So, a point of contention with various speculations I have raised involves how the No-god seals the Outside. Mostly the point is raised that only the No-god is invisible to the Hundred and that the 144k point probably needs to be reached before the Outside is sealed.

In the recent AMA a very relevant question and answer arose.

Q. Has Resumption bared the rest of the Hundred from interfering in the real world?

A. The Gods are pretty much witless now. Imagine a virus erasing your memories and your meta-memories simultaneously. Theological Alzheimers.

Some implications that I have inferred:

All the meaning that souls relay back to the Outside is sealed off whilst Mog walks and that the gods are completely blind and starved.

The way Topoi and the Boundaries of the Onta are described indicates that the stuff of meaning piles up with the course of history, but now it seems the reflection of that into the Outside is blocked.

Ajokli's incarnation through Cnaiur (and the Celmoman prophecy itself) indicates that the Trickster has managed to remain puissant. (Both of these God powered acts occur during Apocalypse)

Because sorcery still functions we can derive that the Outside can be accessed/manipulated from this side of the world.


Your thoughts?

[EDIT Madness: Title.]

Thought these bad boys needed their own thread.

Post your questions and speculations about Kellhus' dangly appendages here.

Something to start things off that no one else seems to have realized;

Kosoter was very likely the other decapitant. 

Prompted by Madness feeling somewhat agreived by the 'nazi' mods at Westeros, I feel compelled to offer my opinion on the subject from the point of view of what goes on over here.

I believe moderation here is way too lax.  From well intentioned scattergun shitposting (sorry, mg, I am looking at you) to deliberately offensive troll accounts from Westeros, too many threads are reduced to levels of cringe that would repel any potential poster, common or casual.

The example that prompted me to post this is here.
It is unbelievable to me that this PP character is allowed to post this shit unchallenged. 

The last post is flat out offensive and baiting, PP depends on the memetic situation established in the Westeros threads where the over-riding bigotry behind his reply is "countered" by the suggestion that it is ironic, which depends entirely on in-group support - that, of course, the poster has enough moral prestige to be above reproach.  But instead it just comes across as bigoted hate speech and should be dealt with.

Imagine a casual forum browser looking through this thread.  For many of them shit like this confirms the OP's accusations that TSA is violent pornography for emotionally stunted middle class white boys. 

tl/dr Mods here need to wield a bigger stick.  Too much shit is allowed to ride and make everyone here complicit and certainly damages perceptions of Bakker and his readers.

I was thinking about Mimara and Proyas and their thematic roles and character arcs in AE and PoN.

I feel like these are the only characters that clearly exhibit proper moral agency.
They are both self-critical and sharply aware of where their personal moral boundaries are and the relation of those to cultural and socially defined boundaries.

Proyas starts in obviously the better social situation, no-where near as horribly scarring as Mimara's childhood, but they are both inheritors of their parent's legacy.
Proyas is the heir of Conriya and is expected to be the very example of male piety in Inrithism.
Mimara is, like her mother, at first subject to the common fate of most Earwan children and women, mere chattel before the hungers of men.
Also like her mother, Mimara is suddenly elevated the very top of the social ladder.

Both of them are initially prisoners to TDTCB.

They are each exposed to Socratic Method via Akka, learning to question their assumptions from his influence and find that their decision making becomes ever more fraught.
Akka is Proyas' tutor and also a father figure. His influence causes Proyas' first conflicts between what he has been taught is morally right and the insights of dialectical critical thinking.
Mimara has a difficult relationship with Akka.  But it too settles into a father-daughter and mentor-student pattern.

Mimara reaches towards self actualization through reflection on the ways she has survived her traumatic past prompted by Akka and most of all, the quirri. 
This 'drug' provides her with deeply intuitive insights that transform her world view.  For others it seems to have a much less transformative effect.

For Proyas, Kellhus' teachings are also more than the drug-like effects they have on others.  He gains a confirmation of his devotion to piety that does not contradict his burgeoning awareness of his agency.

In both cases, Mimara and Proyas are ignorant of how Kellhus is manipulating them, yet their agency continues to flower even as they serve Kellhus' ends.
Proyas leads his armies to unite the Three Seas whilst Mimara slogs through the north dispelling ancient horrors that could destroy civilization.
Each of them glimpses Kellhus' hand, but continues.

Examples of Mimara's agency are a lot more common, mainly because she has so much PoV.
Banishing the Wight is the most obvious example, but this is minimized because what actually happens is well obscured.
Throughout WLW, she is constantly able to manipulate others. Getting info from Sarl, Incariol and even the thing called Soma.
But the most striking example is when, faced with her rape and murder, she is able to exercise her agency to forgive her attackers. A difficult thing for even the most spiritual person.

Now consider Proyas' most significant example of personal agency in PoN, when he is moved to rape and murder but forestalls his actions to take the pious route and help his avowed 'enemies' to escape.  It doesn't seem any where near as important, but besides Mimara, Cnaiur (who is mad) he is the only character who is explicitly shown to take a moral alternative. 

Perhaps there is a link between Proyas/Cnauir's relationship and Mimara/the skin spy?

Proyas is supremely useful to Kellhus because it seems they will remain allies even when all pretense is dropped.  Will this prove to be the case with Mimara as well?
(Obviously this is making the assumption that Kellhus isn't planning to betray everyone.)

Lovely work once again, Somna.  You spoil us terribly.

I suspect Angrashael might have looked into the inverse flame and the story is derived from that.

Sorry about all the acronyms below.  Anyway, I thought the "awakening" of Kellhus to Moe's manipulation and TTT might be worthy of discussion in light of some parallels between the series.

He could remember, perfectly, what it had been like those three years past, stepping from the shadow of Ishuäl's Fallow Gate. Countless tracks had fanned out from his feet, leading to countless possible outcomes. But unlike a tree, he could war only in one direction. With every step he murdered alterna­tives, collapsed future after future, walking a line too thin to be marked on any map. For so long he had believed that line, that track, belonged to him, as though his every footfall had been a monstrous decision for which he alone could be called to account. Step after step, annihilating world after possible world, warring until only this moment survived...
But those futures, he now knew, had been murdered long before. The ground he travelled had been Conditioned through and through. At every turn, the probabilities had been summed, the possibilities averaged, the forks impossi­bly predetermined... Even here, standing before Shimeh, he executed but one operation in the skein of another's god­like calculation. Even here, his every decision, his every act, confirmed the dread intent of the Thousandfold Thought.
Thirty years...

Achamian's journey in AE resembles Kellhus' journey in PoN in a lot of ways.

• They each set out on a quest to penetrate the darkness and discover what kind of force rules the world so that they might master it.
• Both are determined to betray and sacrifice the lives of all those around them if necessary.
• Similarly accompanied by crazy-ass psychos, nobles and a mystically important woman.
• Named prophets at the end of the second novel after facing soul-crushingly bitter victories (Ishual and the death of NG for Akka, the Circumfix and Serwe's death for Kellhus).

Will Akka be 'awakened' by the qirri in the ruins of Ishual and finally realize TTT moves him in TUC before he confronts Kellhus?

Also, the italicized thought in the quote above prompts a crackpot;
Thirty years...
Interestingly, that takes us from Moe's inception of TTT to the time of TUC, which implies Kellhus had a very solid understanding of schedule in place at that stage.

For TSTSNBN, if TTT is still in play somehow at the end of TUC, it might, erm, switch hosts (for want of a better term) from Kellhus to Akka?

After Madness' comments about the set-up of pieces over the two series, I'm interested about other thematic connections between PoN and AE that people might have noticed.

Controlling fear by modifying DNA

Akka gives us three scenarios as to how the Nostal and the Meori betrayed and exterminated the nonmen of Cil Aujis.
Mimara reveals that the cause was in fact the treatment of their Eamwa slaves, that the Meori turned against their allies over this.
Perhaps when the Meori discovered the slave pits a topos was born and Gin'yursis was caught within it.  Watcher and watched; the Eamwa were bred for the sightless mines over 10,000 years then the Meori see their suffering and make it real?

But I wonder at the dragon bones in that room.  Was it attracted to the topos?

And Cleric, does he summon Gin'yursis so that he can be freed by Mimarra's judging eye?
I suspect this is the real reason he leads them through the black halls.

Unwinded, he stares with spent curiosity at the spent Men, trades a long look with the Captain before turning to scan the shrouded spaces.  There is a clarity and command in his dark eyes that she has never seen before - one that both heartens and frightens her. He seems to ponder something that only his eyes can descry.

<...>

Cleric's black eyes hold Mimara for an appraising instant.  "A kind of barracks ... I think. For ancient captives"

"A slave pit." Mimara croaks, so softly that several of the others turn to her frowning.  But she knows the Nonman has heard.

A serpentine blink. His grin reveals the arc of fused teeth ...

<He uses a Surillic Point to show her the scale of the chamber>
<Again, Mimara reflects how Cleric reminds her of Kellhus>