Earwa > The Almanac: TAE Edition
The Slog WLW - Chapter 8 [Spoilers]
H:
Chapter 8:
--- Quote ---The notch that would shatter his sword, so allowing the broken blade to plunge into the Aspect-Emperor's heart. He could even feel the blood slick his thumb and fingers, as he followed himself into the gloomy peril of the alley.
--- End quote ---
So, is the White Luck mistaken? Does the vision he have lie? No, I think it is right. But I think there is far more to it. That once he can be killed, it simply won't matter.
--- Quote ---And so he stepped into his stepping, walked into his walking, travelled into his journey, a quest that had already ended in the death of the False Prophet.
--- End quote ---
This part is why I don't believe it hinges on a play on words. The False Prophet is Kellhus, not just someone with the title Aspect-Emperor.
--- Quote ---Thus had her husband, in the course of arming her against their mad son, also warned her against himself. As well as confirmed what Achamian had said so very long ago.
--- End quote ---
So, she finally gets it? But she still trusts Kellhus, it seems.
--- Quote ---"What if redemption were simply another form of damnation? What if the only true salvation lay in seeing through the trick and embracing oblivion?
--- End quote ---
Like a Nonman? Is this what they knew?
--- Quote ---"You lean heavily on Father's advice..." he said, his voice reaching for intonations that almost matched Kellhus's. "But you should know that I am your husband as he really is. Even Uncle, when he speaks, parses and pitches his words to mimic the way others sound—to conceal the inhumanity I so love to flaunt. We Dûnyain... we are not human, Mother. And you... You are children to us. Ridiculous and adorable. And so insufferably stupid."
--- End quote ---
Indeed, again, it revolves around Dûnyain not being truly human. That "accursed blood" and so on. I still see it all going back to that Nonman heritage...
--- Quote ---"Kel..." he said with a bestial grunt, "and Sammi..."
The Holy Empress stiffened. If Inrilatas had been seeking a fatal chink, he had discovered it. "I don't understand," she replied, swallowing. "Sammi is... Sammi, he..."
--- End quote ---
Does he goad her? Or is he being honest, that Sammi really is the voice?
--- Quote ---Fanayal ab Kascamandri raised his hand as if trying to snatch words she had tossed aside. "So this White-Luck Warrior of yours," he snapped, "he hunts the Aspect-Emperor?"
"The Goddess hunts the Demon."
Fanayal turned to his Cishaurim and grinned. "Tell me, Meppa. Do you like her?"
"Like her?" the blind man responded, obviously too accustomed to his jokes to be incredulous. "No."
"Well I do," the Padirajah said. "Even her curses please me."
--- End quote ---
At first I thought that Fanayal was just kind of dumb and open to manipulation. But I think there is more to it. Perhaps he thinks he can actually ally himself with Yatwer to kill Kellhus? Perhaps he is actually not wrong...
--- Quote ---Apparently activity along the Scylvendi frontier, which had surged in previous weeks, had now dwindled to nothing, a fact that at once heartened her, because of the redeployment it allowed, and troubled her.
--- End quote ---
Something is up with this, but I don't know what. Perhaps a Scylvendi attack is the real death-blow to the Empire?
--- Quote ---The crisis she faced was a crisis in confidence, nothing more, nothing less. The less her subjects believed in the Empire, the less some would sacrifice, the more others would resist. It was almost arithmetic. The balance was wobbling, and all the world watched to see which way the sand would spill. Anasûrimbor Esmenet had made a resolution to act as if she believed to spite all those who doubted her as much as anything else, and paradoxically, they had all started believing with her. It was a lesson Kellhus had drummed into her countless times and one she resolved never to forget again.
To know is to have power over the world; to believe is to have power over men.
--- End quote ---
Ah, yes, confidence, speaking to certainty, Kellhus bread-and-butter.
--- Quote ---The tone and pose of an innocent bewildered and bullied by another's irrationality. "If his actions conform to your expectations," Kellhus had told her, "then he deceives you. The more unthinkable dissembling seems, Esmi, the more he dissembles..."
--- End quote ---
Did Kellhus figure to pit Esmenet versus Maitha? Why?
--- Quote ---"I serve my Lord Padirajah."
The Mother-Supreme laughed. This, she realized, was her new temple, a heathen army, flying through lands where even goatherds were loathe to go. And these heathen were her new priests—these Fanim. What did it matter what they believed, so long as they accomplished what needed to be done?
"But you lie," she croaked in her old voice.
"He has been anoin—"
"He has been anointed!" she cackled. "But not by whom you think!"
--- End quote ---
So, Yatwer does have plans for Fanayal, it was no accident that Psatma was taken.
--- Quote ---"I fear my brother does not fully trust me."
"Because he knows, doesn't he? He knows the secret of our blood."
"Perhaps."
"He knows you, knows you better than you know yourself."
"Perhaps."
--- End quote ---
Again, about the blood.
--- Quote ---"The sum of sins," Inrilatas continued. "There is nothing more godly than murder. Nothing more absolute."
--- End quote ---
So, did Inrilatas actually plan to kill Maitha? Or was it a ploy to have himself killed?
There is plausibility either way. He seems to have told him about Kel to distract him, but it could be that this wasn't the only reason. Then again, it seems like he is being completely honest in telling him about Kel:
--- Quote ---"A thousand words and insinuations batter them day in and day out," the youth said. "But because they lack the memory to enumerate them, they forget, and find themselves stranded with hopes and suspicions not of their making. Mother has always loved you, Uncle, has always seen you as a more human version of Father—an illusion you have laboured long and hard to cultivate. Now, suddenly, when she most desperately needs your counsel, she fears and hates you."
"And this is Kelmomas's work?"
"He isn't what he seems, Uncle."
--- End quote ---
So, he acknowledges that this is all Kel's work. So, why try to kill him? I think Inrilatas knows full well Maitha's strength and so he elects to have him kill him, rather than Kel. However, this plays right into what Kel wants, so why unmask him only to aid his plan? Should we be asking cui bono? Perhaps. But benefit here is tricky to figure...
This conversation is very much akin to Kellhus and Moe's TTT conversation. Very little is as what it seems. I need more time to ruminate on it really...
Blackstone:
--- Quote from: H on April 13, 2016, 12:18:58 pm ---Chapter 8:
--- Quote ---The notch that would shatter his sword, so allowing the broken blade to plunge into the Aspect-Emperor's heart. He could even feel the blood slick his thumb and fingers, as he followed himself into the gloomy peril of the alley.
--- End quote ---
So, is the White Luck mistaken? Does the vision he have lie? No, I think it is right. But I think there is far more to it. That once he can be killed, it simply won't matter.
--- Quote ---And so he stepped into his stepping, walked into his walking, travelled into his journey, a quest that had already ended in the death of the False Prophet.
--- End quote ---
This part is why I don't believe it hinges on a play on words. The False Prophet is Kellhus, not just someone with the title Aspect-Emperor.
--- End quote ---
I totally agree. I think we talked about this in another thread. I think the WLW succeeds in killing Kellhus. But, as you say, the question is whether it matters by the time he gets around to doing it. (But note: my favorite crackpot theory right now is that Kellhus is sucked back in time and imprisoned in the Carapace to walk the world as the No-god, and that the final series is entitled "The First Apocalypse.")
--- Quote from: H on April 13, 2016, 12:18:58 pm ---Chapter 8:
--- Quote ---"You lean heavily on Father's advice..." he said, his voice reaching for intonations that almost matched Kellhus's. "But you should know that I am your husband as he really is. Even Uncle, when he speaks, parses and pitches his words to mimic the way others sound—to conceal the inhumanity I so love to flaunt. We Dûnyain... we are not human, Mother. And you... You are children to us. Ridiculous and adorable. And so insufferably stupid."
--- End quote ---
Indeed, again, it revolves around Dûnyain not being truly human. That "accursed blood" and so on. I still see it all going back to that Nonman heritage...
--- End quote ---
I have a bit of a problem with this. I just finished a re-read of TDTCB, and Kellhus clearly has feelings and passions as a child. In fact, a lot of the training he undertakes as a young Dunyain is to overcome his passions. As late as the climax of TDTCB, when Kellhus is thinking about that meditation exercise (the logos is without...), he is having feelings. So the "blood" really only has to do with their physical and mental advantages, not emotional "advantages."
So why are some of his children born without the ability to feel human emotion? Authorial inconsistency?
H:
--- Quote from: Blackstone on April 13, 2016, 03:25:23 pm ---I totally agree. I think we talked about this in another thread. I think the WLW succeeds in killing Kellhus. But, as you say, the question is whether it matters by the time he gets around to doing it. (But note: my favorite crackpot theory right now is that Kellhus is sucked back in time and imprisoned in the Carapace to walk the world as the No-god, and that the final series is entitled "The First Apocalypse.")
--- End quote ---
While that is interesting, I hope not. Time travel just seems kind of silly to me.
--- Quote from: Blackstone on April 13, 2016, 03:25:23 pm ---I have a bit of a problem with this. I just finished a re-read of TDTCB, and Kellhus clearly has feelings and passions as a child. In fact, a lot of the training he undertakes as a young Dunyain is to overcome his passions. As late as the climax of TDTCB, when Kellhus is thinking about that meditation exercise (the logos is without...), he is having feelings. So the "blood" really only has to do with their physical and mental advantages, not emotional "advantages."
So why are some of his children born without the ability to feel human emotion? Authorial inconsistency?
--- End quote ---
I think it has to do with the inherent instability of the hybrids that the Dunyain are inevitably breeding. Indeed, the fact that most women they try to reproduce with tend to end up with nonviable mixes, producing freakish or at best completely imbalanced children seems to imply some genetic incompatibility. The results are probably pretty typical, really.
If we can believe what Maitha tells us about Moe's children, his rate of success was 1/6. Kellhus' actually seems only slightly higher, at 2/6 (Kayûtas, and Serwa) but I think that might speak more to something special about Esmenet than Kellhus. Still, I think that ultimately, what the Dunyain think they are doing isn't really what they are doing. I think there is more metaphysical things going on then just the training that they go through, just the training tends to sharpen it.
themerchant:
I'm not sure we can believe Uncle Holy, the text notes these tiny pauses in his answers, which may or may not mean anything.
I can't work it out :)
H:
The fix is in...only Madness and Wilshire will ever know how dumb I am, ;)
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