For a long time now, I've had this feeling that the story of
why Moënghus left Ishuäl simply didn't really add up. Prima facie, it seems plausible that to keep Dûnyain society effectively isolated, outside influence must be avoided at any cost. Compromised individuals must be eliminated, lest the whole endeavor necessarily fail. However, some aspect of why Moënghus
left don't really jive with that.
Let's start with what we're told:
“The Dûnyain have hidden from the world for two millennia, and they would remain hidden, if they could, for all eternity. Yet thirty-one years ago, while I was still but a child, we were discovered by a band of Sranc. The Sranc were easily destroyed, but as a precaution, my father was sent into the wilderness to ascertain the extent of our exposure. When he returned some months later, it was decided that he must be exiled. He’d been contaminated, had become a threat to our mission. Three decades passed, and it was assumed he’d perished.”
So, previous to a close reading of this paragraph, I had the mistaken assumption that it was encountering the Sranc that lead to Moë leaving, but this is not the case at all. That stands to reason, encountering Sranc would be little different than encounting a pack of wolves, especially if one never bothered to learn Aghurzoi, the Sranc language. I mean, it is plausible that even knowledge of Sranc would be something of an outside influence, but I don't believe they were unaware of Sranc, so their continued existence would not be much of a shock.
On that point, Kellhus doesn't question Leweth when he speaks of Sranc, only show unfamiliarity with their particulars when Leweth points out their particulars. This, to me, speaks to Kellhus knowledge of Sranc in the intellectual sense, but unfamiliar with the practicalities and particulars of them. That is something of an aside though.
So, going back to the above quote, Moënghus leaves Ishuäl to investigate the Sranc's finding of them, so what would he presumably do? Track them backwards, to see where they came from. There are a few obvious options on what he would find would plausibly include:
More Sranc
More Sranc, but lead by Ursranc.
More Sranc, but lead by a Nonman.
A human settlement.
Human ruins.
Nonman ruins.
In the first two cases, there is little to suggest why Moënghus would need to be exiled. Even if he learned Aghurzoi, what might a Sranc or Ursranc tell him that would lead him taint him?
If he met a Nonman, he could have learned of sorcery.
If he met a human, he could have learned of history. The same for the ruins of the former Kûniüri empire and so the lineage of the Anasûrimbor. Plausibly, something of the same for Nonman ruins.
None of this really seems all
that tainting. But wait, we once asked Bakker about this very
topic.
Isolation from external causes is the key to the original Dunyain mission. Allowing Moenghus back in would have been tantamount to allowing every he had experienced back in.
My emphasis added. My above analysis is presuming that it was something Moënghus
learned that lead him to not be fit to be allowed back to Ishuäl. But cagey, cagey Bakker points out, it was what Moë
experienced that left him unfit for return.
I asked Bakker, in that thread a follow up question:
I never doubted this. However, I have, at times, doubted the wisdom of allowing a Dunyain to exist in the wild, from their perspective.
It's hard to imagine them not considering the risks in allowing someone with knowledge of Ishual's location to simply walk out. Why didn't they force him into the Thousand-Thousand Halls, like the Pragma did when he polluted them in turn? I've come up with some conspiracy theories on this, because it seems somewhat unfathomable that they didn't consider the risk in allowing him to leave.
They had no difficulty killing themselves afterward, and he was their better, so why assume he would have difficulty?
So, wait, I took this to mean that Moënghus was yet another Anasûrimbor prodigy and so the Pragma felt no right to demand he kill himself. I don't this is what he meant though. It wouldn't make much sense to allow a prodigy to go on a seemingly suicidal mission to scout out Sranc anyway.
No, I think, again, Bakker is being cagey with his wording here.
Moënghus didn't leave Ishuäl the first time as their better, he returned to Ishuäl as their better.What? Why would tracking Sranc
better Moënghus?
Because, just as Kellhus learned when he left Ishuäl, Moënghus
experienced domination. He experienced that Sranc could be manipulated (as his latter appearance to Scylvendi in the "captivity" of Sranc shows). He probably experienced that world-born men could be dominated as if children. He returned to Ishuäl knowing full well that he was
more, the full power of the Dûnyain. The Logos unleashed.
He had a taste of the
power that the Logos offers. Why give it up? Rather, he
chose to leave Ishuäl. This is also why he
chose to head south. He must have known that was where human civilization was. He would go there and he would dominate it. A Dûnyainic dynasty to lead and guide Men. But he made the first major blunder with choosing the Psûkhe and so the rest is history, as they say.