Earwa > The Almanac: TAE Edition
The Slog WLW - Chapter 5 [Spoilers]
H:
Chapter 5:
--- Quote ---That which comes after determines what comes before—in this World.
--- End quote ---
What a way to start the chapter. A refutation of the very foundation that Kellhus' frame is built upon. Is it true? Or are both premises true, somehow?
--- Quote ---"The Gods are-are finite," Theliopa declared in a voice that contradicted the stark angularity of her frame. "They can only apprehend a finite por-portion of existence. They fathom the future-future, certainly, but from a vantage that limits them. The No-God dwells in their blind spots, follows a path-path they are utterly oblivious to..." She turned, looking from man to man with open curiosity. "Because he is oblivion."
--- End quote ---
Again, is this true? Even if they were blind to the No-God, they wouldn't be so blind to the Consult...
--- Quote ---Their Empress graced them all with a sour smile. "The Gods chafe, because like all souls, they call evil what they cannot comprehend."
More astounded silence. Kelmomas found himself squinting in hilarity. Why anyone should fear the Gods was quite beyond him, let alone fools as privileged and powerful as these.
Because they are old and dying, the secret voice whispered.
--- End quote ---
The Gods are old and dying?
--- Quote ---"So..." he said, looking to the others with a strategically blank face. "So it is true, then? The Gods..."—his gaze wandered—"the almighty Gods... are against us?"
Disaster. It fairly slapped the blood from Mother's painted face. Her lips retreated, the way they always did during such moments, into a thin line.
He offends me... the secret voice cooed. The fat one.
--- End quote ---
Why does he offend the voice? Because he assumes that all the Gods' are in alignment?
--- Quote ---Dûnyain blood... the secret voice whispered. What raises us above the animals.
Like Mother.
--- End quote ---
What a curious quote, "Like Mother." Mother raises him about the animals too?
--- Quote ---He thought about his previous murders and the mysterious person he saw trapped in the eyes of the dying. The one person he loved more than his mother—the one and only. Convulsing, bewildered, terrified, and beseeching... beseeching most of all.
Please! Please don't kill me!
"The Worshipper," he declared aloud.
Yes, the secret voice whispered. That's a good name.
"A most strange person, don't you think, Sammi?"
Most strange.
"The Worshipper..." Kelmomas said, testing the sound. "How can he travel like that from body to body?"
Perhaps he's locked in a room. Perhaps dying is that room's only door...
"Locked in a room!" the young Prince-Imperial cried laughing. "Yes! Clever-clever-cunning-clever!"
--- End quote ---
What? The person he sees in the eyes of everyone he kills? Who would that be? And why? The locked in a room is just the idea to make him go see Inrilatas.
--- Quote ---And his brother's voice resonated, climbed as if communicating up out of his bones. "You think you seek the love of our mother, little brother—Little Knife! You think you murder in her name. But that love is simply cloth thrown over the invisible, what you use to reveal the shape of something so much greater..."
Memories tumbled into his soul's eye. Memories of his Whelming, how he had followed the beetle to the feet of the Grinning God, the Four-horned Brother, how they had laughed when he had maimed the bug—laughed together! Memories of the Yatwerian priestess, how she had shrieked blood while the Mother of Fertility stood helpless...
And the boy could feel it! An assumption of glory. A taking possession of a certainty that had possessed him all along—possessed him in ignorance... Yes!
Godhead.
--- End quote ---
I feel like this part is actually true...Kel plays at Godhood, the same as Kellhus actually. Is this why he really fears his father so much? Because he realizes that they both can't achieve the same goal?
--- Quote ---And perhaps most interestingly, absolutely no Chorae...
Nganka—nay, Zeüm—needed to be informed. This night would be filled with far-calling dreams.
--- End quote ---
Foreshadowing? Zeümi sorcerers in the future collapse of the Empire?
profgrape:
--- Quote from: H on April 08, 2016, 12:29:18 pm ---Chapter 5:
--- Quote ---"The Gods are-are finite," Theliopa declared in a voice that contradicted the stark angularity of her frame. "They can only apprehend a finite por-portion of existence. They fathom the future-future, certainly, but from a vantage that limits them. The No-God dwells in their blind spots, follows a path-path they are utterly oblivious to..." She turned, looking from man to man with open curiosity. "Because he is oblivion."
--- End quote ---
Again, is this true? Even if they were blind to the No-God, they wouldn't be so blind to the Consult...
--- End quote ---
I've always interpreted this as meaning that the gods can only see the broad strokes of time and space. The "finite por-portion" bit makes it sound a lot like the effects of quantization and sampling error when you discretize a continuous signal. It also reminds me a bit of the physicist Ed Friedkin's theory of a discrete universe.
--- Quote from: H on April 08, 2016, 12:29:18 pm ---
--- Quote ---"So..." he said, looking to the others with a strategically blank face. "So it is true, then? The Gods..."—his gaze wandered—"the almighty Gods... are against us?"
Disaster. It fairly slapped the blood from Mother's painted face. Her lips retreated, the way they always did during such moments, into a thin line.
He offends me... the secret voice cooed. The fat one.
--- End quote ---
Why does he offend the voice? Because he assumes that all the Gods' are in alignment?
--- Quote ---Dûnyain blood... the secret voice whispered. What raises us above the animals.
Like Mother.
--- End quote ---
What a curious quote, "Like Mother." Mother raises him about the animals too?
--- End quote ---
I think he's saying that Esme is an animal.
--- Quote from: H on April 08, 2016, 12:29:18 pm ---
--- Quote ---He thought about his previous murders and the mysterious person he saw trapped in the eyes of the dying. The one person he loved more than his mother—the one and only. Convulsing, bewildered, terrified, and beseeching... beseeching most of all.
Please! Please don't kill me!
"The Worshipper," he declared aloud.
Yes, the secret voice whispered. That's a good name.
"A most strange person, don't you think, Sammi?"
Most strange.
"The Worshipper..." Kelmomas said, testing the sound. "How can he travel like that from body to body?"
Perhaps he's locked in a room. Perhaps dying is that room's only door...
"Locked in a room!" the young Prince-Imperial cried laughing. "Yes! Clever-clever-cunning-clever!"
--- End quote ---
What? The person he sees in the eyes of everyone he kills? Who would that be? And why? The locked in a room is just the idea to make him go see Inrilatas.
--- End quote ---
I took this to be metaphorical. Kel believes that in the dying, he sees proof of his Godhood.
Good catch on "locked in a room". It shows the subtlety of the voice's manipulations. I almost wonder if the voice isn't a God at all, but a second Dunyain soul trapped in the same body?
--- Quote from: H on April 08, 2016, 12:29:18 pm ---
--- Quote ---And his brother's voice resonated, climbed as if communicating up out of his bones. "You think you seek the love of our mother, little brother—Little Knife! You think you murder in her name. But that love is simply cloth thrown over the invisible, what you use to reveal the shape of something so much greater..."
Memories tumbled into his soul's eye. Memories of his Whelming, how he had followed the beetle to the feet of the Grinning God, the Four-horned Brother, how they had laughed when he had maimed the bug—laughed together! Memories of the Yatwerian priestess, how she had shrieked blood while the Mother of Fertility stood helpless...
And the boy could feel it! An assumption of glory. A taking possession of a certainty that had possessed him all along—possessed him in ignorance... Yes!
Godhead.
--- End quote ---
I feel like this part is actually true...Kel plays at Godhood, the same as Kellhus actually. Is this why he really fears his father so much? Because he realizes that they both can't achieve the same goal?
--- End quote ---
It reads like Kelmomas consisders himself above the Gods -- like Kellhus. I agree that there is this implicit "there can be only one" to the idea of being the God-of-Gods.
--- Quote from: H on April 08, 2016, 12:29:18 pm ---
--- Quote ---And perhaps most interestingly, absolutely no Chorae...
Nganka—nay, Zeüm—needed to be informed. This night would be filled with far-calling dreams.
--- End quote ---
Foreshadowing? Zeümi sorcerers in the future collapse of the Empire?
--- End quote ---
Blackstone:
The parts you point out about the voice and mother are, for me, proof that the voice in Kelmomas's head is Samarmas. The voice speaks just like a child that is devoted with the kind of intensity and intellect that only a half Dunyain child could have. It thinks "mother" raises them above animals, because just like Kel, the voice views Esmi as divine. It was offended by the "fat man" because his words disturbed Esmi.
profgrape:
Another Chapter 5 tidbit from the Kel/Inrilatas conversation:
--- Quote ---"I... I don't understand, [Kelmomas] sad. "You could leave this room... anytime you wished! Mother would release you -- I know it. You just need to follow the rules."
His brother paused, looked at him as if searching for evidence of kinship beyond the fact of their blood. "Tell me, little brother, what rules the rule?"
Something is wrong... the voice warned.
--- End quote ---
The "something", I think, is the realization that Inrilatas knows about Kelmomas' ambitions -- to become the God. It demonstrates the depth of Dunyain manipulation in a way they we really only see with Kellhus in PON.
H:
--- Quote from: Blackstone on April 08, 2016, 03:04:16 pm ---The parts you point out about the voice and mother are, for me, proof that the voice in Kelmomas's head is Samarmas. The voice speaks just like a child that is devoted with the kind of intensity and intellect that only a half Dunyain child could have. It thinks "mother" raises them above animals, because just like Kel, the voice views Esmi as divine. It was offended by the "fat man" because his words disturbed Esmi.
--- End quote ---
I go back and forth. Sometimes I agree, other's I have a lot of doubt it would actually be Sammy.
--- Quote from: profgrape on April 08, 2016, 03:08:45 pm ---Another Chapter 5 tidbit from the Kel/Inrilatas conversation:
--- Quote ---"I... I don't understand, [Kelmomas] sad. "You could leave this room... anytime you wished! Mother would release you -- I know it. You just need to follow the rules."
His brother paused, looked at him as if searching for evidence of kinship beyond the fact of their blood. "Tell me, little brother, what rules the rule?"
Something is wrong... the voice warned.
--- End quote ---
The "something", I think, is the realization that Inrilatas knows about Kelmomas' ambitions -- to become the God. It demonstrates the depth of Dunyain manipulation in a way they we really only see with Kellhus in PON.
--- End quote ---
I wonder if Kel even realizes the full extent though. Like, is he sort of unwittingly exacting the voice's plan? Sometimes it seems like he kind of is, in doing everything for Esmenet's affection. The voice is after much more than that.
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