I don't think the Consult are in command of the Sranc.  That's what they need the No-God for.  It possesses all the Sranc, and nowadays that would be automatic victory.  The Consult, unaided, can't herd enough Sranc together to defeat human armies with School support.

Someone else said that on the last page. I agree they seem to be herding the Sranc more than commanding them thus far, but they've still managed to muster a swarm large enough to opaque the earth, dwarf the host of all the nations of Men, and wage war on the Dunyain to the point of driving them to extinction. They could have conquered any of the southern kingdoms before Kellhus organized them into the largest army of Men since the First Apocalypse, before the Swayali existed and other Schools were forced to cooperate as opposed to busying themselves with the squabbles of their internal factions etc.

It's just my opinion - if I were writing the series, it would be a particular detail that I couldn't just handwave away.

Odium, it seems the Consult long ago abandoned that track. They did that against the Nonman, open warfare, and lost. They did it again with sranc, and lost, beaten back to Golgotterath. They did it a third time during the 1st apocalypse, even before they had the No-God. They released the No-God to have absolute control over the horde, and lost.

To many times they have thought they had insurmountable odds. How could they lose with all their might? The Tekne, their own magics, sranc/weapon-races, later the Quya on their side...

They probably think the God's against them, or at the very least they don't want to risk losing. They turned to skin-spies and slowly made Men forget. They have been subverting Earwa in a much different way this time around, until Kellhus came along and brought the war to them.

I find your argument somewhat more convincing. Like I said above, I don't want to stray into the same territory I critique below (picking apart instead of giving in to my suspension of disbelief on a detail that's reasonable for the sake of the narrative), but I still think it's a bit... overblown in the text. The Sranc have had several thousand generations to breed without any kind of environmental pressure to limit their growing population. The Quya are pretty much under the Consult's thumb. The Mandate is crippled compared to the school it was during the First Apocalypse.

But after thinking about it more it doesn't really detract from the narrative. I just can't help but see it as an oversight in a series that has worked so exhaustively to make its world seem real and functioning within its own parameters. But I guess that's where fate comes in.

Re: whale-mothers and the silly controversy they've been provoking - I am certain I recall a quote about Nonmen who grew until death (unless we decided this was poetic license by Bakker). If the Dunyain possess at least some measure of ancient Nonmen blood, does it not make the exaggerated sexual dimorphism a little more credible in-universe? The fact that it's been brought under such scrutiny compared to other supernatural elements of the series is a little telling about how chafed the fandom's ass is about anything related to the whole feminism subplot.

I'm on board with Ishual at least partly being of Nonman manufacture. From Kellhus' first time in a mansion:

Quote

The halls were not human.
 The drafts came to him, murmuring their secrets. His soul reached out, calculating probabilities, transforming inferences into space. About him, the galleries scrawled on and on into the immured blackness.
 So like the Thousand Thousand Halls … So like Ishuäl.

I also found it strange that the Empire had "replaced" one of the priestesses with a Swayali. They have their own arcane version of skin spies now?

The text openly insinuates that Ishual is of Nonman origin: its name is derived from Ihrimsu, a Nonman languge, and Bolivar has quoted the scene where Kellhus openly remarks on the similarities between a mansion and the Thousand Thousand Halls. At some point we heard about Nonmen hiding in Cil'Aujas after it was claimed by men; would it be so remarkable for the Dunyain to do the same? At the end of TWLW, Achamian and Mimara come across the ruined fortress, but many times now we've seen it stated that the most important structure in Ishual is beneath its surface. (To speculate on the possible new angles that this might raise)

As far as the Empire replacing a priestess with a Swayali, I think it's more to highlight the convenience a sorceress might have while infiltrating a matriarchal cult. Though it wouldn't surprise me to find out that Kellhus has expanded greatly upon Moe's research.

I hadn't picked up on that before, but yeah, the ritual used to separate them seems to point verrrry directly at the theory that one of the Hundred accompanies Kelmomas - specifically, Ajokli, given that Bakker has been pretty clear associating his characters with their respective gods since the beginning of TSA and everything indicates the Trickster would be Kel's patron. Maybe what the Voice says in your last quote alludes to Ajokli's purpose in possessing the boy: another cruel joke for life to play on Esmenet, taking away the last thing she loves. I figure this will somehow relate to Esmenet seeing her beloved son for what he really is.

I can't imagine conventional strategy applying much to the armies of the Weapon Races. Just judging from the Sranc/Bashrag it seems they kind of war with overwhelming numbers. I have a hard time imagining that the Consult would just spare two cities because of the resources necessary to conquer them. I'm sure there is some deeper significance to Atrithau and Sakarpus enduring the No-God, and what we know of them strongly suggests it has something to do with the disadvantages for sorcery at both locations. The Consult employed sorcery to create the No-God - maybe, paradoxically, it depends on it in some way.

I don't know if it's been suggested before - hell, it might have been Locke's initial insinuation from his post further up this page, but the idea that the Dunyain are all grown from Celmomas' seed would solve the problem of the Dunyain women.

I've decided that I feel it is unlikely that Scott has undertaken the task of writing TSA without linking it very intimately to his personal thoughts on the nature of consciousness (Blind Brain Theory). I feel there are certain indications that this is true in the text already, ie, the essential nature of the concept of blindness to the narrative, and Apocalypse as a key word to the entire series. I'm not sure, but it wouldn't surprise me if other people have posited that the apocalypse refers to the semantic one Bakker talks about occasionally on his blog.

I'll quote Dragharrow's thoughts in the last thread, as I feel it might help provide context:

The gods are the blind brain. They don't exist but they believe they do. They are entities in the chaos of the set of all possible things. There is only void but that doesn't stop these potential entities and hungers from experiencing in a rich way. They feel without existing and they are unaware of their own nonexistence. They create the world through anosognosia just as humans create meaning through anosognosia.

But the no god is the opposite. He is an eye focused on his own nonexistence. He can see that he is the result of calculations, see that he has no soul or agency. Somehow, in doing this, he can instigate a new genesis. Thats probably why he's so desperate to know what we, the blind, do see.

We already know that Earwa occupies a special place in its cosmos, and that the goal of the Inchoroi is to shut it off from the Outside, where the gods dwell as not-quite-alive entities blind to their own existence. There are many allusions to the linguistic nature of sorcery and its relation to the voices of the gods themselves. I feel like the Apocalypse the series refers to is both conventional and semantic, where the structures upon which the sorcerous languages are based will collapse, and like the gods themselves cease to have meaning or pull on reality. Another Dragharrow quote to help me express myself here:

Sorcery is like Wittgenstein's conception of language games except it goes beyond language. Meaning games and truth games. We like to think that when we inquire into truth we are doing something something objective but we aren't. Truth is up for grabs and we manipulate it with whatever tools are at our disposal for selfish animal reasons. Science, philosophy, religion and common sense are all the same. They are just sets of rules for the games we play with truth.

(Viramsata is another example of this idea on Earwa)

I feel like the gods and their agency are somewhat illusory, as Bakker posits that all subjective meaning we attribute to life is a powerful illusion brought on by our brain's inability to see its own machinery. I could be misquoting Bakker, but he once stated that TSA takes place in a universe inverting our own, where there is objective truth in God, damnation, and so on. Earwa is unique in the sense that the onta can be grasped, and manipulated with language, and the Solitary God has been fractured into a hundred aspects by the blind brain of humanity fragmenting the one true God into digestible packets of meaning. (this is my interpretation)

The Inchoroi have discovered this strange quirk about Earwa, where they can escape Hell by shutting it off from the Outside. They've also discovered the way to do this in the No-God, which I postulate is a machine that takes souls and strips them of their meaning. In some way when enough souls have had their tethers cut, something will happen to uncouple Earwa from its place in this inherently meaningful cosmos and reduce it to a place where the illusions have all been broken. I've also postulated that the No-God's engine is a soul that has somehow been fixed in the chorae-studded sarcophagus.

I'm unable to find the exact post, but Lockesnow pointed out in a thread somewhere the similar timelines of Nau-Cayuti's disappearance and the rise of Mog-Pharau. I feel this is because he is the being that was placed there, and that the ultimate ulterior motive of Achamian's progressively distorted Nau-Cayuti dreams will show us that he was indeed captured to be made the No-God's vessel. Likewise, I believe Kellhus has realized this and is guiding the Ordeal to Golgotterath to assume his throne as the next vessel of the No-God, this time one that can harness its power for motives we'll have to wait till TGO to find out.

Somewhere on this forum or elsewhere, I recall seeing a hint dropped by Bakker that Achamian's dreams all had subtle purposes in the narrative besides the ones made obvious by their placement. At Mengedda, I believe we get a taste of how the Whirlwind's pseudo-awareness is asking the questions of a mortal mind stripped of the meanings that guide it. This is a complex idea to foreshadow, so I believe Scott pulled it off by suggesting that the No-God's questions mirror those that Achamian's own conscience asks itself, wrapped within the context of his insecurity regarding Esmenet's budding interaction with Kellhus:

Esmenet laughed. “No, you fool. I sa—”
WHAT DO YOU SEE?

...

Somehow, he could feel her cock her head, the way she always did when struggling to articulate something that eluded her. “About the way he speaks … Haven’t you—”
I CANNOT SEE
“No,” he wheezed. “Never noticed.” He coughed violently.

...

“Anyway, Kellhus …” she continued, lowering her voice. Canvas was thin, and the camp crowded. “With everyone whispering about him because of the battle and what he said to Prince Saubon, it struck me—” TELL ME “—before falling asleep that almost everything he says is either, well … either near or far …” Achamian swallowed, managed to say, “How do you mean?” He needed to piss.

Esmenet laughed. “I’m not sure … Remember how I told you how he asked me what it was like to be a harlot—you know, to lie with strange men? When he talks that way, he seems near, uncomfortably near, until you realize how utterly honest and unassuming he is … At the time, I thought he was just another rutting dog—”
WHAT AM I?
“The point, Esmi …”

There was an annoyed pause. “Other times, he seems breathtakingly far when he talks, like he stands on some remote mountain and can see everything, or almost everything …” She paused again, and from the length of it, Achamian knew he had bruised her feelings. He could feel her shrug. “The rest of us just talk in the middle somewhere, while he … And now this, seeing what happened yesterday before it happened. With each day—”
I CANNOT SEE
“—he seems to talk a little nearer and a little farther. It makes me—Akka? You’re trembling! Shaking!”

Quinthane suggested I check out the Anaxophus dream that goes wrong at the end of TTT. Given the way Anaxophus imitates the No-God's own questions, I feel it could like it lines up decently with my hypothesis. It also offers a potential explanation of the No-God speaking through the Weapon Races in their many thousands: they are beings who have already had the illusions stripped from them, nothing more than automatons that act on the impulses fed to them by their brains. As the No-God breaks down these illusions for other souls, they too ask themselves its questions.

Sidenote -- I believe the idea of the No-God possessing a living vessel is supported in the text by: the continued exploration of Nau-Cayuti's fate upon being left in Golgotterath alive for special torture, the description of the No-God's epicenter as a sarcophagus which implies someone's burial, the precedent for the achievements of the Tekne as focusing on the modification of living beings. Perhaps there are few other iffier indicators. In my opinion, it explains Kellhus' potential motives beyond the unlikelihood of him wanting to save the world for no particular reason, a trope that Bakker could eagerly subvert in his effort to deconstruct the fantasy genre.

I have to second Quinthane there. Bakker's going to be hard-pressed to top that with TUC.

Reading the brief discussion thus far has also engendered in me, like Bolivar, the idea that maybe Kellhus is riding the Great Ordeal into Golgotterath because he wants to become the No-God's next vessel. I feel like I remember seeing it somewhere, but didn't someone point out that the dreams involving the true end of Nau-Cayuti take place shortly before Mog's birthday?