The Second Apocalypse
Earwa => The Aspect-Emperor => The Unholy Consult => Topic started by: Likaro on August 07, 2017, 06:26:21 pm
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I guess I'm interested to hear from others, did Kellhus have a chance to "Win" ? What exactly were the options available to him?
My contention is that he was screwed no matter what, that the enemies and problems against him were too much for anybody, even Super-Saiyan Dunyain, even a hybrid. level 99 warrior/mage/monk could deal with.
I put "win" in quotes above because we still really do not know what his true motives were. Maybe even he didn't know (Ajokli again).
All we can reasonably assume is that Kellhus does not want to burn in agony forever, so it seems avoiding or stopping damnation is the one goal we can infer he did want to achieve.
The other big question is, does Kellhus really want to help humanity or is he purely in it for himself? He does seem to be concerned with the general welfare and souls of humanity, in the broadest possible sense. In other words, yes Kellhus is an asshole- he will use and destroy thousands without a blink- if it saves millions. At least to my feeling on the character.
The other trouble with this discussion is Ajokli. For all we know, Kellhus might have died on the Circumfix without Ajokli's help. So in that regard we have to assume he's going to be involved in some way no matter what and every option open of Kellhus' is tainted with his presence.
Let's look at what some of his goals could have been:
A. Wipe out the Consult and end the resumption of the No-God.
Problems -
1. If it was just the Consult, it seems like Kellhus had a decent chance of winning the encounter. But it wasn't just the decrepit Consult he was dealing with...
The Dunsult combined with all those Skin Skies in the Golden Room means Kellhus is toast without some kind of trump card (Ajokli). I don't see how with his normal powers he could have survived unless he had a God on his side. This brings us back to another problem (if Ajokli was out of the picture)- he really should not have gone in there alone. If Serwa, Kayutas and some other heavy hitters were with him maybe he could have pulled out the win.
Even if he had taken everyone out in the Golden Room, the Ordeal was still stranded thousands of miles in the barren North with no food and winter on the way. No matter what the Ordeal was going to die, but Kellhus at least could have translocated to safety. (Let's also not forget the effects on the Ordeal of eating Sranc, Man, and Irridiated man. Fallout tells me eating radiated food is not good for you)
2. There apparently was no way for him to recognize the threat of Kelmomas. This gets into the free will vs destiny stuff but assuming he had killed the child that probably ends the No God possibility right then and there, at least for a time. He wins in that outcome. If he doesn't kill Kelmomas it seems like he is fated to lose.
3. Kellhus knows about Topoi but somehow did not foresee Ajokli being very strong in Golgotterath and taking over? Unless he knew it would happen and was again, willing to take that chance?
4. Even if Kellhus prevails in the Golden Room, he still needs to do something about the Horde 2.0 which is right there, facing a hemmed in Golgotterath Ordeal...massive problem for him to deal with even with his abilities.
5. The big trouble with all permutations of this is that he is still damned at the end of it.
B. Kill the Consult and Reign in Hell
Problems
1. This would go with the side that argues Kellhus is an asshole that doesn't care about anyone else, and he is fine with condemning everyone else to the pit. Unless of course he thinks he can change the nature of Hell and the Outside from Within?
2. He is dealing with the God of Trickery and Deception. Ajokli is not likely to stay true to whatever "bargain" or treaty was struck.
3. Seems a very grim option and not really a "win" for anyone. Seems more like a nasty version of "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" than anything else...turning the world into Hell is perhaps even worse than letting the Consult win. Then again maybe this was the best he could hope for, given the system?
C. Kill the Consult, then kill the Gods
We don't know enough about Earwan metaphysics to debate this one much. It's doubtful Kellhus has the power to kill a God (Or Gods). If he did so, then does reality collapse?
D. Join the Consult
1. Again, this comes back to what Kellhus really cares about , if anything. His stated values seem to be be dead set against the Consult so I don't see how he would allow himself to join them. He does appear to view their angle and past as abhorrent.
2. Still might be his best option to save himself and perhaps a fraction of humanity?
E. Who the hell knows?
This is the option that we don't know, that he had some other possibility available that we cannot fathom due to our limited knowledge. I would add here that apparently the Splintered God cannot see what is really happening and seems blind to what it's other aspects are doing. Again, we don't know shit about this so its all very very vague. If Kellhus was truly an Inverse Prophet that brought knowledge of the living to the Gods, it sure seems like that did nothing to change things.
In other words, it doesn't seem possible that Earwa's deities are going to do and about face and stop being such raging dickheads.
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At the end of the day, things are not good no matter what. Either slaughter humanity and become BFFs with rape aliens and ancient depraved lunatics, Run wild with a crazy 4 Horned brother and turn the living world into Hell, or at best achieve status quo and leave things as they are... and run the 95% chance you are going to Hell.
Damn, Earwa sucks.
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I'm not sure we have enough information to answer these questions. I will say that while I tend to think Kellhus was aiming for the Rule in Hell option, that doesn't mean he was purely in it for himself. As far as I can tell, his priorities were:
1. Him.
2. Esmenet. He actually does love her. Or at least, as close as a Dunyain can come to that.
3. A very distant third, humanity as a whole. But he's Dunyain so he's willing to make sacrifices. Maybe even including all of them, for the first two?
This might add some significance to the fact that Esmenet is not damned despite pretty much being prime ciphrang fodder going by the standards that are normally used, and the WLW wanting to kill her so Yatwer could feast. Maybe he got her out, somehow? Are we sure the deals with the pit purely concerned him?
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I think C is the closest, except replace "kill the Gods" with "rewrite the Gods and the rules of the Outside so that the Gods serve Man rather than Man being food for the Gods". I've no real idea how he intended to do that, though. But the word 'Meta-Daimos' probably would have been involved. :P
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First A (then who nows).
He deduced that his father would have joined forces with the Consult in the end (as in fact the dûnyain did), but he chose not to do that. If he wanted to join the Consult then why kill Möe Sr.
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Well the Voice told him Moe would do that. Kellhus himself seems to reconsider years later.
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So Kellhus is not Azor Ahai?!
Also, if Kellhus is truly dead and not going to play a big role in the next books.....I think we really really needed to get a Kellhus POV for the finale, that would have helped. But since Bakker went out of his way to get Malowebi in there as a POV we have to conclude it was for a reason.
Possibilities:
1. A Kellhus POV would tell us too much and/or his plan is not fully concluded even though he is dead
2. Bakker just wanted to fuck with us
3. Kellhus is dead just like Cnaiur was dead and he has a part still to play
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3 to that and a little bit of 2. ;D
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I think C is the closest, except replace "kill the Gods" with "rewrite the Gods and the rules of the Outside so that the Gods serve Man rather than Man being food for the Gods". I've no real idea how he intended to do that, though. But the word 'Meta-Daimos' probably would have been involved. :P
Not Meta-Daimos, per TUC EG.
elhusioli—The daimos of excess. As per standard Kiünnat metaphysics, souls directly move other souls, impart the imprint of daimos upon another daimos. Some, such as terror or enthusiasm, are set apart for the dramatic nature of their effects.
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elhusioli—The daimos of excess. As per standard Kiünnat metaphysics, souls directly move other souls, impart the imprint of daimos upon another daimos. Some, such as terror or enthusiasm, are set apart for the dramatic nature of their effects.
I'm not sure that means what you think it means. It's not talking about the (capital-D) Daimos, as in the branch of sorcery. It's talking about an emotion or principle that the Nonmen termed 'elhusioli' and which we would call 'excess'. There's a passage in TGO stating that the Nonmen of Viri only indulged in the daimos of 'elhusioli' during and after a hunt (and that this attracted the attention of Husyelt). The Nonmen seem to use (small-d) 'daimos' in the same way the Greeks did, to refer to a concept that can move one's soul (which in the Outside would be personified as an Agency) such as 'love', 'rage', 'sorrow' or whatever.
Incidentally, 'elhysioloi' means 'attractants' (for example, pheromones) in Greek.
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2. Bakker just wanted to fuck with us
I'm thinking it's this.
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Thanks Duskweaver! Thanks for destroying my theories. I love you!
ETA: in all seriousness, you may well be right, but, we're given no other definition of daimos.
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First A (then who nows).
He deduced that his father would have joined forces with the Consult in the end (as in fact the dûnyain did), but he chose not to do that. If he wanted to join the Consult then why kill Möe Sr.
Right. My take is that Kellhus really DID go insane on the Circumfix and thus chose the, "stop the Consult at all costs" path, which would otherwise make little sense to a Dunyain. I'm convinced, based on the books and the answers RSB provided, that it was A all along.
1. If it was just the Consult, it seems like Kellhus had a decent chance of winning the encounter. But it wasn't just the decrepit Consult he was dealing with...
The Dunsult combined with all those Skin Skies in the Golden Room means Kellhus is toast without some kind of trump card (Ajokli). I don't see how with his normal powers he could have survived unless he had a God on his side. This brings us back to another problem (if Ajokli was out of the picture)- he really should not have gone in there alone. If Serwa, Kayutas and some other heavy hitters were with him maybe he could have pulled out the win.
Right, he needed the Godpower Ajokli could provide, which is why he "struck treaties with the Pit".
Even if he had taken everyone out in the Golden Room, the Ordeal was still stranded thousands of miles in the barren North with no food and winter on the way. No matter what the Ordeal was going to die, but Kellhus at least could have translocated to safety. (Let's also not forget the effects on the Ordeal of eating Sranc, Man, and Irridiated man. Fallout tells me eating radiated food is not good for you)
Yeah, the TTT collapsed at the Golden Room. Presumably Kellhus could have escaped along with a tiny handful of survivors he may have valued, but that's about it.
2. There apparently was no way for him to recognize the threat of Kelmomas. This gets into the free will vs destiny stuff but assuming he had killed the child that probably ends the No God possibility right then and there, at least for a time. He wins in that outcome. If he doesn't kill Kelmomas it seems like he is fated to lose.
I agree. Once he failed to kill Kelmomas, there was no scenario that didn't end with Kelmomas becoming the No-God and Kellhus failing. But COULD he have killed Kelmomas, or was it fated that Kelmomas become the No-God, period, full stop?
3. Kellhus knows about Topoi but somehow did not foresee Ajokli being very strong in Golgotterath and taking over? Unless he knew it would happen and was again, willing to take that chance?
Between Kellhus knowing more than any other man and the information in the Decapitants glossary entry, I have to assume that Kellhus was aware of the possibility. My best guess is that he either assumed he could prevent Ajokli from manifesting or that he figured that even if Ajokli did manifest, they shared the same goal of preventing Resumption, so yeah, it would suck for mankind (and probably Kellhus), but stopping Resumption justified any risk, any cost.
4. Even if Kellhus prevails in the Golden Room, he still needs to do something about the Horde 2.0 which is right there, facing a hemmed in Golgotterath Ordeal...massive problem for him to deal with even with his abilities.
The TTT ended in the Golden Room. If he succeeds in the Golden Room, the Horde 2.0 could devour the rest of the Ordeal and it would have been a success. Stopping Resumption was the goal, not preserving the Ordeal.
5. The big trouble with all permutations of this is that he is still damned at the end of it.
Maybe? He did strike treaties with the Pit and all, and he saw himself descending as Hunger in the Outside, so perhaps he'd successfully avoided damnation? The biggest question though is why take this path at all? Best case he's saved humans from extinction, but consigned almost everybody alive to damnation, including uncountable numbers of future humans. Hard to explain this decision on the part of Kellhus other than throwing up our hands and saying, "He went insane!".
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5. The big trouble with all permutations of this is that he is still damned at the end of it.
Maybe? He did strike treaties with the Pit and all, and he saw himself descending as Hunger in the Outside, so perhaps he'd successfully avoided damnation? The biggest question though is why take this path at all? Best case he's saved humans from extinction, but consigned almost everybody alive to damnation, including uncountable numbers of future humans. Hard to explain this decision on the part of Kellhus other than throwing up our hands and saying, "He went insane!".
I think the "descending as a Hunger" line is Ajokli talking. It just doesn't seem like a thing Kellhus would say. He is not power mad and he is not a passionate person that would be interested in that, the logos is still his main principle.
At least I think.
[EDIT Madness: Fixed quote tag.]
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If Kellhus had mastered the Golden Room I think he would have succeeded with the Horde. The Great Ordeal was in decent good defensive position (with lots of sorcerers alive) and without No-God present would have faced the Horde with good prospects of survival. It was the overwhelming No-God intervention and the subsequent disarray and rout (fly, you fools) what destroyed any possibility of the ordealmen to survive.
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Thanks Duskweaver! Thanks for destroying my theories. I love you!
If it helps, I did feel bad about it. ;)
ETA: in all seriousness, you may well be right, but, we're given no other definition of daimos.
Read the passage in TGO where 'elhusioli' is mentioned. It's clearly not referring to sorcery:
Only on the hunt and in the subsequent feast did the Viroi yield to elhusioli, the Nonman daimos of excess. Their expeditions were things of song and legend, so much so that Hûsyelt, the Dark Hunter, was said to hunt them from time to time. The Hoar-Pelt, the great white bear-skin the Nonmen Kings of Viri wore in a crown’s stead, was held to be a gift of the jealous and mercurial God.
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I'll concede...for now. ;)
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I think the "descending as a Hunger" line is Ajokli talking. It just doesn't seem like a thing Kellhus would say. He is not power mad and he is not a passionate person that would be interested in that, the logos is still his main principle.
I have to disagree with this one. Kellhus, and all the Dunyain, seek power almost compulsively because without power they are at the mercy of events and other people; they cannot Come Before and thus cannot achieve the Absolute. Every single Dunyain we see in the books seeks and amasses as much power as possible. Moenghus is the man behind the man in Kian, Kellhus winds up ruling the entire Three Seas and is worshipped like a god, the Mutilated took over the Consult (or attempted to depending on your Shae theories), even Koringhus was working to dominate Akka and Mimara before he ran into the Judging Eye. With every breath, they war against circumstance.
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Well....there is seeking power to achieve the absolute... and then there is the lust/passion/mad Roman emperor lust for power which I think are two different things. Kellhus and Big Moe seized power not to cackle with glee, torment the smallfolk and gloat, but to do what they felt they had to do. In other words, they don't "enjoy" the dominance aspect of power.
To me, being a Ciphrang and chomping souls is related to a passion/lust to dominate and cause misery, and to me that doesn't fit in with Kellhus' personality or aims. He doesn't do things to be petty, vindictive, or take personal satisfaction in hurting people.
Just seems like "I will descend as a hunger" is a strange line for a man almost utterly devoid of passions and hungers
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I think the point Bakker made in writing that whole part ambiguously is that there is almost no way to tell where Kellhus ends and Ajokli begins. They are the same thing at that moment, so that line is said by both of them really. I think it is only at the end that we see full-on Ajokli speaking, having completely overpowered Kellhus.
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I think the point Bakker made in writing that whole part ambiguously is that there is almost no way to tell where Kellhus ends and Ajokli begins. They are the same thing at that moment, so that line is said by both of them really. I think it is only at the end that we see full-on Ajokli speaking, having completely overpowered Kellhus.
I agree. Remember Nil'Giccas' scene with Akka at the end of WLW about "becoming"?
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I think the point Bakker made in writing that whole part ambiguously is that there is almost no way to tell where Kellhus ends and Ajokli begins. They are the same thing at that moment, so that line is said by both of them really. I think it is only at the end that we see full-on Ajokli speaking, having completely overpowered Kellhus.
I agree. Remember Nil'Giccas' scene with Akka at the end of WLW about "becoming"?
Indeed, I made a whole thread about (mainly) it (http://www.second-apocalypse.com/index.php?topic=2095.msg31992#msg31992), I should probably revisit it.
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I think the point Bakker made in writing that whole part ambiguously is that there is almost no way to tell where Kellhus ends and Ajokli begins. They are the same thing at that moment, so that line is said by both of them really. I think it is only at the end that we see full-on Ajokli speaking, having completely overpowered Kellhus.
I agree. Remember Nil'Giccas' scene with Akka at the end of WLW about "becoming"?
Indeed, I made a whole thread about (mainly) it (http://www.second-apocalypse.com/index.php?topic=2095.msg31992#msg31992), I should probably revisit it.
That was a really good post. Also, RSB's writing in that scene with Akka and Cleric is simply amazing. Powerful stuff.
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The Dunsult combined with all those Skin Skies in the Golden Room means Kellhus is toast without some kind of trump card (Ajokli). I don't see how with his normal powers he could have survived unless he had a God on his side. This brings us back to another problem (if Ajokli was out of the picture)- he really should not have gone in there alone. If Serwa, Kayutas and some other heavy hitters were with him maybe he could have pulled out the win.
I'm starting to believe the idea (sorry, can't remember who first brought it up in another thread) that it was in fact part of the plan to have Kayûtas and Serwa in the Golden Room (and maybe Saccarees as well?). They were delayed and ultimately unable to get there at all because of Skuthula - who knows if having them there would have turned the tide in Kellhus' favour?
Kelmomas would have still been a problem, though. It's not that I think Kayûtas and/or Serwa would have been able to deal with him (I'm sure they would) but if he was always destined to become the No-God, could that even have been avoided at all?
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He's destined to be the No-God because it wasn't avoided. He always willn't not be the No-God. What's so hard about nonlinear four dimensional tenses to understand, geez?
Kellhus got suckered into the Golden Room pretty effectively if the plan was to have all of them there. I mean, how were they all supposed to scale the Upright horn that fast even without Skuthula there?
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It's just so weird for me for Kellhus to get chummy with the closest the Bakkerverse has to a Satan, but at the same time it was only Ajokli who has some presentiment of the No-God threat, right?
And where does Kellhus wanting to save the world come from anyways? What honestly does he care?
Since the dunyain seek the absolute above all, was everything just an elaborate suicide a la Sandman? Explains why Ajokli can't find him, because he's found oblivion/the absolute. definitely an out there theory though
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Well after he broke on the Circumfix, Kellhus, for a time at least, seemed to truly believe the lies he'd spun around himself. Later on, he might want to save it for his wife's sake.
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Well after he broke on the Circumfix, Kellhus, for a time at least, seemed to truly believe the lies he'd spun around himself. Later on, he might want to save it for his wife's sake.
I am sort of coming around to the idea that Kellhus himself doesn't actually know why he spared Esmenet, or Kelmomas for that matter. Part of his 'madness' is to not really knowing just how insane he is. The fact that Ajokli is also working his way into Kellhus even before the Golden Room only further compounds the issue, because now we actually have three agencies at work: the Darkness (i.e. circumstance/vestigial emotions), Kellhus' rational mind (the Logos/Thousandfold Thought) and Ajokli.
In PoN, it's pretty clear that the Logos is ascendant in Kellhus, but for a few brief moments. Post-Unification though, I think Ajokli begins to come more to the fore and, to go back to Akka's analogy that I quoted before, the more Ajokli pries open Kellhus soul, the more of the Darkness, the Outside, the madness seeps in. But it's not just Ajokli at play too, because the Thought has Kellhus pitched on a soul-harrowing course as well, lending itself directly to the other two factors rise.
I feel like when Kellhus says he will descend like a hunger, that is both Kellhus and Ajokli at that moment. As Sorweel experienced when he had the Amiolas on, the line between one soul and the other can be blurry when they are intermixed.
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There's a passage in TGO stating that the Nonmen of Viri only indulged in the daimos of 'elhusioli' during and after a hunt (and that this attracted the attention of Husyelt). The Nonmen seem to use (small-d) 'daimos' in the same way the Greeks did, to refer to a concept that can move one's soul (which in the Outside would be personified as an Agency) such as 'love', 'rage', 'sorrow' or whatever.
Incidentally, 'elhysioloi' means 'attractants' (for example, pheromones) in Greek.
Which Greek word you have in mind, because when transcribed in Latin letters makes no sense to me.
Incidentally the word daemon originally did not have negative connotations. Aristotle spoke of eudaimonia as the natural telos of humankind.
I think it was in the Church / Christian tradition that the word daemon acquires its negative meaning.
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It would have been really nice if there were some actual textual evidence of this prior to TUC that wasnt just some ambiguously post hoc rationalizations
4-d storytelling rarely works tbh and I don't think bakker is a good enough author to pull it off
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Which Greek word you have in mind, because when transcribed in Latin letters makes no sense to me.
'ελκυσιολοι', which admittedly would normally be written as 'elkusioloi' in Latinised form. But IIRC kappa in (some dialects of?) Ancient Greek can be transliterated as 'h'? I briefly studied Greek 20 years ago, but my knowledge is extremely hazy by now...
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Which Greek word you have in mind, because when transcribed in Latin letters makes no sense to me.
'ελκυσιολοι', which admittedly would normally be written as 'elkusioloi' in Latinised form. But IIRC kappa in (some dialects of?) Ancient Greek can be transliterated as 'h'? I briefly studied Greek 20 years ago, but my knowledge is extremely hazy by now...
Doesn't ring a bell, but I guess it is a derivative of the verb έλκω which means to attract. I need to ask a friend of mine who is a teacher of Modern and Ancient Greek.
I am native speaker of Modern Greek but my Ancient Greek is quite poor to be honest.
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Which Greek word you have in mind, because when transcribed in Latin letters makes no sense to me.
'ελκυσιολοι', which admittedly would normally be written as 'elkusioloi' in Latinised form. But IIRC kappa in (some dialects of?) Ancient Greek can be transliterated as 'h'? I briefly studied Greek 20 years ago, but my knowledge is extremely hazy by now...
Doesn't ring a bell, but I guess it is a derivative of the verb έλκω which means to attract. I need to ask a friend of mine who is a teacher of Modern and Ancient Greek.
I am native speaker of Modern Greek but my Ancient Greek is quite poor to be honest.
I love this place :).