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The Unholy Consult post-release SPOILER thread IV


Gaston de Foix

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1 minute ago, Durckad said:

Kelhuss only destroys the horn when he gets a hold of the Sun Spear from Aurang and we have no idea if he even knows if they have such a weapon before the Great Ordeal embarks. Considering the horns are made of soggomant, which is (I believe) described as nearly indestructible, perhaps mere sorcery, even gnostic sorcery, can't damage them. Considering the horns are still intact even after the Cuno-Inchoroi Wars, this makes sense. It might take something with the power of the Sun Spear or the Heron Spear to damage the horns at all.

Despite all of my problems with the book, why Kelhuss didn't just teleport in and blow up the Consult is not one of them.

Soggomant could be anarcane. Bakker said the Inchoroi homeworld was all anarcane ground. And I read in the glossary that the Ishoroil gate made of soggomant defeated the No God's assault on Ishoroil so it must be some sort of kick ass stuff. 

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11 minutes ago, Durckad said:

Kelhuss only destroys the horn when he gets a hold of the Sun Spear from Aurang and we have no idea if he even knows if they have such a weapon before the Great Ordeal embarks. Considering the horns are made of soggomant, which is (I believe) described as nearly indestructible, perhaps mere sorcery, even gnostic sorcery, can't damage them. Considering the horns are still intact even after the Cuno-Inchoroi Wars, this makes sense. It might take something with the power of the Sun Spear or the Heron Spear to damage the horns at all.

Despite all of my problems with the book, why Kelhuss didn't just teleport in and blow up the Consult is not one of them.

Kellhus can literally drop a mountain on Golgotterath if he wants to. As far as I can tell Soggomant isn't completely anarcane, and if a laser can rip through it there are a whole lot of other things that can as well. 

That said, even if he's not destroying the Oars I don't see why Kellhus can't destroy everything else. Really, I don't know what Kellhus' power level is, so saying 'he's not powerful enough' seems like a cop-out to me. Kellhus can cast spells without a mark, can walk through wards of Aurang, can apparently kill Mek with a simple leash around his neck. 

At the very least it is ambiguous. It's ambiguous why Kellhus doesn't go kill the Dunyain. It's ambiguous why he enters Ark at all, or once he gets the Sun Lance doesn't use it to kill both oars. It's ambiguous what his original plans were, or if he even had any. Virtually any answer could be right, and none of them could. 

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14 minutes ago, Darth Richard II said:

What's anarcane?

We don't know. Apparently it is a place or piece of ground or material where magic and gods don't work, or something like that. The precursor Inchoroi race lived on a planet that was entirely anarcane. Atritrau (or however you spell it) was built on anarcane ground.

Whether it's important or not is really unclear. 

That previous sentence is a good summation of the books.

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1 hour ago, Kalbear said:

Kellhus can literally drop a mountain on Golgotterath if he wants to. As far as I can tell Soggomant isn't completely anarcane, and if a laser can rip through it there are a whole lot of other things that can as well. 

That said, even if he's not destroying the Oars I don't see why Kellhus can't destroy everything else. Really, I don't know what Kellhus' power level is, so saying 'he's not powerful enough' seems like a cop-out to me. Kellhus can cast spells without a mark, can walk through wards of Aurang, can apparently kill Mek with a simple leash around his neck. 

At the very least it is ambiguous. It's ambiguous why Kellhus doesn't go kill the Dunyain. It's ambiguous why he enters Ark at all, or once he gets the Sun Lance doesn't use it to kill both oars. It's ambiguous what his original plans were, or if he even had any. Virtually any answer could be right, and none of them could. 

Well, we can only guess, but it would certainly be helpful if we had any sort of idea what Kelhuss's plan was beyond:

1. Go to Golgotterath

2. ???

3. Profit!

Also, while we know Kelhuss is very powerful, I believe there are limits, even for him, and those limits would probably be taxed by the combination of a thousand plus sranc, bashrag, and skin-spies all with chorae, all the insane nonmen sorcerers, Mek, Shaur, Aurax, Aurang, a dragon with a nose for cunny, plus the 5 dunyain that, at that point, Kelhuss may not know about.

20 minutes ago, Darth Richard II said:

What's anarcane?

Magic no worky on it.

Atrithau is built on anarcane ground, which is how it survived the First Apocalypse. Not sure what causes it or if it can be created (beyond chorae) and even then, chorae aren't specifically anarcane, I don't think.

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1 minute ago, Durckad said:

Well, we can only guess, but it would certainly be helpful if we had any sort of idea what Kelhuss's plan was beyond:

1. Go to Golgotterath

2. ???

3. Profit!

Exactly.

1 minute ago, Durckad said:

Also, while we know Kelhuss is very powerful, I believe there are limits, even for him, and those limits would probably be taxed by the combination of a thousand plus sranc, bashrag, and skin-spies all with chorae, all the insane nonmen sorcerers, Mek, Shaur, Aurax, Aurang, a dragon with a nose for cunny, plus the 5 dunyain that, at that point, Kelhuss may not know about.

We also don't really have a clear idea of what his limits are in any stretch. Again, he is apparently challenged by Meppa who might have won save the Zeumi artifact that protected him kinda, but then he effortlessly defeats Aurang and strangles the shit out of Mek while holding a conversation. At no point was I particularly concerned that Kellhus would lose because of the opponents. Or really, anything else. 

Are those things threatening to him? Serwa was able to take on 99 orcs with chorae and a dragon, and only die because of hidden godmagic (or at least get crippled). Can Kellhus drop a mountain on things? If he did that, would it be particularly unrealistic given what we see him do? If he simply stomped Golgotterath to dust with his big stomping spell, would that have been weird? 

I'm trying to think of Kellhus doing something with magic that I would go 'wow, that's too much' and I'm having a hard time coming up with anything.

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Anarcane ground is where the gods have walked, so they vivid dream there. Magic is essentially exploiting the gods dream like grasp elsewhere to produce effects, while on anarcane ground the gods are more awake and so cannot be tricked by the semantics of sorcerers into producing magic.

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6 minutes ago, Callan S. said:

Anarcane ground is where the gods have walked, so they vivid dream there. Magic is essentially exploiting the gods dream like grasp elsewhere to produce effects, while on anarcane ground the gods are more awake and so cannot be tricked by the semantics of sorcerers into producing magic.

This would suggest that the gods have walked all over the Inchoroi home world. Not sure that fits. The God dreaming vividly I thought was an in world explanation from a fallible source but I don't offhand recall the source at the moment. 

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1 hour ago, Callan S. said:

Anarcane ground is where the gods have walked, so they vivid dream there. Magic is essentially exploiting the gods dream like grasp elsewhere to produce effects, while on anarcane ground the gods are more awake and so cannot be tricked by the semantics of sorcerers into producing magic.

And you are getting this from...?

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4 hours ago, Kalbear said:

We also don't really have a clear idea of what his limits are in any stretch. Again, he is apparently challenged by Meppa who might have won save the Zeumi artifact that protected him kinda, but then he effortlessly defeats Aurang and strangles the shit out of Mek while holding a conversation. At no point was I particularly concerned that Kellhus would lose because of the opponents. Or really, anything else. 

True, we don't really know what is limits are but beyond traveling to the outside or teleporting, has he really shown anything truly beyond what other sorcerers are capable beyond the greater number of dice being rolled and the higher modifiers? 

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Are those things threatening to him? Serwa was able to take on 99 orcs with chorae and a dragon, and only die because of hidden godmagic (or at least get crippled). Can Kellhus drop a mountain on things? If he did that, would it be particularly unrealistic given what we see him do? If he simply stomped Golgotterath to dust with his big stomping spell, would that have been weird? 

Don't forget, Serwa also had the Qirri powerup and a magic, fire-eating sword. She killed a lot of sranc, true, but never managed to actually do anything to the dragon beyond antagonizing him.

Individually, those things would not be threatening to him, but I think if he had to contend with all of them or a majority of them by himself, even his big Dunyain bonuses are only going to help so much.

Beyond that, yeah, it ultimately comes down to Kelhuss's goals and plans. Maybe there is a reason he doesn't outright destroy Golgotterath, but we can only guess as the book sure wasn't helping in that regard. 

Quote

I'm trying to think of Kellhus doing something with magic that I would go 'wow, that's too much' and I'm having a hard time coming up with anything.

I think the aforementioned dropping a mountain on something or blowing up the moon with a kamehamegnosis would probably be a step too far for me. While Kelhuss's limits and capabilities are never truly established, I think the series has been fairly good at keeping his overall power level fairly consistent. I find some of his physical actions often more ridiculous than his magical ones, to be honest.

40 minutes ago, Darth Richard II said:

And you are getting this from...?

Bakker maybe? So probably not a reliable source.

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5 hours ago, Kalbear said:

Whether it's important or not is really unclear. 

That previous sentence is a good summation of the books.

Bakker, that card! He got you good. You got bamboozled into believing the characters were going anywhere. You were tricked into believing there was any depth to any of it (you were theorizing on a Michael Bay movie, only you didn't realize it until the AMA). What's IMPORTANT is that you were forced to face your completely illogical desire to expect book(s) to have MEANING AND IMPORTANCE.

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2 hours ago, unJon said:

This would suggest that the gods have walked all over the Inchoroi home world. Not sure that fits. The God dreaming vividly I thought was an in world explanation from a fallible source but I don't offhand recall the source at the moment. 

The original quote says 'focused on' rather than walked, 'scuse my poetic licence there.

It fits fine - probably most worlds are anarcane.

Earwa is the sort of god world - the world the god is most blind to in the creation it is blind to. That's what the inchies were searching for.

Well, ok, I don't have a link for that. It's just a hypothesis.

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3 hours ago, Callan S. said:

The original quote says 'focused on' rather than walked, 'scuse my poetic licence there.

It fits fine - probably most worlds are anarcane.

Earwa is the sort of god world - the world the god is most blind to in the creation it is blind to. That's what the inchies were searching for.

Well, ok, I don't have a link for that. It's just a hypothesis.

Thanks for the link! Bakker isn't endorsing the God dreaming vividly world view of anarcane ground there. He says "some" take the following analogy. At least that's how I read it. YMMV 

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So God doesn't pay attention to most of Earwa, so magic is possible...  but he does pay attention to Atrithau?   I'm taking that as Bakker's in-universe explanation rather than the definitive answer, because that's silly.   The God, being infinite, doesn't have scarcity of attention (or scarcity of lucidity) - Bakker has said Memgowa is most the correct about God, and he's all about God's Infiniteness. 

However, if the mechanism that governs the use of sorcery is God's attention/inattention, then it's willful inattention due to the infinite nature of God i.e. Earwa is Arcane because God wants it to be Arcane.

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1 hour ago, Ajûrbkli said:

So God doesn't pay attention to most of Earwa, so magic is possible...  but he does pay attention to Atrithau?   I'm taking that as Bakker's in-universe explanation rather than the definitive answer, because that's silly.   The God, being infinite, doesn't have scarcity of attention (or scarcity of lucidity) - Bakker has said Memgowa is most the correct about God, and he's all about God's Infiniteness. 

However, if the mechanism that governs the use of sorcery is God's attention/inattention, then it's willful inattention due to the infinite nature of God i.e. Earwa is Arcane because God wants it to be Arcane.

I don't think this necessarily follows. Lots of aphorisms on this in text. There's a glossary entry about disputes between Fanimry and Inrithism that boiled down to Fanimry being unable to accept that the God is both infinite and non-conscious. Which is an interesting possibility and dovetails with Big Moe saying the God sleeps in TTT. Also ties into the No-God and crash space concept, and I could see Bakker making the No God ("WHAT DO YOU SEE?") similar to (indistinguishable from?) the God. DunShae equated No God with the Absolute and I would think the God could also be equated with the Absolute. 

Where does that leave us on anarcane ground? Maybe nowhere as it's all ambiguous. But fun to speculate that if you tie it in with Anjecis's conception of the Outside where Earwa is the maximally objective place and the layers of the Outside successively can be molded by subjective desire: you could end with the theory that anarcane ground is actually more maximally objective than the rest of Earwa.

Or maybe anarcane ground just drags its frame with it like the Wight Under the Mountain. :dunno:

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1 hour ago, unJon said:

 Also ties into the No-God and crash space concept, and I could see Bakker making the No God ("WHAT DO YOU SEE?") similar to (indistinguishable from?) the God. DunShae equated No God with the Absolute and I would think the God could also be equated with the Absolute.

Bakker described the God and the No-God in the Q&A thread on TSA, in regards to the Absolute, as complete opposites - the No-God is pure objectivity whereas God is pure subjectivity.

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1 hour ago, Ajûrbkli said:

Bakker described the God and the No-God in the Q&A thread on Three Seas, in regards to the Absolute, as complete opposites - the No-God is pure objectivity whereas God is pure subjectivity.

Interesting. Rest of my post still stands. 

And new crackpot based on the crash space idea where everything collides even complete opposites. There is a mathematical theory (or maybe more) that holds that the numberline is a circle with negative infinity (No God) and infinity (the God) being one and the same. Remember the No God in TUC (and Bakker later comments) is subject and object collapsing. That's more nuanced than pure objectivity, and pure subjectivity could also be viewed identically as the collapse of subject and object. 

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12 hours ago, Callan S. said:

Here. 

The Troll Theory (tm)of Bakker's online presence states that any information dessiminated extra-textually is information intended to troll fans because trolling is fun. 

ergo, if it is seemingly important but not in the books, it's probably just a wrench to mess with the readership because Bakker thought it would be funny (and a useful demonstration of the powers of belief and how deluded they are in believing in anything about a fictional world).

thus, the linked information on what anarcane ground is, is invalid.

Anasurimbor are hybrids? invalid.

inchoroi home world is anarcane? invalid.

Tusk was modified by the inchoroi? invalid

angelic ciphrang? invalid

cnaiur's arc is done? invalid

kellhus is dead? invalid

kellhus isn't finished? invalid

 

and so on an so forth. ;)

Remember, Bakker is a troll first and foremost. This is the first principle.

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