The Unholy Consult SPOILER thread

[Sarcellus]

Who are the "enthusiastic" fans, you and Kalbear?

[Darth Richard II]

Sure. Why not.

[Sarcellus]

Or you could like honestly answer a question?

[Cithrin's Ale]

I apologize for interrupting the flame war. Let it be known that I don't think that Kalbear and Darth Richard are pieces of shit for criticizing a fantasy series and its author.

I recently reread TDTCB in order to get ready for Unholy Consult. I am left with a pressing question that I have had since I first read the book.

How does the plan by Xerius to betray the Holy War make any sense at all? Neither Kian nor Nansur have any reason to honor the bargain! I know it's an irrelevant question as of AE, but it still bugs me.

Surely Kian would be happier if they defeated the men of the tusk prior to the point where Nansur was supposed to betray them. This would lead to less territory being taken from them.

In addition, Nansur has no reason to betray the Holy War once Skauras defeated the Vulgar Holy War. In fact, betraying the men of the tusk could lead to them having less territorial acquisitions. Wouldn't it be in their best interest to have Kian utterly wiped out?

The only solution to this quandary that I can identify is that Nansur hoped that the betrayal would make it easier for Conphas to confiscate the Holy War's conquests by weakening the men of the tusk and that Kian was willing to sacrifice territory to Nansur in order to preserve its existence.

 

 

 

[Darth Richard II]

Didnt even know I was being critical. In actually pretty excited for the book.

[Cithrin's Ale]

1 minute ago, Darth Richard II said:

Didnt even know I was being critical. In actually pretty excited for the book.

I thought Sarcellus was referring to past instances where you guys have criticized Bakker.

I'm not that excited, myself. The WLW resolution in TGO left a really bad taste in my mouth. The amount of readers warning that this isn't a very satisfying conclusion is also alarming.

[Darth Richard II]

Maybe. He's not being very specific.

I'd actually like to do a reread myself but right now my Tad Williams reread takes priority since those books I haven't read in 20 years or so.

[LuckyCharms]

17 minutes ago, Cithrin's Ale said:

Surely Kian would be happier if they defeated the men of the tusk prior to the point where Nansur was supposed to betray them. This would lead to less territory being taken from them.

I think that this was Skauras' plan. At Anwurat he was fighting to completely defeat the Men of Tusk, Nansur included. It's only when he invariably loses that he clutches the treaty that Xerius gave him thinking: this is the last hope for my people and faith. Before Anwurat I don't think they were seriously going to concede to the Nansur demands if they could straight up win the war.

19 minutes ago, Cithrin's Ale said:

In addition, Nansur has no reason to betray the Holy War once Skauras defeated the Vulgar Holy War. In fact, betraying the men of the tusk could lead to them having less territorial acquisitions. Wouldn't it be in their best interest to have Kian utterly wiped out?

I'm not sure about Xerius, but I know for sure Conphas wouldn't abide by his alliance with the Kianene after the Battle of Shimeh. He's fantasizing about conquering Nenciphon, Seleukara and pushing all the way to Nilnamesh.

 

[all swedes are racist]

i love to recommend the second apocalypse to people as a "thinking man's" fantasy series, then come to these threads and have a good ironic chuckle

[Werthead]

Quote

Idfk, on SA Wert said that MG's teaser had "four" possible interpretations.

Yeah:

Serwa, Aurang or two other, more spoilery possibilities.

 

Quote

 

I'm not that excited, myself. The WLW resolution in TGO left a really bad taste in my mouth. The amount of readers warning that this isn't a very satisfying conclusion is also alarming.

 

I think it's a pretty satisfying conclusion. But then I reread these threads and see that some other people's ideas of "satisfying" (which rely disproportionately on knowing if Kellhus shoved a human heart up his rectum or not) are at extreme variance with my own.

[akh]

Well, I made my guess on it being Serwa simply on what's been said on this forum and in reviews.

The gist I got from all the information available so far is that whoever was wishing this to be - as someone above said - the "thinking man's" fantasy, was wrong; that everything should be taken as written and any effort into the themes or metaphysics of it all was wasted (well.. unrewarded at the very least) effort.

Hence the literal guess - it being someone looking like an angel doing shiny angel-like things.

Weirdly enough, despite the dude who called Kalbear a massive buzzkill, I think his list of things to pay attention to on re-reads before TUC was perhaps the thing that has gotten me most hyped about the book.

[Hello World]

I think there are a lot of things in these books that people expect to have "payoffs" in TUC when they are just there as worldbuilding. Like the Cishaurim and Psukhe, Zeum, Eanna, angelic cihprang (supposedly), anarcane ground, etc... Even the WLW or the JE could fit in that category. So many small things that people think are clues to some mystery are also just worldbuilding. You can discuss and think about these things all you want and that's good, but don't expect Bakker to spell out any answers for you.

[akh]

Well I personally don't expect the answers to be spelled out. I wouldn't mind if TUC would be like the fourth book of Book of the New Sun. That is, the important answers could be (must be) inferred from the text from the series so far. And if there's a final series (or a single book as it was with Wolfe) to spell out the answers and tie the loose ends - all the better, but not necessary.

This is not the impression I've gotten, however. Now the reviews so far have adjusted my expectations, and I will be going into TUC expecting an action book (and a good one at that) with epic battles and a few deep emotional scenes. Anything else I'll consider a bonus.

[Kalbear]

8 hours ago, Cithrin's Ale said:

Snip

My impression was that between conphas being fostered in kianene lands and the fanim ethic, it was a pretty decent plan. Conphas knows that the fanim aren't particularly interested in taking more territory and care quite a bit about trade. To them, this call for a holy war is the problem, but the status quo before it was not. 

 

[Hello World]

Anyway. If the ending is what I think it is, the no-god rises after the ordeal is wiped and we get a few lines implying that the Consult have won and that the world is over, in a similar fashion to Cabin in the Wood's ending, then I'd be totally fine with that being the ending to the whole series. Assuming that it's properly set up for during the book. In fact I world prefer if Bakker left it that way and didn't write the final series. (By the way this is all my guess I haven't read an arc for those who are worried about spoilers).

[Kalbear]

7 hours ago, akh said:

This is not the impression I've gotten, however. Now the reviews so far have adjusted my expectations, and I will be going into TUC expecting an action book (and a good one at that) with epic battles and a few deep emotional scenes. Anything else I'll consider a bonus.

I think that's a really great way of putting it. I'll add there's at least one scene that is super suspenseful and excellent at creating massive tension that isn't a battle or a speech, and it's one of Bakker's very best, on par with the tension that the Inrilatus/Kelmomas/Maithanet scene had. 

[Kalbear]

Actually, I thought of a better comparison.

True Detective (specifically s1; s2 is kind of shit)

Lots of people thought that True Detective was going to have some massive tie-ins and dissected frame by frame all these little clues, or went into the backstory of the King in Yellow, or looked at small pieces of paper to see what it all meant. Or thought that, like, a detective's daughter would be the bad guy or one of the victims or all sorts of things. There were conspiracy after conspiracy theory, talking about all sorts of this stuff, and I got into it too.

But the story itself barely went into much of this at all. There were a couple of good reveals, we found out who the bad guys really were and who the worst bad guy was, and we found out a lot of the plots - but at the end of the day not everyone was caught and convicted, not all the stories had a happy ending and a number of characters ended up being kind of second-fiddle to the main story. Many people were disappointed because it was not as deep as they had projected into it, or some of the plotlines really didn't seem to finish in any way despite hints that they were going to. It was still really cool, with one of the most impressive cinematographic feats done in a long time, but it was also unsatisfying in a number of ways as well, and the philosophy and thematic elements were flavor, not actual weight and plot. 

There's a lot of similarity there between TAE and True Detective. 

[Xray the Enforcer]

[mod] Two things: 1) Please keep it classy. That means no personal attacks. 2) If you have a question for a moderator, please PM them directly. Thank you. [/mod]

[lokisnow]

Obviously, the new clue from MG is about the crab handed boy. Clearly, he's broken into the ark, stolen and cracked the Tekne, and whenever it is that someone says, "behold an angel descends" they are referring to crab-handed boy, with a jet pack, naked (like a cherub), flying over the battle, spraying both sides with laser death rays. All while snorting qirri made from Mekeritrig.

I imagine that after this book is released, this thread will go through a lot of Denial (reinterpretations or "that can't be it"), Anger at the author (THAT CANT BE IT?!) Bargaining (okay okay, but what about the origins of chanv and the rape of omindalea, can we have one or two fan theories in exchange for all the ones now killed?), depression ("this can't possibly be as non deep as True Detective can it? not when I've spent so much time on it!"), followed by Acceptance ("Actually that makes other things make sense so I am now sort of okay with most of it.")

But it might take most of us years to get to the point that Kal is at now.

We have a lot of "moenghus did it all!" theorizing to fit in first, so much bargaining awaits.

 

[Kalbear]

11 minutes ago, lokisnow said:

Obviously, the new clue from MG is about the crab handed boy. Clearly, he's broken into the ark, stolen and cracked the Tekne, and whenever it is that someone says, "behold an angel descends" they are referring to crab-handed boy, with a jet pack, naked (like a cherub), flying over the battle, spraying both sides with laser death rays. All while snorting qirri made from Mekeritrig.

I really should have never hinted at that. Or the black-semen powered weapon that uses Orgone energy to fuel the Tekne. Or the obvious tie in with the lacuna in Disciple of the Dog that links all of Bakker's works together. 

At least we now now that Kellhus hid the heart in his butt because humans on Earwa were genetically modified by the Inchoroi to have a larger-than-normal genetic cavity, and the Dunyain's breeding did make women into whale mothers - but made men into exceptionally enormous assholes. 

The next series is 'pounded in the butt by the Logos', obviously, and Bakker has finally revealed himself to be Chuck Tingle.