From Who Are the Dunyain thread, though I didn't want to put my thoughts there
Interesting, though I still think at least initially that the word came from Dúnedain.
This was my thought as well. Kellhus is a terrible twisted version of Aragorn, in a way.
Solitary God = Absolute.
The Dûnyain have been inadvertently worshiping the Fanim God all along.
Wouldn't it be more correct to say the Fanim have been worshiping the Dunyain conception of the Absolute inadvertently? The Dunyain are older than the Fanim.
And Moenghus, yes.
Cnaiur's mother must have been a truly rare woman. Moenghus fathered a seemingly healthy son by her, though he was long gone by the time it was born, and likely didn't even know she was pregnant. Of course then Cnaiur's mother and the child were killed for being contaminated by Moenghus.
This to me either points to Moenghus being a strange Dunyain, or Kellhus being broken, genetically speaking.
Why would, presumably, Moenghus be able to sire children with less trouble than Kellhus? Kellhus, with the resources of an empire and revered as a God, was only able to find a single vessel for his children, and they all ended up emotionally broken in some way, most of the physically. Moe was able to sire at least 2 children from 2 different non-dunyain women, one of which was a Scylvendi, who would be the least likely people, imo, to match up with the Dunyain's genetic heritage.
This assumes that something in the way that the Dunyain have been selectively breeding is what causes the problems with the children. We know that they spent 2000 years breeding for intellectual acuity and physical prowess. Maybe worth noting that Bakker has mentioned that whatever they were doing may inadvertently have been selecting for the Few. Maybe the Scylvendi, with the harsh circumstances of their roaming people, have actually selected similarly for genetic traits that made them closer to the Dunyain gene pool than might originally be obvious. Wonder if the Scylvendi are disproportionaly able to see the Onta than the rest of the Three Seas...
Tangent. One interesting thing to note is that not a single half-dunyain has any children. A common effect of inter-breeding two species is that their offspring are often infertile. A bit strange that Kellhus was working so hard to have children and he didn't employ his brother to help. After all, a well-adjusted and completely functional quarter-dunyain would be far more useful than a bunch of drowned children, or Inrilatas. Perhaps the Dunyain did in-fact speciate some time before Moe left for the World. Accelerated breeding and extreme artificial selection could have caused this speciation event to happen many thousands of years faster than might have been expected.... Maybe Kellhus' generation of Dunyain are the first true non-humans.
