Earwa > The Almanac: TAE Edition

The Slog WLW - Chapter 15 [Spoilers]

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H:
Chapter 15:


--- Quote ---The hulking Nonman made a gesture that possessed the character of a shrug. "Fallen? No. Turned. In the absence of recollection my brothers have turned to tyranny... To Min-Uroikas."
--- End quote ---

Is this true?  Or a lie that the Captain told him to keep him from returning to Ishterebinth?  When Aurang speaks of it, he says they "have spies in Ishterebinth" not that the whole of it has come to them.  Why would they spy on Nin-Ciljiras if the whole of Ishterebinth was in league with them?  No, this is a lie, or a misunderstanding.  Something, but not a truth.


--- Quote ---"Why?" he asked. "Why would you lament our death when it was Men, not the Inchoroi, who destroyed all your great mansions?"
--- End quote ---

Oh, if only they knew, as we know, that the Inchoroi are well and truly at fault for the Tusk and the enmity of Men.


--- Quote ---Scales like overlapping shields, pale with filth and bronze.
--- End quote ---


--- Quote ---The Dragon stirred upon its heap, raised its armoured chest on limbs crooked and knotted like hoary old treetrunks.
--- End quote ---

My theory has always been that Wracu are something of Tekne "cyborgs" of sorts, biological beings, but enhanced with "upgrades" to make them much tougher, able to withstand sorcery.


--- Quote ---It differed from the ancient Dragons of his Dreams—no surprise given the florid diversity characteristic of the species.
--- End quote ---

This is interesting.  I wonder if they were made purposely different, like accumulations of certain grafts?


--- Quote ---And a mane of black iron tusks flared from its brows, bloomed into chattering skirts along the back of the beast's skull.
--- End quote ---

Again, more reference to the fact that he is ensconced in metal.  No wonder they can withstand so much, he is essentially a literal tank.


--- Quote ---"SO DOES FANCY BECOME SCRIPTURE..."
The old Wizard grappled with his anger, the urge to retort. The Coffers! he reminded himself, hearing Sarl's crazed voice as he did so. The Coffers!
"SO DOES GREED BECOME GOD."
--- End quote ---

Never quite caught this before, but foreshadowing?  Is this a reference to Kellhus?  His Thousandfold Thought is becoming scripture and while part of that is a need of the world, it is mostly his fancy, his whole plan being far more (at least in my mind) than just the defeat of the Consult.  Taken as such then, Kellhus' lust for domination, of both the Inside and Outside, the greed of power becoming a God?


--- Quote ---"Wutteät."
Like some beast in nocturnal seas, the Wracu shrank into the darkness. Laughter like sloughing cliffsides crashed through the ancient hollows.
"He dies from the outside," Cleric said, "because Hell sustains him from within."
"CUNNING..." the Wracu groaned out from the black. "CUNNING-CUNNING ISHROI!"
--- End quote ---

Just a thought, since I have speculated that the Inverse Fire is what "powers" the Wracu, but also perhaps what allows them to breathe fire?


--- Quote ---"I am Quya!" the Nonman King cried from places unseen. "I am Ishroi! Five of your sons and daughters have I slain!"
--- End quote ---

Hmm, fascinating.  Certainly these are Wracu whose names we do not know, at least, according to the list I had made.


--- Quote ---"FOOL. I AM THE FIRST. MY HIDE IS BRONZE. MY BONES ARE IRON!"
--- End quote ---

OK, Wutteät, we get it, you are made of metal,  ::)  :D


--- Quote ---"SUCH THINGS THAT I REMEMBER, CÛNUROI! TWISTING IN THE VOID FOR SAILING AGES! WATCHING MY MAKERS DESCEND AS LOCUSTS UPON WORLD AFTER WORLD, REDUCING EACH TO ONE HUNDRED AND FORTY-FOUR THOUSAND—AND WAILING TO FIND THEMSELVES STILL DAMNED!"
--- End quote ---

Proof that the 144,000 prophecy predates the arrival in Earwa.


--- Quote ---Koll falls backward but somehow rolls back onto his feet. With his free hand he clutches the shaft. Pulls.
Screams.
The fingers of his face break apart, then fly open.
--- End quote ---

I totally forgot this part before this reread.


--- Quote ---"You think me the cripple!" Nil'giccas cried. "You think Cleric the ruin of someone whole! But you are wrong, Seswatha! I am the Truth!"
--- End quote ---

Implying that Men are the cripples.


--- Quote ---"We are Many!" the Erratic roared. "We are legion! What you call your soul is nothing but a confusion, an inability! A plurality that cannot count the moments that divide it and so calls itself One."
--- End quote ---

So, the madness of an Erratic is the truest form?


--- Quote ---"Only when memory is stripped away!" Cleric cried out, the glow fading from his eyes. "Only then is Being revealed as pure Becoming! Only when the past dies can we shrug aside the burden that is our Soul!"

[...]

"Only then does the Darkness sing untrammelled!" Cleric cried. "Only then!"
--- End quote ---

Wow, here he is basically informing us that memory is an agent of the darkness that comes before.  That minus memory, they are actually self-moving souls, free to Become.  That Becoming is close to the Absolute?  Man, this is not as strait forward as it seemed.  Allowing the "Darkness to sing" is allowing the true essence of Being to manifest without being shaped by the Soul?  But the Soul is the Darkness, or so we were lead to believe?  Perhaps not though, what comes before the Soul then, the Darkness?


--- Quote ---"And yet you seek memories!" the Wizard cried, at last delivered to tears.
"To be! Being is not a choice!"
"But you claim Being is deception!"
"Yes!"
"But that is nonsense! Madness!"
Again the Nonman King laughed.
"That is Becoming."
--- End quote ---

So, you have to choice but to try to remember?  No choice but to be?  But the madness, the fact that they cannot simple just be, is the path to Becoming?


--- Quote ---But it is at one with her, the centring counterweight, the ligament that binds her to future and fate.
--- End quote ---

Again, we know that Mimara's baby must be very important, but just some textual evidence.


--- Quote ---At last they find it, the golden map-case from Achamian's Dreams.
"It's broken," he murmurs with something resembling horror.
--- End quote ---

What is the significance of it being broken though?  The map is still intact.  But is it just a momentary foreshadowing, that of coming "Doom" since it is broken?


--- Quote ---By some miracle an oak leaf falls before her, swinging to and fro through the air. She picks it out of emptiness. Purple lines vein the lobes of waxy green.
--- End quote ---

An allusion to the leaf that Kellhus finds in TTT?  Purple paths?  I don't quite get it.

MSJ:

--- Quote ---She clutches her belly. She assumed she would feel it hang from her as she ran, the life she carried. But it is at one with her, the centring counterweight, the ligament that binds her to future and fate.
--- End quote ---

This seems, to me, to confirm that indeed Mimara's baby is going to play a huge role in the future.

Bolivar:

--- Quote ---"SO DOES FANCY BECOME SCRIPTURE..."
The old Wizard grappled with his anger, the urge to retort. The Coffers! he reminded himself, hearing Sarl's crazed voice as he did so. The Coffers!
"SO DOES GREED BECOME GOD."
--- End quote ---

I mentioned earlier in the Slog that the first chapter of TJE opens in a similar way, about how want and whim become need and warrant. Then it sets up how the Ordeal was called.

It also sounds like a play on "greed is good," the mantra of materialism - both the argument for unregulated commerce and the way our western ideology interprets the world and human history.

 
--- Quote from: H ---Wow, here he is basically informing us that memory is an agent of the darkness that comes before.  That minus memory, they are actually self-moving souls, free to Become.  That Becoming is close to the Absolute?  Man, this is not as strait forward as it seemed.  Allowing the "Darkness to sing" is allowing the true essence of Being to manifest without being shaped by the Soul?  But the Soul is the Darkness, or so we were lead to believe?  Perhaps not though, what comes before the Soul then, the Darkness?
--- End quote ---

I think that's one of the themes of TAE, memory and how it reinforces our sense of self. It's similar to his sermon in Cil-Aujas and what Mekeritrig says in the Dagliash dream in TTT. Sad to see Nil'Giccas end the same way, a hero of the past who seeks out pain and destruction.

Regarding the Cleric Suicide theory:


--- Quote ---“What just happened?” Nil’giccas gasped, hacking gouts of blood with the words . His lips worked about the glistening arc of his fused teeth. “Wh-what just …”
--- End quote ---

I don't know, sounds like something else might have intervened, although Achamian doesn't seem aware of anything amiss.

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