Pretty sure we all had a 'wow moment' from seeing Kellhus do things.
What mindblowned you the most?
I'm convinced that what the Grasping does is imbue an imprint of Seswatha's soul onto the Mandate Schoolman who completes the ritual. We're told about the Amiolas that the imparting of skills through sorcery necessitates that the skills come from somewhere, by which I mean from someone.
I think memory might be similar. You can't just pull memories out of someone and store them, even if it's in your own desiccated heart; memories can only be transferred from soul to soul. I'm of the belief that such lines as "Seswatha stalked the halls of the present, bearing tokens of ancient doom" is more literal than many of us realize.
I think Seswatha preserved his own soul in his heart, and an imprint of it is passed on to every Mandati that Grasps it. A portion of that unshakeable resolve emerges any time knowledge of the Gnosis is pursued by someone Seswatha doesn't approve of, and if the stress and torture is severe enough - as it was for Achamian in the Sareotic Library - that imprint of Seswatha's soul surges to forefront, to viscerally defend the Gnosis personally.
That would've been in keeping with Seswatha's reputed genius: set up the School of Mandate to guard against the No-God's return, ensure its longevity by restricting the Gnosis only to its students, and then, when even those preparations might fail, leave an imprint of himself on every Mandati, a pressure-bomb ready to blow and annihilate any who would try to take the Gnosis by force.
But it might even go further than that. Seswatha was familiar with Sheonanra and how he attained immortality, namely by bouncing his soul off other souls to keep from falling into the Outside. What if the Grasping, if it does imprint a portion of Seswatha's soul on Mandate Schoolmen, is Seswatha's version of that immortality? His soul resides in some portion in every Mandate Schoolman, and when the stress on a sorcerer is great enough, when the sorcerer's soul gets closer to the Outside, Seswatha's can supplant it temporarily, gaining a few minutes back in the living world.
As the gods peer through the eyes of mortals when those mortals approach their sphere of influence, what if Seswatha's soul bounces between all the Mandate sorcerers who have completed the Grasping, watching the world through their eyes and preventing himself from falling into the Outside?
Oh that's nice. I love the idea that the Mandate is Seswatha's way of avoiding hell. That might explain why the Consult always recognizes him too.
Yeah it’s not like Kellhus just “tricked” Achamian into giving him the gnosis. It’s pretty clear that Seswatha himself will not allow the secrets of the gnosis to be revealed to anyone other than those who’ve completed the Grasping. I doubt he’d be so easily duped.
It definitely feels to me like Kellhus made a deal with him somehow, or convinced Seswatha of his intention to destroy the Consult, though it was pre-Circumfix.
Plus he had no way of knowing Akka would find his way back to The Holy War from his ordeal in the library. By the time they marched without him he'd already be considering how he could get in with the Spires to pick up the Anagogis. Akkas return is a fortuitous correspondence of cause.
And to add another point, simply introducing himself to the Seswatha revenant as an Anasurimbor could well have been enough
"Now we eat sranc"
I'm not ashamed to state, that when I was reading that line, I had goosebumps on my arm. I was thinking: unbelievable. What a monster of a writer Bakker is.
Same here. This was heavily unexpected by me. I mean he could easly continue with men eating sranc secretly, out of hunger, in shame of themselves, or in some sort of ritual warrior gatherings. But his official divine word was a stunning cannibalistic kick.
Haha yeah, and... Yeah, for that to happen he had to... oh.
Realizing that the entire empire was nothing but another tool was a big wow moment for me. Of course it makes total sense, a Dunyain cares nothing for legacy, for accomplishment, yet my human mind could not fathom that he was willing to just throw away his empire.
Perfect encapsulation of the Dunyain.
Making sure the No God was instantiated on a being that would be moved by its emotions, fight with its intellect, and be both emotionally and intellectually overwhelmed by Kellhus.
I mean we need to find a way to support the author enough to get the third series, but this seems crucial.
If there was a kickstarter I’d kick in €1,000s. Couple hundred people could get together and pay Scott a salary to complete. I need those books
When he raped Proyas.
I cant name his smartest move, but re reading White Luck and seeing WHY he picked some handsome, predictable brute to guard Esmi closely, regardless of whether they slept together or his memorized one liners of mediocre philosophy.
Because in the eventuality of even his brother deposing her, the Imhailas that was a true and resourceful warrior would emerge, knowledgeable of the slums, loyal to the point of martial suicide.
I mean... without Imhailas, that whole mess would've ended much quicker, wouldn't it?
Esmi rushes to the palace, screaming "my booooy, my helpless little baby booooy", Shrial Knights grab her, bring her to Maithanet, he takes two minutes to read her face and figure out what's been going on (just as he does weeks later in the books).
They publicly reconcile and have some unpleasant conversations about Kelmomas. (Then her assassin strikes.)
I guess Imhailas was there so that the book can happen. Kellhus = Bakker, confirmed.
I actually take it back now ha ha! How about the Andiamine rebuild? Wading through that section this week through WL and GO. Now THAT is impressive as hell - the foresight of design and calculation to build essentially two palaces, one inside the other.
And of course the sad and wild fates of the laborers ranges from summary execution to being shipped to foreign slave markets, but possibly drowned along the way lol
Probably the way he handled the only real obstacle he ever had in his life - Cnayur (in the first 2 books).
Cnayur is the only one who, due to his previous experiences, has a certain amount of resistance to Kellhus' preternatural charm and trickery. With all of his warlike and beastly willpower, even HE didn't manage to be anything more than a mild road bump in his quest.
When he achieved the thousand fold thought the first time. Granted he got lucky with Achamian surviving the scarlet spires. He still achieved the only path to victory by manipulating the people around him as much as possible something his father failed to do.
Convincing Seswatha to grant him the Gnosis without touching the Heart.
It’s the biggest level-up in the whole series, the moment he goes from super-robot-monk to world-conquering-godling, and we don’t (yet?) know how he managed it, or even if it was Seswatha he was “talking” to.
He mastered a 2,000-year-old ghast and he wode into that blind. I can’t really see how he could possibly have discerned the metaphysics behind Seswatha’s ghost/echo/possession or anything about the man himself ahead of actually hypnotising Akka, given what he had access to at the time.
I don’t buy that it was simply brainwashing Achamian - if the host had any influence on the compulsion surely it would have been broken by other worldly forces.
There’s shenanigans here. In the third part we may even find out more about that interaction. Seswatha is an extremely dubious character, and possibly gave Kell critical insight into TNG.