While reading I made a bunch of notes and highlights on my kindle so I thought I would post some random thoughts here. However, all sober readings of the chapter have already been made so be warned that I'll restrain my self to the crackpot. Some of these thoughts--if not most--were inspired by other posters here and on Westeros.
It's not very coherent so apologies in advance.
One cannot raise walls against what has been forgotten.
The citadel of Ishuäl succumbed during the height of the Apocalypse. But no army of inhuman Sranc had scaled its ramparts. No furnace-hearted dragon had pulled down its mighty gates. Ishuäl was the secret refuge of the Kûniüric High Kings, and no one, not even the No-God, could besiege a secret.
The two lines underlined, One cannot raise walls... and not even the No-God, could besiege a secret. might actually be saying that Ishuäl was not affected by the metaphysics of the No-God. We know that the Consult used the No-God to seal the world shut against the Outside--to block it--and yet we are told here that you cannot raise 'walls' against (or besiege) a secret. The idea is that secrets have metaphysical properties... Again, I'm not the one who came up with this and I don't necessarily endorse it but I find it interesting nonetheless.
Ganrelka’s uncle, who’d led the heartbreaking assault on Golgotterath’s gates in the early days of the Apocalypse, hung from a rope in his chambers, slowly twisting in a draft.
Ganrelka was rescued from the Fields of Elenëot by five Knights of Trysë. We as readers know this because we were told and saw him in this prologue, but the people of Eärwa were most likely told that he died on the battlefield. What better way to smuggle him into Ishuäl unbeknownst to anyone than to declare him dead?
The reason I bring this up is because I think that that's what happened to Celmomas who also died on the Fields of Elenëot, supposedly. In the dream Seswatha says to him "conserve your strength, the physicians are coming", but before they arrive Celmomas utters the prophecy, then his eyes go "blank" and Seswatha immediately starts shouting "our king is dead." Even assuming that this Dream is showing what actually happened, I'm not sure that we saw Celmomas die in there, at least we would wait for the physicians to come.
Also, the quote above is pretty clear, we know that it was Celmomas who lead the assault on Golgotterath in the early days of the Apocalypse. We only dismiss that because we heard Seswatha say "our king is dead" in a dream. But if Celmomas wanted to be smuggled into Ishuäl, like Ganrelka, then that's exactly what I'd expect to happen. Him being declared dead on the battlefield and then taken in secret to the Citadel.
As for Ganrelka being Celmomas' son, he wasn't, since Nau-Cayuti was described as 'heir to Trysë' (Kuniuri's capital) in AE, and he was younger than Ganrelka, the latter could not have been another son of Celmomas.
Ganrelka’s uncle, who’d led the heartbreaking assault on Golgotterath’s gates in the early days of the Apocalypse, hung from a rope in his chambers, slowly twisting in a draft.
Slowly twisting in a draft. This imagery brings up the No-God but I'm not sure what to make of it.
The old Bard continually searched for him, singing ancient songs of love and battle, but slurring the words in blasphemous ways. “Why won’t you show yourself, child?” he would cry as he reeled through the galleries. “Let me sing to you. Woo you with secret songs.”
Here we're being told that 'secret songs', or
secrets, to be precise, are blasphemous?
One night the Bard caught the boy. He caressed first his cheek and then his thigh. “Forgive me,” he muttered over and over, but tears fell only from his blind eye. “There are no crimes,” he mumbled afterward, “when no one is left alive.” But the boy lived. Five nights later, he lured the Bardic Priest onto Ishuäl’s towering walls. When the man shambled by in a drunken stupor, he pushed him from the heights.
I agree with the view that the Bardic Priest symbolizes the Inchoroi in this bit. He is a rapist who knows that rape is a crime but thinks that he can get away with it "when no one is left alive." Just like the Inchoroi. Plus, he was pushed from a high place and crashed.
The BP mentioned a paraphrasing of the Inchoroi's worldview (as Aurang mentions it in TTT), "so long as there Men, there are crimes, so long as there are crimes, I am damned." It's clear that he's not talking about actual crimes here but the concept of a crime, after all, the BP says that are no crimes after he'd just committed one, and Aurang has no plans to stop repent even if the world is closed to the Outside.
Rape and sorcery, etc. are crimes only because Men believe that they are. So the solution, or part of the solution, is to kill a lot of Men.
Later the boy will repeat a paraphrasing of this view to the Dûnyain monk.
And once in a while, his eyes wide with hope and superstitious dread, he would poke the dead with his father’s sword.
I just thought that the word 'superstitious' here is a bit strange. Eärwa is an enchanted world. Most superstitions in the end turn out to be true, for instance, Kellhus learns that most of the superstitious beliefs that Leweth harboured where in fact reality.
“We are Dûnyain, child. What reason could you have to fear us?” But the boy clutched his father’s sword, crying, “So long as men live, there are crimes!” The man’s eyes filled with wonder. “No, child,” he said. “Only so long as men are deceived.”
Here the boy repeats what the the BP said and the Dunyain basically replies that no, there is another way.
You don't have to kill everyone when you can rewrite their beliefs. This sounds very similar to something Moenghus says to Kellhus in TTT,
“Beliefs beget action, Kellhus. If Men are to survive the dark years to come, they must all act of one accord. So long as there are Inrithi and Fanim, this will not be possible. They must yield before a new delusion, a new Breath-that-is-Ground. All souls must be rewritten ... There is no other way.”
Kellhus himself attempts something similar by claiming that sorcerers are no longer damned since he rewrote the Holy Texts.
Here awareness most holy could be tended. In Ishuäl, they had found shelter against the end of the world.
Since the Dûnyain were planning to start a breeding program, either they thought that the Consult would win and seal the world from the Outside (at which point the years of the crib would end?) or Ishuäl was not affected by the No-God.
