[themerchant]

I think Akka's only major divine benefactor is the whore. He's a true hero.

Throwing in on the power level discussion. I think he is in 99th percentile or whatever for sorcerers on earth. At least in terms of his raw capacity, maybe not his delicacy. The metagnostics probably outclass him but honestly I wouldn't be surprised if he could take one down. Just not kellhus. The greatest quya are only a little better than him. He is one of the greatest human sorcerers alive.

I think in the first book that akka says while he sometime has trouble believing it, his power has never let him down when he needed it. I think that was an unwitting portent. So far, it has proved to be true.

Akka was born talented and now Seswatha is opening up to him.

Indeed and Kellhus peers deep and sees how strong Akka is as well, a lot stronger than anyone believes especially himself. Esme later sees it as she is reading the sagas.

With the added spice of Quirri and extra experience i suspect he's significantly more deadly than he was at the end of TTT.

[Seökti]

Is Akka going to be his era's Seswatha?  It seems so with his relationship to Esmenet (similar to Seswatha's relationship to the high queen).  Also Akka beat down both Wuteat and Nil'giccas.  Holy crap.  A four-thousand year old nonman king and the father of dragons!

[Wilshire]

The Cleric Suicides

This might provide you with some entertainment. Some would argue Cleric simply gave up, and technically the dragon ran away, which might not be 'defeated'.

At any rate, his life does seem to have a lot of parallels with Seswatha. The whole 'history repeats' bit seems to be playing out, and who else but Akka to play that particular role.

[SilentRoamer]

I think as powerful as Akka has grown to at this point this is a legendary Quya - ancient before the First Apocalypse, before the rise of man even. Akka is pretty overmatched.

Thats not to say that Akka didn't legitemately win, the Whore of Fate may have been smiling at his lucky blow, or Nil'giccas may have just decided this was the end of the line.

Personally I think Cleric had reached the end of his line. I think Nonmen have a sort of temporal cognitive dissonance.

[The Sharmat]

When Cleric sees Wutteat in the Coffers he outright says "This is where I am meant to die." or something along those lines. Cleric was done.

I think Akka is definitely among the absolute top of human sorcerers. I suspect that surviving Quya, Dunyain (or half-Dunyain), and the Twins probably outclass him. Of course "power levels" is kind of bullshit anyway. Just because someone might beat Akka in a fight 9 times out of 10 doesn't mean that the die won't occasionally come up a 1. And there's things to think about beyond raw power. Before he became Shauriatas, Shaeonanra wasn't known for the power of his sorcery, but for the unconventional subtlety of it. In a shoving match, others were stronger. But he came up with weird loopholes and tricks that made him the most formidable man in his School. This kind of thing is hard to quantify.

[Wilshire]

Of course "power levels" is kind of bullshit anyway

Shae beat Titirga. The strongest human sorcerer of all time went into a mountain, never to be seen again. Defeated by a hole in the ground and a pile or rocks on his head.

On that note, they all salt the same way if struck by a chorae.

Intellectual acuity is far more important than 'raw power'.

Consider that Kellhus' rock whirlwind was not a meta-gnostic cant or ward, yet was entirely novel and rendered him essentially immune to thrown or shot chorae.

[SilentRoamer]

Ah thats interesting Wilshire, I always assumed he sort of riffed it from the No-God.

[Wilshire]

Possible, but the point is still that he was able to come up with a solution that no one else had, even though he was given the same variables.

[The Sharmat]

The Billows the sorcerers and witches of the Great Ordeal wear are also quite novel and I suspect Kellhus's idea.

[Wilshire]

Yeah I loved that  adaption of his own whirlwind. Much easier to carry around than a sack full of rocks

[mrganondorf]

Is Akka going to be his era's Seswatha?  It seems so with his relationship to Esmenet (similar to Seswatha's relationship to the high queen).  Also Akka beat down both Wuteat and Nil'giccas.  Holy crap.  A four-thousand year old nonman king and the father of dragons!

lol, i didn't think of it before, but maybe this is a Nietzschean influence on Bakker?  eternal reccurence?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_return

what does a sorcerer do when he is forced to repeat misery with every small and great turn of the wheel?  love fate!  but is not fate a whore?  yes, she is his wife

[Wilshire]

You're saying Esmi is Anagkë?

[Seökti]

I don't think Esmenet is a direct descendant or a reincarnation (which isn't possible for Earwa as the soul is clearly eternal, i.e. damnation) of the High Kings wife, but Seswatha and Akka have too much in common to ignore.  Perhaps the whelming and the Mandate itself were created by Seswatha to create people capable of playing his role to Anaxophus - whatever that was exactly.  And this assumption leads me to Akka being the modern Seswatha.

[The Sharmat]

Seswatha seems to quite literally be inside every Mandati. But he seems to give Akka special treatment, judging by the changing nature of his dreams.

[Wic]

Maybe Akka's role in discovering Kellhus, first mandati to see a skinspy, and indeed even the vessel that Ses and Kell spoke through presumably, has Ses with his nose up against the glass, so to speak.  Might even be that Ses' Outside proximity to Akka's mind is responsible in some part for the strength of his Abstractions.