[The Sharmat]

Saubon was a child pretty much till the moment of his death.

[Duskweaver]

I think the only sensible answer to "Who has the worst fate?" is "Every character that ends up in Hell". An eternity of being tortured by Ciphrang seems pretty self-evidently worse than anything that any character in the series suffers while they're still alive.

[solipsisticurge]

If we parse "worst" into "most tragic," Cnaiur qualifies. "The soul of a hero, if not for the Dunyain." The SA might have been his tale of not for their manipulation crushing his psyche.

Hardly a sympathetic character, otherwise, but his emotional torment and the future he was robbed of make me sigh for what might have been.

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[SuJuroit]

Saubon was a child pretty much till the moment of his death.

Well put.  It's why I find Saubon a more sympathetic character than Proyas.  Proyas is a man with every advantage and no excuses; he's smart, handsome, educated by Akka, loved by his parents and everybody else as a child, and winds up choosing evil because his refusal to doubt, to question, leads him to conclude evil is righteousness.

Saubon is an abused child who sought the trappings of strength and martial glory as an adult to hide the feelings of shame and inadequacy that abuse created. 

[greenshift]

I'll add a vote for Nil’giccas (or any Nonman really). Living so long that you have no memory of love or happiness, being left only with anguish and despair, seems about as tragic as it gets. Oh and in this state you end up turning on your former allies and still have Damnation to look forward to after death. Proyas got off light in comparison. Very little sympathy for that guy. I think he got way less than he deserved for being such a presumptuous and pompous asshole.

[The Sharmat]

I think the only sensible answer to "Who has the worst fate?" is "Every character that ends up in Hell". An eternity of being tortured by Ciphrang seems pretty self-evidently worse than anything that any character in the series suffers while they're still alive.

Apparently there's degrees of damnation even. Some are more damned than others. So maybe Kosoter has the worst fate?

Saubon was a child pretty much till the moment of his death.

Well put.  It's why I find Saubon a more sympathetic character than Proyas.  Proyas is a man with every advantage and no excuses; he's smart, handsome, educated by Akka, loved by his parents and everybody else as a child, and winds up choosing evil because his refusal to doubt, to question, leads him to conclude evil is righteousness.

Saubon is an abused child who sought the trappings of strength and martial glory as an adult to hide the feelings of shame and inadequacy that abuse created. 

I find them both sympathetic even if they're both terrible people. He doesn't just want to be superior mind you. He's not a narcissist. He wants to be good. Proyas' drive to be just and good was so desperate that it destroyed his capacity for reason entirely. But he never did feel secure in it, I think. Akka got through regardless, and so he pretended even harder to be the moral arbiter to compensate for his own fears.

I wonder how he would have developed if not for Kellhus.

[TwoMinutesToApocalypse]

I don't feel bad about Kellhus's fate in the slightest.  I thought the way Kellhus went out was hilarious and I'm glad he got salted by the things he disregarded. 

Kelmomas's fate on the other hand.... it's probably not pleasant being trapped in a floating box and not knowing what you are. 

[The Sharmat]

I don't feel bad about Kellhus's fate in the slightest.  I thought the way Kellhus went out was hilarious and I'm glad he got salted by the things he disregarded. 

Me too. It was perfect.

[SmilerLoki]

I don't feel bad about Kellhus's fate in the slightest.  I thought the way Kellhus went out was hilarious and I'm glad he got salted by the things he disregarded. 

Me too. It was perfect.

I would also like to join your club!

[Cet'ingira]

You may not feel bad about it, but to answer the original question, the character who ultimately is going to suffer the worst fate of any in the series is Kellhus. Irresective of anything any character has suffered while alive, almost by definition, the character with the worst fate is going to be the one most damned, and as Sharmat pointed out, there are degrees of damnation.

The two factors that seem to contribute most to a character's damnation are the extent of their misdeads and the extent to which they have practiced sorcery. Kellhus is the genocidal murderer of countless thousands of people, perhaps more than any other human in the history of Eärwa. He is also the most powerful sorcerer the world has ever seen. Following the moment that his living body is turned into pillar of salt, I would suspect that his soul is set to be promptly and eternally subjected to the worst horrors hell has to offer from the countless Ciphrang eager for revenge on the man who would seek to conquer them and their domain.

[Duskweaver]

I would suspect that his soul is set to be promptly and eternally subjected to the worst horrors hell has to offer from the countless Ciphrang eager for revenge on the man who would seek to conquer them and their domain.

Except Bakker flat out stated that Kellhus' soul cannot be found. The sneaky bastard seems to have discovered an out.

[robizeratul]

I think Cnaiur, If we are not counting non-men...
 
Did he actually die though? I don't know. I thought (and was hoping) that he would look into the inverse fire...Curious what he would have seen.

[Baztek]

How did Kellhus find an out? How did he make a beeline for Oblivion when he didn't even see his death coming? I swear I'm gonna abduct Bakker and make him spill everything one fucking day. You guys are all right, don't go to Bakker's favorite coffee shop tommorow.

[Eärwag]

I'm not sure who had the worst fate, but I lament Thelliopa's demise those most.  I had hopes for her, I liked to imagine that there was a purpose to her copious clothes, like she only dressed that way to conceal knives and other weapons on her person, and would one day take out a Fanim assassin with a hidden blade.  Instead she was abused as a child and crushed in an earthquake.  I wanted more for her, but that's how it goes.

[Walter]

I tend to agree that there was more to Thelliopa than met the eye.  Definitely felt for her going out like that.