[mrganondorf]

After reading this thread, I feel really stupid for not thinking Saccarees was Dunyain.  I guess I just assumed that Kellhus would be able to teach at least one follower, but that he wouldn't really want many people to do his kind of sorcery.

I now think that that concern would be totally outweighed by whatever is going to come out of Golgotterath.  Before reading the TSA forum, I was grossly underestimating the powers/numbers of Consult quya.

[Wilshire]

I don't remember my own arguments, but I don't think he is a Dunyain.

Kellhus found a womb that could bare his seed, I'm sure he could find intellects that could bare his sermons.

[mrganondorf]

If Saccarees is not Dunyain and is simply someone with sufficient native intelligence and conditioning from Kellhus, is it at all weird that Kellhus has made only one?  I would think that he'd want to make as many as possible and that it would be a really high priority.  No world-born will ever compete with him in magic, so the benefit would be all good.

Perhaps he made Saccarees as another way to spur the schools on?  "Look what I can teach you to do once you've helped the Great Ordeal?"

[Madness]

I've probably said it in this thread before. Just because we've only seen Serwa and Saccarees does not mean they are the only two who can work Metagnostic sorcery. Saccarees being labelled as the "first" to achieve Metagnostic Cants implies that there are others.

[mrganondorf]

True, true--i had forgot. 

[Wilshire]

Bakker likes to hide things in plain site. I believe this is one of those instances. We read "first" and assume "only". Perhaps those that died in the battle where simply those who had not mastered the metagnosis yet.

[Hirtius/Pansa]

If the description of the gold trimmed robed Schoolman is indeed Saccarees, and if he is a Nilnameshi, doesn't that immediately discredited him as being a bona fide Dunyain?  Aren't all Dunyain just by merit of their geography and eugenics breeding all going to be Norsirai.  While a Nilnameshi would be a completely different ethnic group.  I'm one to support the notion that Saccarees is basically one of Kellhus greatest pupils and has been training and training him.  The conclusion being, that even a world-born human through tremendous cognitive discipline, mental focus and zeal can actually grasp the Metagnosis, grasp it, but certainly not master it like the Holy Aspect-Emperor.

[Madness]

Bakker has done well in keeping Kellhus' full limitations (which he must have) from us, though we seem to know from Kelmomas' that Kellhus is not tired as he appears to be...

I write this to suggest that we don't know how hard it is for the worldborn to use the Metagnosis.

[Wilshire]

We know little of the original Dunyain, other than that they hailed form North, Tryse or something like that. It was a big city, and not a particularly exclusive club. Any motley of races/ethnicities could have been among them, not to mention that in order to remain genetically unrelated enough to breed for 2000+ years they would require all ethnicities  to keep the gene pool from collapsing on itself.

We don't have any idea what the other Dunyain look like, only that the Anasurimbor line bares family resemblance, which makes sense.

[Cüréthañ]

They came from Sauglish and were very likely mostly Norisirai.

Before the First Apocalypse the Dunyain were a heretical community of Kuniuric ascetics
(originally based in Sauglish) who sought enlightenment (the Absolute) through the study and
practice of reason (the Logos). They were a young movement, but they had already suffered
sporadic persecution for some time. But since the Kunniat faith practiced by the High
Norsirai was not hierarchical, no concerted effort was made to punish their atheism.

[Wilshire]

Big cities tend to be more diverse though, which is where my speculation comes from.

[Hirtius/Pansa]

Hasn't Bakker iterated that Earwa is five times the size of Europe?  So presumably the distance between Tryse and Mehtsonc is the equivalent of the distance between London and maybe, Samarkand on the Iranian plateau.  I can't imagine that enough Ketyai would have an established community in Kuniuri to have that much of an effect on the ethnic composition of the Dunyain sect.  And we don't know for sure how cosmopolitan Sauglish is or any cities of the Ancient North.  But it's all speculation still.

[Cüréthañ]

The Breaking of the Gates and the Cuno/Halaroi wars seem to be the only major migratory event in Earwa.
The cultures are pretty insular.  Traders are the only real international exchange. 

Neighboring nobility might send their children for teaching, I guess (much like Athens at it's height).  Perhaps some of them could have gotten mixed up in weird ascetic cults, but I think most would be locals.

[Wilshire]

Thats all great, but unfortunately if they were all essentially ethnically identical, they wouldn't have made it 2000 years. My best guess is that they specifically sought out those few members of different heritage that they could fine, seduced them as the Dunyain do, for the specific purpose to maintaining a viable genetic stock that would sustain them through their isolation.

[Aural]

But how does Kellhus look like his ancestor from 2,000 years ago?