The Slog TJE - Chapters 1-3 [Spoilers]

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MSJ

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« Reply #15 on: March 11, 2016, 10:59:51 pm »
Camlost

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I'm still holding my verdict on the voice. I can't recall quite where (I'll try to dredge it up later), but there is a comment along the lines that the Gods don't happen all at once.

Happened upon it last night.

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The Gods …” Nannaferi began, struggling to render what was impossible in words. “They are not as we are. They do not happen … all at once. "
“No. I am your end. Before your eyes I will put your seed to the knife. I will quarter your carcass and feed it to the dogs. Your bones I will grind to dust and cast to the winds. I will strike down those who speak your name or the name of your fathers, until ‘Yursalka’ becomes as meaningless as infant babble. I will blot you out, hunt down your every trace! The track of your life has come to me,

themerchant

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« Reply #16 on: March 12, 2016, 10:38:40 am »
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Made it through Chapter 1:

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upon the high wall the husbands slept,
while 'round the hearth their women wept,
and fugitives murmured tales of woe,
of greater cities lost to Mog-Pharau...

—"The Refugee's Song," The Sagas

This is the quote from the beginning.  What way to beging the chapter that sees Sakarpus conquered.  The parallel is obvious, showing us that Kellhus has done what the No-God (and Consult) could not.  The implication seems clear, Kellhus is more.  What remains to be seen is, what does the more entail?

Tell me, why couldn't the Consult conquer Sarkapus? The chorae hoard? Is this why Kellhus hand is salting when he meets Sorweel?

For some reason i thought he was salting due to near strikes but i cannot remember why i think that. TJE is the book i've read least and i dont have a copy of it handy.

Somnambulist

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« Reply #17 on: March 12, 2016, 04:07:19 pm »
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Made it through Chapter 1:

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upon the high wall the husbands slept,
while 'round the hearth their women wept,
and fugitives murmured tales of woe,
of greater cities lost to Mog-Pharau...

—"The Refugee's Song," The Sagas

This is the quote from the beginning.  What way to beging the chapter that sees Sakarpus conquered.  The parallel is obvious, showing us that Kellhus has done what the No-God (and Consult) could not.  The implication seems clear, Kellhus is more.  What remains to be seen is, what does the more entail?

Tell me, why couldn't the Consult conquer Sarkapus? The chorae hoard? Is this why Kellhus hand is salting when he meets Sorweel?

For some reason i thought he was salting due to near strikes but i cannot remember why i think that. TJE is the book i've read least and i dont have a copy of it handy.

This was also my take on it.  I believe there was mention of the defenders firing chorae-tipped arrows at him, and he moved or jerked as if swatting them away, or something like that.  I just assumed one got too close, like he batted it away too close to the chorae itself.  Also, I don't believe it was the hoard itself making him salt from that distance, otherwise he wouldn't have been able to enter Sakarpus at all, were that the case.
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geoffrobro

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« Reply #18 on: March 12, 2016, 04:08:00 pm »
A small thing that I found interesting is when Mimara's judging eye opens she sees snakes shine with holiness. In our world snakes are maybe the most "damned" animal.

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Wilshire

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« Reply #19 on: March 17, 2016, 04:14:37 pm »
Nameless visitor notices cleric has a deep mark.
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MSJ

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« Reply #20 on: March 17, 2016, 04:26:51 pm »
Oooh,  great catch Wilshire!

ETA: I'm assuming you're talking about the traveller. When does he mention Cleric's mark? I went back and read it just now and never seen that.
« Last Edit: March 17, 2016, 04:31:22 pm by MSJ »
“No. I am your end. Before your eyes I will put your seed to the knife. I will quarter your carcass and feed it to the dogs. Your bones I will grind to dust and cast to the winds. I will strike down those who speak your name or the name of your fathers, until ‘Yursalka’ becomes as meaningless as infant babble. I will blot you out, hunt down your every trace! The track of your life has come to me,

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« Reply #21 on: March 17, 2016, 04:49:18 pm »
Oooh,  great catch Wilshire!

ETA: I'm assuming you're talking about the traveller. When does he mention Cleric's mark? I went back and read it just now and never seen that.

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A second man, his face concealed by a black cowl, sat three paces behind him, leaning forward as though straining to hear something in the water's ambient rush. The traveller peered at him for a moment, as though trying to judge some peculiarity, then returned his gaze to the first man.

Since he can't see his face, it's implied that what he would be seeing is The Mark.

The question then is, who of the Few would Kellhus employ to find them?
I am a warrior of ages, Anasurimbor. . . ages. I have dipped my nimil in a thousand hearts. I have ridden both against and for the No-God in the great wars that authored this wilderness. I have scaled the ramparts of great Golgotterath, watched the hearts of High Kings break for fury. -Cet'ingira

themerchant

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« Reply #22 on: March 17, 2016, 06:15:59 pm »
or he is seeing a non-man instead of a human that's why he is peculiar.

Wilshire

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« Reply #23 on: March 17, 2016, 08:22:49 pm »
presumably the obscured face makes the fact that he is a nonman not readily apparent, but the depth of his mark worth a double take. Even it it was a normal mark he probably wouldn't have bothered with the double take.
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Wilshire

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« Reply #24 on: March 17, 2016, 08:30:42 pm »
@Somna
I agree. The chorae don't have a compounding aura/radius of effect increase with more of them. If it was so great to cause him to salt, then it should have not only done that but also make working any magic in the entire area impossible.

That, and then great siege walls would have been constructed to make wider and wider anti-magic barriers. Basically, to make movable anarcane ground. That never happened, so chorae must not work tha tway, in my mind.


There must have been some other effect, potentially somthing that only the NG could see (or not see), that prevented it from walking through Sakarpus. If it was just the consult, you might say that they just avoided the area, simply too great a risk to try to take a city so capable of killing them. However, since the NG avoided the place, it mus thave been something more than simple consult risk avoidance.
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themerchant

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« Reply #25 on: March 17, 2016, 08:46:00 pm »
presumably the obscured face makes the fact that he is a nonman not readily apparent, but the depth of his mark worth a double take. Even it it was a normal mark he probably wouldn't have bothered with the double take.

I don't see a double take in the text.

"A second man, his face concealed by a black cowl, sat three paces behind him, leaning forward as though straining to hear something in the water's ambient rush. The traveller peered at him for a moment, as though trying to judge some peculiarity, then returned his gaze to the first man."

He "peers at him for a moment" then returns "his gaze to the first man" , does he look back again in the rest of the text?

I'm not sure if he does see a mark or not. I don't see him doing a "double take" For me it's looking turning away, brain catches up with eyes and you look again.

He stares at him as he is peculiar thinks of him as a "man" we know it's actually a non-man, couldn't this also account for the action?

MSJ

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« Reply #26 on: March 17, 2016, 09:44:01 pm »
@Wilshire, that's why I asked the question, it doesnt make sense. The Consult has no control over the No-God if I remember correctly. And,  for some reason I don't recall Kellhus being near any Chorae. Just might've missed something, dunno.
“No. I am your end. Before your eyes I will put your seed to the knife. I will quarter your carcass and feed it to the dogs. Your bones I will grind to dust and cast to the winds. I will strike down those who speak your name or the name of your fathers, until ‘Yursalka’ becomes as meaningless as infant babble. I will blot you out, hunt down your every trace! The track of your life has come to me,

Wilshire

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« Reply #27 on: March 17, 2016, 10:14:40 pm »
I haven't gotten here yet, but I don't think we have any idea why sakarpus was spared. Atrithau, specifically, is said to be spared due to anarcane ground, but even then we don't know why that helped.
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Bolivar

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« Reply #28 on: March 18, 2016, 05:43:50 pm »
Started reading this week, really enjoying it. I thought it was funny, given the real world situation, when Kelmomas asks:

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“When will Father return?”
...
“Not for some time, Kel,” she said. “Not until the Great Ordeal is completed.”

I might be reading too much into this but I found it interesting how the first chapter begins:

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The tracks between whim and brutality are many and inscrutable in Men, and though they often seem to cut across the impassable terrain of reason, in truth, it is reason that paves their way. Ever do Men argue from want to need and from need to fortuitous warrant. Ever do they think their cause the just cause. Like cats chasing sunlight thrown from a mirror, they never tire of their own delusions.

It goes on to describe how the great Ordeal was prepared for the rest of the first section. On the one hand, it's a cynical assertion that Earwans don't actually care about the No-God or the Apocalypse, it's just the rationalization they use to take what they want from others, purge the non-believers, and eventually sack cities like Sakarpus. At first I actually thought it was about Kellhus and wondered what whim or want, as opposed to the need and reason of averting apocalypse, would cause him to call the ordeal. Either way, it confirms what the Judge suggests before the prologue and what many of the characters and ourselves suspect, that the Ordeal not exactly what it claims to be.

As far as Esmenet, it seems she's already been driven to the brink at the beginning of TJE. Her control over her ministers is tenuous at best, the world knows her as a tyrant, and she admits to having episodes where the gravity of it all floods in and overwhelms her while conducting affairs of state. At the end of WLW, she and Maithanet suspect Kellhus does not care if the new empire falls but this reread pushes me more to the idea that he willfully intended for it to happen, Which makes this all the more horrifying:

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Short of the No-God’s resurrection, nothing can save Golgotterath. The Consult’s only hope is to fan the embers, to throw the New Empire into turmoil, if not topple it altogether. The Ainoni have a saying, ‘When the hands are strong, attack the feet.’”

Much like the first holy war, Maithanet suggests the Consult might be exacerbating political strife for their own gain. That they could be goading or assisting Fanayal and Psatma Nannaferi. The mysterious significance of the Satyothi skin spy in this chapter could be to confirm they have agents in the Zeumi court, the last true rival to the new empire, and who we know is considering throwing their support behind Fanayal.

We know the Interdiction was likely imposed to keep the soldiers in the dark about the conflict that would surely erupt about the power vacuum. But what would it do to morale if it went one step further and the Consult actually truly destroyed these cities? And what are the implications of Kellhus opening the door for the Consult to do so? Perhaps he had no other choice if Golgotterath is to be destroyed but at again, it really feels like he went out if his way to set Esmenet up to fail.
« Last Edit: March 18, 2016, 05:48:07 pm by Bolivar »

Wilshire

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« Reply #29 on: March 18, 2016, 06:11:26 pm »
The difference here though is that the collapse of the Empire, at this point, is not rellevent. They would have needed its collapse before the holywar disembarked.

The vacuum left behind, the collapse of the empire, does not stop the men already marching, bent on the destruction of the Consult.

Even then, as many suspect, Kellhus purposefully left behind  a broken empire such that Fanayal and/or Zeum could easily take control in a way that no one he left behind could do. Could maybe Maithanet hold the Empire together better than Esmi? Probably, but unlikely that he would be more effective than the entire military dominance of another whole nation.

Also, recall that the  TTT requires that all people of all faiths unite, which should include the remaining crumbling Fanim and the yet untouch Zeum. The Ordeal's failure unites the rest of the 3seas in a way impossible to do without such an event. Seswatha coming back to warn the Three Seas seems extremely likely to happen again - whoever becomes that harbinger is not terribly relevant. What is relevent is he/she/their effectiveness at convincing those left behind that more action is needed.
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