1 - Dunyain are not equals. The Survivor reminisces about the Dunyain, who, confronted with the siege of the Consult, simply stopped functioning. Some Dunyain are clearly weaker than the others.
....
And it's rather unfair to say that Kellhus was a bumbling fool. He has a sensory overload when he first gets out of Ishual
Ok so then Kellhus is "special" - weaker than the rest because a stick confused him.
2 - Anasurimbor line is more powerful. The Survivor remarks on this. He could be biased, but I don't think he is.
Agreed.
3 - Kellhus was quicker than rest of the Dunyain children.
I was better at some things then my childhood peergroup, and much worse at others. Not always a huge predictor.
There is one notable flashback, where the Pragma takes them out to the woods and asks them what he sees - Kellhus is the only one to answer that he sees conflict, of tree roots fighting for space. Maybe it's not definitive, but I saw the flashbacks as clearly implying that Kellhus was somehow ahead of his peers.
Agreed.
And it's rather unfair to say that Kellhus was a bumbling fool.
He went out into the woods, in the winter, without a coat and without knowledge of foraging, hunting, or trapping, without knowing where he was going.
Arrogant. Hubris. Idiotic.
He has a sensory overload when he first gets out of Ishual - as far as we know, this could be the case for pretty much every Dunyain, as they've learned to pick off every detail and have been living in a very isolated space; the world is too big even for them.
Noted above. Some do, some don't. Assuming that its the strongest ones that break is... silly.
He does require coincidences to survive, but same could be said for any Dunyain - despite all their might, the Dunyain are not infallible and the world is overwhelmingly big and complex.
A clever man would seek out survival knowledge prior to entering into a survival state.
Some of the brilliant things that Kellhus gets himself into in 2 books:
Nearly dies from exposure, finds a ruined city for shelter just before he passes out.
Nearly dies again from exposure and hunger, he is saved by Leweth.
He goes to Atrithau, does some standard mindtricks and gets a little band to go south, nearly dies by sranc attack.
Gets rescued just as he nearly dies from blood loss by guy who randomly showed up.
Fails to see Moenghus' condition path in Cnaiur, screws that whole thing up and creates a lifelong enemy that nearly kills him several times.
Goes to the Holy War, nearly gets killed/captured again, randomly saved by random events again.
Joins holy war, finds Achamian, gets lucky that he's a skeptic and doesn't report him to the Mandate.
Gets lucky at the first battle, says some random stuff that magically makes things work out.
Nearly dies on the circumfix (his own admission - he doesn't know how he's going to survive), saved by crazy lunatic.
Was it a hard journey? Yes. But someone as brilliant and important as Kellhus makes himself out to be should have fared better. Doesn't seem to me that he did an exceptional job - I think its closer to typical dunyain than otherwise.
Edit: Also, it is fair to say that the Holy War would've failed without Kellhus. Especially in the second battle (whose name I forget), which was almost a defeat until Kellhus recognized that Cnaiür's plan wasn't working and intervened. Not to forget, his miracle of water that saved the Holy War later down the road.
Who would have lost? Conphas was actively working towards using it for his own ends. So was everyone else. Conphas would have done a superb job had it not been for Kellhus. It took Maithanet, Moenghus, and Kellhus to circumvent Conphas.
So, yes, of course it would not have done what Moenghus intended - that's why he called a Dunyain from Ishual. For Moenghus to succeed, Moenghus needed a Dunyain at the helm (again pointing out, to outwit a
human).
As for the water Miracle, it wasn't actually a miracle. He found an underground river, and I assume any dunyain could have done that.
Kellhus was special not for anything he did, but because of what was given to him by others. Did he do unique and powerful things? Yes. I just don't see why literally any other Dunyain (with two functioning eyes) wouldn't have done the same or better.