[ThoughtsOfThelli]

I figured it would be a good idea to make a thread for death predictions pre-series. That way, anyone who happens to be right can smugly say they called it.
Anyone who's feeling adventurous can speculate on actual causes of death for extra points.


My own ideas about who will die are still very fuzzy (especially since there aren't that many characters 100% confirmed to still be alive by the end of TUC), but as of now I feel rather confident that Achamian and Esmenet will both die during this series (even if just close to the end). My (admittedly not very strong) reasoning: Achamian, Cnaiür, Kellhus, Esmenet and Serwë were the five main characters (per the character and faction glossary) at the beginning of TSA. Serwë was the first to die in TWP, Cnaiür appeared to die in TTT only to survive and actually die in TUC (his physical body was disintegrated, I'm choosing to disregard current theories and count him as dead), and Kellhus died in TUC (again, ignoring all the theories). Achamian and Esmenet are the last of the "old guard", and not only among those top 5 - pretty much all characters that had had a role of at least some significance during PON and survived the events of that series died during TAE (Maithanet, Proyas, Saubon, Iyokus, Fanayal, Aurang, Mekeritrig...). It would make thematic sense for these two last remaining characters to die at the end of the second apocalypse as (hopefully) a new age begins.

[Old Gnostic Fool]

It's also worth noting that Achamian and Esmenet are the only two characters to have POV's in all books. I can see them biting the dust in TNG, if only for the sake of full closure.

Do you really know that Iyokus is dead? I barely remember him being mentioned in TAE other than his role in teaching Kellhus about demon summoning.

[ThoughtsOfThelli]

It's also worth noting that Achamian and Esmenet are the only two characters to have POV's in all books. I can see them biting the dust in TNG, if only for the sake of full closure.

Very true, I hadn't even thought about how they have POVs in every single book, but you're right. Yet another reason why it makes narrative sense for both of them to die during TNG.

Do you really know that Iyokus is dead? I barely remember him being mentioned in TAE other than his role in teaching Kellhus about demon summoning.

He dies during the Battle of Golgotterath, but it's something that might go unnoticed because he's not actually referred to by name. Here's the relevant passage (from chapter 15 of TUC, under a spoiler tag because it's kind of long and I don't want to clutter this thread with it too much):

(click to show/hide)

The Blind Slaver dares speak it, the word. And it can feel the torments the Manling would inflict upon it were it elsewhere in this accursed World. But here, in this place, Hell itself steeps the air, making whole what the frail sorcerer's magicks had halved. Here, in this place, it cannot be sundered.
The Reaper-of-Heroes cackles, shrieks in diabolical triumph.
What does it matter, the punishing of a Desire identical with its Object?
Your Oath! the Blind Slaver cries upon blind panic. Your Oath is your Task!
Nay ... the Carrion Prince rumbles across the edges of existence. Thou art my Task, mortal.
And upon this, Kakaliol, the Reaper-of-Heroes, involutes, reaches through itself, and seizes the Voice of the Blind Slaver, plucks the nubile wisp that is his soul. How the insect flails! Roaring exultant, it collapses into a writhing heap of centipedes, chitinous multitudes that spill out twitching and scratching across the floors, and begin boring through the flaking paint that is this World ...
The vile angel is no more.

Basically, the fact that Golgotterath is a topos allows Kakaliol to reach through from the Outside into the actual physical world and claim Iyokus' soul outright.

[natanaj]

I didn't know his entire body disintegrated. I thought his skin just got fucked up.

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[ThoughtsOfThelli]

I didn't know his entire body disintegrated. I thought his skin just got fucked up.

Time for another TUC quote, I think. Again, under a spoiler tag.

(click to show/hide)

The winds had become abrasion; blood began weeping from his swazond. Smoke fluted from a thousand slits across his body.
The No-God walked ... walked to him.
"ANASÛRIMBOR!" he roared, his voice bestial with fury. "REVEAL THYSELF TO ME!"
A million throats answered.
TELL ME ...
The Whirlwind blotted all Creation before him, blowing bodies outward and sucking bodies up as it advanced. A million blasting needles sheared the scars from his skin, leaving his windward surfaces striped in living fire. And they roiled like burning grease within him, the indignities he had suffered, the grudges and grievances he bore! Such a toll as only murder could redeem!
"SHOW THYSELF SO THAT I MIGHT STRIKE THEE!"
Skin pealed back from tissue, sloughed as parchment. Bleeding was struck into mist.
WHAT DO YOU SEE?
Even as it blinded the wind laid bare, exposing structures, devouring them, displaying the lurid layers beneath. With Hell's own eyes, Cnaiür urs Skiötha peered up into the void and saw ... nothing.
"REVEAL! REVEAL THYSELF!"
Flesh disintegrated. A vicious black climbed over all things, grew numb.
WHAT AM I?

It happens gradually. First his skin starts to bleed, then it starts to peal back from his body, then the rest of his body progressively disintegrates.

[Francis Buck]

Bit of a drive-by post here, but I actually could see Achamian living all the way through the series and being one of the 144,000 thousand remaining souls on Earwa at the end...

Everyone else is probably toast though.

[MSJ]

Bit of a drive-by post here, but I actually could see Achamian living all the way through the series and being one of the 144,000 thousand remaining souls on Earwa at the end...

Everyone else is probably toast though.

Wow, quote function worked on phone!!!!

I 2nd this idea and find it likely, though I think Esme makes it too.

[Swayal Serpent]

I think Esme will probably die, but I'm pretty certain Akka is going to make it. I think he's getting set up to be the next Seswatha, and Ses was a survivor of the first apocalypse. Akka's going to keep the gnosis alive and refound the mandate!

[ThoughtsOfThelli]

Bit of a drive-by post here, but I actually could see Achamian living all the way through the series and being one of the 144,000 thousand remaining souls on Earwa at the end...

Everyone else is probably toast though.

I 2nd this idea and find it likely, though I think Esme makes it too.

I think Esme will probably die, but I'm pretty certain Akka is going to make it. I think he's getting set up to be the next Seswatha, and Ses was a survivor of the first apocalypse. Akka's going to keep the gnosis alive and refound the mandate!

Okay, so I'm definitely in the minority so far, with only Old Gnostic Fool agreeing with my Akka death prediction.

And for Esmenet, it seems like MSJ is in the minority, since everyone else so far seems to agree she will die.

About the Akka and Seswatha parallels, this is my opinion: I think that the parallels already exist (and presumably will only get stronger as TNG goes on) and have been there since PON.
Both:
-are/were sorcerers who came from humble origins (Seswatha the son of a Trysean bronzesmith/Akka the son of a Nroni fisherman);
-became close to an Anasûrimbor who eventually became a ruler (Celmomas, High-King of Kûniüri/Kellhus, Aspect-Emperor of the Three Seas), but the two later had a falling out (Celmomas resented Seswatha's influence on his son Nau-Cayûti and suspected he might even be Seswatha's biological son/Akka renounced Kellhus because of him "stealing" his wife Esmenet from him and due to learning the truth about the Dûnyain);
-had a romantic and sexual relationship with said Anasûrimbor's wife (Celmomas' wife Suriala/Kellhus' wife Esmenet - though in this case the relationship with Akka happened before the relationship with Kellhus);
-had a student and surrogate son who met a tragic end due to the influence of the Consult (Nau-Cayûti/Inrau - and you can count Proyas as well in Akka's case, though more indirectly);
-interacted with a sorcerous artifact with led to them experiencing events in the life/memories of someone else (the Amiolas/Seswatha's Heart).
And that's just off the top of my head, there might be more I'm not remembering right now.
I can, however, actually see Akka dying right after managing to end the Second Apocalypse but surviving long enough to pass on the torch and the task of founding a new Mandate to someone else (Serwa?).

[H]

Honestly, I could see a chance that Mimara might take something of a literal Christ parallel and "die" in some manner, only to be reborn or restored, or something else.