[What Came Before]

What makes her so special?

We know little about how the onta perception is past on, but Esmi has had two children from two different men that both can use the voice.
She's the mother of the child with the judging eye.
She is also the only one who can bare viable offspring to Kell.

What did Kell see in her? How is it that she is so genetically superior to other humans.
Sure its possible she won the magical genetic lottery, but thats a lot of chance. There should be some better explanation than that.

There are the wold conspires theories, but I've never fully been able to understand that so I'll not mess with it.
Then there are the gods. They all have various motives, maybe shes one of the chosen souls.
How about not chance or gods or conspiracies, but perhaps shes the product of an elaborate, centuries long breeding program. But then by who and for what purpose. No one but the nonmen would have the foresight and patients to derive such a scheme. It'd take a lot of time and control, specifically political power and money as well, and I can't see a whore in the slums being the child of such a scheme.

I dunno, I was hoping to flesh out a genetic breeding theory but I got tired and decided it was unlikely.

Anyone else?

[What Came Before]

The world conspires ...

I think initially Kellhus picks Esmenet simply because of circumstance and proximity and then keeps her in that role because all other women he finds in the New Empire have unequal wombs - I'm sure Bakker would be ecstatic that I'm coming to the conclusion that Esmenet's womb is what makes her important and unique, at this point.

Luck then rationalization.

[What Came Before]

But the mystery of this one woman, this Sumni harlot, stirred fear rather than disdain within him.  Fear and longing.  But why? After Inrau's death, distraction was what he had needed most of all, and she had stubbornly refused to be that distraction.  Quite the opposite.  She pried him for the nuances of his day, debating--more with herself than with him--the meanings of each meaningless thing he learned.  Her conspiracies were as impertinent as they were absurd.

From the beginning, DA's perceptions of Esmenet foreshadow her outsized importance, here we see it emphasized how he fears her and wants her and that when he thinks about fearing and wanting her the author chooses to emphasize her nihlistic tendencies, how she searches for meaning in a meaningless world--kind of like the traditional modernist protagonist.  It's interesting that Kellhus will be seeking the opposite of this, seeking to find meaninglessness in a meaningful world.  It's also interesting there's this binary of meaning and meaningless regarding Esmenet so soon after the definition of the No-God was provided, "emptiness, absolute and terrible," Esme is only a few paragraphs after this definition, and we should definitely make a connection here, I think.

Bakker continues,

One night he told her as much, hoping only to silence her for a short time.  She had paused, but when she spoke, it was with a weariness that far surpassed his own, the tone of one injured to honesty by the pettiness of another.  "This is only a game I play, Achamian... There is is truth inside a game." He'd lain in the darkness, consumed by inner turmoil, feeling that if he could unravel his hurts the way she could, he would crumble, collapse into dust.  This isn't a game.  Inrau is dead.  Dead!

italics in the original, emphasis mine.  Amazing that Esmenet here could have weariness that surpasses that of the Mandate! The Mandate.  And note how her ability to self-analyze is considered so extensive, I think we're getting some foreshadowing as to why she will work with Kellhus, Achamian is so scared of her abilities that he thinks he would crumble into dust (biblical, eh?) if he did the same--and then look how FAST Achamian runs away from this conclusion, he distracts himself from the powerful conclusions he is approaching by retreating into the safe recriminations regarding Inrau's death.  Rather than following Esmenet's path to insights--a path very similar to the path Kellhus follows for insight--DA is scared and runs away, he rejects the 'game' and focuses on his hurt feelings. "Inrau is dead. Dead!"

Achamian had lain wiht many whores in many cities through the years, so why was Esmenet so different?  he'd first come to her because of her beautiful boyish thighs and seal-smooth skin.  He'd returned because she was so good, because she joked and lusted the way she had with Callustras--whoever he was.  But at some point, he'd come to know the woman apart from her spread legs.  What was it he'd learned?  With whom had he fallen in love?

Esmenet, The Whore of Sumna

Often, in his soul's eye, she was inexplicably thin and wild, buffeted by rain and winds, obscured by the swaying of forest branches.  This woman, who had once lifted her hand to the sun, holding it so that for him it's light lay cupped in her palm, and telling him that truth was air, was sky, and could only be claimed, never touched by the limbs and fingers of a man.  He couldn't tell her how profoundly her musings affected him, that they thrashed like living things in the wells of his soul and gathered stones about them.

Good god, look at that last paragraph, look at the foreshadowing there.  Esmenet is already like a god when see through the gaze of his soul's eye, this passage is screaming and describing her specialness.  Her appearance, her teachings they all overwhelm DA throughout this chapter and the series and this is long before she meets Kellhus, the world has marked Esmenet, for certain.

Who else could match Kellhus than someone such as this?

[What Came Before]

Its not that I think her undeserving, and if I did surely these passages would have overturned that.

I guess I was just entertaining the thought that she was made. Perhaps one day something will come up, and we'll find out that some of the "world conspires" is actually something or someone tangible.

[What Came Before]

Its not that I think her undeserving, and if I did surely these passages would have overturned that.

I guess I was just entertaining the thought that she was made. Perhaps one day something will come up, and we'll find out that some of the "world conspires" is actually something or someone tangible.

I guess that's never really bothered me as I've never really cared if Luke Skywalker or Neo were 'made' because they are the 'one' in their particular universes.

[What Came Before]

You can always have fun with reverse causality.

Ie, she wasn't made - instead the past was made as an extension of her.

[What Came Before]

You can always have fun with reverse causality.

Ie, she wasn't made - instead the past was made as an extension of her.

after cannot affect before !!

[What Came Before]

Sure it can, you're just being parochial (yeah, I'm an ass!) and treating your own timeline as the only one!

Surely if I were to write a little game world, like minecraft, I can do this. Because my timeline is seperate from its! But subjectively from inside it, after cannot affect before. That's what inside basically means!

That said I'm being a little over the top saying it all builds towards her, but I did say it's for fun

I wish she wasn't so sad as empress.

[What Came Before]

I wish she wasn't so sad as empress.

agreed, though its understandable. having a bunch of crazy children might have that affect.

[What Came Before]

AK's thing for her struck me as unconvincing.  the narrative didn't really earn her place as empress.  that's not to say that it's wrong--just that the narrative needed a bit more.  it came across more as convenience--sure, AK needed her as a lever on DA--but by III, seeya.

[What Came Before]

Misinformation or, as has been common, not enough information. We will know soon enough. TUC will answer many a question.

[What Came Before]

From my point of view it's all children's fault. Only few of us could bring up their crazy offspring and wouldn't become sort of mad in the same time.

[What Came Before]

Cheers, arya. Welcome to the Second Apocalypse.

Esmenet certainly is mad for her children - love is one of Bakker's favorite tropes to toy with, after all.

Do you think Kellhus loves Esmi, arya? And if so, are his children incidental to his plans or are they crucial?

[What Came Before]

Do we know if anyone else has used the whores shell? Or someone who has gotten pregnant whilst using one?

What if its just a sham? Not like the wathi doll at all, but just a cheap talisman sold to whores. A good luck charm more than an actual working artifact.

The strong seed forces the womb ... or something like that.

Could just be that it took someone like an Anasurimbor to impregnate her. Strong seed indeed. Though that assumes that someone special was the father of her other daughter.


just a thought.

[What Came Before]

Could just be that it took someone like an Anasurimbor to impregnate her. Strong seed indeed. Though that assumes that someone special was the father of her other daughter.


just a thought.

That assumes that genetics are not metaphysical on Earwa.  It's possible that by adopting Mimara it is the same as if Kellhus were Mimara's father.

In other words the semantic 'nicety' of the word adoption in our world has actual physical force in the Earwa world.  semantics and meaning are important.  What does adoption mean?