[Aural]

The only reason I doubt the Wutteät destroyed it theory is the feeling I have that nothing random is happening in this series. Everything has been calculated by someone somewhere If not Kellhus, then the Dunyain themselves.

[Wilshire]

Pretty much the only reason I think its possible is because it would me Akka basically caused it himself, and I think there is just enough irony there for it to be possible. I agree, however, that it is seems more likely to have happened because someone caused it far more directly.

[mrganondorf]

Pretty much the only reason I think its possible is because it would me Akka basically caused it himself, and I think there is just enough irony there for it to be possible. I agree, however, that it is seems more likely to have happened because someone caused it far more directly.

I like the irony in that and it has some tantalizing implications:

Akka/Cleric causes Wutteat to flee Sauglish, Wutteat is heading home to the Ark?, sniffs/hears the Dunyain residence, descends and wreaks havoc, can tell there's something uncanny about the place, flies to Golgotterath to report, Consult releases a force to investigate, the forward scouting party of that force is what Mimara and Akka flee (that's why those sranc have chorae)...

Akka and Mim find Ishual, are soon besieged by Consult force, flee into the depths of the Thousand Thousand Halls, meet Dunyain, everyone heads off up the Ishterebinth tunnel with sranc on their heels (reminding us of Cil-Aujus).

PLUS!  The investigating force will be headed by some cool Consult member like Mekeritrig, Nin'janjin, or Aurax.

[Francis Buck]

I just can't see Kellhus not finding a use for them. Any use. Even just tools or breeding stock. He clearly has need of things he can bonk successfully enough to make babies. He needs people who can manipulate others for him at a lower level when he's not around. He needs assassins. He needs spies. He needs guards (for important dudes). He needs people that can see skinspies. He needs sorcerers and being the Few seems to be genetic...so some surely must be good candidates. I just can't imagine him being so...unimaginative as to go in and kill everyone and blow everything up. Maybe he took the useful ones and destroyed the rest.

I think the issue for me with this line of reasoning is that, in reality, we don't know if Kellhus needs those resources. Who says he needs any more Dunyain? If Kellhus truly has seen the Shortest Path (which I interpret as him becoming the God), and everything -- or at least most of -- what is happening is due to his own planning, then he really needs nothing more than, well, what he needs. Kellhus does not operate the way a normal person does. He wouldn't bother gathering resources he doesn't require if they aren't necessary to achieve his goal, and so far we see no reason why he needs the other Dunyain to achieve that goal. Of course, this applies to virtually everything about Kellhus and his plans, post-Circumfixion. Why didn't he leave any Chorae in the New Empire? Surely it makes logical sense to have left some, no? But that's the point. Kellhus's "logic" is beyond that of a normal human. If Kellhus really is in control, then nothing is by accident. Why didn't Kellhus make greater advances in technology to better arm the Ordeal? Because he didn't need to. He saw the Path, and now he is walking it. Everything is "going according to plan". So really, it's impossible to tell what Kellhus did or did not NEED until we see what he's actually trying to do, and if he achieves it. If Kellhus fails, then the conversation becomes one of "what he did wrong", and then we can start talking about what he should of/would of/could of. But if Kellhus does achieve his goal, then nothing else matters.

[Cüréthañ]

I'll further that.
Moenghus requested only one Dunyain - his son. So by both his and Kellhus' appraisal, only one is required for the purposes of TTT.  Adding more Dunyain probably only serves to enlarge the chances of a struggle for primacy, evidence being Moenghus' fate.

Incidentaly, I think that it hasn't been noted by anyone that the name of Ansurimbor is probably borne by the majority of the Dunyain by the time of AM and AK because the original scion was probably prime breeding stock. Assuming that the Dunyain carefully track and control successful lines whilst limiting the effects of breeding closely related individuals (to avoid inbreeding and crazy mutations), I think it's reasonable to assume that at least 50% of them are direct descendants.  I'm pretty sketchy about such things, so do correct my assumptions if you know more.

[Wilshire]

Yeah if you look at what happened to both the Dunyain that ended up in the world, and even the 1/2 dunyain, I can see why Kellhus wouldn't want more. They are hard to condition, and the Dunyain live in a black-and-white world, meaning that either you agree with them completely or you are wrong. Kellhus might not have the time/energy/need to risk having a cadre of Dunyain subverting him at all times.

As for the bloodlines, I've made my arguments elsewhere, but basically all the Dunyain would be related but not to a huge extent (with careful breeding controls). Now, the surname question is interesting to me.

It seems very un-Dunyain to have a surname.
Not sure how useful the patriarchal way of the woman taking the man's name is, especially for the dunyain. The name would be meaningless after 2000 years, since all Dunyain would trace back their ancestry to the Anasurimbor Scion. There certainly aren't enough Dunyain that they need the surname to differentiate peoples, and I doubt there is much of a family structure to warrant the name either.

The only useful thing I can think of for the surname is to denote current breeding statistics, where the surname is simply assigned to each generation based on their specific genetic make-up. Something along the lines of, Dunyain child XXY exhibits phenotypically Anasurimbor traits and/or was breed to have specific traits common to that line, and therefore his assigned name is Anasurimbor XXY.
Even then,  though, its unlikely that any of them have a particular attachment to their name, and it just seems a bit absurd to think that they carry that name around with them in their daily life.
Maybe Anasurimbor is actually a title given to the most proficient child  of each passing "class", and has nothing to do with bloodlines. But, again, why bother? Its just a name. A word used for control.

[mrganondorf]

I second this!

It seems very un-Dunyain to have a surname.

It makes me think that the senior Dunyain were conditioning Kellhus from the beginning to go out into the world, sewing the seeds to make him believe he is the harbinger/savior.

I don't see why Kellhus couldn't use other Dunyain.  He wouldn't be meeting them as equals because of the gnosis.  Perhaps we would be inclined to kill off the Pragma and others, but there would be a lot of defectives that would be useful and manipulable. 

For my own part, I think they destroyed Ishual themselves shortly after Kellhus left to convince him that he was the only one whenever he would teleport back to visit/report/convert/whatever.

[The Sharmat]

The only reason I doubt the Wutteät destroyed it theory is the feeling I have that nothing random is happening in this series. Everything has been calculated by someone somewhere If not Kellhus, then the Dunyain themselves.

You say this, but many things have transpired by accident outside of Dunyain calculation. They are not Gods. They're not quite human, but they're not Gods.

One of the most important events in the series, the unmasking of the Consult skin-spies, happens purely by accident. The entire thing comes about because a highly paranoid Emperor just happens to notice Kellhus scrutinizing The-Thing-Called-Skeos. The fallout from this affects the entire series, but it was not by the calculated action of a Dunyain or the Consult. Just an accidental glance at the wrong time from an extremely paranoid man.

I'll further that.
Moenghus requested only one Dunyain - his son. So by both his and Kellhus' appraisal, only one is required for the purposes of TTT.  Adding more Dunyain probably only serves to enlarge the chances of a struggle for primacy, evidence being Moenghus' fate.

Incidentaly, I think that it hasn't been noted by anyone that the name of Ansurimbor is probably borne by the majority of the Dunyain by the time of AM and AK because the original scion was probably prime breeding stock. Assuming that the Dunyain carefully track and control successful lines whilst limiting the effects of breeding closely related individuals (to avoid inbreeding and crazy mutations), I think it's reasonable to assume that at least 50% of them are direct descendants.  I'm pretty sketchy about such things, so do correct my assumptions if you know more.

After two thousand years of inbreeding within a likely very small and completely isolated population, it would take a tremendous concerted effort to avoid literally everyone in Ishual being a direct descendant of the original Anasurimbor in the sample. Given enough time, your descendants are either everyone, or no one (See: the tremendous number of direct descendants of Genghis Khan, a fact that is often stated as if it were somehow remarkable when it is in fact true of a great deal of historical figures of sufficient age. A tremendous number of Europeans are directly descended from Charlemagne, for example.)

That said, if they continued only using the male line for transmission of the family name, and practiced very limited breeding and heavy culling of population due to eugenics (all of which seems likely) many or most of them would not bear the name Anasurimbor.

I imagine that Kellhus was far from the only Anasurimbor at Ishual though, yes. And any unaccounted for Anasurimbor is a potential threat to Kellhus' image. I strongly suspect that Kellhus is the one that destroyed Ishual. He would likely estimate that if the Dunyain were to discover what was happening in the world, they would side with the Consult, as he believed his father would. This is not something he can allow. The threat must be eliminated, and the cost of doing is small. As long as the chance of this happening is >0%, Kellhus must teleport to Ishual and nuke it thoroughly.

[Wilshire]

My Dunyain bloodline thoughts here.

I really hope something other than hand-waving explains the whole problem with the Anasurimbor thing.

I agree that if anyone really knew the Dunyain existed, it wouldn't be tough to figure out what we did, that "all" of them are Anasurimbor. Like you say, too easy for Kellhus not to do it.

If it was Kellhus, I'd guess that most, if not all, ended up dead before they even knew he was there. Teleport in when most of them as asleep, nuke the whole place. Or, more tastefully, murder them 1 by 1, assassin style. Either way, unless there was a huge piece of the Dunyain hierarchy hidden from Kellhus when he was there, its unlikely any were left alive.

[Cüréthañ]

Well, I guess it depends on the naming conventions they used.  A certain number of degrees of genelogical tracking where you get to be called Anasurimbor.  Or perhaps a designation of natural skill level - i.e. only the elite students are "Anasurimbors'.

Interesting that Moe called for his son. Given the patriachal systems of the Three Seas a male would be far more useful for TTT.  But maybe Kellhus has a far more talented sister?

[The Sharmat]

Moenghus had been gone so long he'd have no way of knowing the relative talents of his children.

[Wic]

Though I wonder how much information he could glean from them if he invaded their dreams.

And now I'm wondering if it was simply a plot contrivance or if there was a particular reason Moe summoned the son he didn't know much about.

[The Sharmat]

his son, being a direct blood relation, was far more likely to be one of the Few than any given random Dunyain

[SilentRoamer]

his son, being a direct blood relation, was far more likely to be one of the Few than any given random Dunyain

I personally suspect all, or a significant majority of the Dunayin were descended from a limited number of familial lines. Literally thousands of little Anasurimbors running around. Add to this the Dunyain methods of dealing with "defects" (parallels to the Abortion Pits here) and I suspect they are a majority.

[The Sharmat]

Oh they were inbred as hell, but still most of their numbers didn't seem to be among the Few so either those genes are fairly recessive, or something about Dunyain eugenics selected against it preferentially.