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Messages - Zealously

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The Unholy Consult / Re: Did Kellhus find Oblivion?
« on: September 28, 2017, 07:32:41 am »
But Bakker said that Kellhus is dead but not done. So it’s unlikely that he has found oblivion if he’s still a player.

My cheeky "+1 8)" was only because profgrape and I were talking about it off-forum.

I'll plant my flag again at Bakker's quote meaning that Kellhus' machinations aren't yet played out. Kellhus is dead, dead, as far as I'm concerned.

As much as I hate agreeing with Madness, I agree with Madness; Kellhus might be off the board but the Thought is alive and well.

He may be dead - but what now with him? Is he food for the gods?
kellhus will be eaten by the gods but have discovered a way to poison and impregnate them, from there he will burst out chestburster style and the gods will be hunted one by one by the true Hunger

I don't care that this would dial up the series' absurdity scale to 17, I want it.

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The bigger question is what the hell files are made from in Eärwa. Some kind of titanium microfilament?
You don't think a regular steel file would've been able to cut through some iron chains?

Jet fuel can't melt steel beams.

Jet seed can melt steel beams?  :-\

3
I had a hunch it was not in TGO and thought it was WLW.  It was actually TJE:

Quote
Vast herds of sheep and cattle, bred solely to accompany the march, were also beaten across the horizon, so many that some Men of the Ordeal began calling themselves ka Koumiroi, or the Herdsmen—a name that would later become holy.

Chapter 7, not an epigraph though.

Wow, it really has been a long time  ???  Thanks for tracking that down, though!

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I remember the line.  I don't remember where it is, but I think it's in either The Great Ordeal of The White Luck Warrior.

I think it's in The Great Ordeal -- I want to say it is in one of the chapter epigraphs, but that might not be accurate.

@WeAreProyas:

I think I've seen this particular (or similar) line of thinking brought up elsewhere on this forum previously, and I think it's a really good guess. As far as I can tell (and I'm not yet past TJE in my re-read, so my memory is rusty) the whatever-they-were-called whose names would later become holy aren't brought up to any significant extent in TUC, which indicates one of two things:

A) they're referred to as holy among the ordinary Men of the Ordeal, amongst which we really have almost no eyes in the narrative. We follow the Ordeal from two perspectives -- looking down (via commanders and various VIPs like Proyas, Serwa and Sorweel) and in a third person-omniscient kind of way (the "Death came swirling down" narrative voice that covers battles and marches) -- and neither give much insight into the day-to-day, habitual actions of menial Men of the Ordeal. We don't really know what Johnny High Ainon thinks about Proyas' command or about butchering the Scalded or any other detail of his ordinary friends' thoughts and reverences. Given this narrative blindness, it's possible the Herdsmen (which is what I want to say the people we're talking about are called, but I don't have my book with me) are referred to as Holy already by the time the Ordeal reaches Golgotterath.

B) the epigraphs are written shortly-to-long after the Ordeal's end, which means that people both survived to tell the tale and survived well enough to write stories, poetries and historical accounts about the march to Golgotterath. That means the Herdsmen may not have become holy yet at the point  we have reached in the story, but the endless re-tellings will somehow elevate them later. I'm reluctant to believe the people that will now assemble to fight the No-God's armies are going to be penning a lot of literature in the near future, which leaves the possibility of it having been written much later.

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The Unholy Consult / Re: Zaudunyanicon 2017 Poster/Patch Giveaway!
« on: August 15, 2017, 08:57:53 am »
Channeling his position as the pseudo-Seswatha of his age, Achamian will pass on dreams to a faraway generation *just in case*.

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General Earwa / Re: Zaudunyanicon 2017 Redux
« on: August 11, 2017, 09:24:50 am »
I have the same situation. Best of lucks with the convention. I hope you post reports of it here.

Do you know if Bakker is going to attend to some other event in Europe in the future?
I mean GRRM is going to be in Helsinki at the WorldCon that starts in a few days. It would be great to see Bakker in other future events here.

It really would. I've never been to an SFF convention of any kind (in fact, my convention experiences in general are extremely limited), mostly because they're pretty few and far between in the Nordics. Maybe beggars can be choosers, and I would certainly choose to come to a convention that boasts someone like RSB and one or two others. Henrik Larson and ye olde Swedish author #12 doesn't have the same appeal  ???

7
They are summoned by Iyokus (and/ or other daimotic sorcerors) to attack the Consult - i.e. they are part of the magical weaponry at the disposal of the Ordeal.

Because Golgotterath is a topos, where hell penetrates the world, the control over the demons breaks down at the entrance and therefore the POV demon (Kakaliol) can get hold of the Blind Slaver (Iyokus) who summoned it, and drag back to hell to feast on his soul.

Wow, I'm an idiot. I took blind to be metaphorical like so much else, that the Blind Slaver in question was just some dude who had yoked the demon, who simply couldn't see all that the demon could see - something related to the nature of Golgotterath as a topos, I presumed - rather than an actually eyeless person. In that context, the whole scene seemed more an excerpt from the grand battle (like some scenes that abruptly jump to a one-off POV in earlier books, particularly in PON) rather than an account of what happened to Iyokus. Serves me right for not reading twice, I guess. Maybe his name was actually mentioned somewhere in that and I glanced over it in my hurry to find out what happens next, but this puts a piece of the puzzle in place  ???

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The Unholy Consult / Re: [TUC Spoilers]What was the point
« on: August 08, 2017, 12:16:02 pm »
Can't remember where it's stated, but the Nail only appeared in the sky shortly before Arkfall, the implication being that it's something to do with the Inchoroi.

See, I may be in the minority here, but this is the kind of unanswered question that I don't mind at all. The Nail of Heaven has never really held a prominent role in the story (although it has had its fair share of symbolic meaning - but then, in TSA, what hasn't?) and I am a proponent of the whole "Worldbuilding by omission"-theory. The more is revealed, the more is stripped away. It is not feasible, obviously, to keep everything in obscurity for the alluring sense of mystery, but it's a bit like the scalper's heart in Cil-Aujas (although I did betray myself and ask the man himself in his Reddit AMA) - it doesn't hurt to not know, but not knowing gives Eärwa another layer of reality. The idea that it has to do with the Inchoroi is exciting, and I hope it's never confirmed  ;D

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The Unholy Consult / Re: Merchandising the Second Apocalypse
« on: August 08, 2017, 09:35:50 am »
I never bought a figurine but I swear by the Hundred that I would buy a fucking whole horde of sranc if available.

Imagine that! A thousand mini-Sranc, drowning the (kitchen table) horizon, the shadow of the (ceiling-mounted lamp-)Horns falling on them...

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General Earwa / Re: Bakker AMA on r/fantasy scheduled for August 2nd!
« on: August 02, 2017, 07:54:24 pm »
I didn't know this was happening until it was already upon us -- feel kind of stupid for not properly thinking through what questions I really wanted an answer to - instead I just sent off a barrage of questions I only half-thought through. I'll be kicking myself a few days from now when I figure out that there was *that* really great question I should have asked  ???

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The Unholy Consult / Re: [TUC Spoilers]Kayûtas - Boring or Terrifying?
« on: August 02, 2017, 11:54:38 am »
...

Welcome to the Second Apocalypse, Zealously.

Thank you! It was about time  :)

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The Unholy Consult / Re: [TUC Spoilers]Kayûtas - Boring or Terrifying?
« on: August 01, 2017, 07:55:07 pm »
I haven't spent a lot of time on this, but I thought Kayûtas and the state of his mental faculties during the Meat episode was very ambigious. It is established fairly early that although they are seen as holy due to their relationship to the Holy Aspect-Emperor, generals and menials alike are unnerved, even frightened of Kellhus's children. Kayûtas is a foil to this; Proyas (or so I read him, at least) thinks of Kayûtas as the reasonable son, the boy in the family that seems most human, without losing any of the sharpness of mind and sight that characterizes Dûnyain. My first interpretation was that Kellhus left Kayûtas behind knowing exactly what the Meat would do to the Men of the Ordeal, and instructed him to partake in the acts of madness, all as a part of fooling Proyas into giving the command. If Kayûtas himself, Kellhus's son, succumbs to the madness, then Proyas has only one choice. It becomes clear as day that the madness is all-reaching. If not even the Lord-and-Prophet's blood is safe, then certainly that would give implicit support to his decision to sanction cannibalism. The madness takes all, as it were.

Maybe this is taking it a step too far, and the Meat episode really just showed how far removed Kellhus is from his more worldly children, but I thought it would have been devilishly clever to have Kayûtas indulge in the very depravity Kellhus knew that Proyas would struggle with. Now, if that really was the origin of Kayûtas seemingly mad episode, then that makes him an all the more convincing and terrifying character, because it shows that he is able to set aside sentiment to serve the aims of TTT.

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