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The Unholy Consult post-release SPOILER thread IV


Gaston de Foix

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22 hours ago, Hello World said:

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

 

Yeah, those were compelling points - but I'm not sure they qualify as foreshadowing as much as they are simply consistent with their existence. I don't doubt Bakker had that planned far in advance, mind you - but it wasn't particularly hinted at, and in fact the text hints at their not being weirdly shaped when Kellhus thinks about a mountain in the curve of a woman or something like that, before he had set foot outside of Ishual. 

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53 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

and in fact the text hints at their not being weirdly shaped when Kellhus thinks about a mountain in the curve of a woman or something like that, before he had set foot outside of Ishual. 

Was thinking about this quote this morning.  Just tried finding it but couldn't locate. I thought there might be a similar quote in TUC also. Hmmm. Let me know if anyone can locate.  Wondering if a whale mother is more likely to look like a mountain . . . 

 

ETA. Found it. Don't think it refers to whale Mothers. The glacier looks like the curve of a beautiful woman's back. Seems to predate concept of whale mothers. 

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8 minutes ago, unJon said:

Was thinking about this quote this morning.  Just tried finding it but couldn't locate. I thought there might be a similar quote in TUC also. Hmmm. Let me know if anyone can locate.  Wondering if a whale mother is more likely to look like a mountain . . . 

 

ETA. Found it. Don't think it refers to whale Mothers. The glacier looks like the curve of a beautiful woman's back. Seems to predate concept of whale mothers. 

Right - it was pretty clearly not talking about whale mothers, it was to suggest the shapeliness of a woman. 

Which, at that point, Kellhus would have never actually seen. 

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1 minute ago, Let's Get Kraken said:

....huh.

The obvious answer is that the Dunyain had ample, large amounts of porn magazines drawn on the back of those oak leaves, porn that had been used and reused and given to the pragma to distribute as rewards to those boys who performed well in other tasks. They were caricatures of women, of course - large breasted, big eyes, tiny waists, pre-pubescent features, as no one who had seen actual women had been alive for nearly a hundred generations, save perhaps those babies that were defective whale mothers and were destroyed.

That's right, the Dunyain had a cache of hentai porn. 

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16 hours ago, Hello World said:

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?

I guess?  I can't recall and I find attempting to read threads on Reddit that the formatting it just incomprehensible to me (yeah, a definite sign I am old old),.  But I guess I read something like that there, but also Bakker said:

Quote

Why see Kellhus' abilities as cosmic rather than relative to the worldborn? He is 'much seeing,' not all seeing, and what lies closest is very often the most difficult to see. (You could say I've hung a whole theory of consciousness about that fact!)

http://www.second-apocalypse.com/index.php?topic=2278.msg36646#msg36646

The question was about how Maith could know that little Kel was a seriously problem, while Kellhus failed to realize the danger there.  Kellhus is really good at dealing with the external world, but his own internal one?  Not so much.  He feels whole, he feels still in control and intact, when the fact is just the opposite (to a degree).

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@Hello World and @.H. I think there is some textual reference to both ideas. Or at least Kellhus gives Kelmomas a speech about how some souls are broken in such a way as to think they are whole. And Kellhus abilities being worldborn rather than cosmic is explicitly referenced in one of the Kellhus POVs in TGO where he thinks about how he is still only a man. 

So the concept or germ of the idea was placed in the text at least. Which isn't to say that there's real evidence that Kellhus is the kind of soul broken in such a way as just opposed to the idea that there are such souls. 

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53 minutes ago, unJon said:

So the concept or germ of the idea was placed in the text at least. Which isn't to say that there's real evidence that Kellhus is the kind of soul broken in such a way as just opposed to the idea that there are such souls.

Yeah, I don't think we'll ever get "proof positive" one way or the other, because Bakker deliberately writes things to be ambiguous.

I always just try to come up with theories that use some kind of textual evidence to point to plausible or maybe even probable explanations of what is going on.  I think the idea that Kellhus is a kind of insane that doesn't allow him to realize just how insane he is, can be read from the text and so is plausible.  Is it factual?  I don't think we have anywhere near enough facts to ever know.

As for what Kellhus plan is in going into the Golden Room, well, I do think it has to do with getting Ajokli in there to best the Mutilated.  Doesn't he mention that there was no way he could win there himself?  I think that Kellhus, having no real options, bets on Ajokli wanting to end the Consult and preserve the "status quo" of keeping the "granary" of Eärwa intact.  What he fails to plan for (and can't, I don't think) is that Ajokli would willingly, perhaps we can even say happily, circumvent the "granary" and just make Hell on Eärwa.

Is the issue of the AMA answer that Bakker says Kellhus has no long-term plan?  I think that is sort of lined up in the text, because as the darkness closes in, the Thousandfold Thought is winding down.  Beyond the Golden Room (which I don't think Kellhus can just 'skip') he can't see, there are too many variables there.  I think rather than have solid long-term plans, Kellhus just tries to have some contingency plans in place.  Of course, little Kel being there isn't one, but his soul being absent and beyond Ajokli's reach (sight?) speaks (to me, at least) that Kellhus was to some degree a bit prepared for the possibility that he might die.

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The issue with the AMA, I believe, was that Kellus never knew he was possessed by Ajoki, so there was no deal and no plan involving him at all. Now, there is debate on if this is what Bakker meant with his answer, which is a rabbit hole I'm not even going to go down at this point. Someone can probably pull up the actual quote/

And yeah I can;t read reddit either, it's like its in a different language.

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If Cnaiur IS Ajokli, then every moment Kellhus was trying to possess Cnaiur was just Kellhus becoming more possessed by Cnaijokli.

Which would explain why the world turned when Kellhus witnessed the rape, because that's when Kellhus switched strategies to use Serwe's subjugation to indirectly manipulate Cnaiur rather than trying to manipulate him directly. So that was the vector in for Ajokli?

I know it's not that well thought out by the author, but it's fun to overfit these theories back to the text.

 

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2 hours ago, Darth Richard II said:

Cnaiur IS Ajokli ?

See unJon's posts upthread. He reasons Ajokli is special because Ajokli the god is born after the eschaton, at the end of the book when Cnaiur ascends to hell and completes his on world metamorphosis to the prince that Mimara saw. 

In this reading, the No god and even baby Kelly are red herrings, and readers that don't catch it are missing the birth of an in-text god which ripples thine understanding of the whole series preceding: that which comes after determines what comes before.

this also neatly inverts the classic fantasy tropes of a warrior Christ saving he world as the finale is about a warrior antichrist destroying the world.

but it's probably not hat well thought out, so I wouldn't put too much effort into it.

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4 hours ago, lokisnow said:

See unJon's posts upthread. He reasons Ajokli is special because Ajokli the god is born after the eschaton, at the end of the book when Cnaiur ascends to hell and completes his on world metamorphosis to the prince that Mimara saw. 

In this reading, the No god and even baby Kelly are red herrings, and readers that don't catch it are missing the birth of an in-text god which ripples thine understanding of the whole series preceding: that which comes after determines what comes before.

this also neatly inverts the classic fantasy tropes of a warrior Christ saving he world as the finale is about a warrior antichrist destroying the world.

but it's probably not hat well thought out, so I wouldn't put too much effort into it.

It wasn't me. Was @Let's Get Kraken

3 hours ago, Let's Get Kraken said:

Personally, I found it to be the greatest theory to ever grace my unworthy eyes. If that wasn't exactly what happened in the book, then Bakker should fall upon his knees before "unJon" and tearfully thank him for providing a plot twist that will surely launch his career upon so Golden a Path as to allow him to climb atop his massive pile of money and literary awards all the way into actual Heaven, where he can laugh in the faces of J.R.R. Tolkien and Frank Herbert for being so comparatively poor and obscure.

Lol :P

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