There's more evidence Kel was "with" the Mutilated in some sense ( didn't just stumble into the room ), paraphrasing, Kel realized he replaced 1 tyrant for 4, when he was put into the carapace.

I'm with Duskweaver on this one - let the show never end. I loved this story and don't get the sense he screwed us all over for pleasure - just too much minutia and delicious detail for something as base as that to be his ultimate aim. Bakker knows he'll have critics ( The Sound and the Fury had literary critics at the time of release, now widely considered about the greatest American novel ever written ). I agree, this is literature, not "just" fantasy/sci-fi.

The ending was abrupt, but timely in my opinion - I was emotionally exhausted reading this stuff, but loved it as an athlete loves exertion taxing our limits - it's not the triumph, but the struggle. The ending so extremely clever - it was a surprise, yet it was prophesy as well. And Akka has to feel the ultimate dupe he 1/2 unwittingly enabled the 2nd Apocalypse ( can't escape all the blame on he didn't know, much of the PON dealt with his reservations and yet he still taught Kellhus the Gnosis ); one could argue he brought about it as much as Kellhus ( he just HAD to drag along that son of his! ). If the argument is Bakker fucked us over by salting the hero, well we still have Mimara and Akka ( well, maybe, not sure how I see anybody escaping alive ). I'm figuring Kellhus's grandson may play prominently in the resolution of this story ... that, or we get to see what life is like on Earwa with less than 144k people and if that does indeed stave off damnation for the remaining Consult.

My initial "take" on what was going on when reading the end of TUC is the stillborn was due to her having the Eye - but then it appears she still "has" it after the births, so I was simply confused about the relationship between the Judging Eye and dead fetus in the womb - either that's true and something more/else is providing Mimira with the Eye or it's wholesale incorrect. I find the No-God "causing" the death of one of the twins to be quite the cool speculation, but to me it's unclear the timing of events given how briefly the book treats this. Everything happened so quickly once Kel was in the carapace.

Again, before I read this thread ( or any of the forum until I finished TUC ), I "read"/thought that the Mutilated was in the head scratching phase of trying to figure out how to get the thing to work. I "felt" they were uncertain of Kellhus; hence, tried multiple times to kill him before he reached them ( competing probability trances, if you will - sorta like Herbert's treatment of the Guild's inability to see the future when in the presence of another clairvoyant ). Once he strode on in with little resistance from what was considered quite the powerful defense/creatures, their probability trance ( panic? ) let them to try to "turn" him, the cats with the chorae providing "incentive" for him to cooperate; but, maybe not since they didn't hesitate to kill him when they were freed up by Kel ( via "chasing" off Horned brother ) - bit hazy on this - not sure the arrival of the 4 Horn confused the "plan" and one spy reacted or if they were trying to kill him once they arrived. I think they quickly realized Kel could make the thing work when they heard him say the gods couldn't see him - marking him as no-god material.

I only bring these points up as they were my initial take on things - which is important not to lose our first impressions, they could be the most correct. While I love chewing the fat with you fine chaps, "studying" the work can lead us astray if we're not careful. We're discussing outside the initial read which is full of richness ( suspense/momentum/context - we're in the throws of the story ). I think Bakker intended some obfuscation here to add to the mania of what was happening. All in essentially a single, brief scene we have Kellhus goes salt, Serwa comes out nearly/completely ruined from a fight that appears accomplished nothing, twin births ( one dead ) ... and the small matter of the arrival of Mog. The speed of these final events denote confusion, by design I think.

To be clear, I do not think ( nor thought I said ) the Consult are the "good guys". Good points on the depravity, that appears unconjunctive ( but maybe not - I couldn't follow the Mangaecca logic of distributing "lunatic misery" on innocents to prove they feel nothing from it after viewing the Inverse Fire - guess was validation for them the "truth" of the Inverse Fire - regardless, still seems unnecessary for the shutting the world application ... just spitballing here, maybe demonstrating extreme depravity illustrates their invisibility to the gods, otherwise they would do something about it ). My point wasn't about what the books were stating damnation really is in the story either - agreed, we still don't know for sure. BUT - it is being touted among the characters that it is eternal torment, the Consult seem to believe so saying they see themselves suffering horribly in hell, which denotes "conscious" of that suffering. The Consult believes they're screwed - eternally. While shutting the world shut is unarguably evil, if they can't find another way to avoid it, then mass murder in the millions is not out of bounds as a legitimate avenue ( if it would even work, but they mention breaking the soul chain - still not sure what they're getting at there, which supports your possibility of the soul returning to a new body/reincarnation - which would mean they don't have the shut the world after all ).

I agree, still unknowns abound - just speculation on IF eternal damnation is eternal suffering consciously experienced, then they are panicking and not necessarily evil to pursue any avenue with promise.

Quote from: tleilaxu on August 25, 2017, 11:19:24 am

I dunno, the Inverse Fire seems pretty clear on it. You soul is shredded and devoured forever.

Yes, but what does that actually feel like, when you're a disembodied soul? It sure looks horrible to a living person seeing their soul's fate through the Inverse Fire... but that's why it's the Goad. What the IF shows could be both 100% accurate and completely misleading.

To an extent, I'm playing Ajokli's advocate here. If it were me looking into the IF, I'd probably join the Consult in a heartbeat. But that's not the point. As a dispassionate outside observer (as opposed to an observer of the Outside ), I am not convinced of the moral rightness of the Consult's plan. As I said, there are a lot of ways they might be completely wrong, even assuming what the IF shows them (and what the JE shows Mimara) is accurate:

Souls might not be conscious, or might have no sense of self.
Damnation might not actually be painful. Being burned and eaten by Ciphrang might not hurt when you're a disembodied soul.
There might actually be good reasons why the Damned are Damned, even if we can't know what they are. 'Arbitrary' is not the same as 'random and meaningless'.
There might be other ways of preventing Damnation besides the global genocide one.
Finding Oblivion might be possible after all (bonus: we now know this one is true!)

I think you're point is since we don't really "know" what damnation will be like ( and in kind, neither The Consult/Mutilated ), then their approach HAS to be evil since their design is based on an assumption. Sounds like the logic of the "sane" to me 

I think the bigger point is damnation scares the shit out of EVERYBODY - high evil and the low. They appear convinced what they see in the Inverse Fire is accurate and they are in for the eternal cosmic shaft for not even the master, mega powerful can subvert or sustain ( I hear the screams from Cnaiur as I write this - the biggest, baddest ass barbarian I've ever had the pleasure of reading about - the breaker of horses and men is now quite broken ... and forever ). So the varacity of your point hinges on what they're seeing/experiencing with the Inverse Fire. Should they have the wherewithal to "know" it may be a lie or their interpretation inaccurate? Someone wrote in TSA elsewhere an intriguing idea that it "modifies" the brain of the viewer ... still kinda like that idea, though the ending of TUC brings it into question. If they're not whole sale convinced of their conclusion, then you're right - their approach is simply evil. But if it really scared them, frozen their consciousness facing their ETERNAL dire straights, then their approach may not be evil, but panic. Panic may look quite the sinister expression, but it is not the same as evil.

Friends, I spot read through this thread, not reading all posts, so forgive me if I’ve missed elements that renders my point moot. Friendly advice – don’t make your posts so long! You bore the rest of us. Here is my brief contribution:

The “Founding Fathers” of United States democracy originally considered only allowing those who owned property the right to vote, the thinking being if you didn’t own property then you most likely weren’t educated and couldn’t be trusted with the responsibility to vote for competent leaders in lieu of demagogues promising the sky and taking advantage of the sorry masses. The “Pursuit of Happiness” part of the US Declaration of Independence was “The Right to Property” in its original draft. They finally agreed to forgo property and afforded the right to vote for any/all white men of legal citizenship.

There are benefits/detriments for the different styles of government. Dictatorship is seductive with the promise of allowing for rapid change without bureaucratic or political obstacles; it’s weakness ( among other things ), absent objective criteria for transfer of power, the competition for power intensifies and becomes violent leaving the dictator paranoid and ruthless to hold on to power compromising his/her ability to lead the country and becomes a hotbed for corruption. Monarchy is an attractive alternative to dictatorship, allowing for a more stable society with the nice feature of mentor-ship for those next in line. Transition of power is objective and typically peaceful and the new king/queen typically has at least some idea on how to lead the country given the ruler was their parent. The primary weakness is what do you do when the “next in line” is either uninterested or not up to the task of leading - yielding mad kings, etc.

Democracy is a mess. But in the chaotic stew that is democracy, a society can achieve a strength of culture ensuring peaceful transition of power ( in the sense of non-violent, still can be mad competitive ) and provides the highest morale in the citizenry over the other forms of government. The weaknesses of democracy are sharp and costly, but overall appear to be the better of the alternatives. It may never change. I’m proud my country has constitutional mechanisms to keep a fraud in check ( a risk of democracy, the citizens voting in their destroyer ) and maintaining rights which cannot be voted away. There’s a beauty to it – the mad process of reconciling so many diverse views into action, but peacefully. I’ll take lies/deceptions which can be freely vetted/debated over violence. While imperfect ( obviously ), it’s the better way to go. Manipulation/Propaganda/Deception are far the better evil to deal with than slaughter/assassination.

The power of the culture really drives the success of government. We have plenty of variations of democracy/republics and most of them are doing just fine – they’re a reflection of their people. Many of the criticisms I’m seeing have been expressed over the decades of my life, yet here we are, still alive, still with time for fun. The corruption we witness in our democratic governments has not risen to the level of "breaking" society - it sucks, but some corruption can be sustained. Much of what we call corruption is the very real human activity of networking, the you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours. The network of the ruling class has been around for thousand+ years, yet humanity still grows. Not saying don't root it out and jail people, just saying to not get too worked up about it, it's not the major threat to our society.

In my 2 pound brain opinion … restricting the right to vote is a mistake; only the costs of such an approach would be endured, no benefits of “easier” government. You can’t have the beauty of our differences without the mess of reconciling those differences for government. The system is not bad … it’s the system yielding the best morale while reflecting the limitations of society. Not to say it can’t be improved – figuring out how to take money out of politics would be cool.

This stuff about morality is dicey. Humans are indeterminately moral. Best you can hope for is to live in a moral society with “i-moral” constituents. Could be worse, could live in an immoral ( Rome ) or amoral society ( Soviet Union ). The morality of the society provides a framework for citizens to live; the individuals are ( beautifully? ) morally abstract. You could be a racist firefighter harassing a mixed couple in the morning and risk your life to save the same mixed couple from a burning house in the afternoon ( the movie Crash did a nice job of demonstrating this ). The only path for us is to follow the wisdom of Dory and just keep swimming. You want a better world, be a better person … the rest will take care of itself. If you’re one of the few who can dynamically effect people, then feel free to promote a better world beyond your friends/family sphere. Don’t beat yourself up too much when you falter, you’re only a creature apparently arbitrarily showing up in a space/time of not your choosing having to live among so many who don’t share your cosmology with limited understanding of the universe trying to survive the violence of humanity/cosmos all the while you’re looking up.

Wow, so cool, thank you so much for sharing with us. The Father and Son one is perfection!