[Wilshire]

Good rebuttals all,  dragharrow. I'm not convinced, but I haven't anything else to bring forth.

Also, Seswatha at least claimed that touching the Heart to receive the Gnosis was a temporary measure. Akka says that they are only supposed to guard the Gnosis until the Consult returns. Then they're supposed to distribute their weaponry freely. I could totally see that being a lie told by Seswatha but I had assumed that the reason the Gnosis was still not being distributed freely was a choice by Kellhus.

If thats true (I don't remember that being said), then it may point to either Kellhus or the Mandate not wanting the gnosis to be free. Like you said, probably Kellhus, but even without him I'd say it wouldnt be released. Men guard nothing so jealously as power.
Also, it does point out that maybe Seswatha did care for the World.

Look at Akka. When he was kidnapped by the scarlet spires and tortured, he leaned on the dreams to get through it. He had already been trained for that situation and was unphased. The same will happen when the first mage battles start. The other mages will be unprepared and they will fold. The mandate will follow Kellhus' orders to the end. I think thats useful

While I think this scene was showing us that Seswatha may be more alive than we were led to believe, I think there is something of vital importance here. Post torture, during the escape, Akka goes what amounts to super-saiyan (and/or Avatar state), briefly becoming more powerful than he ever could have been on his own. If all the Mandati could be triggered into this state during a full scale battle, they'd be even more extreme of a force to be reckoned with.

Maybe Kellhus was counting on this and it didn't happen, he expected them to go into the Seswatha State under the extreme pressure of a devastating surpise attack, for long enough for him to come to their aide, and certainly long enough for most of the Mandate to survive pretty much any onslaught.

[dragharrow]

Good rebuttals all,  dragharrow. I'm not convinced, but I haven't anything else to bring forth.

Thanks. Whatever the case is, I agree with you that the disaster and the deaths of those mandati were not a mistake. Kellhus had a larger plan or at least saw it as strategically necessary.

Also, Seswatha at least claimed that touching the Heart to receive the Gnosis was a temporary measure.

If thats true (I don't remember that being said), then it may point to either Kellhus or the Mandate not wanting the gnosis to be free. Like you said, probably Kellhus, but even without him I'd say it wouldnt be released. Men guard nothing so jealously as power.
Also, it does point out that maybe Seswatha did care for the World.

I'll look for it. Not that it proves anything.

While I think this scene was showing us that Seswatha may be more alive than we were led to believe, I think there is something of vital importance here.

I think it shows that as well. It isn't just that they've been trained to be soldiers but they've also been imprinted with something of Seswatha himself. Maybe a lot of Seswatha.

Post torture, during the escape, Akka goes what amounts to super-saiyan (and/or Avatar state), briefly becoming more powerful than he ever could have been on his own. If all the Mandati could be triggered into this state during a full scale battle, they'd be even more extreme of a force to be reckoned with.

Lol, well said. I think it is possible that a similar state could be triggered in any mandate sorcerer but I doubt it is likely that any carry Seswatha's power to such a great degree. Or, alternatively, most lack the raw power to replicate the feat regardless of channeling Seswatha.

Maybe Kellhus was counting on this and it didn't happen, he expected them to go into the Seswatha State under the extreme pressure of a devastating surpise attack, for long enough for him to come to their aide, and certainly long enough for most of the Mandate to survive pretty much any onslaught.

Hmm maybe. I think Kellhus understands the nature of the Seswatha imprint well enough that he wouldn't make that mistake. He has had unlimited access to the mandate since the time of his ascension to the throne as well as a personal knowledge of Akka. I think he is probably aware of whether it is possible to trigger the Seswatha-State in any other of the mandati and if so, what kinds of triggers that requires.

On top of that, I am hesitant to accept any evidence in favor of the "Locke position" or the argument that Kellus is massively deluded and fallible. There's too much evidence for that already lol

[Wilshire]

Haha, the "Locke position", love it and fully agree. Whatever the resolution, it won't be so clean cut.

[dragharrow]

If thats true (I don't remember that being said), then it may point to either Kellhus or the Mandate not wanting the gnosis to be free. Like you said, probably Kellhus, but even without him I'd say it wouldnt be released. Men guard nothing so jealously as power.
Also, it does point out that maybe Seswatha did care for the World.

Here is the passage I had in mind. I think Seswatha saying this may have been referred to at another point as well but I'm not sure.

It's in the warrior prophet before Akka has been captured. He is on the way to the library I think.

Do I teach him the Gnosis?

To his gut he balked at the notion—the mere thought of surrendering the Gnosis to someone outside his School made him blanch. He wasn’t even sure he could teach Kellhus the Gnosis, even if he desired. His knowledge of the Gnosis was the one thing he shared with Seswatha, whose imprint owned every movement of his slumbering soul.
Will you let me? Do you see what I see?

Never—never!—in the history of their School had a sorcerer of rank betrayed the Gnosis. Only the Gnosis had allowed the Mandate to survive. Only the Gnosis had allowed them to carry Seswatha’s war through the millennia. Lose it, and they became no more than a Minor School. His brothers, Achamian knew, would fight themselves to extinction to prevent that from happening. They would hunt both of them without relenting, and they would kill them if they could. They would not listen to reasons … And the name, Drusas Achamian, would become a curse in the dark halls of Atyersus.

But what was this other than greed or jealousy? The Second Apocalypse was imminent. Hadn’t the time come to arm all the Three Seas? Hadn’t Seswatha himself bid them share their arsenal before the shadow fell?

He had …

And wouldn’t this make Achamian the most faithful of all Mandate Schoolmen?

I don't know what this means for my argument but it's interesting.

[Wilshire]

Ah, nice. Then there must have been some instruction or intent to share the gnosis eventually. Might have been that the Seswatha homonulus thought that the Mandate would have become a major school and thus the dissemination of the gnosis would not have meant their destruction. Like Akka mentions, without a monopoloy  on the gnosis they would be a minor school, so they and Seswatha cannot risk giving it up.

[Bolivar]

Wondering if they're going to share it with the rest of the Great Ordeal sorcerers if/when they reach Golgotterath or maybe even Dagliash.

Sent from my SCH-I605 using Tapatalk

[Hirtius/Pansa]

Sounds like too little too late. High Kunna and Gilcunya are probably too disparate linguistically for Anagogic sorcerers to pick it up that quickly.  And honing the semantic purity of meaning is what gives the Gnosis its bite.  It would, theoretically, take years for trained Anagogic sorcerers to attune their minds to the Gnosis and then be able to dispense it for combat purposes.

Maybe Kellhus can neuropuncture them to Gnostichood.

[Wilshire]

Oh yeah. At this point, unless they already have it and have been training with it for years, its far too late.

[Quinthane]

it'll give you sranc-breath.


and possibly Sranchitis.

[Wilshire]

iand possibly Sranchitis.

I like this one in particular

[Quinthane]

iand possibly Sranchitis.

I like this one in particular

Oh no nooooo Wil. 'ware the sranchitis. what with the loss of skin pigmentation and the constant erections....it's nasty stuff. may also cause dry mouth.

[EkyannusIII]

You grow

(click to show/hide)

thorns on your phallus.

[Blackstone]

Perhaps it turns the men of the GO into a mindless weapons race that Kellhus can control. I find it hard to believe that Kellhus didn't test it out beforehand. He's had 20 years to prepare for this.

[Wilshire]

My thoughts exactly.

Kellhus' very own gibbering multitudes speaking with his voice. Imagine that meta-gnostic concert

[mrganondorf]

@ Wilshire/dragharrow - As far as the Mandate taking a big his at the end of WLW, I mean that's got to be either a mistake on Kellhus' part or he is deliberately exposing the Mandate to harm.  For the first option--It could be that he calculated a low probability of harm to the Mandate and maybe a reasonable decision to send them.  At first glance, that seems more likely than deliberately exposing the Mandate to harm.  Those (along with the Swayali) are his hands down number one weapons to get to Golgotterath and overcome the Consult.  I can't imagine that he would deliberately expose them unless he is gambling on showing a mask of weakness to the Consult to get them to move to hasty.  It would be a Dunyain thing to do to lure the Consult into thinking that they will be able snuff out the GO and thus leave themselves open to some kind of lateral attack, but the risk!  The risk!

It could be that Kellhus' power level is so far off the charts, that he really doesn't need the Mandate or any of the other schools.  It would be a hell of a lot of power and two decades of war to unite the three seas, create the GO, and march north BUT no ruse is beyond a Dunyain.  The whole point of the GO might be nothing more than to prevent Kellhus from having to show his hand until he gets really really close to the Consult. 

There were three times during the Holy War that Bakker had the Fanim show one army in order to conceal another.  Which is to say, that might not be just one of the Fanim's favorite tricks, it might be one of Bakker's too.  Possibly the Great Ordeal is the one lesser army hiding the greater army: Kellhus alone.