Awesome, thanks Madness!
I had thought that they weren't mutually exclusive, but part of me was convinced that something was in the wrong order and that "towering" should have been referring to Bogyar.
Looking forward to reading this one.
Rereading it now (or I was when I wrote the bulk of this post) and there's like an entire paragraph right at the beginning describing him 
.
Okay on my first read thru, I can't place the year. It must be before the unifaction wars because there's no mention of the holy aspect emperor or any "sweet kell" or whatever phrase. Uster is still a mercenary so maybe he hasn't met Saubon.
Uster' s sister seem to be witches or something of the sort who can correctly see the future. Uster himself know how he will die and has no worry unless there is a Bashrag invoked.
I don't think the unnamed Other Sister is of the Few - though, perhaps. But there's that passage about Esmenet's mom early in TWP about admonishing Esmenet not to practice augury by the stars and we've always wondered if there is something to that. Uster’s Sister seems aware of predestination.
I had trouble placing the year too.
I figured it was in the midst of the Unification Wars, because one section describes him "warring for the Aspect-Emperor across the Secharib cane fields". The section where he stares down a cobra.
I definitely understand his appearance now too, awkward giant is very fitting!
I actually read this as a flashback... which weirds me out dating this Atrocity Tale. Uster also seems to recall killing the Palantine et al. who asks him to dine in honour of his notoriety.
I forgot about that part. I picture him like a tall basketball player looking awkward guy.
Lol.
Other random thoughts while skimming the story again:
- Uster seems to possess no sense of self (p481, 483).
- The Uster murdering surrogate fathers thing (p484).
- Mirrim, the Daughter of the Angle-Lord of Bayal, was in a position to be taken from Lady Bayal but Lady Bayal hired a Schoolman to stop that? (p487)
- Mirrim has been marked (not Marked) from birth by the Carathayan and the people of Bayal consider her birth and death tribute in order to safeguard them whatever that is? (p487-488)
- The Lady Bayal's mother describes either first daughters or just daughters generally being taken by... the demon/creature/ghost/entity/thing of the forest (p489).
- Uster can’t call his Other Sister by name (p490) and he defeats the Carathayan by naming it at the end of the story?
- "“That,” Uster observed, “would be scary.”" (p491) - Lol, Uster must have been pissed at Dagliash when the Bashrag jump out.
- The oath has been broken … the wheel must be reset (p492) – not sure what this is about.
- Uster’s Sisters sent him to deal with the Carathayan (p494).
- Uster takes the Carathayan’s head (p495).
- "Are we...safe...safe from the curse?” (p495) - not sure what this is about.
I assume Uster dies when the Bashrag bashes his head, but I don't think we know for sure.
As I said on the Discord I liked this more than I liked KoMH. I also like how this really expands the metaphysical possibilities.
Regarding Uster, it made me think of what the Idealist Kastrup refers to as "partially-disassociated entities". He somehow sees himself embodied - he fears his own death - but also sees that in some sense all individuals are truly the One, the Absolute, the single Subject of Analytic Idealism. Consider Schrodinger's conclusion in What is Life? ->
Even in the that what seems to be a plurality is merely a series of different personality aspects of this one thing, produced by a deception (the Indian MAJA); the same illusion is produced in a gallery of mirrors, and in the same way Gaurisankar and Mt Everest turned out to be the same peak seen from different valleys. There are, of course, elaborate ghost-stories fixed in our minds to hamper our acceptance of such simple recognition. E.g. it has been said that there is a tree there outside my window but I do not really see the tree. By some cunning device of which only the initial, relatively simple steps are itself explored, the real tree throws an image of itself into my the physical consciousness, and that is what I perceive.
If you stand by my side and look at the same tree, the latter manages to throw an image into your soul as well. I see my tree and you see yours (remarkably like mine), and what the tree in itself is we do not know. For this extravagance Kant is responsible. In the order of ideas which regards consciousness as a singulare tanturn it is conveniently replaced by the statement that there is obviously only one tree and all the image business is a ghost-story. Yet each of us has the indisputable impression that the sum total of his own experience and memory forms a unit, quite distinct from that of any other person. He refers to it as 'I' and What is this 'I'? If you analyse it closely you will, I think, find that it is just the facts little more than a collection of single data (experiences and memories), namely the canvas upon which they are collected. And you will, on close introspection, find that what you really mean by 'I' is that ground-stuff upon which they are collected. You may come to a distant country, lose sight of all your friends, may all but forget them; you acquire new friends, you share life with them as intensely as you ever did with your old ones. Less and less important will become the fact that, while living your new life, you still recollect the old one. “The youth that was I', you may come to speak of him in the third person,indeed the protagonist of the novel you are reading isprobably nearer to your heart, certainly more intensely alive and better known to you...
Since the I is illusory, recast as a different person that now looks at past "I" in the third person, so Uster sees the past without the perspective of the I. His memories are at a higher vantage point closer to the God, which is why in his mind he doesn't murder anyone as his observational frame is watching a play.
There is a flaw in this reasoning, in that Uster always attributes action to the other. The husband and son of Lady Bayal wanted his body to murder them, his body wanted Mirriam to seduce him, etc. Is this merely an insane denial of responsibility or metaphysical insight then?
More thoughts, but later...
