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The Great Ordeal / [TGO Spoilers] Prophecy as viramsata
« on: October 29, 2015, 02:12:56 pm »
So, from the earliest days of reading TTT, something has always sort of bothered me:
This never made any sense to me. Moe is certainly misleading him here. He knows that Prophecy is real, because he'll later tell Kellhus how this is so:
Prophecy is real. It doesn't violate the principle of Before and After. It's simply a story, crafted to put this who hear it at pains to exact it. Kellhus realizes this, because he will later do exactly this, craft a story to have people do exactly what he wants.
The Celmomian Prophecy was what started it all. The Celmomian Prophecy is a lie, it is simply Seswatha's way of casting his will into the future. The question is, does Kellhus realize this? I think the answer is that he thinks he does. He thinks he has out thought Seswatha though. Remember, Moe tells him, point blank, "nothing violates the Principle of Before and After." Kellhus thinks he knows all the before of Seswatha. He can't, because almost everything he/we know of Seswatha is a lie or misdirection. Kellhus can't truly precede "what comes before" simply because he can't/doesn't know what it really was. He imagines he does, but I don't think he truly does.
My crack-pot theory is on record that while Kellhus thinks he walks the trackless steppe, Seswatha has really preceded him at basically every turn.
Quote
“But on the Plains of Mengedda,” he said. “The Shrial Knights … What I prophesied came to pass.” To the worldborn these words would have sounded blank, devoid of concern or occasion. But to a Dûnyain …
Let him think I waver.
“A fortuitous Correspondence of Cause,” Moënghus replied, “nothing more. That which comes before yet determines that which comes after. How else could you have achieved all that you have achieved? How else could you be possible?”
He was right. Prophecy could not be. If the ends of things governed their beginnings, if what came after determined what came before, then how could he have mastered the souls of so many? And how could the Thousandfold Thought come to rule the Three Seas? The Principle of Before and After simply had to be true, if its presumption could so empower …
His father had to be right.
So what was this certainty, this immovable conviction, that he was wrong?
Am I mad?
This never made any sense to me. Moe is certainly misleading him here. He knows that Prophecy is real, because he'll later tell Kellhus how this is so:
Quote
“Have you heard of a game played in southern Nilnamesh, a game called viramsata, or ‘many-breaths’?”
“No.”
“Across the plains surrounding the city of Invishi, the ruling caste-nobles are very remote, very effete. The narcotics they cultivate assure them of the obedience of their populations. Over the centuries they have elaborated jnan to the point where it has eclipsed their old faiths. Entire lives are spent in what we would call gossip. But viramsata is far different from the rumours of the court or the clucking of harem-eunuchs—far more. The players of viramsata have made games of truth. They tell lies about who said what to whom, about who makes love to whomever, and so on. They do this continually, and what is more, they are at pains to act out the lies told by others, especially when they are elegant, so they might make them true. And so it goes from tongue to lip to tongue, until no distinction remains between what is a lie and what is true.
Prophecy is real. It doesn't violate the principle of Before and After. It's simply a story, crafted to put this who hear it at pains to exact it. Kellhus realizes this, because he will later do exactly this, craft a story to have people do exactly what he wants.
The Celmomian Prophecy was what started it all. The Celmomian Prophecy is a lie, it is simply Seswatha's way of casting his will into the future. The question is, does Kellhus realize this? I think the answer is that he thinks he does. He thinks he has out thought Seswatha though. Remember, Moe tells him, point blank, "nothing violates the Principle of Before and After." Kellhus thinks he knows all the before of Seswatha. He can't, because almost everything he/we know of Seswatha is a lie or misdirection. Kellhus can't truly precede "what comes before" simply because he can't/doesn't know what it really was. He imagines he does, but I don't think he truly does.
My crack-pot theory is on record that while Kellhus thinks he walks the trackless steppe, Seswatha has really preceded him at basically every turn.