Bakker XXII: All Aboard the Damnation Express

[Gaston de Foix]

Even if they knew couldn't succeed, it still doesn't make sense that they literally just went home and forgot the whole thing.

They didn't just forget the whole thing. Seswatha founded the Mandate, and did weird stuff to his soul in order to ensure that every future Mandati lived the importance of the mission.

[WrathOfTinyKittens]

Yeah, kinda weird to think that they forgot it. I mean, after 2000 years, sure. You also have to remember that aside from the Kyranean Empire (sp?), the nations of the Three Seas had not been exposed to the Consult or the No-God and had not been affected aside from the stillbirths. And Kyraneas was destroyed by the Scylvendi not long after. My point being that almost everyone who knew the Consult was still a threat was dead, and the remaining nations had not had the experience of war to make them feel the same fear of the Consult that the Norsirai nations had.

[Gaston de Foix]

Yeah, kinda weird to think that they forgot it. I mean, after 2000 years, sure. You also have to remember that aside from the Kyranean Empire (sp?), the nations of the Three Seas had not been exposed to the Consult or the No-God and had not been affected aside from the stillbirths. And Kyraneas was destroyed by the Scylvendi not long after. My point being that almost everyone who knew the Consult was still a threat was dead, and the remaining nations had not had the experience of war to make them feel the same fear of the Consult that the Norsirai nations had.

I agree with this Wrath, but it's important to remember all of humanity saw the indirect effect of the No God via the still births. In fact if I remember correctly, there's a passage that basically states once the No God walked, armies from every corner of Earwa marched North, but it was too late.

[Larry of the Lawn]

I agree with this Wrath, but it's important to remember all of humanity saw the indirect effect of the No God via the still births. In fact if I remember correctly, there's a passage that basically states once the No God walked, armies from every corner of Earwa marched North, but it was too late.

Meh. We have stories of biblical floods and what not and no one can prove or disprove them. I laugh at people that believe in the Rapture and the Anti-christ and the Apocalypse. So I think it's conceivable that even given some ancient rumors of still-births and a big war that modern day Earwans find the Mandate to be a bunch of comical, misguided, old goobers.

[Kalbear]

People still thought the Mandate was cool 300 years ago. The issue was that the Consult just kind of disappeared after that. And they weren't worth fighting, because ya know - millions of sranc, and for what?

[Sci-2]

Do we know anything about the other gnostic schools? What made them different from each other in the way that the current anagogic schools of the three seas differ?

The School of Contrivers, whose Nonmen founder was responsible for the Barricades and False Sun, apparently focused on magi-tech.

[Shryke]

How come the Mandate wasn't more able to use the sranc as evidence of The Consult? Did the rest of the Three Seas simply see them as some other race that had always been?

Everyone seems to think The Consult were gone. No one seems to doubt they used to exist. No one doubts the Apocalypse happened.

What they doubt is that it's still relevant. That the Consult wasn't utterly broken. The sranc are just the leftovers of that conflict.

[Gaston de Foix]

The School of Contrivers, whose Nonmen founder was responsible for the Barricades and False Sun, apparently focused on magi-tech.

The Artisan, IIRC.

[unJon]

Basically it's simple as Madness laid out. The best way to deceive is to tell the truth.It's hiding the truth in plain sight. Maithanet says they were drowned, Inrilatus believes him because he never considers that one word can have more than one meaning. In this way Maithanet can be truthful and say the other children were drowned and mean one thing and know that Inrilitus will see that Maithanet is telling the truth, but Inrilitus will mistakenly believe it will mean another thing. Maithanet therefore deceives Inrilitus in a very Dunyain manner, he leverages Inrilitus' cultural assumptions and biases that drowning means death by submersion.When it's revealed (if it is) the readership all smacks their head and says, "how could we have missed it, it's right there in the open!" and in that way Bakker also gets the readers to buy into the same cognitive deceptions and failures that Inrilitus did, that's sort of the whole principle of his layers of revelation method, that readers deceive themselves and can be counted on to do so the same ways every time.

Have we explored why Kel made Inrilitus the crazy person he is? IIRC, Inrilitus was the most promising of Kel's kids, but a bit precocious and apt to publicly read people's faces. Then Kel took him in the backroom and had a "talk" with him, and afterwards Inrilitus was a depraved lunatic.

[Sci-2]

Everyone seems to think The Consult were gone. No one seems to doubt they used to exist. No one doubts the Apocalypse happened.

What they doubt is that it's still relevant. That the Consult wasn't utterly broken. The sranc are just the leftovers of that conflict.

I'm actually not 100% sure people were that aware of who the Consult was.

Akka is surprised the name is so common that a scalper knows it in TJE. But if the First Apocalypse is accepted as part of history, one would think anyone familiar with the Sagas would be aware of the Consult.

I wonder how much regular society even knew about the Inchoroi. It's possible all the people knew before Kellhus made the Mandate his school was the No-God rose, controlled the Weapon Races, and Nonmen sides with Him.

[Shryke]

I'm actually not 100% sure people were that aware of who the Consult was.

Akka is surprised the name is so common that a scalper knows it in TJE. But if the First Apocalypse is accepted as part of history, one would think anyone familiar with the Sagas would be aware of the Consult.

I wonder how much regular society even knew about the Inchoroi. It's possible all the people knew before Kellhus made the Mandate his school was the No-God rose, controlled the Weapon Races, and Nonmen sides with Him.

Yeah, you might be right. Though I think he may be surprised by the scalpers knowing of the Consult just because before Kellhus' arrival, the Consult was a joke the Mandate told that no one believed.

I think there's a general awareness of the apocalypse happening and of the No-God but it's unclear how much anyone knew beyond that.

[Happy Ent]

The theory that I’d really like to investigate is why Kellhus drugged Shae and Tywin.

[Larry of the Lawn]

The theory that I’d really like to investigate is why Kellhus drugged Shae and Tywin.

I don't know but it sounds like it gave Tywin a bad case of the Inverse Fire in his last moments....

[Gaston de Foix]

The theory that I’d really like to investigate is why Kellhus drugged Shae and Tywin.

Because of the 2500 year old alliance between the Targaryen and Anasurimbor dynasties. He's secretly working for a Targ restoration. The No-God is also known as the Great Other, and when he walks, the Wall will fall and the hordes of sranc and wights descend.

[Gaston de Foix]

Have we explored why Kel made Inrilitus the crazy person he is? IIRC, Inrilitus was the most promising of Kel's kids, but a bit precocious and apt to publicly read people's faces. Then Kel took him in the backroom and had a "talk" with him, and afterwards Inrilitus was a depraved lunatic.

Kellhus says that Inrilatus (appropriately named after Inri Sejenus) has too much passion from Esmenet to appropriately balance the intellect he inherited from Kellhus.

I assumed he used the intellect for the purpose of servicing that craving for sensation- he would induce terror in people for enjoyment. However in conversation with Kelllhus while his intellect embraced subjecting himself to his father's purpose, his craving for passion bridled. He rejects the Dunyain focus on mission above all else for the subjective liberation of being as close to God as possible, by being as unconstrained as possible instead of serving his father. Ultimately, he can't become what Kellhus needs: a child in the mold of Nau-Cayutus or Serwa or even Moenghus because of this fundamental imbalance. Kellhus' opts to let it break him, perhaps because there is a slight chance he will be able to discipline that passion, or because Kellhus has insufficient time to train him to yoke those passions.

That's my best analysis, which doesn't come close to answering the why Kellhus' couldn't see a path to rescue him.

[Maithanet]

• Maithanet - I expected more from this guy. After all, there is a user here who bears that name. Yes, he orchestrated the First Holy War, but we didn't see much of him in that trilogy. In this one, he does the one badass thing when he kills the crazy son, and then later dies.

I chose the Maithanet handle because he was an enigmatic and powerful figure in the series, he was neither a victim nor a huge asshole (you could argue that he is the only character in the PoN trilogy to fit that description).

And yes, I didn't know what he would do in the second trilogy, and I was worried he would become a raging asshole once he had a bit more page time, but that did not come to pass. Unfortunately, throughout WLW his position looked increasingly precarious, and then, ya know, he died. That wouldn't have been my choice for the character, but Pierce Inverarity did not PM me to ask my opinion.

I'm working on what may be my first crackpot theory of the series (I am never that creative with pottery), but that is still in its adolescence. I need to check back on the TTT appendix to see if the timeline really works out for Seswatha.

[Sci-2]

That's my best analysis, which doesn't come close to answering the why Kellhus' couldn't see a path to rescue him.

He probably decided spending time on Inrialtus wasn't conducive to the greater plan of bringing the Ordeal to the Ark.

[Gaston de Foix]

He probably decided spending time on Inrialtus wasn't conducive to the greater plan of bringing the Ordeal to the Ark.

but then why spend time with him in the first place? Why train him to read faces with such subtlety that he could read Maithanet? And why did his conversations with Kellhus push him on a downward spiral?

At some point, we're just pushing against the fabric of creation. it's not for a watertight plot that we read RSB, although I'm sure he makes a manful effort, it's because his books are intense, philosophical and epic.

[Sci-2]

And why did his conversations with Kellhus push him on a downward spiral?

Didn't he compare Mimara to a beaten dog before Kellhus tried to fix him?

I suspect Kellhus had hoped Inrialtus could be a useful weapon, an Imperial adviser with more bite than Theli. Didn't work out b/c of how Inrialtus sees reality.

[I do not sew]

I just saw it as Inrilatus acting out (acording to his nature) Khellus trying to fix the problem and when he realized Inri was beyond help (or more realistically Khel just didn't give enough shits) HE planted the worm in Inri's brain that would see him insane. Truth nuke, BAM. Problem solved.

Khel's version of giving a problem child a time out.