Earwa > The Almanac: TAE Edition
The Slog TJE - Chapters 4-6 [Spoilers]
H:
Chapter 4:
--- Quote ---But more and more the different eye seems to open, one that has perplexed her for many years—that frightens her like an unwanted yen for perversion.
--- End quote ---
So, later Akka will tell her that the Judging Eye involves pregnant women, yet, here we are told how Mimara has had it for years.
--- Quote ---"He says it himself, Every life is a cipher..." Another deep inhalation. "A riddle."
"And you think Seswatha's life is such."
"I know it is."
--- End quote ---
--- Quote ---Mandate Schoolmen claim to relive Seswatha's life, but this is only partially true. In fact, we dream only portions, the long trauma of the First Apocalypse. All we dream is the spectacle. 'Seswatha,' the old Mandate joke goes, 'does not shit.' The banalities—the substance of his life—is missing... The truth of his life is missing."
--- End quote ---
I had mentioned before, I do think the Dreams are becoming more truthful. However, I still think that the truth is intertwined with the propaganda of the usual Dreams.
--- Quote ---His hatred of Kellhus she finds understandable, though she herself bears no grudge against her stepfather. She barely knows the Aspect-Emperor, and those rare times she found herself alone with him on the Andiamine Heights—twice—he seemed at once radiant and tragic, perhaps the most immediate and obvious soul she had ever encountered.
--- End quote ---
I think once upon a time, there was speculation that Kellhus might be the father of Mimara's child. This quote certainly seems to refute that well.
--- Quote ---Bundling a blanket about her nakedness, she crawls to the dim bed of coals, where she sits, rocking herself between clutched arms and rough folds, trying to squeeze away the memory of skidding skin, the wheezing of old man exertions.
...
"We have made our first mistake together," he says, as though it were something significant. "We will not make it again."
--- End quote ---
I think I had sort of overlooked this the first time I had read it. I think there is little doubt that Akka is Mimara's child's father.
H:
Chapter 5:
--- Quote ---An image of her own sister came to Nannaferi, her childhood twin, the one who did not survive the pox.
--- End quote ---
Again, as has been mentioned before, twins (like blindness) have some meta-physical deeper meaning in Earwa.
--- Quote ---Only in his third summer, when Hagitatas, with doddering yet implacable patience, made a litany of the difference between beast, man, and god, was Kelmomas able to overcome the tumult that was his brother. "Beasts move," the old physician would rasp. "Men reflect. Gods make real." Over and over. "Beasts move. Men reflect. Gods make real. Beasts move..." Perhaps it was simply the repetition. Perhaps it was the palsied tone, the way his breath undid the substance of his words, allowing them to soak into the between places, the gem-cutting lines. "Beasts move..." Over and over, until finally Kelmomas simply turned to him and said, "Men reflect."
A blink, and what was one had become two.
--- End quote ---
This theory has been presented in the past and i can't help but feel that the process of separating the twins is what "invited" a god into the equation. Sammy got the feelings and lost his intellect, Kel got the intellect and the voice of a god as surrogate feelings.
--- Quote ---It had been this way ever since Hagitatas had taught him the difference between beast, man, and god—ever since he first had looked away from his brother's face.
--- End quote ---
Samarmas is the beast. Kelmomas is the man. And the God, well, we don't know exactly who.
--- Quote ---You are, the secret voice said, her only love remaining.
--- End quote ---
So, a major question I want to keep my eye on with this reread is the motive of the voice, to try to figure which god it might be. It seems to be moving against Esmenent, but is not friendly to Yatwer. Ajokli seems probable, but we'll see.
Odium:
I hadn't picked up on that before, but yeah, the ritual used to separate them seems to point verrrry directly at the theory that one of the Hundred accompanies Kelmomas - specifically, Ajokli, given that Bakker has been pretty clear associating his characters with their respective gods since the beginning of TSA and everything indicates the Trickster would be Kel's patron. Maybe what the Voice says in your last quote alludes to Ajokli's purpose in possessing the boy: another cruel joke for life to play on Esmenet, taking away the last thing she loves. I figure this will somehow relate to Esmenet seeing her beloved son for what he really is.
H:
--- Quote from: Odium on March 11, 2016, 07:12:56 pm ---I hadn't picked up on that before, but yeah, the ritual used to separate them seems to point verrrry directly at the theory that one of the Hundred accompanies Kelmomas - specifically, Ajokli, given that Bakker has been pretty clear associating his characters with their respective gods since the beginning of TSA and everything indicates the Trickster would be Kel's patron. Maybe what the Voice says in your last quote alludes to Ajokli's purpose in possessing the boy: another cruel joke for life to play on Esmenet, taking away the last thing she loves. I figure this will somehow relate to Esmenet seeing her beloved son for what he really is.
--- End quote ---
Indeed, I think it is mostly to get at Esmenet, but not so simply to just kill her. Which is interesting, in and of itself. Perhaps though, I am thinking too shallow, perhaps it is more to get at Kellhus? If it was solely about Esmenet, there have been plenty of opportunities to get to her that were never taken.
Chapter 6:
--- Quote ---Then the Captain said, "What lies in Sauglish?"
The words fairly knocked the blood out of Sarl's ruddy face. Perhaps there were consequences for misreading the Captain's interest. Perhaps the man had simply wandered too far out on a drunken limb. For some reason, Achamian had the impression that Lord Kosoter's voice always had this effect.
--- End quote ---
So, I was buying the "Sarl as the hooded traveler" in the prologue, but after this and the rest of the scene, I'm really not so sure. I even have some doubt that Sarl is a skin-spy here at this point. Then again, was he sent there originally just to watch Cleric? Now, it is flustered by this unexpected complication?
--- Quote ---The hood bowed to the tabletop. "I can no longer remember. I have known Ishterebinth, I think... But it was not called such then."
--- End quote ---
Hmmm, Ishterebinth having another name? What does that even mean?
--- Quote ---"You're a learned man," Sarl added, speaking through strings of phlegm. An uncommon intensity had fixed his rodent features—as if some life-or-death opportunity were on the verge of slipping from his grasp. "Tell me, what do you think of the concept of coincidence? Do you think things happen for reasons?"
--- End quote ---
Perhaps he is a skin-spy and he is now realizing why he was actually sent to watch Cleric?
--- Quote ---"I remember..." the blackness wrapped by the cowl said. "I remember the slaughter of..."
A peculiar sound, like a sob thumbed into the shape of a cackle.
"Of children."
"A man," the Captain grimly noted, "has got to remember."
--- End quote ---
I wonder what they refers to? The Womb-Plague? The Sack of Sauglish, as Akka dreams of it?
--- Quote ---The same eye-pinching grin. "I've been with the Captain since the beginning," he cackled. "From before the Imperial Bounty, in the wars against the Orthodox. I've seen him stand untouched in a hail of arrows, while I cringed behind my shield. I was at his side on the walls of Meigeiri, when the fucking Longbeards fell over themselves trying to flee from his blood-maddened gaze. I was there, after the battle of Em'famir. With these two ears I heard the Aspect-Emperor—the Aspect-Emperor!—name him Ironsoul!"
--- End quote ---
So, is this a lie then? He doesn't say it will Kosoter around, but why make it up at all then?
--- Quote ---"You, Seswatha," the High-King said, returning his gaze to the plate. "You are the only one. The only one I trust."
Achamian thought of his Queen, her buttocks against his hips, her calves hooked hot and hungry about his waist.
The High-King moved a stone, a move that Seswatha had not foreseen, and the rules changed in the most disastrous way possible. What had been opportunity found itself twisted inside out, stamped into something as closed and as occluded as the future.
Achamian was almost relieved...
"I have built a place... a refuge..." Anasûrimbor Celmomas said. "A place where my line can outlive me."
Ishuäl...
--- End quote ---
What does it mean that Akka is "almost relieved?" Glad that Celmomas had a plan, that he had Ishuäl?
MSJ:
H., good stuff. Only thing is I don't believe Sarl was the skin-spy. The last we see Sarl, Akka and Mimara leave him at Sauglish and he'sa cackling, raving madman at that point. Unless, I'm remembering wrong, the skin-spy was Soma.
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
Go to full version