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« on: March 11, 2021, 03:20:36 am »
@TaoHorror - Can’t remember where, but there are passage(s) that talk about the ttt being a living thing. I’m not sure that Kellhus was deluded, just caught unawares … that skin spy reaches out to him from an unseen corner just like wlw got Maithanet (the unseen corner in every room). Kellhus failing to pull off the ttt as he intended it but succeeding from the pov that his death causes more belief than his life would be a very Bakker thing to do.
@ H - I think you put you’re finger right on it—Bakker’s pessimism. All 7 books take us to the Golden Room where we find Science vs Religion. Humanity is fucked either way. Science exterminates the possibility of eternity. Religion means humans are the playthings of greater beings (this is the ugly possibility hiding behind every religion—any promises of paradise are only good of the Speaker is hones and keeps their word and no higher court can compel them to, Jesus could have come to Earth just to deceive, which makes me want to call and check on my family). Science beats Religion in the Golden Room, I think, because Earwa is a commentary on this world. Religion held sway for most of the time but now Science is supplanting a lot of it.
Wouldn’t it be something if Kellhus orchestrated (successfully but we don’t know his plan yet) the whole thing as a way to get Serwe back? It’s too sweet for Bakker but it’s a neat possibility that isn’t yet extinguished. Sometimes Kellhus really did seem inclined to her beyond his Dunyainity.
I get the feeling that the next 3 books tell the story of the unlikely victory over New Mog only to end when a second golden ark lands.
Back to what I said earlier, “humanity is fucked either way,” I think Bakker identifies with Akka, the guy in the middle. Opposed to the Consult but no friend of the gods who would damn him, a man caught in the middle. Perhaps things end with Akka musing about how Seswatha’s line, “though you lose your soul you will gain the world” is ultimately just a piece of fabricated bullshit, a necessary bit of propaganda for the catechism to perpetuate an impossible middle way.
@H again - Jesus H…”So, where I want to say it makes sense for Mimara and the Eye to have some major role/impact, that point is trivially easy to be negated where it simply makes no difference at all and that is the real point.” Damn I love reading your commentary.
Also, it’s neat to think about how the Consult-Dunyain where just playing Kellhus (albeit they were executing a plan they had come up with mere minutes before because Kel could not have been there long). They must have suspected that Kellhus had an ace up his sleeve even if they didn’t know it was Ajokli because there’s no way he just waltzes into a room full of skin spies armed with chorae without some kind of leverage. There’s no indication that he could have put up his detritus globe like he did at the end of TTT. The aspect emperor got straight up played (supposing of course he wasn’t intending on his own salting).
Also, I assume that all of the Consult-Dunyain that were not sorcerers DID have chorae, but it just didn’t matter when Kellhus came for that one because he was channeling hell—like the way Akka says a single chorae would not have mattered against the shade of Cil-Aujus.