[locke]

In The Thousandfold Thought, Kellhus looks at his halos and names them, "The Light of Delusion". Was this a subtle hint that they are literally 'The Light of Ajokli (the deceiver)'?

Was the scene with Serwe's burning heart at the end of The Warrior Prophet possible because of Ajokli's intervention through Kellhus?

Did Cleric retrieve the qirri made from you from the statue of Cujara Cinmoi he encountered in Cil Aujis? Or was he just carrying it with him all these millennia?

Wutteat calls Nil Giccas a "clever Ishroi" when Nil Giccas claims "hell sustains him from within".  What does that mean?

Speaking of, is it pronounced Nil Geek-us or Nil Gick-us?

A lot of people are saying Kelmomas effectively has (and has always had) "invisible to all the gods in all times" superpowers?  Is that correct? that seems... excessive... to me.

I really loved the book. I loved that the chosen one seems to have failed. I have some quibbles (mainly I wanted to see the resolution of the Ishterebinth fight scene cliffhangered at the end of The Great Ordeal, like a TV show with no budget to show us the showdown, it's such a let down to miss this sequence), but for the most part I very much enjoyed the novel and the resolution to this series.

[Cüréthañ]

I like that crackpot, Jurble.

Hearkening back to my second question, I'm curious whether there is a difference between the Redemption the Judging Eye sees for Esme and the interventional Redemption the Hundred can grant?

Also, it seems given that the demonstrated Redemption (where Gods intervene) trumps whatever damnation a soul's intentionality has earned. Are all experiences remembered by the World independent of the fate of individual souls? Like some part of those Redeemed by the Gods stays in the Hells while their ego is restored in paradise? It sometimes seems to me the Outside is more like a drain for subjective experiences shorn from souls than an eternal destination. Any comment?

[Callan S.]

There's no money in books Callan.  It's all in shirts and stickers.  You think it was the book sales or even her movie cut that made Rowling a billionaire?  Nope, it was the swag.

Is being a billionare the goal? You can own a yacht without being a billionare, let alone simply be a crazy social change mediator and running a family.

[Callan S.]

With Sorweel, did the white luck warrior condition activate at some point, or was it there all along and  we were left thinking he had a face painted on him, but actually he was going through a deterministic path all that time (or fatalistic, as you've described it before) - really Sorweel was a face painted on the determined path?

[Edited to add an actual book question! ]

At the risk of alienating my favorite author, I'm firmly believe piracy is a bogeyman used by large media companies.

I've read a lot of studies on the issue and if you throw out the media sponsored ones and the ones that equate each pirated copy to a lost sale, the actual effect of piracy isn't bad and even has positive benefits.

In other words, big media are skewing results in order to minimize their profits... The only universe in which this argument could have bite is one where humans are hardwired to rationalize guilt

How would skewing results reduce their actual profits?

I'm skeptical on the whole piracy effect as well (I don't pirate, just to be clear) - I'd like to see some science done on it -  if forced, whether they'd buy the book if they had no other access to it. I suspect many pirates have a hording condition - they don't read what they download (they can download more than they could read in a lifetime, after all), they just sit on it, like a dragon on its horde. Madly collecting meaning. But maybe some science would show they do read en masse and would pay en masse. Given the money in the various media industries, it's surprising they haven't paid what would be a relative pittance to run some science on this.

[Wilshire]

Obviously you guys will do what you want, but for me it seems like asking an artist if he thinks he should not get paid seems to lead to an obvious answer.

If it were me, I'd concentrate on asking questions we as a community might struggle to answer about TSA. As Scott said, he won't be hanging around forever... But, your call folks.

[obstinate]

For whatever reason, self-promotion is indistinguishable from self-hatred for me. It's hard to explain, but I am genuinely ENSLAVED by all this stuff.

I can't cast stones. We all have our neuroses.

What do you think about the perspective of the folks rooting for the Consult? I can see an argument -- the Outside seems to be net negative for the souls trapped in the universe of Earwa. Like the mother who takes the knife to her baby's throat when the Sranc attack, the case could be made that the Consult are doing the world a favor.

Right now, all is undetermined. The final fate of the world is looking grim (the above perspective notwithstanding), but there are many threads that might bear out to "save" Earwa from the No-God. At the end of the series of the same name, will we know with greater certainty, whether humanity on Earwa is on the fast train to extinction?

Also, will we ever find out what Kellhus' true mission was/is? Dunyain are mission, and it seems that I cannot even have an inkling of the man until I know his ultimate end. The Thousandfold Thought, yes, but what is it? Will we ever know with more certainty than today?

[TLEILAXU]

Otherwise, who said anything about putting the genie in back in the box? It's about creating a culture that maximizes the number of people who do pay, and dispelling the ridiculous argument that giving away free content actually increases the amount of money ALL artists receive. It may help certain artists in certain circumstances, the same way giving away Toyotas at hockey games helps sell Toyotas. It's proselytizing Yars like you, the ones who think returning to the age patronage is good, 'natural,' and that the vast explosion of professionalized creativity arising out of IP was 'unnatural,' 'oppressive,' bad--YOU are the virus, the one slowly ensuring every piece of content is selling something other than itself, via patronage obligations, or product placement, or the simple terror of doing anything different as a profession.

I'm guilty of plenty of pirating myself, but I do agree with this. Leave patreon for youtube "content producers". Also, what's a Yar?

On topic: Why did Kellhus say to Proyas that the Inchoroi must win? Was he arguing from the perspective of the Consult?
Also, if the 100 are re-written in the shadow of Golgotterath, does that mean that if the World is closed to the Outside, the Gods will cease to exist as they have always not existed?

[Cüréthañ]

Yar = contemptuous term for pirates.

edit: can you comment on Anjencis' take on the Ark? Specifically I'm interested in the implication (even assuming he is completely wrong about the Ark and astrophysics) that there are no other planets in the Earwan solar system.

[jurble]

On topic: Why did Kellhus say to Proyas that the Inchoroi must win? Was he arguing from the perspective of the Consult?

This is straightforward in the text.  Earwa is a world where everything has already happened, forward and backward in time.  So the fact that the Gods can't see the Ark or the Consult implies that they succeed at some point in the future.  It's the same reason why the Gods can't see Kelmomas.

[Cüréthañ]

This is straightforward in the text.  Earwa is a world where everything has already happened, forward and backward in time.  So the fact that the Gods can't see the Ark or the Consult implies that they succeed at some point in the future.  It's the same reason why the Gods can't see Kelmomas.

Except the way the gods intercede to alter the flow of history (and fail) implies that is only true in the Outside. Same with the way that prophecy effects the past. It's a real brain-bender and is not that straightforward to many of us.

[jurble]

Nah, see the Gods see the world fixed in time and the world is fixed in time.  It's just that the Gods are blind dumbos.  The world is like.. a series of books (to extend a metaphor Kalbear used on Westeros) everything is written.  But the Gods have Volume 1 and the No-God stole Volume 2 (and onwards) from the shelf - and the Gods, lacking Reason, don't realize what's going on and assume the series ends in Volume 1, even though the rest of the books still exist.  The analogy sorta fails in that.... Volume 1 has invisible text... that only the Living can read.. because the Consult is using invisible ink... that they got in Volume 2.  But THE GOD can also read the invisible ink (but his fractured portions can't.  Ajokli notices the weird gaps in the text, though).

[fecklessfool]

Was Esmenet actually Kellhus' darkness?

[Callan S.]

I actually have a version of that final Cnaiur scene that's more than twenty years old - it's been baked in since the very beginning. For me, it's always been a kind of bookend for the series, the becoming infernal/geological of the hate that initially preserved him, but leaves him hijacked

Is that what you meant when you'd previously said Cnaiurs arc was done?

I thought that was a dirty, dirty lie :p then I wondered if you meant done as a human.

[Triskele]

Scott - I bought a nice, crisp hardback this week and have mowed through it.  I have a quick comment which is that, in the past year, I've reread The Great Ordeal a few times and am more impressed with it each time.  At the moment it might be my favorite book of yours.

I am sure I will continue to reread The Unholy Consult and will have questions stemming from that, but the one that I want to ask right now, while it stems from this book, reaches back to the very beginning of the story, and it is this:  when Kellhus first encounters a Nonman in the woods said Nonman (Mek, presumably) says something to the effect of "I have fought for and against the No-God in the wars that authored this wilderness (big paraphrase)."  That suggested to me that it could have been the No-God that fought on two opposite sides rather than the speaking Nonman erratic.  This seems more plausible now that we know that Nau-Cayuti was the first iteration of the No-God.  Was this a deliberate clue all along about the identity of the first No-God? 

ETA:  I'm not even certain that I didn't try to ask this in another thread at some point, erratic as I myself have become. 

[Callan S.]

1. Do you have a Patreon? I am aware of other mid and even A-list writers who are using these as a means of securing a stable income between books. It's also an interesting way to let your readers invest in you, as opposed to only consuming that which you produce (I'm not sure if this distinction makes the idea more or less attractive). But I would certainly contribute a few dollars a month if you had one.

My wife mentioned this to me a couple months back and a bolt of terror went up my spine. For whatever reason, self-promotion is indistinguishable from self-hatred for me. It's hard to explain, but I am genuinely ENSLAVED by all this stuff. I've spent decades now, trying to batter and berate myself into a more 'well rounded' human, but now that I've turned 50, I've resigned myself to being honest to my two-dimensional nature, and just to write whatever must be written.

It's funny, I think of myself as a more mercenary soul in contrast. Worse, I actually want to explore these economic vices and thumb screws - a kind of 'Grim Buck' genre. I think I started out as a teen, making up a Gambit rip off called Debt, who could only kinetically charge objects people cared about (thus money was something best used as a weapon - so he was generally broke. But sentimental items blow up good as well...) and the Lone Shark, mercenary chartered accountant, violently readjusting the fiscal balance sheets of the world where debt has been sold over and over until the very fist person who owed the debt now owns it...somehow. Weird years latter seeing this debt selling thing actually happening. Anyway, that's my plug, now buy my stickers, ya'll! lol! Sorry, wanted a chin wag and I'm never gunna get to Zaudunyanicon! And the contrasting fiscal rejection fascinates me.

Edit: I think I just clicked on the mention of Akka having to keep two voices in his head at once to do magic and Kelmomas having two souls and being invisible to the gods. Yerp, took me awhile!