The Unholy Consult post-release SPOILER thread IV

[Darth Richard II]

3 minutes ago, unJon said:

Beauty of ambiguity. Kelmomas followed a beetle around into Ajokli shrine and tore its legs off. That's it. 

See that actually makes me want to do a reread.

[Gronzag]

 What I don't understand is why would Khellus want to stop the No God if he doesn't have a really good plan to deal with damnation in some other way? What I expected is that Khellus wants to kill The Consult (hence the armies) because they are useless to him, than insert himself into the carapace and become No God then somehow try to beat the 100.

[Kalbear]

23 minutes ago, Gronzag said:

 What I don't understand is why would Khellus want to stop the No God if he doesn't have a really good plan to deal with damnation in some other way? What I expected is that Khellus wants to kill The Consult (hence the armies) because they are useless to him, than insert himself into the carapace and become No God then somehow try to beat the 100.

Dunno. It's a very open question. Was Kellhus willing to sacrifice himself to save the world from the No-God? Did he actually make a real pact with Ajokli, only to be betrayed - or was there never a real deal made? What was his plan to stop the No-God and what was the Thousandfold Thought? 

As stated elsewhere, the lack of a Kellhus PoV makes a whole lot of this poorly ambiguous. Kellhus attempting - and failing - to resist the corruption of his soul could have been an incredibly compelling storyline, especially with the love of Blood Meridian. As it stands, it is simply abrupt and confusing.

[maarsen]

I have been following this thread off and on for the last little bit. You all have to understand one simple fact. Bakker is Canadian and as such has a different set of cultural influences than the majority here. In school he read Canadian authors and ws influenced by them. He also grew up in London, Ontario, cultural centre of Southwestern Ontario. As  fellow Canadian I see the influences in his work. Use this as a jumping off point and things become clearer.

[Hello World]

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We know certain things were planned out far in advance - cnaiur screaming at the whirlwind, or the whale mothers. Probably the best way to prove planning is to see foreshadowing in the text on those. To my knowledge there is very little or none, but I haven't gone looking.

Actually there is a lot of foreshadowing for the Whale Mothers in early books I had a big post aggregating what seemed like clues to me once. Which I'll find when I get home. And if you asked me before, this was one of the few big things (if you see it as big) were there was a lot of foreshadowing. But I also felt like there was foreshadowing at least to the same extent for many different things that didn't come true. This was the only thing that stuck. 

The Ajokli Gilgaol confusion is a big bummer because it shows that Bakker leaves some things, major things, like the descriptions of Ajokli and Gilgaol, similar and deliberately confused so that he can decide later which one to go with. I'm also almost certain that he has left most of the characters fates at the end of TUC unclear, so he can decide now whether he wants them alive or not for the next series. 

[Callan S.]

When did Kelmomas interact with Ajokli?

[Hello World]

I guess what I was talking about is that there was good reason to believe that Dunyain women did not exist.

 

[Darth Richard II]

1 hour ago, Callan S. said:

When did Kelmomas interact with Ajokli?

I thought that what was going on in the beetle scene in TJE but I haven't read it since it came out. Thus my question.

2 hours ago, maarsen said:

I have been following this thread off and on for the last little bit. You all have to understand one simple fact. Bakker is Canadian and as such has a different set of cultural influences than the majority here. In school he read Canadian authors and ws influenced by them. He also grew up in London, Ontario, cultural centre of Southwestern Ontario. As  fellow Canadian I see the influences in his work. Use this as a jumping off point and things become clearer.

Uh, I, ok? I don't know much about how Canadian culture is different from American, other than your Dew doesn't have caffeine.

[lokisnow]

@maarsennow that you mention it, i DO see a lot of Terrence and Phillip in Bakkers writing. Very clever to replace farting with semen!

@Darth Richard II the beetle scene is the first scene of TJE, the prologue point that kicks off the aspect emperor series. 

@Let's Get Kraken ah-joke-lee

@unJon if cnaiur is the -genesis- of Ajokli that explains a lot with the oddities of Ajokli. This would mean a god is born shortly after resumption, and the god ain't baby kellhus. The compass of cnaiur hate truly becomes infinite if he becomes a god, very nice, and might explain why the scene was one Bakker wrote decades ago.

Chapter one TDTCB a long time before we meet esmenet, and the context is the celmomian prophecy. Saying this is foreshadowing for the end of white luck warrior is overfitting. This is establishing a thematic Akka seswatha parallel in as direct a way as possible, it isn't establishing narrative foreshadowing f a future event.

 

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He turned from the view to the room’s single table and dropped onto the stool, or what passed for one—it looked like something salvaged from a wrecked ship. He wet his quill and unrolling a small scroll across scattered sheets of parchment, wrote:

Fords of Tywanrae.

Same.

Burning of the Library of Sauglish.

Different. See my face and not S in mirror.

A curious discrepancy. What could it mean? For a moment, he pondered the sour futility of the question. Then he remembered awakening in the heart of night.

After a pause, he added: Death and Prophecy of Anasûrimbor Celmomas.

Same.

But was it the same? In detail, certainly, but there had been a disturbing immediacy to the dream—enough to wake him.

After scratching out “Same,” he wrote: Different. More powerful.

 

[maarsen]

7 hours ago, Darth Richard II said:

I thought that what was going on in the beetle scene in TJE but I haven't read it since it came out. Thus my question.

Uh, I, ok? I don't know much about how Canadian culture is different from American, other than your Dew doesn't have caffeine.

Canadians don't trust heroes. Read Margaret Atwood's Survival. She wrote this when she was an unknown  writer. Canadian literature is all about just surviving. Achmanian is so Canadian it hurts.

[End of Disc One]

Finished the book last night, loved it.  Possibly my favorite in the series, but with one potentially major disappointment which you guys are all discussing.

When Khellus said that he went to the Pit, made a pact, and plans to conquer Hell and become a worse Dark Lord than the Consult could hope to be.  That was fucking awesome.  But it turns out that wasn't even him, but Ajokli?  Pretty disappointing.  The main question in the series for me was "what is Khellus' plan and how ambitious is it" and it's hard to get more ambitious than conquering Hell.  But if that was Ajokli possessing him, it's like why do these characters even matter if the gods can take them over?

But I don't know, in the Malazan series (aside from the first book) God/mortal relationships and "possessions" are never that straight forward.  They seem to be more an alignment of ideals than anything else.  So could Ajokli taking Khellus over really just mean it's still Khellus, but Ajokli is turning his ruthless trickster instincts up to 11?  So Ajokl is the berserker, and not literally speaking through Khellus?

I hope it's something like that.  I skimmed the AMA and half of this thread, and I think Bakker said that Khellus plan was just to prevent the No-God from rising.  If that is so, then how the fuck did he plan to succeed?  Maybe that was just Khellus' plan pre-Ajokli influence.

I had a bunch of questions in my head last night but can't remember many.  I'll try to compile them today.

[unJon]

1 hour ago, End of Disc One said:

 

I hope it's something like that.  I skimmed the AMA and half of this thread, and I think Bakker said that Khellus plan was just to prevent the No-God from rising.  If that is so, then how the fuck did he plan to succeed?  Maybe that was just Khellus' plan pre-Ajokli influence.

This is my main issue post-AMA. "Stopping the Consult" is a goal not a plan. Pre-AMA I thought I knew Kellhus's plan: make treaty with Pit, use awesome Ajokli powers in Golden Room to defeat enemies, become power in own right in Hell. 

I thought it was an awesome plan. A real third way between the Mandate idea of "lose soul but save world" and Consult plan of "save soul but lose world." Inalso thought Kel might have some trick to pull on Ajokli to avoid the terrible consequences to Earwa. 

But post-AMA I can't jive my speculation with the AMA answers. Maybe Bakker is trolling @lokisnow solution. Or maybe I am reading the AMA incorrectly @Michael Seswatha Jordan solution. I don't know. 

I find myself left with the same question I have posted multiple times in these last threads: What was Kellhus's plan to deal with The Golden Room?

[Hello World]

I went and looked at the AMA again and I'm hoping someone can give me some evidence from the books to back up what Bakker is saying here, (only read the book once but I don't recall any of this)

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Kellhus's endgame was to prevent Resumption and save the World. He knew something was amiss, and that the closer he came to Golgotterath the more amiss it became, but he, ultimately, was every bit as blind as we are to the darkness that comes before.

Is there anything that would make you think that without reading the AMA? Also, why is Kellhus just as blind to the darkness as everyone else when he has shown that he is above everyone else in pretty much everything (or has he?)? Why didn't he figure out that something wasn't right about the Kelmomas Sorweel interaction if he thought that Kelmomas was telling the truth?

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Kellhus became less Kellhus and more Ajokli the nearer he came to Golgotterath. He failed to execute on the Thousandfold Thought because he took the stability of his personal identity for granted.

Did Kellhus fail because Ajokli took over him or because Kelmomas interrupted the Ajokli takeover? And is there any textual evidence for this?

[Hello World]

10 minutes ago, unJon said:

find myself left with the same question I have posted multiple times in these last threads: What was Kellhus's plan to deal with The Golden Room

The Ajokli takeover happened before the Golden Room which Kellhus never intended to enter?  eta: I know someone said that before but it doesn't fit with what Kellhus says in the Golden Room. 

[unJon]

9 minutes ago, Hello World said:

I went and looked at the AMA again and I'm hoping someone can give me some evidence from the books to back up what Bakker is saying here, (only read the book once but I don't recall any of this)

Is there anything that would make you think that without reading the AMA? Also, why is Kellhus just as blind to the darkness as everyone else when he has shown that he is above everyone else in pretty much everything (or has he?)? Why didn't he figure out that something wasn't right about the Kelmomas Sorweel interaction if he thought that Kelmomas was telling the truth?

Did Kellhus fail because Ajokli took over him or because Kelmomas interrupted the Ajokli takeover? And is there any textual evidence for this?

There are places in the book where Kel mentions his own darkness and how it is increasing as he approaches Golgotterath. 

[Gronzag]

33 minutes ago, unJon said:

There are places in the book where Kel mentions his own darkness and how it is increasing as he approaches Golgotterath. 

Really? I only remember when Khellus tells Esmenet that she is his only darkness.

[End of Disc One]

Would it work if when Bakker says "Kellhus" in the AMA, he means "Pure Kellhus" or "Kellhus as he was before any Ajokli influence"?

[unJon]

17 minutes ago, Gronzag said:

Really? I only remember when Khellus tells Esmenet that she is his only darkness.

Quick search through the book. Looks like I was remembering the Kel and Proyas convo after the betrayal of Proyas. 

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He did not need to turn to see the Aspect-Emperor hesitate. Golgotterath had become his face. “I’m not sure … The closer I come, the greater the darkness grows.”

Quote

“Because if I were to lie to you, I would not know what I was lying for … The darkness all but owns me here … The darkness that comes before. Any lie I might utter would serve ends I cannot know … I speak the truth to you, Proyas, because truth is all I have left to speak.”

 

[.H.]

1 hour ago, Hello World said:

Is there anything that would make you think that without reading the AMA? Also, why is Kellhus just as blind to the darkness as everyone else when he has shown that he is above everyone else in pretty much everything (or has he?)? Why didn't he figure out that something wasn't right about the Kelmomas Sorweel interaction if he thought that Kelmomas was telling the truth?

IN TGO Kellhus says:

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No soul had so owned Circumstance. He, and he alone, was the Place, the point of maximal convergence. Nations hung from his whim. Reality grovelled before his song. The Outside itself railed against him.

And yet for all of it darkness still encircled him, the obscurity of before, the blackness of after.

Also:

Quote

He suffered visions, certainly, but he had long ceased to trust them.

TGO, Chapter 4.

IN TUC:

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“Why?” he croaked. “Why do you show me this?”

He did not need to turn to see the Aspect-Emperor hesitate. Golgotterath had become his face.

“I’m not sure ... The closer I come, the greater the darkness grows.”

TUC, Chapter 10.

I think the case of why doesn't Kellhus realize how insane he is, how bad the darkness has infiltrated him is encapsulated in what he says to Kel, in Chapter 1 of TUC:

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“Some souls are broken in such a way as to think themselves whole,” he said. “The more they are flawed, the more they presume their own perfection.”

So, while Kellhus is broken, he does imagine himself mostly whole.  Even as he realizes something is amiss, the truth is that he isn't an island in a sea of Darkness, rather, he is awash in Darkness and simultaneously a fount of it as well.  He can't see that, for the same reason why he can't see his own soul, even if he can see "a head on a pole behind him."  There is no vantage point of his soul to his soul.  Plus, (I feel that) Ajokli doesn't simply harness Kellhus, he intermingles with him.  So, there isn't really anything to "see" besides his own soul.

I previously speculated that, were time not as issue, Kellhus would probably have been able to deduce this thing and regain "himself."  As it was though, he doesn't have that time for introspection.  He has to simply accept that despite the feeling that the darkness is encroaching, he is still (mostly) whole.  We know this is false, but the sensation to Kellhus of still being "in control" is still present, even if he does feel it somewhat loosening.  Compounding this is the fact that he constantly succeeds.  Why examine deeply a plan that is (seemingly) a success?

Kellhus faces the same issue with himself that we do.  He is so exceptional, that it's hard to imagine him missing something.  It's difficult to imagine him making a mistake.  Kellhus might be an "off-the-charts" human, but he is still human.

[Hello World]

Quote

 

No soul had so owned Circumstance. He, and he alone, was the Place, the point of maximal convergence. Nations hung from his whim. Reality grovelled before his song. The Outside itself railed against him.

And yet for all of it darkness still encircled him, the obscurity of before, the blackness of after.

 

^ Thanks. So the Darkness he's referring to isn't his inability to account for all inputs and outcomes as a Dunyain but Ajokli taking over or him losing part of his identity/himself? Because the latters seem like a stretch based on the quote. All the above quotes seem like Kellhus is just talking about the darkness that comes before in the usual way (he can't account for everything, he doesn't know what's going to happen with high certainty) as opposed to the Darkness/Ajokli taking over him. Moenghus says in PoN that TTT couldn't account for everything either.

The other theorizing that Kellhus is broken but still thinks that he's whole even as he realized that something is amiss is from the AMA, right?