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Why Esmi?

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What Came Before:

--- Quote from: Wilshire ---What makes her so special?

We know little about how the onta perception is past on, but Esmi has had two children from two different men that both can use the voice.
She's the mother of the child with the judging eye.
She is also the only one who can bare viable offspring to Kell.

What did Kell see in her? How is it that she is so genetically superior to other humans.
Sure its possible she won the magical genetic lottery, but thats a lot of chance. There should be some better explanation than that.

There are the wold conspires theories, but I've never fully been able to understand that so I'll not mess with it.
Then there are the gods. They all have various motives, maybe shes one of the chosen souls.
How about not chance or gods or conspiracies, but perhaps shes the product of an elaborate, centuries long breeding program. But then by who and for what purpose. No one but the nonmen would have the foresight and patients to derive such a scheme. It'd take a lot of time and control, specifically political power and money as well, and I can't see a whore in the slums being the child of such a scheme.

I dunno, I was hoping to flesh out a genetic breeding theory but I got tired and decided it was unlikely.

Anyone else?
--- End quote ---

What Came Before:

--- Quote from: Madness ---The world conspires ;)...

I think initially Kellhus picks Esmenet simply because of circumstance and proximity and then keeps her in that role because all other women he finds in the New Empire have unequal wombs - I'm sure Bakker would be ecstatic that I'm coming to the conclusion that Esmenet's womb is what makes her important and unique, at this point.

Luck then rationalization.
--- End quote ---

What Came Before:

--- Quote from: lockesnow ---
--- Quote ---But the mystery of this one woman, this Sumni harlot, stirred fear rather than disdain within him.  Fear and longing.  But why? After Inrau's death, distraction was what he had needed most of all, and she had stubbornly refused to be that distraction.  Quite the opposite.  She pried him for the nuances of his day, debating--more with herself than with him--the meanings of each meaningless thing he learned.  Her conspiracies were as impertinent as they were absurd.

--- End quote ---
From the beginning, DA's perceptions of Esmenet foreshadow her outsized importance, here we see it emphasized how he fears her and wants her and that when he thinks about fearing and wanting her the author chooses to emphasize her nihlistic tendencies, how she searches for meaning in a meaningless world--kind of like the traditional modernist protagonist.  It's interesting that Kellhus will be seeking the opposite of this, seeking to find meaninglessness in a meaningful world.  It's also interesting there's this binary of meaning and meaningless regarding Esmenet so soon after the definition of the No-God was provided, "emptiness, absolute and terrible," Esme is only a few paragraphs after this definition, and we should definitely make a connection here, I think.

Bakker continues,


--- Quote ---One night he told her as much, hoping only to silence her for a short time.  She had paused, but when she spoke, it was with a weariness that far surpassed his own, the tone of one injured to honesty by the pettiness of another.  "This is only a game I play, Achamian... There is is truth inside a game." He'd lain in the darkness, consumed by inner turmoil, feeling that if he could unravel his hurts the way she could, he would crumble, collapse into dust.  This isn't a game.  Inrau is dead.  Dead!
--- End quote ---
italics in the original, emphasis mine.  Amazing that Esmenet here could have weariness that surpasses that of the Mandate! The Mandate.  And note how her ability to self-analyze is considered so extensive, I think we're getting some foreshadowing as to why she will work with Kellhus, Achamian is so scared of her abilities that he thinks he would crumble into dust (biblical, eh?) if he did the same--and then look how FAST Achamian runs away from this conclusion, he distracts himself from the powerful conclusions he is approaching by retreating into the safe recriminations regarding Inrau's death.  Rather than following Esmenet's path to insights--a path very similar to the path Kellhus follows for insight--DA is scared and runs away, he rejects the 'game' and focuses on his hurt feelings. "Inrau is dead. Dead!"


--- Quote ---Achamian had lain wiht many whores in many cities through the years, so why was Esmenet so different?  he'd first come to her because of her beautiful boyish thighs and seal-smooth skin.  He'd returned because she was so good, because she joked and lusted the way she had with Callustras--whoever he was.  But at some point, he'd come to know the woman apart from her spread legs.  What was it he'd learned?  With whom had he fallen in love?

Esmenet, The Whore of Sumna

Often, in his soul's eye, she was inexplicably thin and wild, buffeted by rain and winds, obscured by the swaying of forest branches.  This woman, who had once lifted her hand to the sun, holding it so that for him it's light lay cupped in her palm, and telling him that truth was air, was sky, and could only be claimed, never touched by the limbs and fingers of a man.  He couldn't tell her how profoundly her musings affected him, that they thrashed like living things in the wells of his soul and gathered stones about them.
--- End quote ---

Good god, look at that last paragraph, look at the foreshadowing there.  Esmenet is already like a god when see through the gaze of his soul's eye, this passage is screaming and describing her specialness.  Her appearance, her teachings they all overwhelm DA throughout this chapter and the series and this is long before she meets Kellhus, the world has marked Esmenet, for certain.

Who else could match Kellhus than someone such as this?
--- End quote ---

What Came Before:

--- Quote from: Wilshire ---Its not that I think her undeserving, and if I did surely these passages would have overturned that.

I guess I was just entertaining the thought that she was made. Perhaps one day something will come up, and we'll find out that some of the "world conspires" is actually something or someone tangible.
--- End quote ---

What Came Before:

--- Quote from: lockesnow ---
--- Quote from: Wilshire ---Its not that I think her undeserving, and if I did surely these passages would have overturned that.

I guess I was just entertaining the thought that she was made. Perhaps one day something will come up, and we'll find out that some of the "world conspires" is actually something or someone tangible.
--- End quote ---
I guess that's never really bothered me as I've never really cared if Luke Skywalker or Neo were 'made' because they are the 'one' in their particular universes.
--- End quote ---

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