[What Came Before]

All it takes is a well aimed chorae to kill Meppa. Though he could pose a rather large problem if Kellhus took nearly all of them with him, which I think is likely. Without much to fight against Meppa, the Empire is pretty much bending over, not that it will matter since the outcome of the Great Ordeal, as suggested elsewhere from others, will end up uniting everyone anyway.

lol@ Cnaiur is Meppa. I like that theory better, at least, then Big Moe as I have written him off as salted a long time ago. Cniaur's end could possibly be ambiguous enough to warrant some speculation. I'm sure the tekne could stitch up a little cut don't you think? Hell, why not blind the guy while you've got him under and block him from most of his memories. See if you can't get yourself a Cishi to play with. BTW key word is block, not erase. Blocked memories could still have subconscious effects, retaining the necessary Passion to wield the psuke.

[What Came Before]

Lol, last things first, Conditioned - perfectly coherent stream of conscious. I'm not sure there's any sense of behavioural borders, other than those the forum members decide in communicative consensus and you're well within canon. I'm thinking most of us are young, working class/students, orbited by the classic outliers, with a variety of vices and a beyond social accepted appetite for thinking about... well, pretty much everything. Bakker's writing, this series, deserves an engaged audience .

Also, don't be discouraged. I'm not sure any of us can quote the series beyond paraphrase... well, maybe lockesnow and Wilshire. For my part, it's simply motivated by academics and documenting evidence - I have a fantastic memory for narrative wholes and segments, it seems, so I look up the passages I need. Plus, we all bend the ambiguity, reading whats not there, to our own personal associations. Bakker's riffing off that, this transmission from writer to reader. Neat to explore.

Not even close to a Nerdanel, Conditioned. Nerdanel was a... outlandish. Off the reservation, somewhere in Eanna . But I do want to add that we never actually see Meppa's arms.

Otherwise.

Meppa and Maithanet have to be under thirty as we're all agreeing. I've known twenty year olds to go stark white. Maybe Moenghus just kept Meppa in the Kyudean Mansion for his entire life and he finally wandered free after Shimeh .

The Meppa Cataract, Cant, landmark, name, trifecta highlights why quoting also becomes important because it's a text. This is why only in bending our combined mental efforts together can we anticipate Bakker because three pounds is not enough to solve the Second Apocalypse. If Bakker took the time to write it, and he's pretty conscious of his writing, then I daresay its a red herring, or it's exactly what we're conceding together now.

In terms of where Bakker's going, I've found the Layer of Revelation rule pretty handy for interpretation.

TDTCB - Mention of Cishaurim and we recall them from Eleazarus' persprective in recounting the assasination of the former Scarlet Spires Grandmaster, Sasheoka.
TWP - Battle of Mengeadda: Omniscient war perspective
TTT - Battle of Shimeh: Psukhe vs. Anagogic
TJE - Rumours of Fanayal using Cishaurim in his raids against the Kellian Empire.
WLW - Meppa?

Really, we don't know anything about the Cishaurim five books in. How likely is it that Bakker has more to flesh out about the Cishaurim, that the bad guys from series 1 are actually the revelatory good guys all along in series 2, and that the only narrative connection to them remaining is going to give us those revelations lol?

Pretty fraking likely, if you ask me.

@ Wilshire, it's a big noteworthy moment when Malowebi realizes that he can tell Zuem that the Kellian Empire has no Chorae.

[What Came Before]

In terms of where Bakker's going, I've found the Layer of Revelation rule pretty handy for interpretation.

TDTCB - Mention of Cishaurim and we recall them from Eleazarus' persprective in recounting the assasination of the former Scarlet Spires Grandmaster, Sasheoka.
TWP - Battle of Mengeadda: Omniscient war perspective
TTT - Battle of Shimeh: Psukhe vs. Anagogic
TJE - Rumours of Fanayal using Cishaurim in his raids against the Kellian Empire.
WLW - Meppa?

Really, we don't know anything about the Cishaurim five books in. How likely is it that Bakker has more to flesh out about the Cishaurim, that the bad guys from series 1 are actually the revelatory good guys all along in series 2, and that the only narrative connection to them remaining is going to give us those revelations lol?

Pretty fraking likely, if you ask me.

@ Wilshire, it's a big noteworthy moment when Malowebi realizes that he can tell Zuem that the Kellian Empire has no Chorae.

Having that progression is pretty useful, and the rest of your post sums up my feeling pretty nicely.  I have a hard time believing that Meppa's only significance is that Fanayal has one Cishaurim added to the chess board.  But if he is more significant than that...there's no limit to what one could imagine he represents. 

I think that's why I'm not discounting something like another Fane-like revelation from the Solitary God.

[What Came Before]

Meppa is one of Big Moe's Cish. I don't think it's anything more than that. If he was Big Moe himself, he'd have the Scylvendi scars.

He's likely there to kill Fayanal at the right moment.

I was re-reading the thread, and I forget if this has been pointed out or not (or perhaps it's so obvious no one thought it necessary to point out), but we don't really know that Meppa is an amnesiac do we?  We're just taking it on Fanayal's word.  I don't think it's referenced anywhere else other than "Meppa?  He does not know who he is." 

So we're inferring a lot there. 

I wouldn't be surprised to learn that Meppa is an amnesiac after all, but it is also not a safe assumption based on that line from Fanayal.  EAMD.*


*Especially by Dunyain.

[What Came Before]

Cish are harmed by chorae and have/leave no Mark
question
Do Cish
experience all the characteristics of the Few
See the Mark before and after sorcerous initiation 
sense chorae
basically, are they the few?

[What Came Before]

I think your thoughts are legit, Trisk. We're at the mercy of Malowebi's perspective of Fanayal's words.

A couple thoughts.

You can apply that LoR template to anything Bakker and it seems to provide insight. I haven't found reason to toss it away yet.

Also, I am 100% convinced that Cishaurim do not salt like the Few.

I don't think they are, jogrady. But this is certainly up for debate and contention.

[What Came Before]

What if Anagogic and Gnostic sorcerers hit by Tears of God get salted and sent to Hell but Cishaurim hit by Chorae, while still forced out of the world, get sent to be with their God?

[What Came Before]

It's possible. Considering that people tend to go towards the gods they worshiped in life, well, the only people who dont worship are the schoolmen. Perhaps there is a special place for the nonbelievers. Not that that is any better since the gods just eat you anyway.

[What Came Before]

It's possible. Considering that people tend to go towards the gods they worshiped in life, well, the only people who dont worship are the schoolmen. Perhaps there is a special place for the nonbelievers. Not that that is any better since the gods just eat you anyway.

I guess I was trying to think a bit about the aporetic sorcery that governs the trinkets, but I admit I hadn't researched that one enough.  But when Madness mentioned his feeling that the Cish, while they may go away, do not salt...that got me thinking.  I cannot verify but would assume that he's correct that there's no textual evidence that the Cish salt when hit w/ Chorae though we know that they "burn" or evaporate or dissipate or something.  They're still undone in this world by the Chorae. 

But I am now not sure if they're actually of the Few or not, and if we also don't know who they go w/ the Chorae and that the Chorae is based on some mechanism...it doesn't seem that far-fetched all of the sudden to posit that what happens to a psukhari when hit w/ a trinket is significantly different than what happens to an actual user of the Anagogis, Daimos, or Gnosis.  Hell, unless someone can find a good piece of text, it feels to me like chorae expelling them from the mundane world, as far as we know, is the only thing the two situations have in common. 


Did anyone ever notice how close "Meppa" is to "Mecca" and wonder about it?

[What Came Before]

I don't believe it is significantly different. At least to me the descriptions are vague enough to me to pretend like the Cish and the other schoolmen die in more or less the same way. Madness does though so let him talk about it im just the voice of dissent.

[What Came Before]

the "salting" in an of itself is tremendously interesting and enigmatic.  Salt is purifying, right?  The mark is a stain?  There's also all the biblical references that Salt implies.

[What Came Before]

I need to find the quotes, I've posted them before, but there are only three described instances of Cishaurim touching Chorae. I can't find/remember any scenes describing salted Cishaurim.

One of them is Moenghus the Elder, its ambiguous, but the other two are described as "a burst of incandescence rimmed by a nacre of black" (TTT, p488). However, I've read a Scarlet Schoolman being hit by a Chorae, similarly described - excepting that the Schoolman is also explicitly Salted.

lockesnow, you're onto something with it, I think. If I remember correctly from my religious upbringing, Lot's wife turns into a pillar of salt when she looks back on God's destruction of the sinful cities, Sodom and Gommorah, in the Old Testement.

[What Came Before]

Lot's wife does turn into a pillar of salt:

http://bible.cc/genesis/19-26.htm

[What Came Before]

I'm just not sure if that one instance of salting is enough to imply biblical reference within the narrative.

[What Came Before]

1 instance is enough to disprove but never enough to prove.