- Chorae (wherever the mother load is)
Well, we've always known that Sakarpus has the second greatest horde of Chorae, now in the Great Ordeal's possession, next to the horde at Golgotterath.
Chorae:
I was surprised we didn't get more about whatever Mimara did to banish The Wight In The Mountain. That was presented as something special and important in TJE (and WLW I think), but it seems to have been abandoned. Particularly, she makes a Chorae/Tear of God distinction after she "inverts" it which seems like a really obvious hint. If only I could figure out what it means.
We do get a couple of bits. Crab-boy uses a Chorae on Chipmunk, and one gets thrown around in the climax in Ishterebinth.
I always try and guess Bakker's narrative by imagining the arcs as he sees them across single stories. In this case, I imagine these pieces are important in regards to
The Aspect-Emperor narrative across the tetralogy and so likely have some role to play in the conclusion to come.
No real ideas, therein - this kind of speculation has always fallen a bit outside of my ken.
I do wonder if there's some role for the Chorae horde. It was mentioned a couple of times, but nothing seems obvious.
If nothing else (and I imagine there's more too it, as mentioned), it matters in the algebra of war to come. The Consult has Ursranc, Sranc, Skin-Spies, and Bashrag that it can equip with Chorae - not to mention any new creatures of the Tekne (and I'm still really hoping for Battle-Synthese!). At this point, depending on how many the Sakarpus horde constitutes, the Ordeal can probably equip every non-Few combatant that remains alive. While an epic conflagration in the truest sense is no doubt impending between the Consult, their Quya and Mangaecca, Ishterebinth's Quya, and the Schools of the Great Ordeal, the Chorae-wielding Ordealmen are still going to have to hack or so be hacked to their bloody demise.
Wutteat:
He's pretty clearly done with whatever role he played in Akka's story. The interesting question is how involved he is with the Consult. It seemed like he basically doesn't care and just wants them to get on with ending the world already.
It seemed to me that he was surprised to learn that his masters hadn't succeeded or failed either way. I want to imagine we'll see the Father of Dragons and all the lesser surviving Wracu at Golgotterath.
A fairly minor thing that I noted in another thread, but Zsoronga doesn't get so much as a mention in this book. Now that the Malo-Chiphrang is on the loose trying to kill his entire line he might come back into focus, though a mention would have been nice.
Yeah, I missed his presence and as MG mentioned above, Sarl and Captain-Beard, as well. I have a feeling we'll see a much more depraved Zsoronga in TUC and Sarl and Captain-Beard seem the obvious Gollum analogue, thus far.