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Bakker: The Great Ordeal SPOILER THREAD


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7 hours ago, lokisnow said:

I've been wondering and wondering when this would come up. Started to think I was the only one who noticed it.

My take was that koringhus thinks that Mimara was kellhus wife as well, but Mimara may have no memory of this. This would be why she's carrying a long gestating dunyain child.

just think, akka wouldn't have had to sleep with her if the author wasn't compelled to be all mysteriouso about something like the father of mimaras child.  

Otoh, I've figured for years the kid was the child of kellhus. So this is just selection bias playing out for me and why I haven't brought it up.

Totally agree.  It's basically spelled out in tJE.

 

Also, Kellhus being Kellhus, there's no way he didn't try M's womb considering E's womb is the only one to successfully contain his seed.

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I disagree.  The kids might not be Achamian's, but they aren't Kellhus'.   If anyone else, it'd be the captain of the guard guy she banged to escape the palace.  Kellhus has no need to manipulate Mimara's memories, he's Dunyain and Mimara wholly believed in his divinity prior to meeting Achamian.  It's not as if keeping it a secret was necessary - Mimara literally uses "Kellhus is the dad!" to against Kosoter and the Consult would learn immediately ( Soma almost certainly heard and Kellhus definitely knew he was there).  The deception serves nothing except (possibly) to keep Mimara from aborting them when she's convinced the Dunyain are evil.

Moreover, Kellhus' children are all tools.  Mimara's kids are probably going to be stillborn.  Kellhus probably is aware down to the minute when the No-God is going to be born or he's aware that in the ensuing chaos of the Second Apocalypse, that young children are unlikely to survive.  Wasting any time impregnating Mimara and wiping her mind is pointless.

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8 hours ago, lokisnow said:

I've been wondering and wondering when this would come up. Started to think I was the only one who noticed it.

My take was that koringhus thinks that Mimara was kellhus wife as well, but Mimara may have no memory of this. This would be why she's carrying a long gestating dunyain child.

just think, akka wouldn't have had to sleep with her if the author wasn't compelled to be all mysteriouso about something like the father of mimaras child.  

Otoh, I've figured for years the kid was the child of kellhus. So this is just selection bias playing out for me and why I haven't brought it up.

Wife-daughter is daughter of the wife of. So Mimara is being called the daughter of Kellhus' wife. In modern English society, we have a term for that, step daughter. Drusas Achamian is the father of her children.

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39 minutes ago, Triskan said:

Actually rereading the scene with Aurang it seems like he just turns away and avoids the confrontation with Saccarees. 

It is odd, however, that Saccarees didn't force a confrontation via teleportation given he is - IIRC - apparently the only mortal to master Metagnostic Cants?

Perhaps teleportation isn't one of the Cants non-Dunyain can perform? It's also a bit weird that Malowebi's PoV is able to separate the Gnosis from the Metagnosis in the fight between Kellhus and Meppa.

If that wasn't a Synthese then the stupidity of the Inchie Bros is boundless - Aurang enters the field knowing that at least that Kellhus can teleport but having no knowledge if there are others. He risks his own eternal damnation for a quick lookeeloo?

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Saccarees goes "full Seswatha" so isn't really rational just channeling his other soul a bit like when Akka escapes the circle at Ioath(sp?) would be my reasoning.

Aurang is there to witness the nuke exploding maybe...

The Nonmen embassy sent to Kellhus tells them to go to Dalgliash where a nuke is planted. So some sort of plan involving the location and the device seems likely. Kel must have known something otherwise I don't see how he could know of the consequences of the the nuke going off.

 

 

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Well, the trap might not have been the nuke - it might have been the clever bashrag hiding below. And Kellhus finds this long forgotten nuke, activates it and annihilated the horde.

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5 hours ago, Triskan said:

Yes.  The Cant of Transposing is metagnostic, and Serwa uses that to get to Ishterebinth, so we've seen at least her use it on screen.

Do we have any textual evidence that Mimara's forgiveness actually spares one from damnation?  I know that this has been speculated, but I'm trying to recall what proof we have.

Sorry by mortal I meant non-Dunyain.

AFAIK right now the only thing we know is that Saubon is damned. This might mean Kellhus can't save anyone, though Kellhus does specifically note not everyone can be saved and this is a good thing....

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1 hour ago, Triskan said:

Thinking of Saubon's damnation made me ponder this:

Let's assume that the Consult's idea of shutting off the world to the Outside and the possibility of damnation is theoretically sound.  If they pull this off though do all souls already damned in the Outside stay damned?  That is to ask does the Consult's method just protect those still living from their souls going to Hell but leave those already in Hell where they are?

Then i wonder if Kellhus is pondering some other route away from damnation might it be one that could end the damnation mechanism all together as opposed to just blocking souls from going to Hell?

I suspect, though it might not be possible in the Bakkerverse, that any soul which realizes that it's individualized self is illusory is freed from Damnation. All selves are just one Self, who is the Ground of Being.

So Kellhus would have to somehow ensure a Universal Enlightenment, where the connection to the Absolute goes viral in a sense.

This might be possible through Mimara, especially if it's his children she's carrying.

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19 hours ago, Dickwad Poster #3784 said:

Well, the trap might not have been the nuke - it might have been the clever bashrag hiding below. And Kellhus finds this long forgotten nuke, activates it and annihilated the horde.

This is my thoughts as well. Without the Bashrag below, Kellhus would never have "found" it, and the nuke would have potentially killed Kellhus as well.

A few more on the ConsultBunkerBuster:

  1. Saubon see's Kellhus examining it "never without so much care" 
  2. Kellhus "pauses for three heartbeats before answering" which is a very long time for him
  3. He is devoid of any passion/emotions that Saubon see's, which to me all point towards Kellhus deciphering what it is, and running probabilities as to what it could be.
  4. We don't need to take the writing as literal, "that not all can be saved." 
  5. The effects of the ConsultBunkerBuster should have been easily ascertained by any Dunyain just by viewing the dead, the dying, and the sick, and extrapolating that further
  6. Kellhus could have immediately noted it as Tekne, then (we haven't seen this, since the early books), consulted the memories of Seswatha for probabiliying it out to its potential "why would it be here".
  7. Kellhus didn't even need to be on the summit if he "placed" it himself / built it - he would have shored up the craze of the Men that Proyas attempted, which could have faltered, losing them all of the mountain heights.

In argument against myself, however, I found it odd that Kellhus was coning the well for so long versus just collapsing the whole thing immediately, but I find that to be a plot device, or necessarily for "making new ground".

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am not reading this thread yet.  am still reading volume VI.  but i note that the RSB is just fucking with all'y'all when he notes that dude began 'to dread his own affirmations.' that's a hermeneutic rule for looking in the magical fire or predicting the future or whatever, but that's all fantasy bullshit--the only interpretation that matters here is the reading of serialized fantasy, whereby readers thereof cast themselves into the narrative's future, no?

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On 7/14/2016 at 0:59 PM, Hello World said:

What was Esmenet planning to do to Naree before Theliopa convinced her to kill her?

This may have been answered, but the strong implication was that Esmi was going to forgive and/or pardon Naree.

On 7/14/2016 at 9:14 PM, draft0 said:

Couple quick questions (I confess, I didn't read the book that carefully so would appreciate some help here):

1) I don't really get how the WLW failed. The Gods are supposed to exist outside of time, perceiving past, present, and future (i.e. block universe). But if that's the case, how can the timeline seen by the WLW (the one leading to Kellhus's death) change? Does this mean there are multiple possible timelines?

2) Did Kellhus know about the WLW, or did he survive by sheer luck? 

3) Yatwer is behind both WLW and Sorweel, right? If the WLW warrior failed, are supposed to think her plot with Sorweel is doomed too? (Now that I think about it--what was the point of involving Sorweel at all if the WLW is infallible?

4) Is there any evidence--from any of the books--that heaven actually exists? IIRC everybody that Mimara looks at with the Judging Eye is damned.

1. Here's how I interpret it.  The Hundred operate outside of the constraints of time and are therefore not subject to the Unerring Grace.  Ajokli manifested through Kelmomas, breaking the chain of Grace that the WLW had theretofore followed, which either allowed Kellhus to then kill the WLW or for Ajokli/accident/something else to kill the WLW via earthquake.

2. He knew about the WLW in general, but without Kelmomas he would not have survived.

3. Sorweel believes himself to be Narindar only after Zsoronga convinces him that such is the case.  We know that he is God-entangled per the Nonmen, but we do not know what his role is.  It could be that Yatwer was hedging her bets, it could be that Sorweel has a different purpose, and it could be that Yatwer blessed him simply because Porsparian made the right devotions.  I don't think we have enough information to draw a conclusion at this point.

4. To this point, Mimara is the only person who is seen as good by the Judging Eye on-screen.  She does however mention "good men" and "good women" in TJE, so we must assume that she has seen others who are not damned.

On 7/15/2016 at 7:53 AM, caffiend said:

My questions?

1. Was that a sorcerer among the Scylvendi? 

2. Where is Aurax? Have we seen him yet at some point or has it always been Aurang we've seen?

1. It was one of the Few, but he was not a sorcerer as far as we can see.

2. I believe personally that Aurax was the Inchy seen at the end of TWP, but that is open to debate.  Aside from that we have not seen him.

On 7/15/2016 at 9:51 AM, .H. said:

If the purpose is the reduce the world to 144,000 souls, Sranc having souls would directly work against that aim in the long run.  Same with Bashrags.  So that was probably a design intention, not a failure.  This immediately had me think of skin-spies though, how advantageous it would be to have them be souled.  I think it might come down to one of two things: either it was a design failure, due to the "late arrival" of skin-spies (most of the Tekne was already lost) or a fact that skin-spies are so completely unnatural, that they cannot be souled.  Perhaps then Sranc and Bashrag couldn't even be made with souls then, their gnome far too edited (again, not that they'd even have wanted this).

I think skin-spies though were given "surrogate souls" in a way though, so to better impersonate people, but honestly I don't even know what that means.

But we know for a fact that this is not true because of Simas.  Skin-spies can be souled, but the Consult does not know how to make them so on purpose and has only succeeded in doing so once.

On 7/15/2016 at 10:50 AM, .H. said:

Yeah, in a manner, perhaps more likely.  However, if it wasn't actually him in the flesh, why bother with a glamour at all?  Just to fuck with Saccarees?  That definitely makes him a bigger target.  My thought was he needed to be there in the flesh to actually lift the bomb, or arm it, or something.  I guess he was betting that Kellhus would need a moment to inspect it, so he'd have enough time to get away?

Still seems like a bad idea for Kellhus not to teleport and kill him.  Why didn't he?  He actually wants the Consult to play out their whole hand?

As far as I can tell, Kellhus was not aware that Aurang was there.  The Schoolmen first sight Aurang from the peak of Ingol, above and to the east of Kellhus' position upon Antareg/Dagliash.  Saccarees considers alerting Kellhus, but does not do so.  He flies out to meet him above the ground north of the mountains, and Aurang flees almost immediately - and then the bomb goes off.  From Saubon's POV we can see that Kellhus was busy at the time, so I think it makes sense simply to assume that Kellhus didn't know about Aurang taking the field.

On 7/15/2016 at 2:44 PM, themerchant said:

Have you read the passages in the White luck warrior too?

"The notch that would shatter his sword, so allowing the broken blade to plunge into the Aspect-
Emperor's heart."

Start of Chapter eight WLW.

I wonder if this is an authorial mistake, since in TGO he sees the blade piercing Kellhus' throat, or if it is a suuuuper subtle indication that Ajokli has already fucked with the timeline of the Grace.

On 7/16/2016 at 9:02 PM, Triskan said:

New hardback was $28+ at B&N even with a card.  Damn!  I still bought it.

The Koringhus chapter refers to Mimara as being the wife-daughter of Kellhus and says something like that she's carrying her mother's children.  WTF does this mean?

Also, what's up with the different fraction viewpoints within Koringhus' viewpoint?  Is that the "Legion" that the Dunyain fight against breaking out? 

Wife daughter is step-daughter as others have said.  I believe that the child/ren is/are Akka's, and so Koringhus is speaking metaphorically; Mimara is bearing the children that Esmi should have.

I didn't interpret Koringhus' fractions as the Legion.  It reminded me in the scene in PON where Kellhus is holding a conversation while other parts of his mind are calculating things.  I read it as Koringhus simultaneously speaking, being in the Probability Trance, analyzing, etc.  But the Legion is also a perfectly good explanation.

On 7/17/2016 at 7:39 AM, Ser Bryar Ashford said:

Totally agree.  It's basically spelled out in tJE.

 

Also, Kellhus being Kellhus, there's no way he didn't try M's womb considering E's womb is the only one to successfully contain his seed.

I just don't see the evidence for this.  Mimara has been gone for some months by the time she reaches Akka.  Based on the speed with which the child grows after Akka discovers she's pregnant, unless the baby gestates at an exponential pace I don't think it's possible for her to have been pregnant prior to Hunoreal.

On 7/17/2016 at 1:35 PM, Sci-2 said:

It is odd, however, that Saccarees didn't force a confrontation via teleportation given he is - IIRC - apparently the only mortal to master Metagnostic Cants?

Perhaps teleportation isn't one of the Cants non-Dunyain can perform? It's also a bit weird that Malowebi's PoV is able to separate the Gnosis from the Metagnosis in the fight between Kellhus and Meppa.

As said, Saccarees was the first, not necessarily the only, to master a Metagnostic Cant.  The teleportation seems to be a particularly difficult one, given that Serwa can only hold the meaning for it two-three times per day at most.  It seems like he probably mastered others, not necessarily this one.  

Re: Malowebi, I don't think he recognized that he was seeing a Metagnostic Cant per se; after all, as far as we know, he's never even seen a Gnostic Cant.  I think that the fame of Kellhus creating the Metagnosis is such that Malowebi simply assumes that this is what he sees.  

23 hours ago, themerchant said:

The Nonmen embassy sent to Kellhus tells them to go to Dalgliash where a nuke is planted. So some sort of plan involving the location and the device seems likely. Kel must have known something otherwise I don't see how he could know of the consequences of the the nuke going off.

Kellhus knew that the Nonmen were tricking him.  Serwa's memories of her conversations with him make this abundantly clear.  He is able to read their faces just as easily as those of Men - again, this is evident based on Serwa's ability to do so (also note: Serwa is able to distinguish the Nonmen from one another, although whether this is based on sight, voice, dress, etc, is unknown).

So: we have to conclude that Kellhus knew there was a trap waiting for him at Dagliash.  

 

23 hours ago, Dickwad Poster #3784 said:

Well, the trap might not have been the nuke - it might have been the clever bashrag hiding below. And Kellhus finds this long forgotten nuke, activates it and annihilated the horde.

I can see arguments on both sides, but I think the evidence is that Kellhus did not plant the nuke.  It doesn't make any sense for him to blast his own army - if he wanted to kill them, or even just part of them, there are vastly easier ways to do it - and he is smart enough to know that destroying the Horde does not destroy the Consult's military power.  That plus his reaction to the device (studying it for an unusually long time) and his warning to the Ordeal to retreat don't add up to him being the author.  On top of it all, the only conceivable reason for Aurang to show up was to arm the device somehow.  

I think Kellhus knew that a trap awaited at Dagliash, as I detailed earlier.  The Bashrag and Chorae were too easy - the Consult had to know that Kellhus could easily defeat those.  So Kellhus went looking for a deeper trap, discovered it, and eluded it.  

The arguments against center mostly on his knowledge of the effects and his Conditioning of Proyas, but I think these can be explained:

- He doesn't come back immediately.  In fact he waits long enough that Proyas believes he is gone.  It wouldn't be difficult for him to see the effects on the Ordealmen and the earth around Dagliash.  

- Kellhus knew - even going back to WLW - that he was going to leave the Ordeal.  The bomb may have complicated this or may have made it simpler, but either way, it seems he always intended to sacrifice Saubon (since 50 men is a poor impediment to dozens of Bashrag) and leave them once Dagliash was reduced.

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But we know for a fact that this is not true because of Simas.  Skin-spies can be souled, but the Consult does not know how to make them so on purpose and has only succeeded in doing so once.

Been thinking about this. We know that they've created one skin-spy with a soul. And we know they were able to graft the ability to use magic onto themselves. 

What if the reason that sranc and skin-spies don't have souls is because the Inchoroi deliberately chose to make them unsouled? And not because of some pragmatic reason, but because morally this is by far the right choice? 

they know that sranc and skin spies are going to die, and die in droves, right? And they're able to do really weird-ass things like program skin-spies to be able to detect - and utterly hate - the presence of Chigra, in addition to a whole bunch of programming about religious views like the Inverse Fire. Morally, it would be reprehensible to create things with souls knowing that they're going to die if you could do so otherwise, because that soul would be immediately tainted just like the inchorois would be. 

So they only create skin spies with souls when they absolutely have to. 

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- He doesn't come back immediately.  In fact he waits long enough that Proyas believes he is gone.  It wouldn't be difficult for him to see the effects on the Ordealmen and the earth around Dagliash.

This still doesn't explain why he would condition Proyas at all. Kellhus leaving makes some sense - maybe - but conditioning Proyas with the foresight that he's going to have to lead people and lead them to eat, like, all sorts of other people - is odd.

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Kellhus wants the ordeal to eat sranc and to eat humans when the sranc runs out, but we haven't any information to really figure out why yet. Kelmomas cannibalism told us nothing and was utterly ignored.

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8 minutes ago, lokisnow said:

Kellhus wants the ordeal to eat sranc and to eat humans when the sranc runs out, but we haven't any information to really figure out why yet. Kelmomas cannibalism told us nothing and was utterly ignored.

Maybe it might make them invisible to the Gods? I think what made Kelmommas "invisible" was being a Narinder of Ajokli. But, maybe not.

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2 minutes ago, Michael Seswatha Jordan said:

Maybe it might make them invisible to the Gods? I think what made Kelmommas "invisible" was being a Narinder of Ajokli. But, maybe not.

I still think the inoculation theory of sranc eating holds, kellhus fed proyas human meat in the great ordeal, so it has already begun with him.

bakker said he wants the final novel, like this one, to explore TRANSGRESSION!!! Presumably  that means kellhus transgressing against serwa and Mimara like he transgressed against proyas,  I imagine the cannibalsim, like the sranc eating, becomes about transgression as well.

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41 minutes ago, Dickwad Poster #3784 said:

This still doesn't explain why he would condition Proyas at all. Kellhus leaving makes some sense - maybe - but conditioning Proyas with the foresight that he's going to have to lead people and lead them to eat, like, all sorts of other people - is odd.

Where are you getting that Kellhus wants them to eat people?  Is it just that the food source has been destroyed?  Because presumably there are more Sranc to eat on the far side of the Sursa.

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