O.o  Six Seasons in a month... you have stamina my friend lol.  Um..  I have been watching weekly from the very beginning in 2008, I'm Original Gangsta lol,  without any rewatches so I'm sure I'm not as attuned to certain details from earlier seasons like yourself.  I don't know what you want to do with this thread, but let's establish right away that it will be spoiler filled. 

To Madness:  In hindsight, that emboldened sentence does sound very flippant and unfair.  So allow me to backtrack lol.  For my reading, I have to see the nations of Earwa as multicultural amalgamations as it is my key to not getting hung up on my caveats about Kay(and Bakker sometimes too) that it seems like they are sometimes derivative of history.  I see elements of the Chinese Mantle of Heaven in regards to the Imperial Mantle of the Nansurium.  The naming of conventions of The Three Seas themselves evoke Chinese patronymic ideals and customs with the family name preceding the given.  Perennial conflict which Jurchen and Manchu peoples in their northwestern borders are echoed in the Nansur conflicts with the Scylvendi.  The conversion and integration of the Norsirai nations into the Inrithi military reminds me of the Seljuk Turks, a distinct racial and cultural identity, conquering parts of the Arab Caliphate and then just as quickly converting to Islam and then becoming an integral part of the militaries of the Medieval Islamic world.  That ambiguity of the the exact descriptions, that negative space where Bakker allows us to fill in the blanks, of these cultures and races is an absolute playground for me to imagine various configuration for what a Kyranean column looks like or what have you.   An excellent example of this multicultural reading is Somnambulist's art for Lord Kosoter.  A fantastical blend of an Achaemenid helm and Hellenistic armor with a Kopis sword. 

 Now we come to kernel of the issue.  I'm starting to feel frustration when many people on these forums seem to embrace the closest historical analogies that they are familiar with, namely he Nansur/Greek Kian/Saracens and all the other Inrithi nations as belonging to  European Christian nations.  I'm not frustrated at people getting a different reading than myself. I suppose,  I genuinely feel that it is detrimental to the series for us to to imagine the history of the First Crusades as the "a priori" that we are to impose on The Three Seas in order to be more comfortable and complacent rather than imagine wholly different cultures and races. 

As to the casting of various characters.  Pssssssh.  I'm in the same boat as you Madness, not really familiar with many actors and actress beyond the anglosphere of the film industry.  I suppose there should an absolute ton of actors and actress in Bollywood that speak impeccable English that would be superb for playing Ketyai characters in a hypothetical Second Apocalypse film series.  Most people opined Gary Oldman for Akka and there was some support for Joseph Gordon Levitt for Proyas after that IMDB fan casting list made the rounds.  I had gotten all these novels from the library so I don't have them on hand, but from what I can remember, as you mentioned Madness, Akka is a darker Ketyai who I believe is stated specially as being "dark skinned" by Mimara at some point in WLW.  I know that Proyas is described as "swarthy" and "dusky skinned" by Cnaiur when Proyas confronts Kellhus about manipulating Saubon into prematurely marching against Skaurus.  I don't really know.  Madness, I feel like I'll take your original advice and plant my flag in the Historical Allusions thread.  I think I could write a dissertation on Aurang and a certain Mughal Emperor who is undoubtedly his namesake.   

To Madness:  I'm ambivalent in regards to Harry Potter, but calling me HP makes me feel like I'm desktop software.  Pansa(or Hirtius) is just fine. 

Thank you for the TTT glossary definitions Som.

To Phallus:  I understand the impulse to immediate categorize with the standard: Nansur/Greeks, Kianene/Saracen Ayyubids but I feel like such strict analogies to our own Earth History causes problems.  I'm really terrible at this, I can't find an interview that I know Bakker did awhile ago.  I may be talking out of my ass in the next few sentences to please forgive me.  A criticism that was raised against him was that the style of his writing was simply "ripping off" wholesale from the chronicles of the First Crusades, grafting human history on the chassis of his fantasy universe.  His response I think, was stating that while he was undoubtedly inspired by the events of the First Crusade he was adamant that we should not simplify the Nansur to the Byzantines for the sake of our historical continuity and not Earwa's, Momemn is not Constantinople, Nenciphon is not Ctesiphon, Seleukara is not Selecuia and so on and so forth.  I feel like Bakker is very laissez faire with his fans and doesn't like to direct and condition our thoughts and perceptions too much, but his statements make me think that he doesn't want us to accept the notion that the cultures/races/religions should be automatically assumed to be that of their obvious historical analogues.  I'm not trying to subsume my opinions on to everyone else.  Yet, I can't help but raise my eyebrow when people immediately say "Nansurs are Greeks and the Kian are Abbasid or Umayyad Caliphate Muslims"  I almost feel that we are being complacent when we make that analogy.  Again, just trying to start a dialogue I want to know how other people feel.