I like the time loop but what is this about Mimara suggesting she bears her Mother's child? I remember that line but I read it as more a metaphor for the fact that had Kellhus not happened, Esmenet and Achamian would have probably had children and that the only reason Mimara and Achamian did the deed was because of Esmenet.
That's the trick. I really liked the JE allot, so i read it back to back a few times and i noticed that something was off with Mimara. The first thing that stuck with me was that she knows thinks she has no ways of knowing. For example she remarks that Soma is no man at all. It wasn't a metaphor (most readers at the time thought he was an eunuch) and she herself didn't realize he is a skin spy till much latter. I had noticed more little snippets like this but i will have to re-read the last 2 books to relocate them, my memory is kind of bad.
Another unique thing about her are her POVs. They are always in the present, kind of like the WLW's. While as a human being she understands time in a linear fashion, she seems to have a special connection to the outside that allows a part of her to look in the world from the outside. I'd go as far as to say that she is closer to the God than any other human being and that's what the JE is, she looks with God's eyes. In a way, her remarks are scripture
.
Since the world is a kind of super entity, with a will of its own (fate), what she says about the child is very important, especially from a mother's perspective. Every instinct and even the physical reality of pregnancy makes her statement very unusual. But if you factor all of the recurring events in Earwa's history, it takes a very literal meaning. The child was meant to happen, like it happened before.
Another interesting thing with Mimara's POV's is that the author himself talks directly to his audience about the world and not through the world and his characters like his does with the rest of his POVs. They are written more or less the same way the "what came before" chapters are, which break the fourth wall in some cases (trolling us in the process
).
Let's make a detour to talk about the Dunyain a little. Where the rest of the world share similar beliefs, the Dunyain believe in only one thing, causality. The have trained their will so much as to deny their instincts, their nature, their sensory input and every other thing that defines a human being except the Logos. In a sense, they are the most fanatical of all beings in Earwa, so their belief is singular and very very potent. That's how Kellhus bends fate around him, with belief, which is such a delicious irony. His actions delayed the birth of the child, but it had to be born in one way or another and Mimara understands that in a subconscious level. This is not just another child and we all know it
.
Lol.
You are mocking my beliefs? Shame on you...
I agree completely that the Celmomian Prophecy is an entity's tool. Whose tool is the question? I liked one of the more recent ideas is that it's Kellhus conditioning the present by affecting the past.
However, prophecy is an entirely different question, I think...
We do not know enough yet about how it works. We have two instances (Kellhus and Achamian) that predict the future and in both cases it seems to happen in order to help those who predicted it... so we've guessed Fate. Then we have two instances, prophecy and false prophecy and then one on this topic started by none other than SOA .
We don't know enough about the mechanics involved though. And there are too many players that might affect dreams still...
Bakker seeded the fuck out of this series... Moenghus is sending dreams to the Dunyain in the prologue and it's taken many of us until TAE/WLW to start applying agency to the Celmomian Prophecy...
Those are some interesting threads, thanks for pointing them out. I especially liked the part about Nau-Cayuti being the No God, i don't feel alone in the world anymore
. Now about the entity. What is the No God? What is the outside for that matter and how the fuck do you close such a thing? Let's avoid unneeded complexity and go for some simple observations. The outside is full of souls, it's therefore alive and must have some kind of will. Most think that the No God is some singular being that cuts off the outside. What if the No God is just another outside? A constructed one to be more precise, that has limited capacity (i will leave you to guess the exact number
).
Now what does Celmomas see when he dies?
“They call to me. They say that my end is not the world’s end. That burden, they say, is yours. Yours, Seswatha.”
Notice the they? They can't be from the outside, since it's closed to the world. Therefore they are inside the No God, where Celmomas is currently headed. And there is where Nau-Cayuti is as well, one of many but not the same as the rest. Souls in Earwa are not equal, we have been hearing that since the beginning of the books, but we now know because Mimara confirms it. Even Shae calls Nau-Cayuti a prize. So he is in there, with a bunch of other souls and they form the inside of the No God. Since the No God takes the place of the outside and has a limited capacity, souls can't be recycled so there are no new births. I believe though that if the population drops below the 144k number, there will be new births with souls that come out of the No God to inhabit the fetuses. If you want a more visual example, think the No God like a matroska doll inside another one (the world).
That's what happens inside the No God, but what happens outside? More or less what happens to human beings. the No God is self aware, so he perceives himself as one, and strives to create an identity, but can't due to the contradiction of the inside, since he is the sum of thousands of different souls and their relations with one another. So he asks everyone outside of him what do they see, in order to build his identity through a watcher. A little system theory coupled with a little nuclear physics courtesy of mister Bakker.
Thus the prophesy is the tool of the souls inside the No God. There is only one prophesy, but there is more than one recipient and the interpretation of each faction is filtered through confirmation bias. So instead of one prophesy we get two
. Btw, since the Consult follows Mimara around, they seem to think that she is the scion, while the mandate has accepted Kellhus as the harbinger. You know where i'd bet the farm
.
The most interesting part of the story is the world though. The No God is self aware and that's why he has a will and strives for purpose. Since there is fate, it means the world also has a will but we can't see the identity, the whole if you will, because we always look inside it through the characters.
I do believe there has been an exception to the rule with Mimara though. In the JE, she looks through the tear of God and reaches God. The Cish probably do the same by blinding themselves, but Mimara is the only character that lets us witness this through her POV. What is God if not the super entity of the world? And there is the kicker, how the fuck can the world be self aware and have an identity without a watcher. Where and what is that watcher? Maybe he is the God exactly because he can watch and thus completely know himself, i don't know.
Maybe the answer isn't a metaphysical one. The world isn't as new as it seems from Earwa's technological advancement. Maybe Men, NonMen and even the Inchoroi are all the products of the fall of another age that was highly advanced. As much as the world seems to revolve around metaphysics, genetics play an abnormally large part in it.
I will close this post with some food for thought (translation = trolling). Since events repeat themselves, couldn't the world as we know it just be a simulation
?
[EDIT] Or even better, maybe some crazy dude built the nail of heaven to watch over Earwa, making it self aware, wouldn't that be fun?
