As far as I understand the Dunyains philosophy is basically buddhism plus an extreme emphasis on logic and reason. They seek to free themselves the darkness that comes before thought and action, live purely according to the logos and become self-moving souls.
But you can't just logic yourself into something. Should you help or hurt people, destroy the world or save it? You can't answer this or anything really with pure logic. Ultimately it depends on what preferences you have, what kind of desires. From the very beginning we see Kellhus making people follow him by explaining and free people from the darkness that makes them act the way they do, in a way making them more like the Dunyain. But that just makes them more dependent on him, more enslaved. Likewise Kellhus himself is, or at least claims to be, completely controlled by his mission. This makes it seem like the Dunyain rather than being the freest people, are actually the most enslaved. They completely controlled by their mission to the point that they kill themselves over having bad dreams.
I think the Unholy Consult actually explores this problem pretty well. Serwa calls Kelmomas a machine because everything he does is to make his mother love him. He argues that she is as much a slave as him, she just chooses to follow Kellhus instead. She argues that it's better to be a slave to the logos. This seems like the logic that the Inchoroi follows too. If we are all machines it makes sense to follow the greatest machine. For the inchoroi that is the Ark, for Serwa it's Kellhus.
Kellhus seems to want to make himself the most powerful machine possible? Having conquered the three sees and the consult he wants to wage war on the outside making himself more powerful than the god of gods.
Cnair on the other hand goes a different route, and embraces passion and irrationality. At one point Kellhus describes him as the only worldborn man who is awake, and he uses his knowledge of the darkness that comes before to make himself impossible to reason with. Becoming an inverse Dunyain of sorts. Is this an alternate path to becoming the self-moving soul? Or perhaps the Dunyain way is even a dead end and this is the way. Like Kellhus he is able to channel the devil, even without magic.
What do you guys think?