Earwa > General Earwa

The Consult's Plans [TUC Spoilers}

<< < (2/2)

H:

--- Quote from: TaoHorror on January 30, 2020, 08:31:29 pm ---Sorcery appears to be the top of the stack of power in Earwa. It almost wiped out all of the Inchoroi and the Dunyain, few stragglers behind. More powerful than technology and intellect. So I'm not sure I'm all in that the Duyain took over The Consult. Me thinks Shae has a role yet to play and could be possessing/controlling the few Duyain prisoners. When I was reading it, at first I thought the Dunsult were skinspies and not really Dunyain proper. But reading on I accepted they were actually Dunyain, but still don't trust anything they said to Kellhus. Using truth as a weapon is what they do and we've seen them talk their way out of imprisonment before, but if Shae can trick/kill Titirga, maybe the most powerful human sorcerer to have lived, then I'm not so sure he would allow some Duyain prisoners to dupe him. I could be over thinking all this, but who knows how powerful Shae got over 2,000 years.
--- End quote ---

Well, honestly, considering Shae's character in TFS, frankly, I don't think he'd actually be a match for Dunyain mind-games.  That being said, it does seem slightly unlikely that he would be "undone" so easily.  However, I thought as much for Moe the Elder, and well, it turns out he did, pretty much, done gone and messed up.  On that same note, I reread part of the confrontation between the Mutilated and Kellhus and interestingly enough, it is explicitly noted that when the hologram Shae disappears, there are 6 sets of stairs but only 5 Mutilated.  Could be something, could be nothing.

As for their conversation, I tend to view things as when two Dunyain talk to each other, since they are adept at spotting lies, there is no sense in lying, since the other would know.  Rather, I think everything they say is truthful, or at the very least, is not a lie.  That doesn't mean it's the whole story, but I think what they say is mostly factual.


--- Quote from: TaoHorror on January 30, 2020, 08:31:29 pm ---To the OP - I've picked up on some inconsistencies with The Consult meanderings, I striked it up to simple plot error. If there is a unifying explanation, appears we don't have enough to know what it is. If I recall, I think I thought the "Children" reference was to sranc - "raining" denotes numbers to me and the sranc are the only super numerous rain-like aspect to The Consult/Inchoroi.
--- End quote ---

Part of it also is that the Consult had been planning machinations on the scale of hundreds of years.  All of a sudden, they have to adapt to (relatively) quick changing circumstance with high stakes.  Some of the plans don't seem to jive and that makes sense, since they'd likely be scrambling in light of changing circumstances.

That also neatly covers for writer error as well.

The P:
Wouldn't they have a general understanding of how the No-God awoke the first time around?  My understanding was they were placing souls in the sarcophagus and eventually one did something.  They might not have realized the key was Nau-Cayuti in particular, but I would assume if they wanted to initiate resumption, they would be constantly trying new souls hoping they'd get another to work.

Post Mengedda, it appears the Consult has just been playing a waiting game.  Maybe they had too many things going when the No-God arose the first time to recognize the cause?

SmilerLoki:
The Consult before the Dunyain taking over likely had no means to gather enough material for the No-God. The logistics doesn't work, all of the populous nations are too far away from Golgoterrath, which wasn't the case during the first Apocalypse, when the North was still settled. Now, the moment the Three Seas are conquered by the newly assembled Horde, it might be feasible to feed the Sarcophagus in a concise manner again.

H:

--- Quote from: The P on January 31, 2020, 05:10:07 am ---Wouldn't they have a general understanding of how the No-God awoke the first time around?  My understanding was they were placing souls in the sarcophagus and eventually one did something.  They might not have realized the key was Nau-Cayuti in particular, but I would assume if they wanted to initiate resumption, they would be constantly trying new souls hoping they'd get another to work.

Post Mengedda, it appears the Consult has just been playing a waiting game.  Maybe they had too many things going when the No-God arose the first time to recognize the cause?
--- End quote ---

Well, the issue could be that even if they realized, or suspected, that an Anisumibor was needed to reboot it, as far as they knew, they were all dead.  However, in light of the new information, some of them might well have considered the connection.  Aunrang doesn't seem to right off the bat, but Aurang also is not exactly a genius.  When you had a plan spanning centuries and suddenly new information gets thrown in there in fairly rapid succession, there is a pretty good chance that one might miss something (or a lot of things).

Francis Buck:
Hadn't noticed this thread until now but this is very specifically something that, IMO, requires a better explanation or I will consider it a really dumb way of cheating with character knowledge. Aurang's not portrayed as being stupid -- quite the opposite -- but nor is his memory all THAT bad compared to the Nonmen (in fact compared to them his memory is fucking great). We have no idea even how old Aurang and Aurax, but it's gotta be pretty damn old. Considerably more than 10,000 years, most likely given what we've been told?

All that being said, I don't actually think it's something RSB is pulling a cheat with -- but I do think it ultimately leads to a certain conclusion, which is that the Dunyain have *always* been at the head of the Consult, or nearly always, and that they probably have inadvertantly set in motion a cyclic pattern to the state of Earwa.

They are, I think, slaves to the World, like the gears that make the whole thing happen *no matter what*, though really they are simply cogs in greater machine, one which I suspect the No-God walking (feeding) acts a sort of "Final Cause", only it's not *really* final. The entire point of the No-God (as the Dunyain see it) is something to be used as weapon in order to leave a highly specific number of individuals alive.

I don't think the World can actually be closed, because the No-God doesn't want it to. Why would it? The No-God, for whatever reason, hungers for something very particular. Recall how the No-God repeatedly 'fed' on the people of of Wraeleoth (?), then let their population grow back up only so that it could feed once again. This seems like a microcosmic version of the macrocosmic reality in Earwa.

But this seems, to me, to be a standard Dunyain fuck up. The No-God is not something which one conspires to make happen, but rather the World will literally arrange itself -- by *any means* -- to accomodate the No-God. Think of how barely the entire thing scraped by? Even Kellhus, who is heavily implied to be virtually capable of anything the World requires of him, is absolutely essential to the creation of the No-God. And the Consult itself, two inchoroi only were left for millenia, their greatest Nonman member suffering from its immense age and clearly mad -- and Shauriatas, allegedly now defeated. This last one I don't buy for a second. Shauriatas is literally called Death-Cheater, he is already a disembodied spirit, and I don't see him being out of the series and done with.

Ishual seems more like a No-God breeding project than anything else to me. And the Dune parallel is pretty hard to shake. Perhaps Kellhus was (like Paul) originally believed to be a Kwisatz Haderach of sorts (we know he was a prodigy), but like in Dune, they were off by a generation. And so just like Leto II, Kelmomas the child is transformed into an eldritch abomination of tremendous power.

I lost my train of though, but yeah. This bothers me and I don't think it's an accident lol.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[*] Previous page