of the world from being munched. In a sense, Kellhus will ascend to godhood, the way that we presume Jesus to have ascended (even if he doesn't become a god or have any more connection to inward he will still be worshipped as a god, that worship just may not benefit him).  And as an added bonus, this would explain why magic 'works' in pre modern worlds but doesn't work in modern worlds. ;)
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