Quote from: mrganondorf on September 20, 2016, 04:04:45 am

Quote from: MSJ on August 09, 2016, 06:36:38 pm

We'll I think that's true MG, he is both harvesting the fields and looking for a way to stop damnation. The ultimate long con if there ever was one.

I wonder if he's angling to smash Yatwer into Gilgaol?  Make both sides think that he might be working for them to lure them into some kind of unrefusable duel to mutual death?

I'm really starting to believe that the man in Kellhus's dreams is Kellhus. I don't know that he want to shut the Outside, the more I think about it. He wants to dominate it. This killing the 100 and him becoming the sole God of the Outside, the Absolute. Maybe just him and Onkis, can't get rid of the head on the pole behind you. Now, mind you, killing the 100 would still essentially stop damnation to the extent it's become on Earwa.

Sorry for the thread necromancy, but this really spoke to me. You know, in some sense, the gods of the outside, with their hungers and elemental urges, are like the opposite of Kellhus, who has mastered all his desires and is only mission. You could expect that if Kellhus did dominate the outside, life on Earwa would be quite different from how it is now, simply because Kellhus does not want.

BTW thank you very much for the conversation! I've visited these forums often to get informed, but I'm relistening to the books in anticipating of TUC, and I'm so excited that I finally started posting.

The origins of sorcery are, to my knowledge, never discussed in the books. It makes me wonder.

Sorcery is not like evolved traits. Evolved traits are gained gradually. Animals did not slither, then suddenly walk. The ability to walk appeared gradually through the ages. Same with sight, scent, touch, thought, language, etc.

On the other hand, sorcery seems to be binary. You either have it, or you don't. It also doesn't seem to be a skill that can be learned free-hand. We are never told of anyone teaching themselves sorcery, and based on the comments Achmanian makes when teaching Kellhus, it seems like something that one could not accidentally stumble upon. Kellhus, for all his otherworldly brilliance, does not even attempt to derive its workings from first principles, despite quickly inferring ways to improve it once he learns the basics.

All this conspires to make me think that sorcery must not have an originator within the world. It must have been handed down from outside to the Nonmen, or perhaps the Nonmen's predecessors, if such existed. But if the gods damn humans who use sorcery, then it seems like they would have no incentive to give them the skill. Except if gods want that more should be damned, in which case of course they would give the people of Earwa sorcery.

That brings up another thought: Kellhus' last words to Saubon.

The people of the Earwa seem to have a more empirical knowledge of their religion and the non-physical aspects of their universe than we do. This manifests in a few ways:

• Claims about the gods and their actions seem more authoritative than modern religions.
• People who are damned believe themselves damned.
• Someone who has the Judging Eye does not immediately seem insane to everyone else.

Is it ever discussed from where the people of Earwa gained this heightened knowledge of the non-physical aspects of their universe? Did daimotic sorcerors tell them? Is there some way to infer these principles from their physical reality? Do the gods typically intercede as often as they do in the second trilogy (i.e. is the rate of intercession lower in the first three books than in typical times)? Just curious if this is answered somewhere in the books.