The Accusatory, Tekne abomination's rendition 

In the Great Ordeal, Kellhus begins systematically breaking down Proyas's faith for purposes that become clear in the Unholy Consult. But the way in which he does it is curious - he claims to appeal to a subconscious version of him, the "Greater Proyas" that knows without knowing what needs to be done, senses it somehow, unconstrained by the higher-level thoughts that cripple the regular, "Lesser Proyas".

A couple of excerpts:

TGO:

"The God is infinite, is It not?"

"Of-of course..."

He is beginning to dread his own affirmations.

The Greater Proyas, at least, understood where they must lead.

"What was your revelation? That the No-God would return! That the end of all things was nigh!"

"And you are certain of this?"

"I'm certain of what you've told me!"

"Then you are certain of too much."

The very words that had caused the Greater Proyas to barricade the soul of the Lesser.

TUC:

He had fractured at some point, become someone who watched without touching as the Greater Proyas seethed unbridled... romped unchecked. It had occurred to him that perhaps he held his face pressed into some higher flame, that he merely watched in a manner more profound, more entrenched — that life was nothing more than groveling in flame. Either way, the moments where he watched and lived as one were becoming progressively more rare...

And unendurable.

“Enough!” he erupted. “What are you saying?”

The Prince-Imperial loomed pale and flaxen and carnivorous.

“That something must be eaten.”

Now, these distinct levels of selfhood tie neatly into Bakker's broader metaphysics having to do with the Subject-Object distinction. Put simply, the closeness between the Subject and the Object is seen as a measure of divinity.

All mortal men are other to themselves (some more than others, as Esmenet muses while recollecting the priest that threatened his own flaccid penis with a knife, shouting, "You must listen!") Gods of the Hundred, though, they are a perfect union of Subject and Object, of Self and Other.

But this is complicated if we accept Kellhus's early (TTFT) theory on gods being mere extensions of mortal soul, insane conglomerate beings accreted from the broken shards of the universal soul.

With that in mind, we could tie in the Greater/Lesser levels of self with a third, even more remote level of being - the hellish reality of the Outside, which Kellhus describes as an utterly inhuman "spider". This ties neatly with the classical Freudian conception of the mind (Ego, Superego, Id).

The superego would be the "Little Proyas", concerned with higher reasoning - morality, principles, and the like. It's the most fragile of the mind's aspects.

The ego would be the "Greater Proyas", the more base, pragmatic version of a man, rooted in immediate physical reality rather than high-minded concepts. It's incomparably stronger than the comparatively dainty Lesser Proyas, but it's still limited.

The id would be the "Spider", raw psychic energy, utterly unconstrained, an insatiable hunger that transcends reality itself. It's the predatory Demiurge that exists only to bring all things unto itself, to consume all that exists and excrete it back into the World endlessly.

I know Freud is considered passe these days, but the more I thought about these aspects of selfhood in Bakker's metaphysics the more I found myself drawn to his interpretation.

Thoughts?