[What Came Before]

White-Luck Warrior Spoilers

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We are forgetting that the sranc against the Ordeal are "drawn like a lodestone" to it. Yes there are gibbering multitudes of sranc, but not at such a great concentration. The lands between Ishual and the Three Seas may very well not have too many sranc until the Consult start worrying about the Dunyain and when the Ordeal departs.

We have no way of knowing the population densities of sranc. They could be wandering mostly to the Far east where most civilization is, or  naturally stay away from the odd ground around Atrithau (maybe the consult is less effective for whatever reason, like sorcerers). It seems plausible enough that they would stay away (mostly) from the wasted north and west where Kell will be walking. And so there may be a reasonable enough chance to not encounter a big enough clan of sranc that Kell wouldn't be able to handle.

I agree though that Leweth is probably conditioned, or at least in some way related to Moe, and the encounter with Mek seems a bit fishy. To  many coincidences to not have some kind of intervention (gods or otherwise)

[What Came Before]

White-Luck Warrior Spoilers

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We are forgetting that the sranc against the Ordeal are "drawn like a lodestone" to it. Yes there are gibbering multitudes of sranc, but not at such a great concentration. The lands between Ishual and the Three Seas may very well not have too many sranc until the Consult start worrying about the Dunyain and when the Ordeal departs.

We have no way of knowing the population densities of sranc. They could be wandering mostly to the Far east where most civilization is, or  naturally stay away from the odd ground around Atrithau (maybe the consult is less effective for whatever reason, like sorcerers). It seems plausible enough that they would stay away (mostly) from the wasted north and west where Kell will be walking. And so there may be a reasonable enough chance to not encounter a big enough clan of sranc that Kell wouldn't be able to handle.

I agree though that Leweth is probably conditioned, or at least in some way related to Moe, and the encounter with Mek seems a bit fishy. To  many coincidences to not have some kind of intervention (gods or otherwise)

Well I think of Sranc as a keystone predator, like Wolves.  The chances of someone traveling alone walking the primative Sierra Mountains from Yosemite to Malibu without running into Wolves or Bears (or the dense populations of indiginous peoples populating these lands) is infinitesimal.  Their population may not be extremely dense, but predators hunt.  Sranc hunt, and Sranc particularly hunt humans--get insanely excited at the prospect of humans to hunt, and so all it would take is a single Sranc being near enough to Kellhus' path to pick up his scent/trail to cause a frenzy in that pack.  That Kellhus traveled through the territory of many Sranc packs (traveling such a distance will take you through multiple territories of various predators) without encountering any Sranc bespeaks a conditioning of the way (there's a Dune phrase for this, curse my weak human memory--Shortening of the Way, haha!).

WLW spoilers:

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Also, Moenghus would know of the way that Sranc packs can communicate with the Consult, and something as unusual as a lone human in that area would undoubtedly be communicated to the leadership (presumably Moe prevented this when he was traveling/leading the Sranc pack that took him to the Utemot, where they were all slain), and Moe would not want the Consult alerted to the possibility that there was a hidden colony of humans within spitting distance of Golgotteranth.

Also, you refer to the North as wasted, yet that does not match Kellhus' description.  Kellhus travels through an undeveloped wilderness rich in game and untapped forest resources and encounters two ruins, it's not a wasteland like the Plains of Mengedda.  There is no reason for Sranc to avoid it, and ample reason for them to be in the area (aforementioned resources).

[What Came Before]

To reiterate, I’m more concerned about the claim that there is a yearly caravan travelling from the Three Seas (or even just Sakarpus) to Atrithau, which makes it through often enough. That’s simply no compatible with what we see in later books.

That caravan would be full of holes after a few days of travelling.

(Kellhus travelling through the Demua mountains without meeting Sranc I have no problems with. He’s not a caravan.)

[What Came Before]

maybe it's a flying invisible caravan?  betcha didn't think of that, smartypants.

[What Came Before]

Leweth's explanation of a caravan are perhaps a convenient way for AK to believe that this is how Leweth knows what he knows.  Most people in isolated, rural places have little and less knowledge of the outside world, Leweth seems shockingly well versed, look at some of the phrasing that AK picks up from him, pretty much all of it accurate.

Also note how AK tells Leweth things throughout their discussion and Leweth neither confirms nor denies things.

But.

AK sees confirmation and denials in Leweth.   How do we know that AK isn't just seeing what he wanted to see?   AK's powers would be at his weakest here because his sample size of world born men is  one--in other words, this is the easiest place a trained person could deceive him.

Also, not the similarity to

TTT spoilers

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How AK tells MK things throughout their discussion and MK neither confirms nor denies things.

But.

AK sees confirmation in MK.  How do we know that AK isn't just seeing what he wanted to see?

Imagine you're a monk in mountainous northern Urals in AD 300, you travel south towards a primitive forerunner settlement that will become St Petersberg and there, some distance before you reach the city you run into a hermit trapper suspiciously living by himself in extremely dangerous terrain.  This trapper gives you a detailed accounting of the current social, political and religious situation of the far-away Aegean Sea area to which you plan to travel.   He says he learned about it because of caravans.

suspicious?

[What Came Before]

sounds plausible. who among us, after all, denies the following report of herodotus?

The Issedonians are said to have the following customs. When a man's father dies, all the near relatives bring sheep to the house; which are sacrificed, and their flesh cut in pieces, while at the same time the dead body undergoes the like treatment. The two sorts of flesh are afterwards mixed together, and the whole is served up at a banquet. The head of the dead man is treated differently: it is stripped bare, cleansed, and set in gold. It then becomes an ornament on which they pride themselves, and is brought out year by year at the great festival which sons keep in honour of their fathers' death, just as the Greeks keep their Genesia. In other respects the Issedonians are reputed to be observers of justice: and it is to be remarked that their women have equal authority with the men. Thus our knowledge extends as far as this nation.

The regions beyond are known only from the accounts of the Issedonians, by whom the stories are told of the one-eyed race of men and the gold-guarding griffins. These stories are received by the Scythians from the Issedonians, and by them passed on to us Greeks: whence it arises that we give the one-eyed race the Scythian name of Arimaspi, "arima" being the Scythic word for "one," and "spu" for "the eye."

so say we all!

[What Came Before]

By wasted I meant there isn't much human activity. Sure there are plenty of places to hide and eat grubs and such. Game is irreverent as they only eat men and grubs, ruins are mostly irrelevant unless they are a topos, and like I said the ground around  Atrithau is bizarre and we do not know how far this area's unique property of magic canceling goes. So why would large amounts of sranc congregate north of  Atrithau? I still would think that most of them would be near and between the two north most cities and the Utemont. (sorry for my miserable spelling).

Also who cares if Kell runs into a a few sranc? He obviously killed what looked like at least a few clans before he is found. Kell is a prodigy even among the dunyain (bakker interview), so Moe would obviously not be worried about him finding a few sranc stragglers.

Also isn't the area mostly dense forest? I know the sranc love to munch on men, but it would take some time for the scent of a human to reach through the forest to whatever straggler clan or two of sranc were around.

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Ishual wasn't discovered by sranc because there just weren't the numbers to warren the chance passing of many sranc bands.

Also there couldnt be a ton of sranc near the far north west because Atrithau exists, as well as the mostly defenseless Utemot near your sranc infestation. If there truely was a huge population of sranc there at some point, and they wanted to hunt humans as you kindly pointed out, they would have moved on from the area years ago for more fertile (meaning human) areas.

Also the only reason Akka and company runs into so many on their way to Ishual is because they started fighting them long before they got far enough west to avoid everything, so they ended up pulling many clans with them. Also the Ordeal increased the number of the sranc in their area around the time they crossed.

Moe did not need to hyper condition his path until, at the earliest, Leweth.

Low human population would mean any large population of sranc would have moved on long ago.
The remaining sranc would be no match for Kell.
Atrithau's caravans suggest that the population of sranc is low.
The Utemot being able to live so near your sranc infestation suggest that there are not that many.
Evidence from later books on sranc population is largely irrelivent because that story wasnt very near where Kell is.

[What Came Before]

I'm not digging on Leweth being a result of Moe. I think Moe's plan just failed - his son goes a bit mad and curls up under a tree and...the world conspires. IT is not done with these machinations. Leweth is the world conspiring. Along with the twig.

Off that topic, only really noticed now the reference to Ganrelka being an emporer of nothing!

[What Came Before]

Moe wasted every effort for fifteenyears to create a holy war from nothing if he was just going to let kellhus make his own way.  If moe conditoned a dozens of kingdoms and factions into a complex 1000 variable alliances to allow a war to fester why leave the path unconditioned, particularlyif the only way he can achieve his outcome is through the correctly timed arrival of his sons.  Its all for naught, one does not condition so much to leave the crucial element unmolested. 

Perhaps it is that the idea of an unmolested and autonomous kellhus makes the reader all full of happy thoughts and good feelings of internal rightness and certainty?

Why is doubt the enemy here?

[What Came Before]

I see no way Moe COULD have conditioned the ground in that way while keeping up his role as Mallahet.

The Dunyain don't act with certainty. They take the shortest path. The path most probable to give them the outcome they desire. That doesn't mean that it's actually LIKELY. Simply the most likely of all possible paths. Besides...Moe made the trip. He at least knows it's possible.

The books do a very good job of instilling the reader with the notion that the Dunyain are invincible and infallible. But as we see throughout, this is not the case.

[What Came Before]

I agree with Sharmat here. The most likely path may still be tiny, considering how many paths there where. If Moe could do it, Kell should easily be able to. Maybe it was, say, 30% success to get form Ishual to Leweth, but 1% chance of success with the holy war to the [place where the probability trance fails]. So he could use up huge resources, time, and effort to help out the 30% or the 1%. If he could only choose one, he would allow his prodigal son to complete a journey that he himself already did, and focus his efforts on the most likely to fail scenarios.

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like having viable sons and installing one in arguably the largest and most powerful religious structure in the three seas.

I guess what it comes down too is how much do we not know about Moe. If you're like some and you think that Moe is the most powerful force in the Earwa universe, then sure, he conditioned and plotted each and every step Kell took to Shimeh until it has an almost imperceptible failure chance. If you believe Moe was a pitiless slob who didnt know how to condition his way out of a paper bag, then Kell was free to do whatever and just saw what he thought was conditioned ground.

If, however, you believe somewhere in between these two radicals, then it still seems most likely that he would have the least control of the unpopulated wilderness that was geographically the farthest distance away from him considering his varied limitations, sorcererous, physical, and otherwise. He would  leave his son alone for the easy parts and help as best he could through the more difficult parts.

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For example, hes blind. This can make travel difficult. He isn't much good at the psuke because he has stunted emotions (a reasonable assumption I think, some disagree) He had many, many tasks to take care of, and disapearing for a few years to set up the first stage of Kell's journey would be suspicious and dangerous, especially if you consider his precarious perch in the Cish political/religious structure.

Though I guess it is possible that the most difficult part of his Journey was surviving to Atrithau, but then why he probably wouldnt spend 20 years installing whats-his-name to help him out with the whole holy war bit? Also possible he had plenty of time to do both, so again, its just based on how much faith you put into Moe, and how much you feel the text has lied.

[What Came Before]

Moe wasted every effort for fifteenyears to create a holy war from nothing if he was just going to let kellhus make his own way.  If moe conditoned a dozens of kingdoms and factions into a complex 1000 variable alliances to allow a war to fester why leave the path unconditioned, particularlyif the only way he can achieve his outcome is through the correctly timed arrival of his sons.  Its all for naught, one does not condition so much to leave the crucial element unmolested. 

Perhaps it is that the idea of an unmolested and autonomous kellhus makes the reader all full of happy thoughts and good feelings of internal rightness and certainty?

Perhaps it is that the idea of an unmolested and autonomous Moenghus makes the reader all full of happy thoughts and good feelings of internal rightness and certainty?

Why is doubt the enemy here?

The idea: Moenghus's plan failed right at the starting post, with it's implicit arrogance that his son would psychologically cover the same ground he did, in the same way. And then something else picked it up...

[What Came Before]

I guess what it comes down too is how much do we not know about Moe. If you're like some and you think that Moe is the most powerful force in the Earwa universe, then sure, he conditioned and plotted each and every step Kell took to Shimeh until it has an almost imperceptible failure chance. If you believe Moe was a pitiless slob who didnt know how to condition his way out of a paper bag, then Kell was free to do whatever and just saw what he thought was conditioned ground.

If, however, you believe somewhere in between these two radicals, then it still seems most likely that he would have the least control of the unpopulated wilderness that was geographically the farthest distance away from him considering his varied limitations, sorcererous, physical, and otherwise. He would  leave his son alone for the easy parts and help as best he could through the more difficult parts.

Though I guess it is possible that the most difficult part of his Journey was surviving to Atrithau, but then why he probably wouldnt spend 20 years installing whats-his-name to help him out with the whole holy war bit? Also possible he had plenty of time to do both, so again, its just based on how much faith you put into Moe, and how much you feel the text has lied.

[What Came Before]

I just cant see where, from the text, you could extrapolate your conclusions from. Moe talks to sranc and makes friends with their leaders, then hypnotizes/persuades them to let a fellow go through their lands several years later? When would this opportunity have afforded itself? A starving wolf that was hunting say a deer, wouldnt simply let it into its pack if said deer gave it an alternative meal, perhaps offering up a bunny rabbit. It would just eat both, or eat the bunny and kill the deer for later.

At what point would he have had the time to slink around in sranc infested lands, unseen and unheard, to study the sranc long enough to discern their language and their social patterns? It took kell a few days to learn Leweth's language (which he was presumably told to teach kell, so he was purposely being helpful), and that was in a cozy room with a nice fire and plenty of meditation time. How much longer would it take to learn a vastly more alien language while at the same time being hunted by the very thing he was studying? Presuming, of course, that once he understood them, that he had the proper physical structure in his vocal cords to utter their "language". Unless he just taught them sign-language.

[What Came Before]

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I'm assuming Moe already spoke some form of Aghurzoi given that it's implied he was actually running a Sranc warband when discovered by the Utemot. But I agree with your other assertions.