I'll say it again, Bakker shouldn't have killed Sorweel. It made his whole arc feel so pointless and fatalistic--- and he and Serwa would have been an interesting power couple in the Apocalypse 2.0 era.

Aside from Kakaliol who got deeper into Golgotterath than the others, most of them seem to have attacked the top most part of the fortifications, and were killed there by whatever baddies were up there. The big worm Demon apparently created a big hole in the upper walls with his body.

Again, it seems that Kellhus and Iyokus would have deduced beforehand that using demons in a topos is a bad idea. So not sure if that was a Bakker mistake, a mistake on Kellhus's part or they deemed it worth the risk ?

Also,

Iyokus keeps telling Kakaliol to fulfill his mission. What was his mission?! Just get in?

I reread the whole series before the Unholy Consult came out in preparation, so its somewhat fresh in my mind.

The first trilogy is definitely an easier read, much more friendly on the reader, and more in line with other fantasy books.  The vagueness, Bakkerism's, and purple prose sky rocketed in the AE, and while I still loved the series - they are notably different in tone. I also felt the Momemn chapters were more of a chore to read in the AE, the original trilogy has no chapters that feel like a slog to get through.


1. The Warrior Prophet - a lot happens in this one, we have many great moments and epic battle scenes. Still think this is the peak. It also has a soul-crushing ending almost as bleak as TUC.

2.  The Darkness that comes before- Still think that this one is under rated. I did not find it a difficult barrier to the series (unlike many people apparently), in fact its what got me hooked like the first time I took a hit of chanv. I think its a great set up book.

3. TUC- still processing but Bakker did bring the ruckus. I'm not sure if the G-String did in fact fly across the room or not. A lot depends on what happens next, that will move this one up or down depending on the NG books.

4. The Thousand Fold Thought. The final battle and conversation with Big Moe are awesome. But the book feels a little short and there is a stretch of dullness in the middle part. The final scene is awesome and perfect.

5. The Great Ordeal - this one doesn't seem to get the love but I really enjoyed the Ishterebinth storyline (batshit madness) and the Dagliash battle . Ishual and Koringhus to confuse the shit outta us

6. Judging Eye- Good set up book for the new trilogy but was kind of short. Cil-Aujas was awesome except for the extreme Bakkerism of the ending sequence.

7. White Luck Warrior - Not a bad book by any means but feels less distinct for me in terms of what happens.

 So Kellhus is not Azor Ahai?!

Also, if Kellhus is truly dead and not going to play a big role in the next books.....I think we really really needed to get a Kellhus POV for the finale, that would have helped. But since Bakker went out of his way to get Malowebi in there as a POV we have to conclude it was for a reason.

Possibilities:

1. A Kellhus POV would tell us too much and/or his plan is not fully concluded even though he is dead
2. Bakker just wanted to fuck with us
3. Kellhus is dead just like Cnaiur was dead and he has a part still to play

From my reading Istriya's replacement was quite recent and certainly did not go back years. Xerius was certainly shocked to find the boner waiting for him.

The Skin Spies always have dicks, there has been nothing to suggest they can change genitalia. Even Cnaiur's Serwe has one.

BTW Xerius was a great character. Wish we had him in the AE.

I guess I'm interested to hear from others, did Kellhus have a chance to "Win" ? What exactly were the options available to him?

My contention is that he was screwed no matter what, that the enemies and problems against him were too much for anybody, even Super-Saiyan Dunyain, even a hybrid. level 99 warrior/mage/monk could deal with.

I put "win" in quotes above because we still really do not know what his true motives were. Maybe even he didn't know (Ajokli again).

All we can reasonably assume is that Kellhus does not want to burn in agony forever, so it seems avoiding or stopping damnation is the one goal we can infer he did want to achieve.

The other big question is, does Kellhus really want to help humanity or is he purely in it for himself? He does seem to be concerned with the general welfare and souls of humanity, in the broadest possible sense. In other words, yes Kellhus is an asshole- he will use and destroy thousands without a blink- if it saves millions. At least to my feeling on the character.

The other trouble with this discussion is Ajokli. For all we know, Kellhus might have died on the Circumfix without Ajokli's help. So in that regard we have to assume he's going to be involved in some way no matter what and every option open of Kellhus' is tainted with his presence.

Let's look at what some of his goals could have been:

A. Wipe out the Consult and end the resumption of the No-God.

Problems -

1. If it was just the Consult, it seems like Kellhus had a decent chance of winning the encounter. But it wasn't just the decrepit Consult he was dealing with...

The Dunsult combined with all those Skin Skies in the Golden Room means Kellhus is toast without some kind of trump card (Ajokli). I don't see how with his normal powers he could have survived unless he had a God on his side.  This brings us back to another problem (if Ajokli was out of the picture)- he really should not have gone in there alone. If Serwa, Kayutas and some other heavy hitters were with him maybe he could have pulled out the win.

Even if he had taken everyone out in the Golden Room, the Ordeal was still stranded thousands of miles in the barren North with no food and winter on the way. No matter what the Ordeal was going to die, but Kellhus at least could have translocated to safety. (Let's also not forget the effects on the Ordeal of eating Sranc, Man, and Irridiated man. Fallout tells me eating radiated food is not good for you)

2. There apparently was no way for him to recognize the threat of Kelmomas. This gets into the free will vs destiny stuff but assuming he had killed the child that probably ends the No God possibility right then and there, at least for a time. He wins in that outcome. If he doesn't kill Kelmomas it seems like he is fated to lose.

3. Kellhus knows about Topoi but somehow did not foresee Ajokli being very strong in Golgotterath and taking over? Unless he knew it would happen and was again, willing to take that chance?

4. Even if Kellhus prevails in the Golden Room, he still needs to do something about the Horde 2.0 which is right there, facing a hemmed in Golgotterath Ordeal...massive problem for him to deal with even with his abilities.

5. The big trouble with all permutations of this is that he is still damned at the end of it.

B. Kill the Consult and Reign in Hell

Problems

1. This would go with the side that argues Kellhus is an asshole that doesn't care about anyone else, and he is fine with condemning everyone else to the pit. Unless of course he thinks he can change the nature of Hell and the Outside from Within?

2. He is dealing with the God of Trickery and Deception. Ajokli is not likely to stay true to whatever "bargain" or treaty was struck.

3. Seems a very grim option and not really a "win" for anyone. Seems more like a nasty version of "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" than anything else...turning the world into Hell is perhaps even worse than letting the Consult win. Then again maybe this was the best he could hope for, given the system?



C. Kill the Consult, then kill the Gods

We don't know enough about Earwan metaphysics to debate this one much. It's doubtful Kellhus has the power to kill a God (Or Gods). If he did so, then does reality collapse?

D. Join the Consult

1. Again, this comes back to what Kellhus really cares about , if anything. His stated values seem to be be dead set against the Consult so I don't see how he would allow himself to join them. He does appear to view their angle and past as abhorrent.

2. Still might be his best option to save himself and perhaps a fraction of humanity?


E. Who the hell knows?

This is the option that we don't know, that he had some other possibility available that we cannot fathom due to our limited knowledge.  I would add here that apparently the Splintered God cannot see what is really happening and seems blind to what it's other aspects are doing. Again, we don't know shit about this so its all very very vague. If Kellhus was truly an Inverse Prophet that brought knowledge of the living to the Gods, it sure seems like that did nothing to change things.

In other words, it doesn't seem possible that Earwa's deities are going to do and about face and stop being such raging dickheads.

____

At the end of the day, things are not good no matter what. Either slaughter humanity and become BFFs with rape aliens and ancient depraved lunatics, Run wild with a crazy 4 Horned brother and turn the living world into Hell, or at best achieve status quo and leave things as they are... and run the 95% chance you are going to Hell.



Damn, Earwa sucks.

Great post, Ciogli.

Yeah... not a lot going for Earwa's humanity right now. As far as I recall, the omnipresent war POVs in TUC describe Kellhus' Ordeal the largest army assembled, ever, by almost double if I recall correctly.

Plus Kellhus' was the only empire in Earwa's history that institutionalized Witches.

The size of the Ordeal never made sense to me because if you go back to PON the First Holy War was the same size, around 300k. The Ordeal definitely had many more sorcerors however. That is the biggest problem is the death of so many magic users. The cream of the Three Seas military is dead but there are still enough people in Zeum and the Three Seas to assemble big armies.

The meat has afflicted me to the point I assumed this topic was about how "pendulous" he was.

Anyway, since he is armored in corpses he must be fairly big. Though I always wonder where they got the corpses from at that point. Were they Emwama? Nonmen? Other Inchoroi? From our descriptions of Inchoroi they sound like are about 10' tall.

On the other hand, we have tales of some Inchoroi going up against the Nonmen "the tall". One of those  Tall guys was supposed to have strangled an Inchie named Vishkru (sp?) so he probably was also quite large if a point was made of that.