Quote from: Wilshire on August 09, 2017, 12:12:37 pm

Btw, if you are interested, you should check out Malazan, one of the books fairly drips with the stuff (Reaper's Gale I believe).

Now *there's* a series which disappeared up its own arse. Read all the Erikson main sequence ones, which were excellent up to book 5, then increasingly self - indulgent until the end.  The Esslemont ones were just dreadful.

I found Malazan to not so much resemble a story, but rather a series of play sessions involving a small child and a collection of action figures.  Nothing in the universe was consistent or made any kind of sense, just a string of ad hoc events playing out according to some unknowable whim.  A sort of literary version of Axe Cop.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Webcomic/AxeCop

Quote from: SuJuroit on August 08, 2017, 03:49:44 pm

Quote from: H on August 08, 2017, 03:13:51 pm

I think the point Bakker made in writing that whole part ambiguously is that there is almost no way to tell where Kellhus ends and Ajokli begins.  They are the same thing at that moment, so that line is said by both of them really.  I think it is only at the end that we see full-on Ajokli speaking, having completely overpowered Kellhus.

I agree.  Remember Nil'Giccas' scene with Akka at the end of WLW about "becoming"? 

Indeed, I made a whole thread about (mainly) it, I should probably revisit it.

That was a really good post.  Also, RSB's writing in that scene with Akka and Cleric is simply amazing.  Powerful stuff.

What good is preventing resumption if the world becomes Hell?

I think this question goes to the root of what RBS was trying to achieve.  Golgotterath is a crash space, where meaning and morality collapse.  So is it better for mankind to suffer horribly in the Inward and go extinct under Resumption?  To live normal lives in the Inward, but suffer an eternity of torment in the Pit?  To experience Hell on earth under a manifested Ajokli (that one seems like an easy call, but what becomes of the metaphysics of souls under a God manifested in the Inward?)?  I think we're meant to grapple with these questions ourselves, although it seems clear that if Kellhus chose the second option presented above, he deviated from what the rest of the Dunyain did or would have done.  We can only guess at why; he went crazy, Ajokli tricked him into it, his love of Esmenet made him do it, etc. 

First A (then who nows).

He deduced that his father would have joined forces with the Consult in the end (as in fact the dûnyain did), but he chose not to do that. If he wanted to join the Consult then why kill Möe Sr.

Right.  My take is that Kellhus really DID go insane on the Circumfix and thus chose the, "stop the Consult at all costs" path, which would otherwise make little sense to a Dunyain.  I'm convinced, based on the books and the answers RSB provided, that it was A all along.

1. If it was just the Consult, it seems like Kellhus had a decent chance of winning the encounter. But it wasn't just the decrepit Consult he was dealing with...

The Dunsult combined with all those Skin Skies in the Golden Room means Kellhus is toast without some kind of trump card (Ajokli). I don't see how with his normal powers he could have survived unless he had a God on his side.  This brings us back to another problem (if Ajokli was out of the picture)- he really should not have gone in there alone. If Serwa, Kayutas and some other heavy hitters were with him maybe he could have pulled out the win.

Right, he needed the Godpower Ajokli could provide, which is why he "struck treaties with the Pit". 

Even if he had taken everyone out in the Golden Room, the Ordeal was still stranded thousands of miles in the barren North with no food and winter on the way. No matter what the Ordeal was going to die, but Kellhus at least could have translocated to safety. (Let's also not forget the effects on the Ordeal of eating Sranc, Man, and Irridiated man. Fallout tells me eating radiated food is not good for you)

Yeah, the TTT collapsed at the Golden Room.  Presumably Kellhus could have escaped along with a tiny handful of survivors he may have valued, but that's about it.

2. There apparently was no way for him to recognize the threat of Kelmomas. This gets into the free will vs destiny stuff but assuming he had killed the child that probably ends the No God possibility right then and there, at least for a time. He wins in that outcome. If he doesn't kill Kelmomas it seems like he is fated to lose.

I agree.  Once he failed to kill Kelmomas, there was no scenario that didn't end with Kelmomas becoming the No-God and Kellhus failing.  But COULD he have killed Kelmomas, or was it fated that Kelmomas become the No-God, period, full stop?

3. Kellhus knows about Topoi but somehow did not foresee Ajokli being very strong in Golgotterath and taking over? Unless he knew it would happen and was again, willing to take that chance?

Between Kellhus knowing more than any other man and the information in the Decapitants glossary entry, I have to assume that Kellhus was aware of the possibility.  My best guess is that he either assumed he could prevent Ajokli from manifesting or that he figured that even if Ajokli did manifest, they shared the same goal of preventing Resumption, so yeah, it would suck for mankind (and probably Kellhus), but stopping Resumption justified any risk, any cost.

4. Even if Kellhus prevails in the Golden Room, he still needs to do something about the Horde 2.0 which is right there, facing a hemmed in Golgotterath Ordeal...massive problem for him to deal with even with his abilities.

The TTT ended in the Golden Room.  If he succeeds in the Golden Room, the Horde 2.0 could devour the rest of the Ordeal and it would have been a success.  Stopping Resumption was the goal, not preserving the Ordeal.

5. The big trouble with all permutations of this is that he is still damned at the end of it.

Maybe?  He did strike treaties with the Pit and all, and he saw himself descending as Hunger in the Outside, so perhaps he'd successfully avoided damnation?  The biggest question though is why take this path at all?  Best case he's saved humans from extinction, but consigned almost everybody alive to damnation, including uncountable numbers of future humans.  Hard to explain this decision on the part of Kellhus other than throwing up our hands and saying, "He went insane!".

I never bought a figurine but I swear by the Hundred that I would buy a fucking whole horde of sranc if available.

I'd totally buy a sranc figurine, but between RSB being RSB and the fact that sranc are typically depicted as naked and with raging erections, I'm not super optimistic.

How about a Circumfix T-shirt?

Well, or alternatively, for the sake of argument, Kellhus doesn't care about damnation for everyone else. Or even wants it.

RSB's comparison of Kellhus to Sorweel under the Amiolas might be meaningful here.  Sorweel started out hating Kellhus, then was convinced by the Amiolas that Kellhus was on the side of right and good, then wound up being subverted by Yatwer and died trying to kill Kellhus.

Perhaps Kellhus initially was repulsed by the Consult and truly intended to stop their evil ways but was gradually suborned by Ajokli without his full knowledge or control.  Perhaps by the very end he was no more in control than Sorweel was in the moments before his death.  Just a puppet for who knows how long, right up until Ajokli took over in truth.

It isn't that the existence of atemporal beings denies free will, it is that free will (in the form of the nondeterministic No-God and its slaves) transforms those eternal beings, makes them over again every time they interact.

Great point.

Kellhus isn't an AI though. That's the lie he told himself as a Dunyain. Moenghus recognized vestigial passions still ruled even a Dunyain. Kellhus did not until he went mad and told himself he was a prophet instead, which still put himself beyond such flaws.

Kellhus excels at the analytical aspects the Dunyain breed for but he is poor at self analysis and prone to breaking. He even very rarely experiences something almost akin to love or pity. Frankly, he's not a very good Dunyain.

Agreed.  What's interesting is that this emotion and passion appears to be increasing in subsequent generations of Anasurimbors.  Koringhus, although a towering prodigy among the Dunyain, shocks himself by going back for his infant son and taking on the immense burdens of feeding him, teaching him, hiding him, etc.  Crabicus, in turn, was actually defective, unable to "deny the interval between" himself and his father; "The boy clutches his tunic with both hands, hale and halved.  He cannot help himself.  He is defective."  The clear implication is that love, emotion, passion are enough to cause the Dunyain to consider one defective.

Compare all that with Moenghus the elder, who was a Dunyain's Dunyain.