Dunyain Weakness

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SilentRoamer

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« Reply #60 on: March 31, 2015, 06:20:20 pm »
Interesting wording Wilshire - "make her appear sane".

So I assume by this you infer she is not entirely sane? We are back to the question of what is an "insane" Dunyain.

I think when measuring Kellhus children we should take him to measure as well - yes he is Dunyain, but he was once just a child, yeah maybe the prodigy child - but he was always prone to bouts of emotion.

Just find it interesting - that is all.

Wilshire

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« Reply #61 on: April 01, 2015, 05:49:22 pm »
By that I meant that she appears human, so circumventing the entire dunyain conversation :P.

She looks sane - human - as Maithanet does: the layman looks upon them and does not see some obvious flaw that would be expected to be seen in a not-entirely-sane person.
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The Sharmat

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« Reply #62 on: May 20, 2015, 02:38:00 am »
Her brother says she's insane.

mrganondorf

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« Reply #63 on: June 02, 2015, 05:27:16 pm »
I disagree...for them to successfully stop 'feeling', they must be able to distinguish feelings they see on each other's faces...a bit like you cant write anything meaningful without knowing how to read...Kellhus is fallible definitely...but i'd say his fallibility 'reduced' as he got older and learned more stuff...i believe his TTT took into account the Gods and even the necessary sranc-eating...Did he get deceived by Yatwer? I doubt it...even if Kellhus saw every sign of sincerity on his face, there's no way Sorweel could have turned so quickly and so completely...He anticipated the Gods' interference and thus he would be on the lookout for any weird stuff among the Believer-Kings...
I agree with pretty much all of that, expect that framing it as "kellhus' TTT" might not be technically correct, but does establish the spirit of what you are saying. Just as TS pointed out:
We never actually see Kellhus grasp the Thousandfold Thought, or understand what that means. All we see is Kellhus deciding he's grasped it.
To me, TTT is just a different way of describing a deep delving into the probability trance, but this definition is hardly the most accepted one. Whatever you want to call it though, what you have described seems to be plausible.

Also, we know that not only Kellhus can see that something is wrong (or at least 'not right') with Sorweel, but also his children, who are only half-dunyain. If Serwe has a mini breakdown trying to discern his true feelings in TUC, then I am 100% sure Kellhus knows something is wrong and is/will be re-formatting his plan to take him into account.

Does Kellhus know the Gods will vie against him? Absolutely. Once he knew that the Gods were actually real he must have come to that conclusion. That doesn't mean he knows exactly how, who, where, or when they will try to interfere, it doesn't mean he knew that Sorweel would become an agent of Yatwer or any other god, and it certainly doesn't mean that he has plans in place to counter every move they might make. What it does mean is that when something like Sorweel shows up, he won't go into ultra-panic mode and shut down.

If nothing else, Kellhus has an acute mastery of the probability trance and has spent decades planning this war. Therefore he has a spectacular ability to plan moves far in advance and will have many contingency plans in cast events don't go the way he originally hoped. The trouble with the probability trance is that its a function of... probabilities. Think back to Moenghus, who had some 30 years to plan. Ostensibly, he failed to consider that Kellhus would come to him "mad"/"broken" from the journey, and it cost him his life. Maybe that was a sure bet, 1 million to 1 odds that Kellhus would break, or maybe it was 50/50, doesn't matter. When something so fundamental goes wrong early on and is not discovered until late in the game, all your planning is for naught.

This is certainly a huge weakness when coupled with the fact that Kellhus is really bad at noticing his own faults/errors/shortcomings, which leaves an opening if things don't go the way he has meticulously planned.

there's no way Moenghus didn't plan for the possibility of Kellhus breaking!  the Cishaurim were there at Caraskand!  they certainly weren't helping the Padirajah, and Moenghus had to have known that Kellhus was hanging on the Circumfix, but Moe did nothing to cut him down!  hanging on the Circumfix for as long as he did, had to represent a significant chance of 'breaking'


on an unrelated point: it would be kind of neat if Serwe's long con is to convince everyone that she has human emotion when she really has even less than Kayutas!

mrganondorf

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« Reply #64 on: June 02, 2015, 06:05:17 pm »
Apparently a more subtle imposition than when she handed him the chorae, though. That one had dramatic effects. Apparently even a God can only force the objective frame of the world so far.

could you say more!  i don't get it!

Wilshire

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« Reply #65 on: June 04, 2015, 12:38:27 pm »
Everything in the Moe/Kell conversation pointed to Moe back peddling. I would be impressed if you could find anything in the text from that that scene that suggests in any way that Moenghus was lying about Kellhus showing up broken.

You cannot track every possibility. Assumptions must be made. Moenghus made the wrong assumption and died for his miscalculations. No Dunyain is omniscient, and sometimes the dice just don't roll the way you want.
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Blackstone

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« Reply #66 on: March 31, 2016, 11:09:43 pm »


[/quote]

Kellhus spent much time and effort developing the entire school from nothing. He had to personally train every witch until there were enough to carry on the task. He built that school to be entirely independant from every other one, and wouldn't have risk their influence in having them teach his students. Kellhus must have been deeply involved with Serwa's upbringing, both in the school and in the various dunyain trainings that now make her appear sane.
[/quote]

Do you have a location for this, because I don't remember it.

I think she IS more human than most of the other kids. Esmi thinks back to how even when Serwa was a baby, she showed signs of humanity and the ability to love.
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mrganondorf

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« Reply #67 on: April 01, 2016, 12:26:45 am »
@ Wilshire - I'm not sure I could provide the proof you want!  My reading is that Moenghus is playing a role for the whole conversation.  I think that everything he says is a lie.

I agree with you that not even a Dunyain could track every possibility, but the possibility that Kellhus would be broken by the trial would be a big big possibility to ignore.  Anywayz, I thinks Moe manufactured the breakdown.  I read that final conversation as Moe speaking semi-scripted lines to test if Kellhus will produce the predicted responses.  Playing weak is a Dunyain thing!

Hi Blackstone!  I find Serwe so fascinating.  Maybe she'll be blinded and become a necromancer or Cishaurim.

Blackstone

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« Reply #68 on: April 01, 2016, 02:27:43 pm »
@ Wilshire - I'm not sure I could provide the proof you want!  My reading is that Moenghus is playing a role for the whole conversation.  I think that everything he says is a lie.

I agree with you that not even a Dunyain could track every possibility, but the possibility that Kellhus would be broken by the trial would be a big big possibility to ignore.  Anywayz, I thinks Moe manufactured the breakdown.  I read that final conversation as Moe speaking semi-scripted lines to test if Kellhus will produce the predicted responses.  Playing weak is a Dunyain thing!

Hi Blackstone!  I find Serwe so fascinating.  Maybe she'll be blinded and become a necromancer or Cishaurim.

I'm in the camp that Moe really was weak for a Cishaurim and that the Psukhe is (on average) one of the weaker magics. I think Moe chose the longest path.

If there was ever a chance to see the Meta-Psukhe, I think it would be with Serwa. She is the only one of the (half) Dunyain to show the requisite passion that would be necessary to be powerful in that magic. But doesn't it require passion in regards to the Solitary God?
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Wilshire

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« Reply #69 on: April 01, 2016, 05:42:37 pm »
Yeah passion akin to religious fervor is how I read it.

I don't think the mechanics of the Psuhke allow for a meta- prefix. Its just stronger via more passion. Its not like you can add a 3rd inutteral string of more passion-y words - if they in fact even use the same structure.
« Last Edit: April 01, 2016, 05:50:59 pm by Wilshire »
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Blackstone

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« Reply #70 on: April 01, 2016, 05:46:38 pm »
Yeah passion akin to religious fervor is how I read it.

I don't think the mechanics of the Psuhke allow for a meta- prefix. Its just stronger via more passion. Its not like you can add a 3rd inutteral string of more passion-y words.

That is probably correct.
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The Sharmat

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« Reply #71 on: April 21, 2016, 04:30:38 pm »
I dunno. Maybe the Psukhe works off emotional dissonance? Then a batshit crazy person like Cnaiur would be great at it.

If there was ever a chance to see the Meta-Psukhe, I think it would be with Serwa. She is the only one of the (half) Dunyain to show the requisite passion that would be necessary to be powerful in that magic. But doesn't it require passion in regards to the Solitary God?
Kelmomas and Samarmas seem as much if not more passionate and are one(?) of the Few. And no, Titirga in the Atrocity Tales had something akin to a Gnostic Psukhe variant and he didn't have faith in the Solitary God.
« Last Edit: April 21, 2016, 04:32:27 pm by The Sharmat »

Wilshire

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« Reply #72 on: April 21, 2016, 04:42:00 pm »
I dunno. Maybe the Psukhe works off emotional dissonance? Then a batshit crazy person like Cnaiur would be great at it.

If there was ever a chance to see the Meta-Psukhe, I think it would be with Serwa. She is the only one of the (half) Dunyain to show the requisite passion that would be necessary to be powerful in that magic. But doesn't it require passion in regards to the Solitary God?
Kelmomas and Samarmas seem as much if not more passionate and are one(?) of the Few. And no, Titirga in the Atrocity Tales had something akin to a Gnostic Psukhe variant and he didn't have faith in the Solitary God.

I think thats a wishful interpretation of TFS. Titirga was more powerful, and had an odd mark, but the words - the utterals and inutterals - were the old gnostic cants of the nonmen.

The most powerful anagogic sorcerer might be more powerful than the weakest gnostic, but that doesn't mean he is using the gnosis. The words and their meaning is what determines that, not the power of the dispensation.
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H

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« Reply #73 on: April 21, 2016, 04:59:11 pm »
I think it is hard to drawn hard conclusions from Titirga because I have a feeling that he is an outlier in every sense.  I think the lesson we learn from him is that something akin to the Psukhe existed in the past, but it was rare and not well understood.
I am a warrior of ages, Anasurimbor. . . ages. I have dipped my nimil in a thousand hearts. I have ridden both against and for the No-God in the great wars that authored this wilderness. I have scaled the ramparts of great Golgotterath, watched the hearts of High Kings break for fury. -Cet'ingira

Blackstone

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« Reply #74 on: April 21, 2016, 05:21:43 pm »
Where is this idea about a Psukhe-Gnosis hybrid coming from? Titirga was a gnostic sorcerer. The difference what that his meanings were so unadulterated that his Mark appeared different.
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