The Unholy Consult Post-Release SPOILER THREAD

[jurble]

Is Kelmomas supposed to be a representation of non-conscious human thought via bicameralism then?

[Gaston de Foix]

Small question: what is a triune? I see that various Mandati have them.

 

 

[Faint]

9 hours ago, Sheep the Evicted said:

Speaking of which Faint, your right I honestly can't visualise what it would be like for Kellhus to fail completely. You think he is in hell being feasted on right now ?

Yes. Everything he thought, all of his plans, all that he believed, it was all wrong. I think that's the "Oh, shit . . ." moment that Bakker was going for, and I would say he has been wildly successful judging by what I can see here, with so many readers afraid to even contemplate it.  I personally love how he worked such a seismic change into his story going into its final act.  Although, I would have loved to see the reaction had he just ended it here, as he originally intended, with Kellhus being exposed as a total fraud and no hope left in the world.  

[jurble]

How do you reconcile that conclusion with Ajokli not knowing where Kellhus is? (The entire point of the Cnaiur section at the end).  Hell is Ajokli's playground and he can't find Kellhus there.

[Kalbear]

7 minutes ago, Ajûrbkli said:

How do you reconcile that conclusion with Ajokli not knowing where Kellhus is? (The entire point of the Cnaiur section at the end).  Hell is Ajokli's playground and he can't find Kellhus there.

Maybe Kellhus wasn't as bound to Ajokli as we thought? Alternately, Kellhus could have had a contingency plan and be preserved in that head, knowing that it's better than the alternative of being 'redeemed' with Ajokli. But that's all it was - a contingency.

The more I think on it, the more I think @Faint is more correct in that this was supposed to be Kellhus' failure. Leaving aside the mechanism of his failure - his supposed blind spot to Esme - narratively it makes a lot of sense and answers a decent amount of questions textually.

- Why not have Kellhus just go right to Golgotterath? Because something must be eaten. Ajokli won't give him the power without getting access to the granary. Without that power, he possibly fails. He needs the Great Ordeal, and he needs it to not just suffer but anguish. 

-Why not kill the Dunyain right away? Because something needs to be eaten. As Ajokli says to the Dunyain (with emphasis mine):

Quote

“You shall be my goad, the scourge of nations. Children shall keen for the simple rumour of your coming. Men shall rage and weep. And whatever horror and anguish you should sow, I shall reap.”

Ajokli here is looking forward to more Kellian things to go out and strike unmeasurable dread, horror and fear.

-Why not destroy the Dunyain earlier? Because ...you get the idea. He had to wage hugely bloody wars to appease Ajokli. 

-Why does Kellhus fail? Because Ajokli fails, and Ajokli can't perceive Kelmomas. Kellhus can't really either, not to any major degree. This isn't Kellhus losing, it's Ajokli losing. 

-Why does Kellhus love Esmi (supposedly)? Could be Ajokli telling him that, to use Esmi as a goad to do these unspeakable things. 

-Why does Kellhus rape Proyas and get that all going? Because he knows regardless of what happens at Dagliash that the Ordeal has to turn to cannibalism and unspeakable things. He probably envisioned them simply feeding on each other in some horrible orgy, but the nuke was an opportunity to separate out the two groups and make it even less of a problem to feast on the other. 

So basically yes, the Great Ordeal was something of a ruse. It was always meant to be the case that they would eat sranc and descend into debauchery, because Kellhus anticipated that the great fight outside of Golgotterath wouldn't be that big a deal and he could stand to lose a lot of them - and importantly, the art of how they were lost, given in to hate and horror, would feed Ajokli. It wouldn't power up Kellhus afterwards - as I said elsewhere, those souls don't power up Kellhus because after Kellhus dies, the no-god is active and the souls don't get to the Outside. But they totally feed Ajokli, and that's what Ajokli wants. 

The Great Ordeal is not a false war like Kellhus thought Moe would want; it is a massive human sacrifice. 

This also makes some sense of the God-entangled bit we got of Sorweel; in order for the gods to see places that are hidden, they have to have a god-entangled soul. 

Now, it doesn't explain anything about Akka and Mimara's wacky adventures but at this point I am sadly coming to the conclusion that they were here to do their backstory and have them filing time, kind of like a year of Theon getting tortured because they can't just give an actor a year off. 

[.H.]

5 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Now, it doesn't explain anything about Akka and Mimara's wacky adventures but at this point I am sadly coming to the conclusion that they were here to do their backstory and have them filing time, kind of like a year of Theon getting tortured because they can't just give an actor a year off. 

Well, "Akka and Mimara see Eärwa" does give us a few of a few things, even if they ultimately fail to factor into the finale:

They show us something about the nature of topoi and Chorae.

They show us that Ishuäl is destroyed.

They introduce us to Koringhus, who explains something (what, I don't know, I guess something about the Absolute).

They reintroduce Cnaiûr.

I guess they are like some kind of reverse Frodo, in some bizzaro sense...

[Kalbear]

1 minute ago, .H. said:

Well, "Akka and Mimara see Eärwa" does give us a few of a few things, even if they ultimately fail to factor into the finale:

They show us something about the nature of topoi and Chorae.

The chorae thing doesn't appear to happen again and isn't ever referenced, and the topoi thing is used several times during the rest of the story, including at least twice during the actual Ordeal.

1 minute ago, .H. said:

They show us that Ishuäl is destroyed.

More importantly they show us that the Consult destroyed it (Ishual being destroyed isn't that special on its own), but this ends up not being as big a deal to the story as we might have thought.

1 minute ago, .H. said:

They introduce us to Koringhus, who explains something (what, I don't know, I guess something about the Absolute).

Irrelevant to the plot of TAE as far as I can tell. Koringhus is the reverse Tom Bombadil, I guess.

1 minute ago, .H. said:

They reintroduce Cnaiûr.

Largely irrelevant to the plot of TAE. 

1 minute ago, .H. said:

I guess they are like some kind of reverse Frodo, in some bizzaro sense...

In some ways the explanation above makes me a bit more okay with Mimara not seeing Kellhus; the reason she doesn't is because it would entirely ruin the ending, but it would be redundant if she did. Her not seeing him means that he is damned past the point of anything, insanely so. He isn't the savior. He isn't the future; he is the Inverse Prophet, and is hunger. If Mimara sees him that'd be interesting, but would spoil the Ajokli reveal - and more importantly doesn't tell us anything.

Now, why we get nothing on Akka's dreams (save that they are at least somewhat populated with true things, like the Shae reveal, or the Nau-Cayuti as No-God reveal, and thus have to come from a place that at least knows these details) - that bugs me. But Mimara not seeing Kellhus doesn't bug me as much if you assume that Kellhus is a Bad Bad Man. 

[Faint]

I am pretty fascinated with the story going forward as it applies to Achamian and Mimara, and even more so -- in a first for me -- to Esmenet.  I found her explicit survival the most shocking thing in the book.  I cannot even begin to divine her role in the series to come. 

Where does the story go from here? I suppose Achamian's credibility among those who know about him has experienced the greatest of surges but to what end?   There is so little left now. 

[Kalbear]

2 minutes ago, Faint said:

I am pretty fascinated with the story going forward as it applies to Achamian and Mimara, and even more so -- in a first for me -- to Esmenet.  I found her explicit survival the most shocking thing in the book.  I cannot even begin to divine her role in the series to come. 

Where does the story go from here? I suppose Achamian's credibility among those who know about him has experienced the greatest of surges but to what end?   There is so little left now. 

Depends a lot on when they set it and how important the holy Jesus baby is. It could be that Mimara's story is basically done, and her only goal was to get pregnant and successfully birth the savior. I'm not looking forward to random babies running about, but this would also kind of suck. 

Akka as a 70 year old Qirri-addicted dad sounds like a great sitcom potential. 

My feeling is that the world has to end and be disenchanted in a way that has the Consult lose, which means that the next book will be Mimara and Akka and BabyJesus against the No-God and against the gods. I don't see a lot of role for Esme in that. 

[Damelon]

1 hour ago, Gaston de Foix said:

Small question: what is a triune? I see that various Mandati have them.

 

 

Three sorcerers working as one.

[.H.]

15 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

In some ways the explanation above makes me a bit more okay with Mimara not seeing Kellhus; the reason she doesn't is because it would entirely ruin the ending, but it would be redundant if she did. Her not seeing him means that he is damned past the point of anything, insanely so. He isn't the savior. He isn't the future; he is the Inverse Prophet, and is hunger. If Mimara sees him that'd be interesting, but would spoil the Ajokli reveal - and more importantly doesn't tell us anything.

Now, why we get nothing on Akka's dreams (save that they are at least somewhat populated with true things, like the Shae reveal, or the Nau-Cayuti as No-God reveal, and thus have to come from a place that at least knows these details) - that bugs me. But Mimara not seeing Kellhus doesn't bug me as much if you assume that Kellhus is a Bad Bad Man.

I don't really disagree with the points, but I mean, they do something.  Just nothing of any real importance in the grand scheme of things.

I guess some kind of "it's not about the destination, but the journey" shit?  Not that I am saying I think it was a good idea, narrative-wise...

I think my take-away from it all is that in a world of jerks, Kellhus was just yet another jerk.  Maybe a bigger jerk, or maybe a smaller one, depending on how you frame it all, but not really all that different than even the Consult in the end.  I guess only Mimara isn't a jerk, but what could she really do when the whole world conspires?

It all just seems very Cormac McCarthy, a la, Blood Meridian to me, which Bakker has discussed being a book he certainly likes.

[jurble]

He can't play Jesus straight.  There's going to be subversion.  Or maybe he does?  And we see the contrast between False Prophet and Prophet.  We can get some Infancy Gospel of Thomas shenanigans with baby Jesus doing ridiculous stuff.   Jesus would also be a useful explanation for the end of the Hundred, rather than a Consult victory.  But... what would Bakker be going for?

[Kalbear]

4 minutes ago, .H. said:

I don't really disagree with the points, but I mean, they do something.  Just nothing of any real importance in the grand scheme of things.

I guess some kind of "it's not about the destination, but the journey" shit?  Not that I am saying I think it was a good idea, narrative-wise...

I think my take-away from it all is that in a world of jerks, Kellhus was just yet another jerk.  Maybe a bigger jerk, or maybe a smaller one, depending on how you frame it all, but not really all that different than even the Consult in the end.  I guess only Mimara isn't a jerk, but what could she really do when the whole world conspires?

It all just seems very Cormac McCarthy, a la, Blood Meridian to me, which Bakker has discussed being a book he certainly likes.

As I said in my review, it was becoming clearer and clearer that there isn't depth, just mystery, and there aren't going to be many answers or even particularly strong conclusions. The Akka/Mimara storyline was fresh in my mind there. And even with McCarthy you had conclusions to arcs that were potentially not satisfying, but at least were endings. 

Heck, I went and reread the story again, and I'm not sure that Akka survived. He first grabs Mimara and Esme, and then we hear him again talking to the Ordeal and telling them to go to the Occlusion, but he's still kind of hanging around. 

And yes, I think it's supposed to be clear that the Dunyain aren't that far off from the Consult, and both are ruled by their desires to have power over things. Kellhus at the end of the day isn't any different, and he cannot think of being one with others; he can only think of power over others, to master circumstance himself. There is precisely one Dunyain who has ever indicated otherwise, and that is Koringhus, so perhaps others can do the same.

[Kalbear]

7 minutes ago, Ajûrbkli said:

He can't play Jesus straight.  There's going to be subversion.  Or maybe he does?  And we see the contrast between False Prophet and Prophet.  We can get some Infancy Gospel of Thomas shenanigans with baby Jesus doing ridiculous stuff.   Jesus would also be a useful explanation for the end of the Hundred, rather than a Consult victory.  But... what would Bakker be going for?

Well, I think he'd be going for maximum impiety. So Jesus died...to ensure that women are less? To ensure a world order that sucks, where everyone is ranked and judged and damned? I still think this is one of the more interesting frissions of the series - that Mimara is holy, and noble, and has true power and is also representative of the system that makes women less than men simply for existing. She is the maximally objective truth, and that world kind of sucks. 

Maybe Jesus dies by sacrificing himself and getting sucked into Ark's code, obliterating it? Maybe Jesus climbs into the carapace and becomes the Soul that powers Ark, causing an inherent contradiction as it can see everything and be one with everything while also blind to everything and everyone? 

Or, alternately, Jesus dies and fails, and all of that was a red herring too. That would be darkly funny, but I suspect people would be even more upset.

[.H.]

3 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

And even with McCarthy you had conclusions to arcs that were potentially not satisfying, but at least were endings.

Well, in a way, we are sort of left with the No-God "dancing on a table" and not really a clear idea what happened to Kellhus.  But I mean, I am quibbling, it's not the same, just seemed similar to me.  In the end, Bakker just isn't McCarthy (which is fine, McCarthy is a fine McCarthy).

6 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

There is precisely one Dunyain who has ever indicated otherwise, and that is Koringhus, so perhaps others can do the same.

Well, Kellhus is pretty keen to ask Akka if anyone survived Ishuäl.  So, perhaps Crabicus (the crab-handed boy) is a key in the next series, along those lines, who can build off what Koringhus "discovered."

[Kalbear]

11 minutes ago, .H. said:

Well, in a way, we are sort of left with the No-God "dancing on a table" and not really a clear idea what happened to Kellhus.  But I mean, I am quibbling, it's not the same, just seemed similar to me.  In the end, Bakker just isn't McCarthy (which is fine, McCarthy is a fine McCarthy).

Well, Kellhus is pretty keen to ask Akka if anyone survived Ishuäl.  So, perhaps Crabicus (the crab-handed boy) is a key in the next series, along those lines, who can build off what Koringhus "discovered."

Crabicus apparently is going to factor in the future; per Bakker, he ran some ideas past Madness and Madness found them to be good. So yeah, we've not apparently seen the last of Crabicus. (dunno why that matters, though). 

I also wonder what Bakker would think of us not having a clear idea about Kellhus. We have him textually turned into a pillar of salt, we have an observer telling us how it happened, we have him saying that he's aligned with and kind of is Ajokli, we have him saying his plan is to cause massive horror and pain on Earwa and have Ajokli feed on it. I know - I still have a lot of questions, but given the Moe principle (namely, all the bullshit we thought about moe was just us projecting), it's hard for me to see this as being anything other than precisely what it is, and the only major mystery is why the other head on Kellhus' belt had the same distortions that Kellhus' head did. 

ETA: Oh, right - was going to say this. We think NC isn't an actual Anasurimbor, and one idea is that both he and Kelmomas are special twins born with two souls, right?

That'd be the same as Jesus, no?

[Ser Bryar Ashford]

double post, sorry

 

[Ser Bryar Ashford]

What the heck?

[Larry of the Lawn]

Yeah i think the NC / Kelmomas connection has to be two-up related.  Something to do with collapsing the watcher-watched cycle, or collapsing object and subject... I just can't remember anything about NC being a twin.

[Ser Bryar Ashford]

Aside from the Consult being a big let down I thought the Kellhus arc was satisfying and wrapped up well.  

I agree with most others that the Akka/Mimara arc was made to at least appear mostly pointless.  Though I suspect something like Wert's theory about tJE collapsing timelines will end up being true.  

My biggest disappointment was how thoroughly pointless the 1st Apoc ended up being to these 7 Bakker books.  We've been teased repeatedly with tidbits hinting that things were not as they seemed, Seswatha not as he seemed, the dreams not as they seemed etc and then it just melts away into nothing...

Maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised and the third series will be Akka on a grand quest to reveal the true story behind the lies that are the Saga's and use that info to defeat the No-God, but unless something like that happens I feel pretty let down.