Earwa > The Warrior-Prophet

The Dialectic of Esmenet

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locke:

--- Quote ---Throughout her entire life she’d looked upon things and people that stood apart. She was Esmenet, and that was her bowl, the Emperor’s silver, the Shriah’s man, the God’s ground, and so on. She stood here, and those things there. No longer. Everything, it seemed, radiated the warmth of his skin. The ground beneath her bare feet. The mat beneath her buttocks. And for a mad instant, she was certain that if she raised her fingers to her cheek, she would feel the soft curls of a flaxen beard, that if she turned to her left, she would see Esmenet hovering motionless over her rice bowl.

Somehow, everything had become here, and everything here had become him.

Kellhus!

Bakker, R. Scott (2008-09-02). The Warrior Prophet: The Prince of Nothing, Book Two (Kindle Locations 7344-7349). Penguin Group. Kindle Edition.
--- End quote ---

This occurs just moments after Kellhus scrapes clean the parchment of the Tusk (let's just bracket and ignore that Kellhus thought a few pages earlier that he scraped Serwe's soul clean as though it were parchment and that Serwe's perspective believes she has been supernaturally healed after that event).

This occurs just moments after Esmenet sees Kellhus haloes for the first time (though she doesn't describe them as haloes).

Note that this is the best explanation we have so far for how Kellhus does what he does with Serwe's heart.  What Esmenet experiences here is that she becomes Kellhus for a moment, that they are the same (we're even cued by the text to think of Esmenet's heart, her beating heart is her only connection to her physical body in this moment). 

And in this presentation as Esemenet sees it, we are presented with a dialectic, thesis, "Everything had become here;" antithesis, "and everything here had become him;" synthesis, "Kellhus!"

Or as presented before the author simplified it, "She stood here, and those things there.;" antithesis, "Everything, it seemed, radiated the warmth of his skin;" synthesis, "if she turned to her left, she would see Esmenet hovering motionless over her rice bowl."

Esmenet has her world rocked because the otherness of things is refuted and in accepting the refutation she becomes Kellhus for a moment.

The text continues:


--- Quote ---She breathed in. Her heart battered her breast.

He scraped the passage clean!

In a single exhalation, it seemed, a lifetime of condemnation slipped from her, and she felt shriven, truly shriven. One breath and she was absolved! She experienced a kind of lucidity, as though her thoughts had been cleansed like water strained through bright white cloth. She thought she should cry, but the sunlight was too sharp, the air too clear for weeping.

Everything was so certain.

He scraped the passage clean!

Then she thought of Achamian.

Bakker, R. Scott (2008-09-02). The Warrior Prophet: The Prince of Nothing, Book Two (Kindle Locations 7349-7356). Penguin Group. Kindle Edition.
--- End quote ---

Note that Achamian seemingly collapses this connection between Esmenet and Kellhus, in a sense it indicates why Kellhus needs Serwe to die rather than Esmenet, because Serwe can maintain the synthesis longer, 'is she strong enough?' and Esmenet's connection is disrupted by her connection to Achamian

Also there's a suggestion here that Esmenet is experiencing Kellhus' thoughts, 'a kind of lucidity, as though her thoughts had been cleansed like water strained through bright white cloth,' and Kellhus is nothing if not "certain."

And note the experience Esmenet goes through in her 'single exhalation.'  She is absolved.  The timeline/dialectic here is, "Kellhus erases"  "Esmenet is absolved" "Kellhus rewrites Esmenet" (I'm taking the archaic root of shriven which is related to 'to write', which is probably an absurd reach by any standard).

I don't think Kellhus realizes what really happens for Esmenet, he thinks she suddenly sees him as a god because he deepened his voice and looked at her with a different expression, but Esmenet sees him as a God because she experiences what it is like to be Kellhus.

And there's also the possibility that Kellhus in this moment really does 'heal' Esmenet's soul, perhaps that is the answer to the dialectic of esmenet, the synthesis, if you will. 

Esmenet Stands Apart from all things not Esmenet, Kellhus is all things in one including Esmenet, Esmenet is absolved/forgiven/shriven/healed.

But it's momentary at best, she later thinks that she cannot rinse away the sin, as she experiences the sin rinsing away when she's unified with all things/Kellhus.

locke:
Ala the endlessly, ceaselessly repetitive neuropath, Bakker repeats these revelations several times in the next esmenet sections, including her self-recrimination that she can't sustain this particular sensation described above and below.


--- Quote ---The past crumbled, and the future evaporated. Her every heartbeat belonged, it seemed, to a different heart. She could remember the accumulating signs of death, wasting, as though her body were a candle notched with the watches— a light to read by. She could remember wondering at Serwë, who’d become a stranger in Kellhus’s arms. She could remember wondering at the stranger who walked with her own limbs.

Bakker, R. Scott (2008-09-02). The Warrior Prophet: The Prince of Nothing, Book Two (Kindle Locations 8759-8761). Penguin Group. Kindle Edition.
--- End quote ---


--- Quote ---His clear eyes reminded her of who she was: Esmenet. She drew up her waterskin and extended it with unwavering hands. She watched him pour her muddy life into a stranger’s mouth. And when the last of it trailed like spittle, she understood— she apprehended— and with a brilliance no less ruthless than the sun.

There’s more than me.

Bakker, R. Scott (2008-09-02). The Warrior Prophet: The Prince of Nothing, Book Two (Kindle Locations 8765-8768). Penguin Group. Kindle Edition.
--- End quote ---


--- Quote ---They alone spoke. They alone gazed and understood that they gazed. They alone loved, across all lands and all waters, to the world’s very pale. It seemed all passion, all knowing, was here, ringing in one penultimate note. There was no way to explain or to fathom the sensation. It wasn’t like a flower. It wasn’t like a child’s careless laugh.

They had become the measure … Absolute. Unconditioned.

Bakker, R. Scott (2008-09-02). The Warrior Prophet: The Prince of Nothing, Book Two (Kindle Locations 8780-8783). Penguin Group. Kindle Edition.
--- End quote ---


--- Quote ---Grief for his compassion. Delusion for his revelation. Sin so he might forgive. Degradation so he might raise her high. He was the origin. He was the destination. He was the from where and the to which, and he was here!

Here!

It was mad, it was impossible, it was true.

Bakker, R. Scott (2008-09-02). The Warrior Prophet: The Prince of Nothing, Book Two (Kindle Locations 8807-8810). Penguin Group. Kindle Edition.
--- End quote ---


--- Quote ---Men, Kellhus had once told her, were like coins: they had two sides. Where one side of them saw, the other side of them was seen, and though all men were both at once, men could only truly know the side of themselves that saw and the side of others that was seen— they could only truly know the inner half of themselves and the outer half of others.
--- End quote ---
thesis, antithesis
--- Quote ---The measure of wisdom, Kellhus had said, was found in the distance between these two selves.

Bakker, R. Scott (2008-09-02). The Warrior Prophet: The Prince of Nothing, Book Two (Kindle Locations 8886-8887). Penguin Group. Kindle Edition.
--- End quote ---
  That last bit would be a synthesis yielded.


--- Quote ---For Kellhus, there was no distance between seeing and being seen. He alone was whole. And what was more, he somehow stood from without and saw from within. He made whole …

She bent her head back and gazed up into his eyes.

You’re here, aren’t you? You’re with me … inside.

Bakker, R. Scott (2008-09-02). The Warrior Prophet: The Prince of Nothing, Book Two (Kindle Locations 8890-8893). Penguin Group. Kindle Edition.
--- End quote ---

locke:
Now to really blow your mind...  cnaiur offers similar observations.  Kellhus doesnt realize hat esme and serwe are sharing his soul and esme is experiencng fragments of memory slash insights about dunyain philosophy and training.  Cnaiur has experienced the same thing but has shared moenghus soul.  Moe may not have told cnaiur too much rather nayu had access to his soul in ways moe never fathomed.

Callan S.:
Well, I never noticed that idea before.  :o

Cüréthañ:
Do I understand you correctly?
People Khellus mind rapes become psychicly linked to him!?
Could this also form some kind of explanation for the haloes?

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