The Second Apocalypse

Earwa => The Aspect-Emperor => The White-Luck Warrior => Topic started by: The Sharmat on February 02, 2015, 05:41:28 am

Title: The Harbinger
Post by: The Sharmat on February 02, 2015, 05:41:28 am
I just thought of something that I think I'd like to share. Suspicion: Kellhus is not the Harbinger of the Second Apocalypse. Anasurimbor Samarmas is.

The Celmomian Prophecy (Hmmm what a strange coincidence that it involves Kelmomas' name sake, remember the different spelling is just due to transliteration) says that "An Anasurimbor will return at the End of the World". However, as is pointed out by Esmenet in the Warrior Prophet when Achamian first tells her of Kellhus...if Kellhus truly is an Anasurimbor, then there has always been an Anasurimbor in the world. That's not a return of any kind. Why would a Norsirai High King deliver a prophecy that only makes sense if you consider the Three Seas the center of the world?

But maybe we've been thinking about the meaning of the prophecy the wrong way. Maybe he doesn't mean "any one named Anasurimbor will return at the End of the World". Maybe he means "A specific Anasurimbor will return at the End of the World."

Anasurimbor Celmomas, the King that delivered said prophecy as he lay dying, had a stillborn twin. The Sagas claim that the twin was with him always, and blames some of Celmomas' more...controversial acts on the influence of his dead twin. Sound familiar?

The White Luck Warrior, on top of that, has some seemingly pointed references to dead souls bouncing back into living bodies. The context makes it seem like this refers to Captain Kosoter of the Skin Eaters. But I don't think they were meant for him, since he's pretty dead by the end of the book.

So maybe the prophecy means specifically that Anasurimbor Samarmas will return (from the Outside) at the End of the World, not just any Anasurimbor. Samarmas (if that is indeed the voice inside little Kelmomas's head, which I believe it is) seems to be managing Kelmomas, manipulating his actions. Especially after Kelmomas kills his brother, after which the voice becomes stronger, more omnipresent, and more perceptive. It seems to encourage him to commit very unpleasant acts that bring chaos to the Empire. On top of that, Kelmomas is one of the Few. You don't want a crazy person having that kind of power. If anyone can herald the End of the World, it's those two.
Title: Re: The Harbinger
Post by: Wilshire on February 02, 2015, 06:19:18 pm
This is a great dissection of the prophecy. Probably the first that I have seen that makes me want to think about it further.

Your description makes it seem that the old Celmomas was warning the world against 'himself' (his dead twin's voice).

This makes me think of some kind of malevolent soul that has bounced several times, trying to end the world one way or another, and Celmomas had enough forsite/providence to realize that when it returned again it would foretell the true end.. How many times has this soul attempted to end the world? A Inchoroi agent? An old Nonman? Shae? Who, what, and where from is that soul?
Title: Re: The Harbinger
Post by: The Sharmat on February 03, 2015, 12:08:07 am
If that's indeed what's happening, there's no telling what such a soul actually wants. Maybe it's like Wutteat, and just wants the world to end so it can rest. Or maybe it just delights in terrible things. It certainly seems sadistic when it speaks to Kelmomas.
Title: Re: The Harbinger
Post by: Seökti on February 04, 2015, 07:28:25 am
The Celmomian Prophecy (Hmmm what a strange coincidence that it involves Kelmomas' name sake, remember the different spelling is just due to transliteration) says that "An Anasurimbor will return at the End of the World". However, as is pointed out by Esmenet in the Warrior Prophet when Achamian first tells her of Kellhus...if Kellhus truly is an Anasurimbor, then there has always been an Anasurimbor in the world. That's not a return of any kind.

So I'd have to disagree with the contention that Kellhus' appearance is made irrelevant by Moenghus.  Kellhus came into the crusade for Shimeh using his original name and telling everyone he was a prince.  Moenghus by contrast seems to have made little to no impression as an Anasûrimbor.

Also Kellhus has been much more prepared as well as having had the holy war set up for his benefit (he walked a large tract of 'prepared ground' toward Shimeh), and this confluence of events suggests to me that he is the harbinger of the Kelmomian prophecy.

And maybe the Dunyain are merely the keepers of that prophecy, a group which conditioned itself specifically to produce Kellhus Anasûrimbor and the circumstances of his Ordeal.
Title: Re: The Harbinger
Post by: The Sharmat on February 04, 2015, 11:41:01 am
So you're actually a Zaudunyani then, more or less?

I wasn't referring specifically to Moenghus, but to everyone at Ishual who has born the name Anasurimbor since the Apocalypse. They've always been there. They never left the world.

And maybe the Dunyain are merely the keepers of that prophecy, a group which conditioned itself specifically to produce Kellhus Anasûrimbor and the circumstances of his Ordeal.
The Dunyain, who, at the very core of their teachings, reject the possibility of prophecy? That which comes after cannot determine what comes before. The Dunyain who purposefully forgot everything of history and sorcery from the beginning? The Dunyain that were astonished to find the unnamed Anasurimbor and Ishual?
Title: Re: The Harbinger
Post by: Wilshire on February 04, 2015, 02:02:42 pm
Yeah I'd have to say that the Dunyain at Ishual, whatever there plans are/were, they did not appear to include Kellhus making it to Shimeh, or even Atrithau. You might look at this thread for some justification:  http://www.second-apocalypse.com/index.php?topic=1164.0

Simply put, he was completely and utterly unprepared for the word and his journey in almost every conceivable way, and the fact that he made it to Leweth is nothing short of miraculous.
Title: Re: The Harbinger
Post by: Seökti on February 07, 2015, 05:59:42 am
I believe it is possible that the founders of the Dunyain lied (we know they did about sorcery, which they must have initially known of) to their later followers about specific things in order to 'prepare the ground' for the coming of Anasurimbor Kellhus, including exiling Moenghus for reasons that were never even mentioned.  And honestly, you believe Kellhus was 'unprepared'?  Even if he was the path he took was not - Moenghus contrived the holy war with his world-born son Maithanet simply to deliver Kellhus to Shimeh.
Title: Re: The Harbinger
Post by: The Sharmat on February 07, 2015, 11:06:46 am
Kellhus nearly dies in the wilderness from information overload, Dunyain are so unsuited for life outside.

Moenghus' exile is weird but I doubt the founders of the Dunyain have much influence as a conspiracy two thousand years after they are dead, especially if they lied to all subsequent generations of Dunyain.
Title: Re: The Harbinger
Post by: Seökti on February 07, 2015, 12:47:27 pm
I believe Kellhus needed to almost die several times to become the Harbinger, to go beyond his Dunyain training.  He asks if what he is feeling is love when hanging against Serwe from Umiaki.  Moenghus explains later to Kellhus that the 'wilderness' broke him, I believe a necessary condition for the Harbinger.  Like Fane almost dying in the desert before becoming the prophet.
Title: Re: The Harbinger
Post by: The Sharmat on February 07, 2015, 01:42:37 pm
That's fine. I see no reason to believe any of those things though, and there are simpler explanations requiring less faith.
Title: Re: The Harbinger
Post by: Wilshire on February 08, 2015, 05:16:44 pm
Yes, he was 100% unprepared. To summarize the above post:

No survival training (didnt know how to hunt, trap, build shelter...)
No warning of stimuli overload.
No winter clothing.
No bearing of how far and maybe even what direction to go.
No idea what sranc are.

Kellhus was 100% unprepared. If not for Leweth, he wouldn't have even made it to Atrithau, and even then it was a slim margin. Too much chance. Too much coincidece. Whether divine intervention, or conspiracy, or something else, someone/something got Mr. Harbinger to The Three Seas, as he was entirely and completely incompetent until post-scylvendi.
Title: Re: The Harbinger
Post by: The Sharmat on February 08, 2015, 06:46:38 pm
Moenghus handled it better than Kellhus did, really. Instead of fighting the Sranc, he just integrated with them.
Title: Re: The Harbinger
Post by: locke on February 08, 2015, 11:13:54 pm
Kellhus didn't encounter sranc.  which is probably the most damning evidence of a literally conditioned path.
Title: Re: The Harbinger
Post by: Seökti on February 09, 2015, 01:21:12 am
That's fine. I see no reason to believe any of those things though, and there are simpler explanations requiring less faith.

Okay so how would you explain the Kelmomian prophecies now that Kellhus leads the great ordeal?
Title: Re: The Harbinger
Post by: Wilshire on February 09, 2015, 03:34:15 am
All the Celmomian prophecy did was state 2 thing. One "an Anasurimbor will return at the end of the word", and two, that when Seswatha dies the world ends.

The part referring to the Anasurimbor is rather unimportant, imo. Whether its Kellhus, or Moenghus, or Kelmomas, or anyone else is really not important. There is an Anasurimbor, and it does seem to be the end of the world. This part has been fulfilled, regardless of who it was/is.

Far, far more important is the Seswatha part, which remains a bit of a mystery.
Title: Re: The Harbinger
Post by: Wic on February 09, 2015, 06:58:57 am
Is he...going to sacrifice all who have touched Seswatha's Heart?

Would Serwe know?
Title: Re: The Harbinger
Post by: Wilshire on February 09, 2015, 01:51:22 pm
"he" is Kellhus?

If Kellhus is really doing something to further the Inchoroi cause, then I think the sacrificing of all those connected to Seswatha in any way will probably be likely. I doubt Serwe knows.
Title: Re: The Harbinger
Post by: The Sharmat on February 09, 2015, 06:02:12 pm
If Kellhus is the Harbinger of the Second Apocalypse then the Great Ordeal has to fail or the prophecy is self-negating.
Title: Re: The Harbinger
Post by: Wilshire on February 09, 2015, 06:32:17 pm
Thats actually how I read it.

Consider this is the "Second Apocalypse" which in itself is self-negating. You can't have the end of the world twice :P.... But if you can have a 2nd apocalypse, then that implies that "the end of the world" already happened once, is happening again, and can happen a 3rd time, and on and on.

Because of this, I read it more along the lines of "the world will come to a place where it may end again, when an Anasurimbor returns", and further that "it will only end if, and only if, Seswatha truly dies".

If you read it otherwise, more like "If A then B", then: an Anasurimbor will return, Seswatha will die, the end of the world happens.

Another consideration is that the Celmomian prophecy is entirely false. The Consult mention that they know something of true and false ...



Just thought of the fact that there is no out for Seswatha in the Prophecy. No mention of the world surviving if the Inchoroi are wiped out, etc., just that when Seswatha dies, all is lost. Again, the end has little to do with anyone, even the Consult and Anasurimbor, than it does with Seswatha. Doomed to live forever lest the world ends.
Title: Re: The Harbinger
Post by: anasurimbor moenghus on February 15, 2015, 11:30:50 am
It strikes me as entirely unlikely that the prophecies would have accidentally lined up with Kellhus' arrival.  Leaving Moenghus' expulsion or flight unexplained is also absurd - they are Dunyain, everything is deliberate.  More likely the prophecies either were uttered as part of the necessary conditions of creating a being like Kellhus or genuine prophecy.  Either way the prophecy prepared the way for the Great Ordeal.
Title: Re: The Harbinger
Post by: Wilshire on February 15, 2015, 03:37:06 pm
It strikes me as entirely unlikely that the prophecies would have accidentally lined up with Kellhus' arrival. 
It didn't, so I'd agree

Leaving Moenghus' expulsion or flight unexplained is also absurd - they are Dunyain, everything is deliberate. 
I don't think its likely the Dunyain even knew of the Celmomian prophecy. After all, every dunyain (non-super-human at this point btw) was wandering around the wasted north trying to find some haven against the Apocalypse. The news of said prophecy would have had enormous difficulty reaching them.

Also noteworthy that it probably was never considered a prophesy until much later, and even then probably only by the Mandate (which no one believed anyway).

More likely the prophecies either were uttered as part of the necessary conditions of creating a being like Kellhus or genuine prophecy.
Kellhus was created by the Dunyain, and I would give them full credit for the Kellhus that existed before he left Ishual.

Either way the prophecy prepared the way for the Great Ordeal.
This. Part of the prophesy has already been fulfilled, specifically, the part about an Anasurimbor. We know this part is true, and like I've said before, its largely irrelevant which specific Anasurimbor it was supposed to be pointing to.... Unless its specifically for an Anasurimbor that has yet to be introduced into the story, which I find extremely unlikely. The series is called The Second Apocalypse for a reason.
Title: Re: The Harbinger
Post by: Simas Polchias on February 15, 2015, 05:17:11 pm
You can't have the end of the world twice :P....
In fact, you can! I have a lil theory about gods' blindness to all things consulty & inchoroiy.

As out-of-time beings, gods are witnessing all various scenarios of apocalypses ever possible (different and/or multiple No-God's successful promenades are among them). That's a hell of a bright sun to leave their eyes with light spots inside, that's a causality blindnspots places on their perception like a scar on a tissue. So, if someone or something is capable of destroying the world even with a chance close to zero, he or it is retroactively invisible to the gods' sight.

Like, one crafty Sil, who shut the world even without landing on promised ground, he grants invisibility to thousands of these Sils, who were slain helplessly by Cinmoi's hand, died through crude grafting, were eaten alive by crazied mothership or never became a passengers of one.

PS And that's where the catchprase of our cute black whirlwind could have come from. What do they see? Nothing. Unceasing ends. Meta-apocalypse.
Title: Re: The Harbinger
Post by: Wilshire on February 15, 2015, 07:33:51 pm
Meta-apocalypse.
Very nice. I approve :P

One thing that remains, what of Ajokli?
Title: Re: The Harbinger
Post by: Garet Jax on February 15, 2015, 09:18:52 pm
Ajokli is just that...


A joke.
Title: Re: The Harbinger
Post by: Simas Polchias on February 16, 2015, 12:56:35 am
One thing that remains, what of Ajokli?
Sleepy me, so time to be as brief and mysterious as pobbisle. 8)

Ajokli is...

... the shadow under the Whirlwind.
... the Black-Bad Thief. An inversed WLW as literally, as you need him to be.
... the remains of primary personality there, where world/outside are neocortex/limbic/reptilian brains, plagued by dissociative identity disorder and secondary personalities (the hundred gods).

Hope this helps.
Title: Re: The Harbinger
Post by: The Sharmat on February 16, 2015, 01:20:27 am
Ajokli is also apparently the only God that doesn't give the slightest shit about human opinions, if some of what the White Luck Warrior and the unnamed Narindari said is true. That seems like it should be significant somehow.
Title: Re: The Harbinger
Post by: mrganondorf on June 02, 2015, 06:26:48 pm
awesome interpretation The Sharmat!  you got me thinking about a couple of possibilities:

it's possible that Kellhus isn't even an Anasurimbor!  the two people that say he is are Mek and Akka.  Kellhus tells Mek that he is an Anasurimbor and Mek's addled brain may just reason "oh, here is a white guy with blonde hair and blue eyes and he says he's an Anasurimbor, i guess he is--it would be memorable if he is!"  Akka thinks that Kellhus is an Anasurimbor because of the dreams--what lies has Seswatha put in the minds of the Mandate???

which brings me to--what if there never was a Celmomian prophecy?  Ses just made it up in order to create the impression of a fulfilled prophecy later--he was overseeing the Dunyain project too
Title: Re: The Harbinger
Post by: Wilshire on June 04, 2015, 12:24:34 pm
By blood, pretty much all the Dunyain are related, and we have no idea how or why they bother tracking surnames. Maybe they just give surnames to the ones that go into the world, and "Anasurimbor" is just the only one that they know of that might hold some clout to make things easier for them. The bastard son was still a son of the most powerful human dynasty from yesteryear, and they probably just figure that if any name at all, that one may still have some power.

I guess if there is some "real" Anasurimbor that we are waiting for, and its neither Moenghus or Kellhus because they are not, by some miracle, related to Celmomas, than its possible that the prophesy has not been fulfilled, that there is not yet a Harbinger... Still seems extremely convoluted and unlikely.
Title: Re: The Harbinger
Post by: Simas Polchias on June 04, 2015, 09:04:19 pm
I guess if there is some "real" Anasurimbor that we are waiting for, and its neither Moenghus or Kellhus because they are not, by some miracle, related to Celmomas, than its possible that the prophesy has not been fulfilled, that there is not yet a Harbinger... Still seems extremely convoluted and unlikely.
Actually, I would like  to have another Tolkien moment here, but in Bakker-esque cruel way:

1) Someone from these human kennels of the Arc, which were once filled only by noble Anasurimbor captives or, to make things even worse, only by
(click to show/hide)
2) Mekeretrig who elrondly presents him a repaired Heron spear.
3) A strong desire to restore his ancient dynasty in the north.
4) A mission to save all ensouled beings from damnation.

So, to say it briefly. I want the Inversed Aragorn. :3

Someone with unnatural lifespan and skills.
Someone to dwarf "Boromir"-Kellhus.
Someone to fill that gap left after Cnaiur.

Badass. Consult. General.