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The Unholy Consult post-release SPOILER thread IV


Gaston de Foix

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Here are my questions.  Some are probably long answered, but I haven't spent much time caught up on the series.

1. Did we ever find out what was up with Achamian's dreams, and why they changed?  They suggested that the visions aren't literally what happened (Seswatha does not shit) so were they just something created by Seswatha?  Did they change because of the Qirri?

2. Not really a question, but I like how Kellhus said that Sorweel was one of his most devout followers.  Narindar are like priests of Ajokli.  Not sure if that was Ajokli talking, or just literary irony.

3. Bakker hinted in the AMA that Kellhus' grandson is still, alive, right?  If so that's a relief because I can always do with more Dunyain, not fewer.

4. What was the point of Kellhus having decapitants (other than to give us a POV in the Golden room)?

5. This has long been discussed I'm sure.  Did Kellhus know about the nuke?

6. Did Kellhus actually go to Hell?  If so, how and when?  Is this just something to do with the Daimos?

7. Was Kosoter more than just a regular human?

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I don't think we got an answer on Achamian's dreams. An answer was teased kind of but no given when Achamian talked about it to Kellhus, so maybe Bakker intends to answer this in the next series, although I'm not holding my breath. They might be an answer in the text that we missed...

Sorweel was never a narindar as far as I can tell.

There is an entry in the glossary about Kellhus using the decapitants in some daimotic way, you might want to read it for yourself. I don't actually remember which entry it was maybe decapitants.

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1 hour ago, Hello World said:

^ 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?

You moved goalposts here. Your original questions was:

Quote

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.

And I cited the quotes about getting worse as he approaches Golgotterath. That's the textual support underlying AMA comment. No I don't think you could attribute it to Ajokli (reasonably) until after Bakker's comments in the AMA. Because I don't think it was clear at all that Kel meant anything other than "regular" darkness. But of course it's darkness so by definition Kel can't see into it to know if it's Ajokli or something else as he approaches Golgotterath. I think?

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6 minutes ago, Hello World said:

I know... it was follow up question/post... relax. (I considered typing a paragraph in that post to clarify this actually, but didn't. My apologies.)

I'm perfectly relaxed and you don't need to apologize. "Moving goalposts" wasn't meant to be a disparaging comment. 

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Anyway, what I was getting to is that if some things were said in the AMA and there isn't much textual evidence to back them up (which I'm still unclear on) then they can be safely ignored from my perspective, even if they don't contradict anything in the books. I honestly don't get why some people are hung up on the AMA (including me :P ) when we can just go back to death of the author. Even though H's post about the darkness and Kellhus' talk to Kelmomas was pretty good.

So for the sake of argument, before the AMA we thought that Kellhus made a deal with Ajokli through the Daimos where Kellhus would summon Ajokli in the Golden Room to defeat the Consult and Kellhus gives Ajokli a way into the world to create his hell on earth that he feeds on or something? And Kellhus would "conquer hell" as part of this plan?

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22 minutes ago, End of Disc One said:

Here are my questions.  Some are probably long answered, but I haven't spent much time caught up on the series.

1. Did we ever find out what was up with Achamian's dreams, and why they changed?  They suggested that the visions aren't literally what happened (Seswatha does not shit) so were they just something created by Seswatha?  Did they change because of the Qirri?

No. We have no idea. The teaser quote from Bakkerfans was his apparently projecting what he wanted to be the case, but not actually representational of what was in the text. The only thing we found out is that his dreams are at least based on real history - things like the representation of Shae, or how the Inverse Fire looks - both are accurate. But why they changed? How they changed? If the old ones are accurate? Not a clue. 

22 minutes ago, End of Disc One said:

2. Not really a question, but I like how Kellhus said that Sorweel was one of his most devout followers.  Narindar are like priests of Ajokli.  Not sure if that was Ajokli talking, or just literary irony.

It's weird, because Narindar is used interchangeably as 'assassin' and 'priest of Ajokli', but Sorweel in that instant was neither; he was the White Luck, working for Yatwer (the stork imagery is quite explicit at this point). 

22 minutes ago, End of Disc One said:

3. Bakker hinted in the AMA that Kellhus' grandson is still, alive, right?  If so that's a relief because I can always do with more Dunyain, not fewer.

Apparently Crabicus is going to be the major subject of at least one book, though how much of that is Bakker lying is unclear.

22 minutes ago, End of Disc One said:

4. What was the point of Kellhus having decapitants (other than to give us a POV in the Golden room)?

That was one. There's an entry in the appendix that talks about someone witnessing Kellhus swapping heads with himself and one of the decapitants. Other than that, the current working theory is that Kellhus' actual soul is trapped like Malowebi's in one of the heads.

22 minutes ago, End of Disc One said:

5. This has long been discussed I'm sure.  Did Kellhus know about the nuke?

Apparently not. 

22 minutes ago, End of Disc One said:

6. Did Kellhus actually go to Hell?  If so, how and when?  Is this just something to do with the Daimos?

He went in an early year of the Unification wars, using Daimotic magic, and did it on or near the plains of Mengedda. Whether or not that is when he made an actual deal with Ajokli is unclear.

22 minutes ago, End of Disc One said:

7. Was Kosoter more than just a regular human?

He apparently became a Ciphrang, but he didn't start that way. 

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4 hours ago, unJon said:

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. 

Yeah, that was one of the biggest disappointments for me with the AMA. I was fairly content with the idea that Kellhus' plan was a solid and incredibly evil plan, because I love the idea that Kellhus is just another incredible evil. I love the dichotomy of the saving of the world - where the two forces that are attempting to take over the world are both hugely, maniacally, genocidally evil, and they're having this polite conversation about which evil path to take. That is a much better inversion of the Tolkien fantasy archetype, and I felt it fit both what we know about Kellhus and what we know about the Dunyain. 

Instead, we find out that both are inaccurate - Kellhus wasn't attempting to take over and was fighting it, and failed, and the Dunyain were not actually in charge and instead it was Shae all this time. Making Kellhus a weaker antagonist with no apparent master plan, making every action he takes suspect, making the other Dunyain pawns of some mwamahahhah sorcerer, and inverting basically nothing. Kellhus isn't Saruman facing off Sauron; he's Boromir, who got hold of the ring, facing off against Wormtongue.

4 hours ago, unJon said:

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?

I'm very, very tempted to write some fanfic of Kellhus' PoV from the last 3 books, showing him get more and more inexorably corrupted and how his mind dismisses the increasing corruption and feelings that he's getting. Taking certain statements and pointing out which of them are him, and which of them are Ajokli. I haven't figured out what I would do for Kellhus' overall plan yet, but it wouldn't be to enter the Golden Room. 

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34 minutes ago, Hello World said:

 

So for the sake of argument, before the AMA we thought that Kellhus made a deal with Ajokli through the Daimos where Kellhus would summon Ajokli in the Golden Room to defeat the Consult and Kellhus gives Ajokli a way into the world to create his hell on earth that he feeds on or something? And Kellhus would "conquer hell" as part of this plan?

Yes that's where I was heading at least. Query whether Kel was going to "Ajokli" Ajokli by pulling rug out from under him at his moment of winning. Or vice versa where Ajokli screws over Kel. Either of which has good foreshadowing in TAE thought Kelmomas point of view learning about how Ajokli operates. 

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49 minutes ago, unJon said:

Yes that's where I was heading at least. Query whether Kel was going to "Ajokli" Ajokli by pulling rug out from under him at his moment of winning. Or vice versa where Ajokli screws over Kel. Either of which has good foreshadowing in TAE thought Kelmomas point of view learning about how Ajokli operates. 

Right, my question then is how any of that could have been related to Ajokli if the Gods can't see little Kel.

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13 minutes ago, Darth Richard II said:

Right, my question then is how any of that could have been related to Ajokli if the Gods can't see little Kel.

Well it all occurred in Kelmomas POV where he reads books about Ajokli. So I think that works even if Ajokli can't see Kelmomas. There was a TON of speculation that Kelmomas was an avatar of Ajokli or that the voice in his head was Ajokli. And I think the text can be read that way as speculation about how Ajokli keeps coming up in Kelmomas POV. 

Since Kelmomas is invisible to the gods (we're told) you can read those sections as just Kelmomas thinking about Ajokli and reading about Ajokli and pulling the legs of a beetle at the shrine of Ajokli. There is no "explicit" acknowledgement from Ajokli. That's the um "beauty" of ambiguity and "layers of revelation."

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6 hours ago, Hello World said:

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

Why would what he says somehow definitely matter - it could just be rationalisation at that point. His intellect just trying to keep up with his Ajokli - because it thinks Ajokli is its intellect. Intellect can't see the difference between it and Ajokli, so what Ajokli urges is just 'the new plan'.

Edit: Eh, H seems to have beaten me to it!

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7 minutes ago, Darth Richard II said:

Right, so Little Kel is even crazier than first though.

 

Little Kel went cannibal during the fall of the palace and schemed to kill Maithenet and the head of the Yatwer cult basically because he thought it would be "cool" or lead to him Mommy smiling at him. Yeah I think he was pretty flipping crazy. 

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1 hour ago, unJon said:

Just had a thought: Kellhus couldn't appropriately react to Kelmomas or see what a threat he was or what was going on in his head because or "Ajokli creep" into Kellhus's brain. 

Probably some of that. Kellhus is also just not doing well processing everyone at once at that point, completely underestimates Kelmomas, has no possible inkling that Kelmomas cannot be seen by the gods and is in general thinking he's just a defective, because that's what Kellhus does. 

It's also why Kellhus almost dies at the hand of Sorweel - because Kellhus the Dunyain has no ability to comprehend things like god-entangled characters and underestimates the gods, cannot comprehend a higher power than his being able to hide things from him (in a similar way to the way the gods are blind to Kelmomas, as it turns out), and is in general believing in his infallibility, despite massive evidence to the contrary. Serwa at least wonders why Sorweel doesn't hate, but doesn't really give it much thought. 

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