Earwa > The Almanac: TAE Edition

The Slog WLW - Chapter 13 [Spoilers]

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H:
Chapter 13:


--- Quote ---Three days Sorweel waited after learning of the Nonman Embassy and the Niom.
--- End quote ---

The question of why these three is an interesting one.  As strong as Serwa is, why send her away?  Does Kellhus anticipate that there is something up with Sorweel?


--- Quote ---"Nil'giccas is a myth," he said with open contempt. "There is no Nonman King."
Moënghus shrugged, picked a curl from his wild black mane to study. "So says Zeüm."
"So says Zeüm."
--- End quote ---

Well, they are right in the sense that he is King no longer.  But they are wrong that he is a myth...


--- Quote ---"Ponder?"
"The Apocalypse," she said, rubbing the bridge of her nose. "How your city survived when far greater bastions toppled."
The young King of Sakarpus shrugged. "Some live. Some die. My father always said it was a good thing that Men could only trust in the Whore when it comes battle. He believed Men should be wary of war."
--- End quote ---

We wondered the same thing here, in numerous threads.


--- Quote ---"Could it be?" Carindûsû asked in derision. "Have the fabled Dreams of the First Apocalypse led the illustrious Saccarees astray?"
"Yes," the Mandate Grandmaster replied, his honesty so genuine, his humility so reminiscent of their Lord-and-God, that Carindûsû found himself shamed before his peers a third time.
"What we face... The world has never seen the like."
--- End quote ---

The Consult changing tactics?  Seems like it.


--- Quote ---"Maithanet," the Aspect-Emperor said. "My brother has seized control in Momemn."
--- End quote ---

If Kellhus knows of it, then it is part of the plan.  If it were contrary to his will, he would have ended it.


--- Quote ---"Do I fear for Esmi?" Kellhus asked. He turned his friend smiling. "You wonder, as you have wondered your whole life, what passions bind me." He closed his eyes in resignation. "And whether they are human."
So here it was, the question of questions...
"Yes."
"Love," the Holy Aspect-Emperor said, "is for lesser souls."
--- End quote ---

Indeed, Kellhus plainly admitting that passion does not guide him, at least not any human passion.  I think he is speaking plainly here and being honest.  While I think at times he did feel love, it was always fleeting, never the guide, just something on the way.  I think there is a passion, but it is the striving for the Absolute.  The certainty that he can and will be a God.


--- Quote ---"Father," Serwa explained, "says that we have an extra soul, one that lives, and another that watches us living. We are prone to be at war with ourselves, the Anasûrimbor."
Her terms were simple enough, but Sorweel suspected she understood the matter with a philosopher's subtlety.
"So your father thinks you crazy?"
--- End quote ---

Kellhus mistrusts his own children.  He knows that they are not anywhere near his level, just more tools to be used.  Another strike, in my mind, that he is guided more by passion or feeling then by the Shortest Path to Godhood.


--- Quote ---"To grasp the Absolute."
"Absolute?" he asked, speaking the word, which he had never before heard, slowly so as to make it his own.
"Ho!" Moënghus called, yanking a small bass onto the riverbank. It thrashed silver and gold even as it blackened the bare stone with wetness.
"The God of Gods," Serwa said, beaming at her brother.
--- End quote ---

I feel this is hitting the nail on the head.  Kellhus seeks the Absolute, not just to apprehend it, but to become the God of Gods and so the God of Men as well.


--- Quote ---"What are you saying?"
"Truth, Horse-King. Nothing offends Men or Gods more..."
Sorweel could only stare at him, witless. Was it possible for a god to be mistaken?
--- End quote ---

But we know Kellhus does not represent the Truth.  He follows the Thousandfold Thought still, which is expressly not the truth.


--- Quote ---The children of a god mating. The woman he loved betraying...
--- End quote ---

Did Kellhus premeditate this?  No way this was the first time.  Did he send these two because he knew of their sexual relationship?  It seems plausible he knew of Sorweel's feelings for Serwa too.  Yatwer never seemed to hide that, nor Sorweel from Serwa.


--- Quote ---King Sasal Umrapathur, one of their number, was dead, as were his kinsmen and vassals.
--- End quote ---

I can't help but think that Kellhus knew this would happen.  It was all bait, made to eliminate Umrapathur and the Vokalati, perhaps?  A true Culling then.


--- Quote ---"Henceforth, we eat Sranc."
--- End quote ---

The major question, of course, what are the consequences?

H:
Double post, but I had another thought about this chapter, which is very long.  Part of why is that it details numerous prices, grandees, and satraps who died.  I had a thought about why this is important.  Why are we being told all this?  Sure, it gives a character to the battles, a sense that they are important people who are there, who are being lost.  But again, why should this matter, really?

Then I was thinking back to the quote, about how the Ordeal is really just a sacrificial vessel for all the Schoolmen.  So, why all these Lords in it?  Well, that may well be the whole point.  Leaving a vacuum of "lords" back in the Three Seas, sacrificing all of them in the Ordeal, allowing the New Empire to crumble, is all part of the plan; once Kellhus succeeds in achieving Godhood, he will be the whole new order, the old lords will all be gone and with them the ties to the order of the past.

themerchant:
Yeah the army of the south was a premeditated disaster to "oil" the way to eating Sranc imo.

Moe the Younger will be getting played by Serwe at some level. Perhaps she was to get pregnant just before arriving, seduce a non-man and then use the leverage of the implications of that pregnancy to bind the nonmen to her will. I've seen that possibility advanced in various forms.

Blackstone:

--- Quote from: themerchant on April 21, 2016, 03:44:01 pm ---Yeah the army of the south was a premeditated disaster to "oil" the way to eating Sranc imo.

Moe the Younger will be getting played by Serwe at some level. Perhaps she was to get pregnant just before arriving, seduce a non-man and then use the leverage of the implications of that pregnancy to bind the nonmen to her will. I've seen that possibility advanced in various forms.

--- End quote ---
I considered that she might try to pass of Moe's baby as that of a non-man.

I have to wonder if she actually has feelings for Moe, though, or are they just banging because she likes to bang?

H:

--- Quote from: Blackstone on April 21, 2016, 04:10:12 pm ---I considered that she might try to pass of Moe's baby as that of a non-man.

I have to wonder if she actually has feelings for Moe, though, or are they just banging because she likes to bang?
--- End quote ---

I think it is a very premeditated move by Serwa.  One, she is securing Moe and at the same time, purposely alienating Sorweel.  She even says:


--- Quote ---"A son!" the Grandmistress of the Swayali called out after him, her voice mellow and bewitching. "A son. A daughter. And an enemy!"
--- End quote ---

(Emphasis is the text's.)

I think Moe is in on it, but I think he also just doesn't care much that it's his "sister."  She may well be crafting a plan to dupe a Nonman, that I don't really know, but I am pretty sure that alienating Sorweel is at least one of the main points.  She knows how he looks at her, she has to know how he felt, so she probably felt like he was getting too close, too comfortable, and he needed to be checked.

Realize what she is also saying there, they are already duping the Nonmen by sending Moe, who isn't really his son.  Last thing they want is to show up with no real enemy too.

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