The Second Apocalypse

Earwa => The Prince of Nothing => The Almanac: PON Edition => Topic started by: What Came Before on April 19, 2013, 10:21:46 am

Title: TDTCB, Ch. 12
Post by: What Came Before on April 19, 2013, 10:21:46 am
Quote from: kalstone
I had some free time and I thought I would throw up a quick summary to keep the discussion going.

Quote
I have explained how Maithanet yoked the vast resources of the Thousand Temples to ensure the viability of the Holy War.  I have described, in outline, the first steps taken by the Emperor to bind the Holy War to his imperial ambitions.  I have attempted to reconstruct the initial reaction of the Cishaurim in Shimeh from their correspondence with the Padirajah in Nenciphon.  And I have even mentioned the hated Consult, of whom I can at long last speak without fear of ridicule.  I have spoken, in other words, almost exclusively of powerful factions and their impersonal ends.  What of vengeance?  What of hope?  Against the frame of competing nations and warring faiths, how did these small passions come to rule the Holy War?
Drusas Achamian, Compendium of the First Holy War

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... though he consorts with man, woman, and child, though he lays with beasts and makes a mockery of his seed, never shall he be as licentious as the philospher, who lays with all things imaginable.
Inri Sejenus, Scholars, 36, 21, The Tractate
Early Spring, 4111 Year-of-the-Tusk, the Northern Jiünati Steppe

Cnaiür takes a journey to the burial ground of his fathers.  He finds a few dead men and a mountain of dead Sranc surrounding Kellhus who sits atop a barrow.  Cnaiür sees the resemblance to Moënghus, but Kellhus loses consciousness before he can be questioned.  Cnaiür realizes that they are atop his father's barrow.

Cnaiür's wives nurse Kellhus back to health.  His arrival has given Cnaiür the hope that he could lead him to Moënghus to gain revenge.  He has a flashback to Moënghus' arrival at the Utemont camp as a slave captured from the Sranc.  He recalls his slow seduction by Moënghus and how Moënghus opened his mind beyond the narrow ways of the Scylvendi.  Moënghus helps him become chieftain by killing his father, but when his mother gives birth to Moënghus' son and is killed by the other women in the tribe, Cnaiür realizes how much he had been used by the Dûnyain.  Though he is chieftain, he has earned the derision of his people, and he knows how poisoned the gift was.  He has longed for revenge since, and now it seems fate has delivered the means to achieve it.

Cnaiür cautiously approaches Kellhus to determine his mission.  He is astonished by the ease with which Kellhus analyzes his current situation.  Cnaiür says, "Perhaps I should think like a Sranc" and has him tortured.  That night, Cnaiür returns to him and Kellhus tells him his mission is to kill his father.

Kellhus and Cnaiür set out together.  Cnaiür remains as silent as possible, trying to protect himself.  Kellhus tells him why he must kill Moënghus, but Cnaiür does not believe him.  Kellhus realizes that Cnaiür is highly resistant to his power due to his knowledge of the Dûnyain.  He decides "Nothing deceived so well as the truth" and tells Cnaiür much about the Dûnyain and their power over non-Conditioned men.  Even this fails, and Kellhus realizes that Cnaiür cannot be controlled as other men and that he also is insane.
Title: Re: TDTCB, Ch. 12
Post by: What Came Before on April 19, 2013, 10:22:02 am
Quote from: Triskele
Is this the chapter where, in a flashback, Moenghus asks Sciotha if he's been measured?  That was awesome.
Title: Re: TDTCB, Ch. 12
Post by: What Came Before on April 19, 2013, 10:22:14 am
Quote from: Madness
Real cool, kalstone. Cheers.

Ch. 6, Trisk :).
Title: Re: TDTCB, Ch. 12
Post by: What Came Before on April 19, 2013, 10:22:24 am
Quote from: Mog Kellhus
One of my favourite chapters in general.The first meeting between Cnaiur and Kellhus is great but what i like most is their journey across Suskara,mainly from Cnaiur's perspective.I think that it was here that he became my favourite character,he is the only one(with the exception of Conphas)who resists the Dunyain's possession and he managed that while he was alone with him for many days(weeks?).Only after Serwe joined them Kellhus finally managed to control him and even then he surprised him many times with his actions.The flashback with Moenghus and young Cnaiur was also cool and very interesting.All in all a great chapter!!!
Title: Re: TDTCB, Ch. 12
Post by: What Came Before on April 19, 2013, 10:22:38 am
Quote from: lockesnow
what a chapter, tis a slog!  Again the structure of the book makes this so frustrating, I feel as though we get about two or three chapters worth of material here, and it's difficult to ruminate on any one thing when this chapter advances so fucking rapidly.

Anyone else note that Kellhus tells Cnaiur many things about the Dunyain and then it switches to Kellhus' perspective after these "reveals" and at this point Kellhus decides that perhaps he should try the truth rather than misleading the Barbarian?
Title: Re: TDTCB, Ch. 12
Post by: What Came Before on April 19, 2013, 10:22:47 am
Quote from: Triskele
Madness - You have shamed me and reminded me that measure is unceasing. 

lockesnow - Are you saying that we ought not trust what Kellhus told Nayu about the Dunyain?
Title: Re: TDTCB, Ch. 12
Post by: What Came Before on April 19, 2013, 10:23:13 am
Quote from: Madness
You think you have been measured like measure is a thing accomplished and forgotten but old measure is simply grounds for the new, Triskele... measure is unceasing.

Also, measure has momentarily lost its meaning.
Title: Re: TDTCB, Ch. 12
Post by: What Came Before on April 19, 2013, 10:23:23 am
Quote from: lockesnow
Quote from: Triskele
Madness - You have shamed me and reminded me that measure is unceasing. 

lockesnow - Are you saying that we ought not trust what Kellhus told Nayu about the Dunyain?
yeah

presumably at this point Kellhus has rehearsed and perfected many explanations about himself in Atraithau and he is feeding Cnaiur these lines.  Note that he drops most/all of these after these experiences with Cnaiur and goes with the Prince narrative when he reaches THW.

The important thing seems to be that Kellhus deciding to use the Truth to Deceive comes AFTER telling Cnaiur details of the Dunyain.  We should probably presume that everything Kellhus reveals is misleading at best and outright lies at most.
Title: Re: TDTCB, Ch. 12
Post by: What Came Before on April 19, 2013, 10:23:33 am
Quote from: kalstone
So to recap, things Kellhus says before deciding to tell the truth:

1. My father summoned me.
2. The Dunyain were discovered by a band of Sranc.
3. Moe was sent out to determine the extent of the exposure, but was determined to be too contaminated to return.
4. He contacted them through dreams.
5. The purity of the Dunyain and the possession of the Logos had to be protected.

If we can trust the Prologue, we know that 1, 4 and 5 are true.  So the story about the band of Sranc must be a lie.  I wonder if Cnaiur's wives told Kellhus that Moe arrived in a band of Sranc.
Title: Re: TDTCB, Ch. 12
Post by: What Came Before on April 19, 2013, 10:23:41 am
Quote from: lockesnow
actually we don't know 5 is true because we don't know if the Dunyain possess the Logos, don't they seek the Logos?
Title: Re: TDTCB, Ch. 12
Post by: What Came Before on April 19, 2013, 10:25:12 am
Quote from: sologdin
Does the epigram reveal that DA told more than RSB’s narration?  The phrase “I have explained how Maithanet yoked the vast resources of the Thousand Temples” (I.12 at 334) is suggestive of some omission.

We again are in great man theory of history with the tyranny of “small passions” (id.).

An oddity that “the horror of the man on the summit” is sufficient to “transcend the abyss between their races” (I.12 at 338) for CuS.  Not sure if that’s a comment about racial antipathy in general, Scylvendi politics, or just CuS personally.

CuS notes that the burial mounds are an “ancient earthen record of his blood” (id.).  An oddity, perhaps salient later.

CuS notes that self  “degradation was a potent tool” for AK (I.12 at 340).  Noted as an incidental. 

“Violence between men fostered an unaccountable intimacy” (I.12 at 342).  Uh, okay?

Moenghus’ lesson, wherein “words are like journeys” (I.12 at 343), regarding the trackless step (I.12 at 342-48) takes us back to IC’s commentary that the Scylvendi are “obsessed with custom (I.6 at 188).

When CuS sees “his people through the eyes of an outsider” (I.12 at 344), we are in brechtian estrangement:  “stripping the event of its self-evident, familiar, obvious quality and creating a sense of astonishment and curiosity about them.”  RSB is accordingly Epic Theatre.

“To question everything.  To ride the Trackless Steppe” (I.12 at 344) is the master figure of this chapter, and we might keep it in mind going forward.  It is certainly cartesian doubt.

CuS learns that the Dunyain are “guides and trackers” along the Trackless Steppe, seeking the “Shortest Way”  (I.12 at 345). “Of all the world, we alone have awakened from the dread slumber of custom” (id.).  They are therefore engaged in cartesian doubt, awakening like Kant from a dogmatic slumber.

CuS “had taken pride in transcending his kinsmen, in being more” (I.12 at 346).  Noting the superhuman again.

CuS knows that he “was the knife,” wielded by AM (id.).  A nifty progression thereafter:  AM noted to be a “whirlwind” (I.12 at 347).  Hmm. The whirlwind makes everything “violently rewritten” (id.)  During the whirlwind rewriting, routine communications became “chits in some mad game” (id.).  Which game, one wonders, involves a situation wherein “order had replaced order”?

Nod to ideology theory with the acknowledgement that “The thoughts he had called his own had all along belonged to another” (I.12 at 348).  That this is the default condition of thinking is the next inference that should come.  CuS is a step ahead of the pack in recognizing in part the external origin of ideas.

Anything bizarre going on when CuS “squatted before the entrance flap and touched to fingers to the ground, bringing them to his lips,” comforted, despite “the reasons for it were long dead”? (I.12 at 350). 

CuS adopts Nietzschean slave morality in doing “the contrary of many things [AK says], simply because it is AK who [says] it” (I.12 at 351).

“Most violent of all men” (I.12 at 354)!

The plot becomes AM’s trackless steppe metaphor when AK & CuS enter “the Jiunati interior” (I.12 at 357).

AK states (lies?) that “only the Logos allows one to mitigate that slavery,” i.e., of causality (I.12 at 358).  if this is a true statement of dunyain philosophy, then they’re the most mystical of the bunch.

CuS is a “chorus of signs, a living text” for AK to read (I.12 at 359).  though this is presented as an exceptional skill of AK’s, the point of dunyain magic, it really is the pedestrian rule of everyday life.

CuS objects to dunyain philosophy to the extent it is “Womanish deception. An outrage against honour!” (I.12 at 364).  aside from the predictably barbarian gender politics, we get a pre-feudal insistence on honor.  that this “makes all men your foes” should not automatically convert the dunyain into hobbesians.

nice summary of deconstructionist methodology:  “Moenghus had used the Steppe, the central figure of Scylvendi belief, as his primary vehicle.  By exploiting the metaphoric inconsistency between the trackless Steppe and the deep tracks of Scylvendi custom, he’d been able to steer Cnaiur toward acts that would have otherwise been unimaginable” (I.12 at 366) (emphasis added).  emphasized bits call to our attention the rhetorical nature of the dunyain/deconstructionist method.

we also find that history “is anathema to the dunyain” (I.12 at 367), which is curious, except that it fits well with the dunyain as demanian deconstructionists on the one hand, and involuntarist idiots on the other.
Title: Re: TDTCB, Ch. 12
Post by: What Came Before on April 19, 2013, 10:25:35 am
Quote from: Triskele
So Moenghus is the No-God?
Title: Re: TDTCB, Ch. 12
Post by: What Came Before on April 19, 2013, 10:25:46 am
Quote from: sologdin
nah.  he's just a chump.  NG is adams' whale.
Title: Re: TDTCB, Ch. 12
Post by: What Came Before on April 19, 2013, 10:25:56 am
Quote from: Madness
I think throughout Cnaiur's perspective, indeed, many who reflect on the Dunyain (with or without that knowledge) end up using whirlwind metaphor, asking the self-same questions of the Dunyain as the No-God asks of the World in their reflections.

Good call on adams' whale lol.
Title: Re: TDTCB, Ch. 12
Post by: What Came Before on April 19, 2013, 10:26:15 am
Quote from: Church
Lockesnow talked about in an earlier chapter, and Solo picked up here as well, the idea of AK being able to 'read' people. The full quote is this:

Quote
He became a chorus of signs, a living text, and Kellhus would read him. If these circumstances were to be owned, everything had to be measured.

If Kellhus is reading CuS, he's also trying to write him - make him a character who acts only in a way that fits Kellhus's narrative. Which leads me onto what Rowan Williams and other Christian apologists have written about narration (I wrote about this in an earlier chapter, but I think what I said then wasn't that coherent so I'll have another go!).

Williams, in a book on Dostoevsky, writes about the 'demonic narrator', a narrator who sees themself as entirely cut off from other human beings and who thinks of language as only a tool to reach their own ends. Which is pretty much what AK is - in his communication with other characters he is never changed (his mission remains, though we're still guessing what that is), and he speaks to make people do what he wants. This is not a good thing, as Williams says:

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someone who has lost the capacity to hear and speak, to engage humanly with others and to change in response, is already potentially a murderer. The crime comes out of the intensity of an inner dialogue that is practically never interrupted by a real other.

In William's view this kind of character is an impossibility, the result of acting like this is becoming like Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment, where actions are made not because of some supreme self-moving will but rather in complete confusion. I'm not sure what RSB means by AK's character in TSA, whether he's saying that this kind of control of self and others might actually be possible given enough technological progress (his blog would seem to support that idea). But, it does seem that RSB is edging towards the idea that language is primarily an instrument of control in the way that AK uses it, especially when he goes off on riffs about Dan Dennett. Which contrasts pretty strongly with the views of the Christian apologists, who see language as always being far more than a simple instrument. In their view the way it allows dialogue is far more important, as this shows how it can not just be simply instrumental. So, people can try to use language to make someone else do something, but the people being talked to can always respond in a way which does not meet the original speaker's intentions. And in speaking in a real dialogue people can form a mutual understanding which helps them both to move forwards in a positive way, and in so doing change themselves. So coming back to Williams he writes (drawing on Bakhtin):

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dialogue [is] the medium for the formation of persons... language itself is the embodiment of freedom

AK presents the opposite view, for him language is not freedom but the strongest form of control. There is no real dialogue with AK, as when he speaks with others he is not changed in any decisive manner, there is just him using speech to further his own ends. And if RSB believes that is true to even an approximate level I find that absolutely terrifying! AK is a demon, have no doubt about it...
Title: Re: TDTCB, Ch. 12
Post by: What Came Before on April 19, 2013, 10:26:35 am
Quote from: lockesnow
Although, if you accept God as the logos and the universe as the uttering of logos, world and word are very close to the same thing.

edit: that made more sense when I typed it, my mental associations didn't come through.  Riffing off the Christian apologist bit about language being 'more.'
Title: Re: TDTCB, Ch. 12
Post by: What Came Before on April 19, 2013, 10:26:52 am
Quote from: Madness
+1 Demonic Narrator, Church. And lockesnow you made sense there.

Also, +2 lockesnow that this is multiple chapter’s worth of information.

I have explained how Maithanet yoked the vast resources of the Thousand Temples to ensure the viability of the Holy War. I have described, in outline, the first steps taken by the Emperor to bind the Holy War to his imperial ambitions. I have attempted to reconstruct the initial reaction of the Cishaurim in Shimeh from their correspondence with the Padirajah in Nenciphon. And I have even mentioned the hated Consult, of whom I can at long last speak without fear of ridicule. I have spoken, in other words, almost exclusively of powerful factions and their impersonal ends. What of vengeance? What of hope? Against the frame of competing nations and warring faiths, how did these small passions come to rule the Holy War?
- DRUSAS ACHAMIAN COMPENDIUM OF THE FIRST HOLY WAR

+1 Solo. I’m struck as well by omissions from our “experience” of the Compendium as Achamian actually wrote it – the parallel has been there to assume our narrative is the one he tells in reflection. Certainly, we are missing the reconstructed reaction of the Cishaurim in Shimeh.

Back to our boy, Cnaiur.

Early Spring, 4111, Year-of-the-Tusk, the Northern Jiunati Steppe[/b]

§12.1 – Kellhus meet… Moenghus

Cnaiur rides out to the Barrows of the Utemot. “Why had he come here? What purpose could such a solitary pilgrimage serve?” (p359) He wonders not that his people think him mad because he’s a “man who took counsel with the dead rather than the wise.”

Cnaiur sees vultures circling the Barrows and approaches warily. He finds a “dead man was unmutilated. The Sranc had not finished” (p360). We have a nice contrast between Cnaiur reading the mundane world as easily as Kellhus later reads him. “What outland fools woud risk the Sranc to travel to Scylvendi lands?”

The conception of the battle preceeding Cnaiur’s discovery is one of my favorite implied by the series. I’d love to read Bakker’s description of just this fight.

Cnaiur approaches from “behind one of the larger barrows … he came across the first of the Sranc bodies, its neck partially severed.  Like all dead Sranc, it was as rigid as stone, its skin chappy and purple-black” (p361). He’s amazed that a “Sranc killed by a Sranc weapon.”

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He “found himself aware that he crouched on the side of a barrow … he was outraged at the sacrilege, but he was more frightened by far. What could this mean?” By calling attention to Cnaiur’s self-awareness, the reader is explicitly drawn to the words on the page. Highlights some of Scylvendi beliefs by omission.

At the top of this mountain of dead, purpling Sranc, the “survivor sat cross-legged on the barrow summit, his forearms resting against his knees, his head bowed beneath the shining disc of the sun.”

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“No animal possess senses as keen as those of vultures … the survivor lifted his head … as though his sense were every bit as keen as a vulture’s, he turned to Cnaiur” (p362) – Cnaiur’s senses have seemed every bit as keen, thus far.

Cnaiur thinks with horror: “I know this man…

He notes “The Sranc at his feet seemed to howl soundlessly … as though the horror of the man on the summit above was enough to transcend the abyss between their races” – I also love this quote. For my part, I’d hazard projection, that Cnaiur has such horror of the Dunyain that he could find accord with Sranc first.

The lone survivor sits in meditative pose “blood welling like pitch from a hidden wound, blackening his grey tunic.”

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“With the deranged certainty of one who’s dreamed a moment a thousand times, Cnaiur climbed five more steps, then placed the polished tip of his blade beneath the man’s chin. With it, he raised the impassive face to the sun” (362-63) – One of my favorite quotes. This is as others have noted where the books really pick up.

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“’You are Dunyain,’ he said, his voice deep and cold,” identifying Kellhus and uniting Kellhus finally with his father.

What does this mean?” Cnaiur thinks as he notes that “he stood atop the summit of his father’s barrow.”

What does this mean?

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§12.2 – The Tale of Anasurimbor Moenghus & the White Yaksh

Cnaiur lays with “Anissi. The first wife of his heart” (p363) – Arc opened…

Anissi… How I love this peace between us” – This is one of the few moments where Cnaiur is at peace. Hold tight. He thinks on Kellhus. “Him … The son of Moenghus. The Dunyain. Through rain and hide walls, Cnaiur could feel the itch of the man’s presence across the dark encampment – a terror from beyond the horizon” (p363)

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Anissi relates to Cnaiur that Kellhus had followers from Atrithau. “He is the same… He possesses men the way his father once possessed-” (p364)
“Everything mattered when it came to the Dunyain” – though I suppose its incidental that Kellhus used the Atrithi.

Cnaiur has but one thought since finding Kellhus,“Use the son to find the father.”

“A life for a life. A father for a father. Vengeance. Wouldn’t this remedy the imbalance that had unhinged his heart?”
“What if it happened again?” – Yes, Cnaiur, heed your own warning, live a life in peace.

Cnaiur starts to reminisce about Moenghus’ journey through the Utemot. His cousin had “taken the man from a band of Sranc travelling across Suskara … few men survived such capitivity,” (p365) though some men obviously have, so its not unheard of.

Cnaiur notes that “for a Dunyain, even degradation was a potent tool – perhaps the most potent”

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Note that Skiotha gives Moenghus to his first wife, Cnaiur’s mother, as a gift – to a woman who owns property (p365).

Moenghus waits to speak to Cnaiur until the Rite-of-the-Spring-Wolves (p365) to speak to Cnaiur. “You have killed the wolf” (p366).

“Nothing had happened as it should have” – I’m interested in what happened on Cnaiur’s rite of manhood. Is he forever emasculate because of this instance?

As Moenghus is tending to Cnaiur’s wounds the next day, “All the marks of his slavery … fell away. The transformation was so abrupt, so complete, that for several moments Cnaiur could only stare at him in wonder.”

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The narrative highlights “violence between men fostered an unaccountable intimacy” (p367) “and by demonstrating need, he’d opened his heart, had allowed the serpent to enter.” – Biblical reference? Analogy between modernism and Satan? The Eden narrative couldn’t be sexist could it ;)?!

Note again Cnaiur’s mother accuses him of damaging her property.

Moenghus does the Dunyain Vulcan move thrice before revealing to Cnaiur that “You alone” can understand what he has to impart.

The reminiscence highlights the complete Trackless Steppe metaphor (p368).

I find it really interesting that Moenghus is so thoughtless with his reveals. And in light of Moenghus exiled story being false, why was Moenghus sent out into the world? “We Dunyain, Cnaiur, are guides and trackers, students of the Logos, the Shortest Way. Of all the world, we alone have awakened from the dread slumber of custom. We alone” (p370).

He offers to show Cnaiur the shortest way to anything he desires. “To become a great chieftain of the People” also happens to be what Moenghus needs to accomplish the shortest way to freedom.

There’s a neat analogy of Cnaiur feeling like Conphas after the Vulgar Holy War  – center of events, sheltered by the cocoon of other’s ignorance (p370).

“two seasons later, the other woman strangled his mother for giving birth to a blonde girl” – Moenghus’s world-born child #1?

My father is dead. I was the knife. And Anasurimbor Moenghus had wielded him” (p371) – Dunyain make tools of all peoples.

Solo noted the Whirlwind metaphor (p371) as well, which I find interesting along with the spoiler noted one above.

“By some unearthly cunning, he had been tricked into obscenity after obscenity, degradation after degradation, and he had wept with gratitude” (p373) – Dunyain cunning.

Cnaiur marks the feeling of revelation of his ignorance noted again with the rewriting whirlwind metaphor. “Awake, it moved through him without breath, with the curious flatness of performing a task with empty lungs” (373)

Cnaiur marks that a face from his dreams has come to his waking life (p374).

“Dare he cross the Trackless Steppe?”

Anissi shakes Cnaiur from reverie and we’re giving more notes about how knowledgeable Cnaiur is of the Dunyain  - “’I fear you,’ she continued, ‘because you’ve told me this would happen. Each of these things you knew would happen. You know this man, and yet you’ve never spoken to him’” (p375)

Cnaiur attributes omniscience to Kellhus – which is possible as Kellhus has had chance to dominate everyone but Cnaiur “smallest happening was soaked in waters of fate and portent.”

“no greater intimacy between him and this man. With his bare hands he had choked him to death in dream after dream”

“’Through you. He sees me through you.’ For a moment he wondered what is was the outlander saw … Much of the truth, he decided”

“’Lord, this is sacrilege. He’s a witch. A sorcerer’” – notes on hierarchy and social order.

“Sleep, Anissi” – Don’t be awake, be ignorance… and its implied at peace.

“Dare he use the son to find the father?(375)

Note the reversal of the rite of passage. Moenghus saves Cnauir on the night of his ritual and Cnaiur has certainly saved Kellhus during the Dunyain’s rite of passage into the world.

§12.3 – Plying Kellhus in the Old Ways

Cnaiur goes to see Kellhus for the first time. Cnaiur pays homage to the rituals of his peoples, though his lack of conviction makes them hollow? (p376)

Kellhus is described in Cnaiur’s eyes as “naked limbs, grey like dead branches.”

He throws a Chorae to Kellhus who, though of the Few (as he sees the distortion of the Nonmen’s sorcery in the prologue), catches in nimbly. This reflects the proportion of the mark threshold for Chorae?

Kellhus asks what the Trinket is: “A gift to my people from very ancient times. A gift from our God. It kills witches” (p377).

Kellhus notes that Cnaiur fears many things and Cnaiur immediately notes that “Again. It was happening again! Words like levels.”

Something that is distinctly novel since Cnaiur’s  encounter with Moenghus is that he reclassifies Kellhus/Dunyain using Conphas’s perspective. “This man is intellect… War” (p378)

Cnaiur decides to think like a Sranc and tortures Kellhus in the old way.

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“For hours the man sobbed and howled, shrieked for mercy as they plied him in the old ways … and he [Cnaiur] believed none of it.”

§12.4 – Cnaiur’s Wager

Cnaiur returns hoping to be protected by darkness. Kellhus offers Cnaiur exactly what Cnaiur’s been thinking about… As far as I recall Kellhus never actually thinks about killing his Father in Shimeh before this. “’For my kind there’s only mission. I’ve come for my father, Anasurimbor Moenghus. I’ve come to kill him… I offer you the very cup you desire. Is it poison or no?’” (p379)

“Dare he use the son?”

§12.5 – Taking the Shortest Way

One of my favorite paragraphs and passages in PON. This chapter among all else really kicked off my love for Bakker. I remember loving the political intrigue because I think fantasy does this poorly for the most part. The human characters sucked me in. But Kellhus and Cnaiur. Wow.

“They sensed the monolithic hatred of the one and the godlike indifference of the other … the man who had mastered them or the man who had known them” (379)

As for the latter part who is who? Because Kellhus most certainly mastered them.

§ 12.6 – The Trackless Steppe

And now having highlighted all the ways that this can go seriously wrong, Cnaiur subjects himself to the Trackless Steppe with Kellhus, another tracker of the Shortest Way.

They cross Kuoti lands and it is known that “at last the Utemot were without Cnaiur urs Skiotha, breaker-of-horses and most violent of men” (p380)

“Now he was alone with a Dunyain, and he could imagine no greater peril” (p381)

And thus begins the epic battle of minds and some infodump.

Note some Scylvendi beliefs - “We are the People of War. Our God is dead; murdered by the peoples of the Three Seas”

Dunyain Mechanism - “Every detail, every word, was a knife in the hands of this outlander”

Scylvendi beliefs - “’Death is greater than man. It should be worshipped.’
‘But death is-‘

Kellhus probes about details of Moenghus’ travel from the Utemot building upon his father’s narrative and discerning the way conditioned by Moenghus (p382).

“Again! … Conquering the movements of his soul”

“When he returned some months later, it was decided that he must be exiled” (p383) – We’ve decided this is likely false. However, why does Moenghus go among the world-born then?

“’Sorcery,’ Cnaiur said.
The Dunyain nodded. ‘Yes. Although we didn’t know this at the time.’” – Is this an indication that the Dunyain relearned of sorcery since Moenghus’ intial dreams? Or does it mean that Kellhus has been in contact with them since?

However, as lockesnow said, we have to walk some kind of balance between truth and false. Clearly, the Dunyain principles (p384) as Kellhus highlights are true?

“Thoughts arising from darkness? … Who moved me to do this? Who?” – Onkis has been cited by Inrau as the Goddess who is the darkness that comes before.

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“Sentiments … make us slave of custom and appetite … I do not love” (p385)

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“Sons murdering fathers”

§12.7 – The Dunyain Anasurimbor Kellhus

The conversation across the Steppe reverts to Kellhus’ perspective and we’re granted his first perspective since the prologue as he proceeds to try and dominate Cnaiur, his greatest obstacle so far.

Note the Living Book metaphor (p385) again.

Father… at last I’ve found you… Each of them had seen Anasurimbor Moenghus in the face of the other” (p386)

Cnaiur “knew of their [Dunyain] ability to read thoughts through faces … Of their intellect … their absolute commitment to mission… and that they spoke not to share perspectives or to communicate truths but to come before – to dominate souls and circumstances” (p387) – too much for Kellhus.

Is he an obstacle or accident

Kellhus thinks he sees “the Shortest Way. The Logos” shows him that “nothing deceived so well as the truth” (p388).

“Either they assume they’re the origin [of their thoughts] or they think it lies somewhere beyond the world – in the Outside, as I’ve heard it called” (p389) - …?

“What comes before determines what comes after” – Dunyain princple

“But what you do, Dunyain, makes all men your foe” (p390) – Does it?

“Truth. Unspeakable truth … shared the unspeakable with Moenghus’s son” (p391) – Kellhus seems perfectly willing to take Cnaiur all the way to Moenghus should he prove useful.

“The Steppe … is trackless, eh, Dunyain?” (p392) – Cnaiur is saved from Kellhus’ domination by Kellhus imitating Moenghus.

“Kellhus saw only murder and riot in his face. Shining vengeance in his eyes” (p393)

CNAIUR!!!

§12.8 – Most Violent of All Men

Measure is unceasing

“My father is at war, plainsman. What father fails to call on his son in times of war?” (p394)
“At war against whom?”

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“With his shining knife, Cnaiur sawed-off another chunk of amicut, the strips of dried beef, wild herbs, and berries that were the mainstay of their provisions. He stared impassively at the Dunyain as he chewed.”

Just highlighting Cnaiur’s badass resolve against Kellhus. A Dunyain!
Title: Re: TDTCB, Ch. 12
Post by: What Came Before on April 19, 2013, 10:27:04 am
Quote from: lockesnow
Quote
Anissi shakes Cnaiur from reverie and we’re giving more notes about how knowledgeable Cnaiur is of the Dunyain - “’I fear you,’ she continued, ‘because you’ve told me this would happen. Each of these things you knew would happen. You know this man, and yet you’ve never spoken to him’” (p375)

Do you see Kellhus' manipulation in this as I do?  Note that she strokes and stokes Cnaiur's ego perfectly.  She give him her fear, she says the fear is because of his predictive--Dunyain like--abilities.  She elevates, in her sight, Cnaiur above Kellhus and Cnaiur feels it even if he doesn't consciously understand it.  Kellhus has carefully achieved this by conditioning Anissi, Cnaiur's subconscious even tries to alert him, because he remembers how degradation is a potent tool for the Dunyain, and by degrading himself, Kellhus helped Anissi to place Cnaiur above Dunyain in her mind.  This process would be the lever that finally moves Cnaiur to speak to Kellhus, because of Anissi's flattery he finally feels secure enough in his status and stature to confront the Dunyain.
Title: Re: TDTCB, Ch. 12
Post by: What Came Before on April 19, 2013, 10:27:14 am
Quote from: Madness
I haven't decided, lockesnow.

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.

I'm not sure I can believe that Kellhus manages everything instantly, as Cnaiur seems to believe. And Cnaiur does say he sleeps with a knife because he knows Kellhus can come to him as anyone, even Anissi. Kellhus inhabits them, probably, certainly Anissi as you say.

So Kellhus wants Cnaiur to be vulnerable to his entreaties but ultimately to wants him to take Kellhus to Moenghus...?
Title: Re: TDTCB, Ch. 12
Post by: What Came Before on April 19, 2013, 10:27:26 am
Quote from: lockesnow
Quote from: Madness
I haven't decided, lockesnow.

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I'm not sure I can believe that Kellhus manages everything instantly, as Cnaiur seems to believe. And Cnaiur does say he sleeps with a knife because he knows Kellhus can come to him as anyone, even Anissi. Kellhus inhabits them, probably, certainly Anissi as you say.

So Kellhus wants Cnaiur to be vulnerable to his entreaties but ultimately to wants him to take Kellhus to Moenghus...?

I'm not sure, is something watching Kellhus?  Is something watching Cnaiur?  Is something watching Conphas?  All three are kahiht, perhaps, but consider the following passages from Chapter six:

Quote
A great iron ache radiated from the back of his head, and for a time he lay still, crushed by its weight. Convulsions wracked him, and he heaved bile into the footprints before his face. He coughed. With his tongue he probed a soft, salty gap between his teeth.

For some reason, the first clear thought to arise from his misery was of his Chorae. He scraped his fingers through vomit and gritty muck, found it quickly. He tucked it beneath his iron-plated girdle.

Mine. My prize.

The pain pressed like a shod hoof against the back of his skull, but he managed to push himself to his hands and knees. The grass was whitewashed with mud and sharp like small knives between his fingers. He dragged himself away from the rush of the river.

The turf of the embankment had been trampled into mud, now hardened into the brittle record of the earlier slaughter. The corpses seemed cemented to the ground, their flesh leathery beneath flies, their blood clotted like crushed cherries. He felt as though he crawled across one of those dizzying stone reliefs that panelled the temples of Nansur, where struggling men were frozen in unholy representation. But this was no representation.
(p. 185)
---
For a long time he felt nothing. He remembered those mornings in his youth when, for whatever reason, he would awaken before dawn. He would creep from the yaksh and steal through the camp, searching for the higher ground where he could watch the sun embrace the land. The wind would hiss through the grasses. The squatting sun would rise, climb. And he would think, I am the last. I am the only one.

Like now.

For an absurd moment, he felt the queer exultation of one who’d prophesied his own destruction. He’d told Xunnurit, the eight-fingered fool. They’d thought him an old woman, a spinner of preposterous fears. Where was their laughter now?
(p. 186).
---
He squeezed tears from his eyes, beat a scabbed fist against the turf harder and harder, as though he stoked a furnace. The face from thirty years ago floated before his soul’s eye, possessed of a demonic calm.

“You task me!” he hissed under his breath. “Heap burden upon burd—”

A flare of sudden terror silenced him. The sound of voices, carried on the wind.
(p. 187). 
---

It was as though a great stone had been dropped upon Cnaiür’s chest. He could not breathe. It was him. Him! Ikurei Conphas!
(p. 188).
---

Cnaiür tried wrenching himself from the ground, but he could not. In his ears the disembodied voices had become mocking thunder. Murder him. He must!
(p. 189).
---

A sudden awareness of himself and his environment struck Cnaiür. It was as though he saw himself from far away, a cringing man huddled next to the body of a horse, surrounded by ever-widening circles of dead. Even these images triggered recriminations. What kind of thoughts were these? Why must he always think one thought too many? Why must he always think?

Kill him!

“Exactly,” Martemus replied.

Rush them. String their horses. Cut their throats in the confusion!
(p. 189).
---
So cold. The ground was so cold. Where should he go?

He had fled his childhood and had crawled into the honour of his father’s name, Skiötha, Chieftain of the Utemot. With his father’s shameful death, he’d fled and crawled into the name of his people, the Scylvendi, who were the wrath of Lokung, more vengeance than bone or flesh. Now they too had died shamefully. There was no ground left to him.

He lay nowhere, among the dead.
(p. 191).
---
 
Italics original, bolding mine.

this is followed by the extremely oddly written flashback to Cnaiur and Moenghus.  This piece of prose stands out because it's written in a second person, I think, "Some events mark us so deeply..." it's not written from Cnaiur's perspective, it's not from the third person omniscient perspective, it's written in present tense, not in past tense.  As though we the reader are reviewing memories together with Cnaiur.

but setting aside that flashback.  Note how Cnaiur is paralyzed here, he's moving about before the vision of Moenghus' face, he's paralyzed after the vision.  He's clutching his chorae the whole time.  and he has out of body experiences, visions of himself on a nansur relief sculpture (a game piece?), and a vision of himself from far away as from another person watching from afar.  He's paralyzed at precisely the exact time, the only moment, when Conphas will give his silly aphorism that 'war is intellect' that will later prove crucial to Cnaiur seizing control of the holy war.

It's reasonable to guess the Moenghus is performing some mind control on Cnaiur here.  or it could be the gods/the world conspires.
Title: Re: TDTCB, Ch. 12
Post by: What Came Before on April 19, 2013, 10:28:32 am
Quote from: Meyna
Quote
“If all men are ignorant of the origins of their thoughts…” Cnaiur said.
Anxious to clear the brush, their horses galloped the last few lengths to open, endless ground.
“Then all men are deceived.”
Kellhus secured his gaze for a crucial instant. “They act for reasons that are not their own.”
Will he see?
“Like slaves…” Cnaiur began, a stunned scowl on his face. Then he recalled at whom he looked. “But you say this simply to exonerate yourself! What does it matter enslaving slaves, eh, Dunyain?”
“So long as what comes before remains shrouded, so long as men are already deceived, what does it matter?”

This exchange says a lot, I think. The Dunyain have no qualms about using others as mind slaves in order to walk the shortest path. This is reinforced by Moenghus:

Quote
“Where no paths exist,” Moënghus had continued, “a man strays only when he misses his destination. There is no crime, no transgression, no sin save foolishness or incompetence, and no obscenity save the tyranny of custom.”

If we take them at their word, the Dunyain are prepared to do anything to stay on the shortest path.

What's curious is that both Kellhus and Moenghus independently think in these terms, yet they are supposed to be the first two Dunyain to interact with world-born men in God knows how long. Have the Dunyain explicitly prepared themselves to master the world-born? How, exactly, can they conceive of goals in the world from which they shape the minds of men? It would seem that the Dunyain have been training for much more than attaining the absolute in seclusion. Apologies for speculating in the almanac!
Title: Re: TDTCB, Ch. 12
Post by: What Came Before on April 19, 2013, 10:28:44 am
Quote from: Madness
No worries, Meyna. It refers to the chapter :). Perfectly reasonable questions - though I feel like this bears on another thread we were having.

lockesnow, I'm definitely missing what you are getting at.

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Also, much of what you highlight reads like a concussion.
Title: Re: TDTCB, Ch. 12
Post by: What Came Before on April 19, 2013, 10:28:53 am
Quote from: lockesnow
I think the Moenghus' face appeared before his soul's eye is potentially a flag.  Particularly after TJE, the phrase soul's eye seems like a buried indicator of something.   Also note the bit, 'where did these thoughts come from' and compare it to 'from what darkness did this come', and also how he went to the barrows not because it was his idea, but because the thought to go to the barrows preceded him.

From where do those thoughts come for Cnaiur?   We shouldn't narrow our focus only to Kellhus narrowly surviving, but also notice that Cnaiur narrowly survives.  Esmenet narrowly survives.  Serwe narrowly survives. Whether or not this is the world or moenghus conspiring, it is hard to say.
Title: Re: TDTCB, Ch. 12
Post by: What Came Before on April 19, 2013, 10:29:02 am
Quote from: generic
Hadn't noticed before Madness brought it up but it might have been a face right out of his dreams because Moengus had been harassing him. Don't think that would have all that many implications except to explain why Cnaiur went to the graves/ was restless.
Title: Re: TDTCB, Ch. 12
Post by: What Came Before on April 19, 2013, 10:29:12 am
Quote from: Madness
Lol, generic, I'm not sure if I got you to notice it or lockesnow...

But to both of you, I don't buy into Moenghus' manipulating dreams - though, lockesnow is swaying me a little.

My personal theory is that the agency of the Gods is expressed through the narrative. Fate is the World, the World is Fate's cracked urn - perhaps, also a key word. Is Anagke a normal Goddess?

Segue aside, in order of probable cause: Fate, God, Gods, and lastly, Moenghus as possible instigators for Cnaiur going to the Barrows.
Title: Re: TDTCB, Ch. 12
Post by: What Came Before on April 19, 2013, 10:29:22 am
Quote from: Meyna
Quote from: Madness
Moenghus as possible instigators for Cnaiur going to the Barrows.

It certainly puts a new spin on Kellhus' constantly thinking to himself in terms of talking to Moenghus.

Quote
“Sorcery? Is this among the lessons I’m to learn, Father?" (p33)

Etc.

Kellhus knows that Moenghus is pulling the strings, via dreams or otherwise.
Title: Re: TDTCB, Ch. 12
Post by: What Came Before on April 19, 2013, 10:29:32 am
Quote from: lockesnow
Why the resistence to Moenghus' dream manipulations when we're told on the first graph of the Kellhus prologue that Moenghus is sending dreams?  And as Meyna points out, what are the implications of Kellhus' internal dialogue TO Moenghus?

As readers we take it for granted that we get to see the thoughts/internal monologue of the characters.  How do we know that Moenghus is not "reading" the narrative the way we are?  How do we know that something we assume to be an internal monologue is actually a monologue, why couldn't it be a dialogue?

Are the Dunyain (or at least Moenghus) aware of RSB's presence in the story?  Are the Dunyain akin to Daffy Duck in Duck Amuck?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdqQat8Jys4

I think I want to ask RSB those last two questions...
Title: Re: TDTCB, Ch. 12
Post by: What Came Before on April 19, 2013, 10:29:48 am
Quote from: Madness
My resistance stems from the fact that it is far more elegant for Moenghus to condition a measure of the world like social clockwork and then Kellhus sets it like a spring wherever he comes into contact with it - Cnaiur, in this case.

(As an aside here, I think that Moenghus had to have been instrumental in Zirkirta. Is it his first attempt to clear the path for Kellhus - condition the road from Ishual? When Cnaiur beat them, Moenghus has to make sure that the Pilgrim's Route to Shimeh was closed so he sent Maithanet to dominate the Thousand Temples and declare Holy War on Fanimry?)

Yes, Moenghus used sorcery as aspects of this plan but when it becomes dependent on this, I don't care how powerful Moenghus is in the Psukhe, it feels like a cop-out... Really then, he used none of his Dunyain ability and just relied on Scrying and some Psukhe version of the Cant of Calling. That's acceptable, I guess, it's just not as elegant, robs the story of some of its magic.

Also, from Ch. 4 thread
Quote from: Madness
"These were the events upon which the world turned. Enough for a Goddess. 'Please ... Speak to me.' Nothing. Tears branched across his face. He raised his arms, held them open until his shoulders burned. 'Anything!' he cried. Run, his thoughts whispered. Run. Such a coward! How could he be such a coward?" (p133)

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We can't very well give every moment of possible supernatural agency to Moenghus as much as I've espoused that he accounted for everything & more in his probablity trance.

As to Meyna's thoughts... Kellhus' father is the only one equal to Kellhus - I've read and heard many recommendations to imagine or write mock conversations between great minds of the past and try and pit them against each other as consistently to their characters and as imaginatively as their breadth of expressions. Those are moments when Kellhus has explicitly run against a novel circumstance and he must reflect on what to do next.

In that vein, I think it's far more telling that Kellhus seems to stop asking his Father questions after the Circumfix (though, my memory is hazy for these, so please contradict).
Title: Re: TDTCB, Ch. 12
Post by: What Came Before on April 19, 2013, 10:30:08 am
Quote from: Duskweaver
Quote from: Madness
we could argue that this is in fact Onkis, warning Inrau, answering him, through her agency, the medium of his thoughts
And you spotted the "branched across his face" bit, right? The symbol of Onkis.
Title: Re: TDTCB, Ch. 12
Post by: What Came Before on April 19, 2013, 10:30:30 am
Quote from: Madness
No but +1. Wow. Staring me right in the face.