*Looks back and into the other thread   Bollocks. lol  Honestly, because locke didn't cite where he found it I assumed it was just another excerpt from TGO and not TTT.  I was super elated to think I had found some new detail.  Well this is pretty embarrassing.

Hmm.  Interesting.  I understand your argument.  The issue is that if I was to take our baseline understanding of an Orthodox figure it would have to be Psatma Nannaferi.  She doesn't necessarily view Fanayal as the lesser of two evils, but the Anasurimbor are the greater of two evils, certainly.  If she, as an Orthodox, can tolerate the Fanim as contingent on Yatwer's plans, I naturally assumed that that tolerance was extending to all Yatwerian priestesses who would be fomenting rebellion specifically against the Anasurimbor Dynasty.  If both Fanimry and Zaudunyanni are false and evil, "which is falser and eviler in the eyes of the Orthodox?" becomes the question.

It is cool how 50/50 these political reactions can manifest.  The Capital being besieged can motivate and galvanize the people do defend or it is a divine signifier of disfavor that the empire is weak and must be destroyed.  The leadership of a political party can be assassinated and it can demonstrate to the remaining members that their political ideology was in the wrong and this was a manifestation of that failure, or it can galvanize the members to "double down" on their beliefs to make sure that failure never happens again.

Thanks for the response, Scott!  Appreciate it.

I just want to pick your brain on a weird dissonance for me, Scott, about the evolution of the political state of the New Empire from WLW to TGO.  At the beginning of WLW the Imperium is facing a litany of issues: Mass riots in Carythusal and Aoknyssus, Apparati assassinated in key positions, Scylvendi raiding the Gap in large numbers, Famiri tribes massacring their own countrymen who converted to Zaudunyanism and attacking Conriyan estates,Fanim Insurrectionist independent of Fanayal rioting and fomenting rebellion in the old Fanim provinces.  After Esmi is captured by the Shrial Knights during her hiding and then has her discourse with Maithanet, I was under the impression from Maithanet's descriptions that things were getting worse, that the political state of the New Empire was degrading even further.  With all of Maithanet's energy directed to maintaining control in Momemn for the three weeks or-so he was Imperial Custodian it sounded like he couldn't delegate authority effectively.  Then he dies and Fanayal arrives.

In TGO however, all of these external problems are almost yadda yadda'd away? There is a throwaway line about how Esmenet's conviction in resisting Fanayal was galvanizing the rest of the Empire to support her.  But wouldn't those who are ardent opponents of the Anasurimbor not really give a shit?  They would just smell the blood in the water and become even more ferocious.  It seems like something is missing.  I don't want to overstep and say it's a continuity error, but I want to ask: are other political/military operations going on in the background of the Three Seas? There just has to be much more going on.

Shall we bring him to the humming brink of climax?  Is that what you mean, Wilshire?

Well... I always read that exchange with Malowebi as about more metaphorical/abstract identity rather than personal identity.

 "The people call him Stonebreaker, they say that he was sent to us by the Solitary God."
"What do you say?"
"I say he was sent to me! I am the Solitary God's gift to his people."
"And what does he say?"
"Meppa? He does not know who he is."

Less about who he was in the past and more about what his role in the metaphysical chess game will be going forward.  But please, tinfoil away.

"He turned, saw that Mepiro, Bogyar, Scraul and the others were laughing—laughing because he was laughing, Saubon realized."

"His angular Shieldbearer, Uster Scraul, was the lone defector. Ever odd, he stood with his shoulders square to the spectre to Ingol heaving over the northeastern wall, with only his face turned to the pluming ejecta. However incidental his pose, his look exposed a soul roundly stumped, not by what he witness—the eyes would have to be focused—but by what he did not, by the crushing sun."

"The Knights of the Desert Lion chopped at what seemed a copse of nightmarish trees about him.  Saubon glimpsed Scraul turn too late to a dropping cudgel, vanish beneath it, even as Bogyar's battleaxe struck the miscreant's basin skull."

I would guess that we are getting an origin story for this guy's recruitment in Saubon's elite cohort.

No.  lol  No.  I don't think I'll ever be as adamant about anything else on this forum!  "Show them my portion" has plenty of semantic ambiguities, besides "kill them all if things go south."  To me, that means: "Make a demonstration of my abilities", which doesn't preclude singing a good hymn to ensnare the Nonmen.

And my read of "the time for singing was over" wasn't a rolling up the sleeves getting ready for a fight but more of a resigned to their doom, I guess. They don't know that Sorweel is coming back to save them.  They are pretty much dead at that point without any chance of escape or hope.

I am firmly in the camp that Serwa's singing at the end is purely mundane.  Much is made of the spiritual, religious value of song to the Nonmen in one of the chapters.  She'll perform some Tragic ballad which will Dunyain-whelm all the Cunoroi.