Quote from: Wilshire on May 31, 2016, 06:07:00 pm

I think he was activating the nuke . I love his only few lines, what a great scene.

Indeed .

I honestly just think he came to see what's up - he's out above the Horde, he stays outside the distance of Saccarees's Cants. Probably just wanted to make sure that Kellhus fell for the trap.

And it hadn't occurred to me until now - because I see Kellhus taking the Tekne for himself as inevitable - but that is a really interesting thought, Wilshire, that the Consult might be lulled into the thought that the Tekne-Nuke got Kellhus (though, that they don't know about his Metagnostic Cant of Translocation seems suspicious to me).

Quote from: Blackstone on June 01, 2016, 07:48:10 pm

Quote from: profgrape on June 01, 2016, 07:40:52 pm

Quote from: H on June 01, 2016, 07:37:48 pm

Quote from: Blackstone on June 01, 2016, 07:19:51 pm

I believe it was that he chanted and at the same time thought against his chanting.

Indeed, that is how it is worded.  However, in a sense, isn't the chalice, as a fetish, something of an inutteral?

In the sense that it helps to fix meaning in place, definitely.   

Blackstone, thanks for the quote, I love the way that's phrased!

No problem!

Is the fetish itself a magical artifact? Would it carry a stain?

Yeah, Malowebi's sorcery is interesting. And I think that Kellhus is actually more intrigued by Malowebi's Ward than he is Meppa - though we had another thread regarding this where I feel like I've posted the same thoughts.

Quote from: Blackstone on June 01, 2016, 08:24:49 pm

Quote from: profgrape on June 01, 2016, 08:08:45 pm

What changed your mind upon re-read?

Well, the first time I read it, and excuses excuses, I was going fast and taking in a lot. It seemed like all of the events surrounding Kellhus, Kelmomas, and the WLW could also be ascribed to Kellhus seeing the possibilities as he always does, and avoiding the danger (in this scenario, Kelmomas would be misinterpreting what he was seeing).

The second time, it does in fact seem like Kelmomas is able to break the WLW's streak of White Luck. Now then, would the WLW have been successful in killing Kellhus without Kelmomas's intervention? I still don't think so, but there was an intervention that I can only explain as Kelmomas having a power beyond what he should.

All that being said, it is this alone that makes me believe it. All the things that came before just seem like the bizzaro imagination of an insane boy--thinking he had made a deal with the beetle sacrifice, believing he has the Unerring Grace, etc. And I still think the voice in his head is Samarmas.

Heh, I did the same thing (burned through it) on my first read.   

I agree that Kelmomas has some kind of special sauce that stops the otherwise unstoppable WLW.  And there are plenty of signs that point to Ajokli as being behind it. 

The thing that gets me, actually, are all the signs pointing to Ajokli.  It's almost too "on-the-nose" -- culminating with Kel's conversation with the librarian.  Like you write above, everything leading up his intervention points to self-delusion. 

Semi-tangent: if the Gods are blind to the No-God, are they also blind to the Consult?

Quote from: H on June 01, 2016, 07:37:48 pm

Quote from: Blackstone on June 01, 2016, 07:19:51 pm

I believe it was that he chanted and at the same time thought against his chanting.

Indeed, that is how it is worded.  However, in a sense, isn't the chalice, as a fetish, something of an inutteral?

In the sense that it helps to fix meaning in place, definitely.   

Blackstone, thanks for the quote, I love the way that's phrased!

As we're discussing our favorite Zeumi sorcerer, did anyone else come away with the thought that the Mbimaya cant he uses included an Inutteral?  I can't recall the specific wording but it was something like "secret words" that went along with what he was chanting.

Quote from: Blackstone on June 01, 2016, 05:47:35 pm

Edit - Aurang wanted to destroy the Cishaurim, so I don't think he'd help engineer the Last Cish.

Cribbing from Madness, the Consult wanted to destroy the Cish because they mistakenly thought the Water-bearers were unmasking the skin-spikes.  Once they discovered it was the Dunyain (and that Kellhus' father was among the Fanim), they might have changed their tune on eradicating the Cish.

Quote from: Blackstone on June 01, 2016, 04:43:31 pm

No, it doesn't prove it wrong, but if there is evidence against and none for, then it seems like the most likely explanation is that he isn't the boy. And if all the Cishaurim were destroyed at Shimeh, then no one would be left to teach the boy the Psukhe. The most likely explanation is that Meppa, as a full fledged Cishaurim, somehow escaped.

I had a similar thought regarding the training; how could he learn the Psukhe without being taught by one of the Cishaurium?

The only thing I could come with (and it's thin, no doubt) is that he's an autodidact.  Consider this snippet from one of Scott's old interviews:

Quote

Prior to Fane, the Psukhe as an arcane art was unknown, though there are legendary hints and mythic innuendos of certain sightless individuals harnessing inexplicable powers in moments of extraordinary anguish.

Compared with Gnostic or Anagoic sorcery, the Psukhe seems more like the sort of thing someone can just stumble upon.  And Meppa's use of the Psukhe seems to be more as a blunt instrument than what Moenghus describes as "those aspects requiring subtlety."

Yeah, I can definitely see the plausibility in him having "awoken" the Water in him in the anguish of his family dying.  Indeed this could be what Aurang's "secret" to tell him was?  That he was one of the Few?

I don't know, we have such little information.  The better question might be about what happens to him now?