[Madness]

So Bakker straight up said Kellhus' goal was to stop the Resumption of the No-God and save the world.

"Think of the gradual possession suffered by Sorweel whilst wearing the Amiolas. Kellhus knew something was up, but the 10-sided die was cast. The great weakness of the Dunyain is the weakness discovered by Moenghus. For all the power of their intellect, their spirit is actually quite weak."

This quote indicates to me that Kellhus DIDN'T want Ajokli there, or couldn't stop him, so he maybe had to make other plans.  It also indicates(again, to me at least) that much of what Kellhus said, maybe since the very beginning of the Golden Room scenes, was all Ajokli, and not Kellhus.

Oh, and a side-note, would Ajokli looking into the Inverse fire just see, like a closed circuit TV broadcast of his living room?  Makes a bit more sense, then, his answer about what he observed.

Preach .

Yeah and I was also thinking about the length of time that Ajokli had been potentially possessing Kellhus. I think we can assume that Ajokli was speaking to him while on the circumfix. But if Ajokli was in control why would this moments of humanity displayed by Kellhus in the last book even happen? Why would Ajokli bother pretending to care about these people? I'm so lost haha

As Dunkelheit says above, Kellhus pretty clearly tells certain principals that the Darkness owns him the closer he gets to Golgotterath. It seems to be a gradient of agency as Kellhus nears the World's deepest Topoi.

Regarding the RAFO's, they are evocative, however, I bear in mind that RSB has apparently not planned out TNG as he had PON & TAE. So there is an ambiguous tension here.

 

Classic Bakker. He's inadvertently coy, which is probably a developed habit over years of interacting with fans.

He most definitely has TNG's narrative mapped, though he's still making choices regarding presentation and style, which could drastically change how we read it.

He's also maintained for years - though it would send me really digging for an online citation (which I'll try to come back and add because it will haunt me otherwise) - that the last last scene and last last line have been written in draft for a long time.

After Scott's AMA (where he states quite clearly that Kellhus is dead, to stop Resumption was his goal and that TTT has run its course) I realize that I probably overestimated Kellhus. Up until now I thought all of this must be part if some convoluted Masterplan, that Kellhus who has conquered the Three Seasons and always seems to know what's going on couldn't fail so spectacularly.

What I forgot is that Kellhus has not reached the Absolute and is not a self-moving soul. He has extraordinary abilities but he is still not free from the darkness that comes before. And as he himself admits, the closer he comes to Golgotterath, the greater the darkness.

I believe in TGO there's a line from one of the infrequent Kellhus POVs that despite his accomplishments he's still just one intellect and two hands.

But yeah... this seems to be one of the primary frustrations pervading the online fandom right now so you're definitely not alone .

In my opinion much of what Kellhus says makes little sense coming from Ajokli. I think the possession is not and either-or thing, more like a sliding scale. As time goes on he slides from Kellhus to Ajokli, until he is full on Ajokli with his head on fire.

+1

He seems to have made it quite clear (for RSB that is) that Ajokli has been subverting Kellhus gradually for some time. Possibly as far back as the Circumfix.

I think i'm going to start the slowest reread ever.

If the Vision is Ajokli, It's been whispering into Kellhus' ear for long enough for Kellhus to tell Proyas in TGO that he no longer trusts his own thoughts entirely, that he made a mistake when he listened to the Vision when it told him to kill Moenghus.

Also, to the bold, that might smartest thought I've read yet since TUC's release. We'll be reading a whole new series cued as we are by TUC's Layers of Revelation.

Oh, also, also, I updated the thread title. I really don't think that readers have done justice mining the Unholy Consultation thread here yet.

[The Sharmat]

After Scott's AMA (where he states quite clearly that Kellhus is dead, to stop Resumption was his goal and that TTT has run its course) I realize that I probably overestimated Kellhus. Up until now I thought all of this must be part if some convoluted Masterplan, that Kellhus who has conquered the Three Seasons and always seems to know what's going on couldn't fail so spectacularly.

What I forgot is that Kellhus has not reached the Absolute and is not a self-moving soul. He has extraordinary abilities but he is still not free from the darkness that comes before. And as he himself admits, the closer he comes to Golgotterath, the greater the darkness.

This is something I think Bakker succeeded at spectacularly. The entire series builds the expectation in the reader (evne the fear, for some of them) that Kellhus is all knowing and invincible, that every single setback is actually a victory in some greater scheme. But at the same time the narrative is subtly littered with hints that he's not remotely infallible, going all the way back to that time he tripped on a rock in TTT. A giant bait in switch to reinforce the whole point of the series. The blind are blind to their blindness. Kellhus never even considered that Kelmomas could see something he could not. And just like his father, he is murdered at the culmination of his planning by a mad son.

[The Sharmat]

Also I guess Cnaiür is actually the series' principle antagonist and has been manipulating Kellhus since the start without even knowing it

[Moosehunter]

And just like his father, he is murdered at the culmination of his planning by a mad son.

That is very well said Sharmat. So obvious that i had overlooked it.

[EDIT Madness: Sorry, hovering. Fixed your quote tag.]

[Redeagl]

I only have one Thought.
Take that, Kellhus fans!

[The Sharmat]

Take that, Kellhus fans!

That's what you get for worshiping Kurcifra.

[Hiro]

And just like his father, he is murdered at the culmination of his planning by a mad son.

That is very well said Sharmat. So obvious that i had overlooked it.

[EDIT Madness: Sorry, hovering. Fixed your quote tag.]

Gotta concur with that precise observation! Beautiful pattern recognition.

[Lonnie Slidell]

A few thoughts:

At the beginning of The Fellowship of the Ring Frodo and Gandalf go back and forth about the fact that Bilbo did not stab Gollum when he had the opportunity to do so.  Bilbo's act of compassion eventually allows Gollum to redeem Middle Earth after the Ring masters Frodo at Amon Amarth (awesome band, by the way).  I think RSB considers himself one of Papa Tolkien's most rebellious sons, so if an act of compassion redeemed Middle Earth it's not surprising that an act of compassion should damn Earwa.  (And little Kel is a bit of a Gollum.)

I first stumbled upon Three Pound Brain while looking for a publication date for The White-Luck Warrior and decided that the fiction and non-fiction illuminate each other and should be read together.  The last line of his most recent blog post is "The semantic apocalypse isn’t simply possible: it’s happening" so the beginning of the Second Apocalypse with the activation of the No-God and the destruction of the Great Ordeal did not come as a surprise.

In fact, given that RSB, like most fantasy fans, was raised on happy endings (from Frodo to Thomas Covenant to Shea Olmsford to Rand al'Thor to that kid from The Belgariad to Adjunct Tavore) I was proud of him for having the nerve to be as brutal to his readers as he has been to his characters (although Kellhus' betrayal of Nersei Proyas was a real gut punch).

I guess that most readers who have followed the tale through all seven books have accepted Kellhus' omnipotence, or at least his ability to master events, so we assume that he is working another angle.  It's possible he is, but based on the evidence in the text, it's possible he ran out of angles and actually failed.  If what he said to Esmenet, "you are my only darkness, wife... the only place I can hide" was sincere (whatever that means in this context) the disaster at the Ark naturally follows.

And congratulations to those of you who predicted that Little Kelmomas would find himself inside the Sarcophagus.

[Wilshire]

Welcome Loonie. Hope you find yourself here more often

[Walter]

One important tidbit from the AMA/Unholy Consultation is that we should have significantly less divine stuff going down in the next books.  He mentions that the Gods are all but lobotomized now that the No-God is gnawing away at the connection between Inside and Out.

[The Sharmat]

Well, Ajokli is actually physically walking around though, maybe? So less and simultaneously much much more godly stuff?

[Madness]

"Witless" is not inactive .

Bakker swung by the AMA link for another drive by sometime in the past couple hours. Dropped another couple nuggets including the "Shattered God."

EDIT: Ah, shit. And welcome to the Second Apocalypse, Slidell .

[Likaro]

-I think from RSB's comments we can infer that Shae is not dead. So either he completely took over the Dunyain or he is riding shotgun with them...

-Aurax could have been acting the whole time. I still think it was him at the end of the TWP. Also I still think Aurang is alive. Why make a specific point that Malowebi couldn't see what happened to him? Kell cut his wings off and tossed him down. That doesn't mean he is dead.

-One other thing that I don't think has been mentioned vis a vis the Consult's competency : the actual defensive battle plan for Golgotterath was very well done. In fact, unless Kellhus was going to pull a major coup in the golden room, the Ordeal was in huge trouble with the arrival of the Horde 2.0 AND the fact that the Consult had let their famed walls become destroyed. They were essentially trapped in a bottleneck with mostly destroyed fortifications, no food, and a huge horde of Sranc trying to get in, all while the gate into the Ark was barred and there were other baddies still in play within Golgotterath.

So in that much at least, the Consult was very competent.

[The Sharmat]

Also they thought they might need Kellhus to gain entry to the Ark so that makes their strategy even more awkward. They need a breach, but a very specific kind of breach.

[Woden]

Bakker said somewhere that Aurang is dead, if I remember correctly.