I'm in

Reading The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben, and The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry.  Re-reading The Conversion of Europe by Richard Fletcher (a superb book).

The most mundane interpretation would be that he is dead and gone, but 'lives on' through his influence on others as a religious figure.  I suspect there's more to it than that though.

Difficult to say. Probably something along two fronts. One is that 'not done' means that he has plans and machinations in the works that are still in play. The other front is the idea that Ajokli can't find him in the outside. So 'not done' might also be (either/or) that he's in limbo somewhere. Limbo could be 'the space between the gods'/'oblivion', could be be ascended into Absolute status above and beyond Ajokli and his Outside (Outside the Outside, as it were), or it could be something of him existing in the mundane world somehow (Pokemon Heads, though seemingly ridiculous, are a compelling option).

Probably both.  Suspect he has set things in motion that are still in play, and that whilst physically dead, his soul is still active as an independent player.

Bakker said the following in regard to souls -

"The problems souls encounter in the Outside is that they're puny, and so find themselves trapped in intentional realities belonging to infernal and divine agencies. This is why powerful souls (think Gin'yursis) often carve out different fates after death."

It will be interesting to see what Kellhus spirit is capable of, he has immense intelligence, but Bakker has specifically said the Dunyain are spiritually weak.

1.  Kellhus saw himself within the inverse fire, not as fodder, but descending as hunger.
2.  Nauir was described as a Prince of Hell by the judging eye because some souls were too powerful.

So all signs point to Kellhus being some demon.  He's a hunger in the outside, not food. 

I think of the meta clues of the series.  If the last series is just the downfall of mankind, there's no narrative there.  It's just losing and there's no point in extending the series. 

This seems the most likely explanation to me.  There's also a point made by Proyas (can't remember whether its in TGO or TUC) something along the lines of "Kellhus is responsible for more deaths than anyone who has ever lived".  He's also got millions to transgress scripture, and many thousand to engage in Sranc eating and cannibalism. 
Mimara had 'never seen one so damned' as Cnaiur.  I would say Kellhus is damned on another level of magnitude.
Spiritually, the books imply strongly that he feels love, and may not be the typical Dunyain in this respect.

Thanks for doing that.  It was a good podcast, although I'm ashamed to say I've forgotten half of what was said

As Kellhus said, the Inchoroi, the Consult, will eventually win. But it might not be this time. Though, it is hard, very hard, to imagine someone stopping the Consult this time:
Its now comprised of 4 dunyain who I assume are each individually smarter and better military tacticians than the old Consult, and in their sum they must be far far greater.
Far more Sranc - worse, mostly the sturdier horde from the Mountains, not to mention everything in the northeast, east, and western reaches of Earwa (where were presumably all cleared during Apocalypse 1).
There are now only the exhasted remains of the schools. Apocalypse 1 had at least 3 gnostic schools and the Quya.
Military power is at an all time low. All that remains are the Scylvendi and Zeum. (Btw, the last scene with Moenghus, it switches to 2nd person narrative (btw, fuck that, its worse than 1st person), so I expect Moenghus to do something strange).

I'm not convinced by this.  I don't think the Consult are in particularly great shape.  Golgotterath itself has been trashed inside and out.  One of the horns has been sheared off, and the insides of the other one have been half wrecked by Kellhus/Ajokli's foot stomp.  The horns are described somewhere in the text (I think in the appendix) as the 'Oars' of the Ark, which suggests to me they are important in how the Ark works, probably less fucntional following Arkfall (a crash), and now even less so.  The No-God as a 'Prosthesis of Ark' may be have some sort of function as a substitute, but more likely won't in my opinion.  The Consult have also lost (as far as I can recall) all their Non-Men mages.

The Dunyain have been shown to fail or fall short whenever they've been engaged outside Ishual and I don't see why the Mutilated should be any different in this respect.  Remember, that the Dunyain project at Ishual is an attempt to shut off influences from outside - I think we can read this as trying to shut the Outside (big O) is either going to fail or turn out in a manner that is not expected.

I don't see a military solution to the No-God.  However, there are still plenty of people in the Three Seas including millions of adult males, and thousands of potential sorcerors.  The upshot of TAE is that the military, sorcerous and logistical hierarchy/ organisation of the New Empire has been destroyed.  It can be replaced by something new and/ or different - which may be what is required.

I agree Moenghus is going to have a big role to play.

Yea, I have to agree. The Great Ordeal was part of the Thousandfold Thought and where the Thought failed was when Ajokli "forced" Kellhus into the Golden Room ahead of schedule. If they go in with Serwe, Kayutas and whoever else was included in the plans, I believe they succeed. This just was never going to happen, because obviously Kellhus didn't plan for Ajokli to take over as he did. I don't even think he counted on Ajokli giving him divine power.

And in fact the whole thing is stymied when Ajokli stops his foot, trashing the insides of the Ark, and preventing Serwa etc getting into the Golden Room.  Ajokli taking over is surely not part of the plan

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Bakker shared a theory on Meaning in an article that preceded TDTCB by a few years:

http://www.sffworld.com/2000/06/why-fantasy-and-why-now/

Imagine that Meaning is the distance between Subject (irrational) and Object (rational).  So Meaning and value increase as a function of the difference between Subject and Object.  Ascribing the sun rising to a Sun God is Meaningful; Heliocentrism, on the other hand, is not Meaningful, it just "is". 

So when Kellhus describes the No-God as collapsing Subject and Object, it follows that it is also collapsing Meaning!  Which was, you may recall, how Bakker described Kellhus' mission, to bring meaninglessness to a meaningful world. 

I'm pretty sure I've an interview with Bakker where he says the task of the fantasy author is to create meaning out of something that has no meaning (or something similar) - i.e. making us care about things/ places that don't and never have/ never will exist.
So... in the Second Apocalypse, he has made meaning out of something meaningless, by way of bringing meaninglessness to something meaningful .  No wonder Kellhus went mad !

Quote from: TheCulminatingApe on September 23, 2017, 08:57:50 pm

Quote from: JerakoKayne on September 23, 2017, 04:08:16 am

Quote from: Madness on September 23, 2017, 02:14:51 am

Quote from: tleilaxu on September 22, 2017, 03:16:51 pm

The dreams of Seswatha are quite a strange thing to be honest. Part of his soul must be trapped in his mummified heart.

This thread might be difficult to parse... I'm almost thinking we make/revive one specifically to discuss Seswatha/Achamian's dreams.

But Bakker did tell the draft-reading Nascenti we could discuss director's cut notation with the greater fandom and there are sections chopped from TGO/TUC that all but confirm the "Seswatha's soul is preserved in his Heart" speculation.

That's the kind of stuff that sounds crucial to our understanding of the story. Please do?

And Kellhus 'spoke' to Seswatha

Ah yeah I forgot about that part. Wonder if there's a clue in there to how Shaeönanra may have survived (if he's not in the mutilated).

Or a clue to what happened to Kellhus?