Join us as we discuss the riveting second book of the "Prince of Nothing" trilogy, with first-timers Mike and Carl adding a dash of fresh insight. Together, we tackle the series' dense themes, character arcs, and the intricate dance of fate and agency that propels Kellhus, Achamian, and Esmenet forward. Witness as we dissect the surprising character transformations and the intense emotional landscapes that set the backdrop for these complex relationships.
Tread carefully through the murky depths of character intention and the robust tapestry of conviction and belief. Our vibrant discussion spotlights the power of leaders, both charismatic and zealous, and the parallels drawn between the series' characters and real-world historical figures. The unfolding mysteries and speculative theories surrounding the magical systems and prophecies in the narrative keep the conversation as unpredictable as the series' plot twists, providing fodder for anyone enthralled by the nuances of epic storytelling.
As the episode winds to a close, we speculate on the potential paths Bakker might lead us down in the trilogy's conclusion, with theories on the fates of beloved characters and the ultimate implications of the Anasurimbor prophecy. Until our paths cross again, may your reading be as enlightening as our discussions.
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Join us as we discuss the riveting second book of the "Prince of Nothing" trilogy, with first-timers Mike and Carl adding a dash of fresh insight. Together, we tackle the series' dense themes, character arcs, and the intricate dance of fate and agency that propels Kellhus, Achamian, and Esmenet forward. Witness as we dissect the surprising character transformations and the intense emotional landscapes that set the backdrop for these complex relationships.
Tread carefully through the murky depths of character intention and the robust tapestry of conviction and belief. Our vibrant discussion spotlights the power of leaders, both charismatic and zealous, and the parallels drawn between the series' characters and real-world historical figures. The unfolding mysteries and speculative theories surrounding the magical systems and prophecies in the narrative keep the conversation as unpredictable as the series' plot twists, providing fodder for anyone enthralled by the nuances of epic storytelling.
As the episode winds to a close, we speculate on the potential paths Bakker might lead us down in the trilogy's conclusion, with theories on the fates of beloved characters and the ultimate implications of the Anasurimbor prophecy. Until our paths cross again, may your reading be as enlightening as our discussions.
PageChewing.com
PAGECHEWING: Comics & Manga Podcast
Film Chewing Podcast
Buy me a coffee
Linktree
Logo by The GlimmerTwin Art House
Join Riverside.fm
Hello everyone, welcome back to our discussion group for the Warrior Prophet, which is the second book of the Prince of Nothing trilogy by our squad Baker. We have been reading the series a little bit at a time when discussing it every week. Currently we are working our way through the Warrior Prophet 100 pages per week. Today is the final discussion book. We're going to discuss the last 100 pages and also everything else that happened in this book and talk about which of our theories came to and which ones are yet to be tested. The answer to the first question is none yet. Steve, would you like to start us off with introductions?
Speaker 2:Sure, my name is Steve and I love the series, and it's my second time reading this book and I am enjoying reading with all of you, and now that I'm on the other side, knowing what happens, it's nice to hear first time reactions and how close your predictions are, or aren't so glad to be here.
Speaker 1:Mike.
Speaker 4:Yes, I'm Mike. I'm a first timer reading the series and, yeah, it was quite a finale to this. I can't wait to talk about it.
Speaker 5:And I am Carl, also a first timer, and yeah, I love the Warrior Prophet. I mean, I guess jump and end things a little bit. I thought this had the ending like the sort of climax I really wanted. In the first book I remember being just a little bit, you know, like I was satisfied with it overall, but just being a little disappointed. I was expecting a little more at the end of the darkness that comes before and this really gave it. It was, it was a lot.
Speaker 1:And when you say ending which, do you mean the whole section? Or like how much of a? Do you mean, like I'm thinking of the last line which makes something really important, but like what did you have in mind specifically for ending?
Speaker 5:I mean, it's just the whole section we read really like they. You know, if you talk about sort of a book having, you know, a climax in its like kind of final section, I felt that this was a particularly climactic way to end the stories you've been following over the course of this book. You know, while we still have plenty of story to go, it definitely felt like there were, there were pretty clear arcs in this book and I felt like they paid off in really interesting ways. In some ways I didn't expect, some ways I did, but all I found very dramatic. And then, of course, we got our little last. I think it's an epilogue, right, that was, I, totally unexpected. I did not expect to get all of the info. We got there and that was a delight and had me looking for fan art and trying to avoid spoilers at the same time. And I did, and now I know what something I was struggling to picture. Look like what it looks like, and so that was we'll get there, I'm sure.
Speaker 1:Okay, okay. Yeah, I think the last bit had several things that you wanted to discuss, so I almost want to start from the end, but it will go in order. Was there anything from the? So what happens in this book? I guess Kaelis gets a tzerva dice and Kaelis gets hanged. Ish a Kamiyan comes back home to Espinette, finds out that he's being well, that Kaelis has taken Espinette pretty much, and then I guess the fallout from that, and then Nayur has a bunch to do in this, in these chapters as well.
Speaker 5:Yeah, really, I mean everyone, the Kamiyan, a lot of what he is doing is talking now, after his big explosive moment in the last section, but I think it's very important talking and certainly Kaelis is, you know, in many ways kind of his seeds, you know that he's been watering, have blossomed and you know, for good or ill, we kind of see the fallout.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what did you think of Akamiyan in this section? I liked I think we talked about this last week how he changed and stopped caring about the things that used to bother him a lot before, and I love to see that continued. But I was dreading his interactions with Espinette and boy, was I right to dread? Yeah, I kind of hate how he thinks about her. I had some sympathy for him before in regard to that relationship, but now I'm starting to feel like he doesn't deserve at all. So, yeah, what did you guys think of that?
Speaker 5:Hi there, I feel like I've already talked. So, mike, you want to jump in?
Speaker 4:About the relationship I don't know if I read it the same. I mean, I think it's a fucked up relationship. We all know that I can't help, but I mean I did. I do feel bad for him in a way. You know, the one thing that I that I will comment on is why did it take him so long to get to them? Like, didn't he take a boat to get to them? Anyway, it seemed like it took a long time so I kept.
Speaker 4:I kept waiting for that to happen, and I'm sure that you know, but it was well timed because already so much had happened. But I just think you know she. What I don't like about where she is now is that she's with you know, she's enamored with Kellis and is now gonna take the place of Sarway in a way, or she already had and she's now. I think she has become, she's become his vessel, that I noticed that word several times and that makes me uncomfortable. But, mate, but we don't know what exactly that means. But we do know that she's with child, supposedly his child, but how do we really know that? Maybe, oh, she changed her, she changed her contraception, so that when she was with him, so then that's how we know. Yeah, yeah. So I'm a little bit on the fence about I I, the way he reacted to her was not so good, and I think you know. But I mean yeah, yeah, just don't know what else to say about that I, I also have mixed feelings about it.
Speaker 5:I mean, like, I think certainly his thoughts, you know his feeling, his thoughts were very, they reeked with misogyny, you know certainly, and like the judgments that he's already cast against her, is like, you know, a harlot, no horror and and all these, you know the names she's called. But at the same time, you know he has been, he feels betrayed, right like he has been hurt by her. But you also, you know I don't really blame her because she's been manipulated and as far as she knew he was dead. And you know, I, more than anything, I, I think I feel bad for as Manette and honestly I feel bad for a camean too, maybe a little less than I feel bad for as Manette, but he still, you know, thought that, I mean he thought of her as his wife, and so I think you know he still is suffering. You know it's like having your, your best friend, basically start. You come back home and your best friend has shacked up with your wife, like that's. I think some of his thoughts, while they certainly are, they rhyme, you could say, with other judgmental thoughts he's had. I think a lot of it is just driven by his emotion and his pain in the moment. I don't know, I have mixed feelings, like I, I'm not happy with, you know, his reaction, necessarily partially, in fact, I'm not happy because he decides saving Kellis is ultimately the right thing to do to stop the apocalypse, which maybe it is, you know, I mean, that's, that's the tough moral quandary here, right, and I think it's very compelling, but I don't like it because I don't like Kellis and I, I mean I found it all just captivating.
Speaker 5:I, I was swept off by all of that drama. I found, you know, a camean reacted pretty much like I expected you to react. To be honest, I, I think the only thing that I was surprised by was he didn't turn his reaction into more self-loathing or not explicitly so. I was expecting him a lot more to be like well, of course he thought I was dead. You know like at least Kellis was here for, like almost like treating himself like he deserves. You know to be cuckolded or something you can even call what happened there. You know cuckolding.
Speaker 5:I think you know there's a lot of definitely murky boundaries with all of their relationships. None of them are like very rigid, like we kind of traditionally imagine. Marriages are right because none of them have been legally married or made any vows in that regard. Yeah, it's just really messy and very dramatic and I quite enjoyed it. And the fact, you know, it's very dramatic that and I mean in a good way that like he, just he makes a decision to support the guy who, just you know, stole the woman he loves, right like I. That's, that's a very dramatic thing for a character to do. That normally we would view as like very self-sacrificial and like heroic. But you know, the trick is we know Kellis and so we're like is it heroic? You know, like he's not actually a messiah, or I mean, is he? You know, is he a messiah? But like they're dark, you know, this world's dark, horrible messiah. It's all complicated.
Speaker 1:It's messy and complicated and I love it so my issue with like why I read letter came in that time was that he is just echoing thoughts he had before. It's not just out of anger, he's, it's like oh, I have confirmation of what I always knew to be true and that is incredibly disrespectful. Their relationship was asymmetric to start with and he made no effort like I think I talked about this briefly when we talked about doubt like for someone who teaches people to doubt he has a very set view about the place of I don't know if this is how he feels about women in gender, but definitely about Esmeralda and the fact that she's she started out as a prostitute. So this like he's not willing to elevate her or think of her differently and all the thoughts he had about her when returning to her had nothing to do like. They weren't really affectionate thoughts. They were all oh, I'm, I'm gonna go sleep with her now. So it was very, it was a very objectified view of her, almost to the point where I'm like did you ever love her or did you just want to? You know, like her for the physical relationship and maybe it's fine for that to happen.
Speaker 1:But I think Esmeralda deeply loves him and I'm sure she gave him some emotional comfort. But he's in his, he's just, he's just escaped something really desperate. He's come out from really desperate circumstances and he's not thinking of the emotional or mental comfort she'll give him, but just the physical comfort. And then, and then as soon as he finds out, like, sure he was happy that Keles would keep her safe, but as long as she's saving herself for him, even if she thinks that he's dead, so like they, so the hated, sure he's just lashing out, but it felt very cold, not just out of anger, but it felt very cold, at least the way I read it. Maybe I I primed myself to that because I was railing at the way he was thinking about like, is that all she is to you? That? So that really bothered me.
Speaker 1:And but yeah, I think the dynamic between that and what he's trying to do with Keles, the sort of self-sacrificing but not really way that he's trying to protect Keles, I think the thought he had before that was interesting, where he had this moment of would I let the world burn to soothe my heart, but yeah, that that whole section was interesting. But I'm kind of frustrated and I come in. I mean, I still think the characters very interesting to read, especially, you know, in the non-esminate aspects of how he deals with, like the way he stood up to the council and like told, told that story and, you know, stood his own. I appreciate it, all of them. I love that, the distinctness that we see in the character from earlier, because like he went through something big and that's reflected in how he's behaving right now. I think that's really well done, but as a person I just I think I started to really dislike him now totally fair.
Speaker 5:I, and you know I agree with everything you said. The only thing I would disagree about is I do think he loves her for more than just the sex. I mean, I think one of the messy aspects of them is the emotional comfort you're talking about. I think the sex is like it's all tied together in his brain and I think in her brain too, because I think he defined her exactly like he flattened her as a, as an individual. I I definitely think that's true.
Speaker 5:You know, I think one of the most telling things I think we talked about this last time was that you know he never tried or offered to teach her to read right and that in you, really it hits her and it hits the reader right, like yeah, that's like messed up. Why would he not? You know, I think we did see him like try to. He would include her in conversations, you know, even going back to like the conversations with Enrao. So I think there was a level of respect and love. He carried beyond it. But I do think it was just mixed up in his internalized, you know, sexism and kind of the. I do think it's tied into how he views women and how he views prostitutes and and it is really unfortunate and certainly is not the noblest thing about him, far from it. I yeah he's an interesting character, a complicated character and he's a teacher.
Speaker 1:Who's who's he? It must have occurred to him that he could teach her to read, and he decided not to right, or yeah?
Speaker 5:I don't think he did. I don't think, I don't think he ever thought of teaching her to read. I think he, like he was like oh she's, she's a woman and she's a prostitute. Like of course she doesn't read.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like I don't think it even occurred to him yeah isn't it great, though, to have these kind of reactions from from a story, that these conflicting feelings from these characters and I. This is why one of the reasons why I think he's one of the more relatable characters because of how imperfect and floddy is, but I think him well. Giving Keles a chance to get his closet to Espinette is really a cameo. His fault because he left her.
Speaker 2:Yeah after he promised he would never leave her again. He just left her again and then he ran into trouble. And there is a passage somewhere about Espinette having feelings for Keles even before when a cameo is still around. So kind of get the feeling that Keles has been working her for a while just suddenly oh, definitely he should have brought Espinette.
Speaker 5:If he respected Espinette, I don't know if he should have brought her with him to the library, she maybe would have died, I don't know, you know, she probably would have died actually, so it probably saved her life. But you know, just in terms of like, as like an intellectual partner I but you know, I mean he doesn't even talk about his emotions like like, again, we're talking about like the emotional comfort he seeks. You know, I mean, how many of these men or women really express their emotions, you know that much, and are like, seek the sort of comfort we might typically, you know, associate like I really do think it is all wrapped up in sex for them and just like the physicality of it all. They don't know how to talk about their feelings, they're just emotionally, you know, I mean, their products, are their cultures and products of their trauma yeah yeah, so, speaking of trauma and what it was everyone's thought, thoughts on Sirway sad yeah.
Speaker 5:I'm underwhelmed, honestly, just with her story in general. I felt like she was underwritten until the end and then killed off like I've. That's my thought.
Speaker 4:I don't have more to say than that I was disappointed in a few ways, but I but I'm also probably not catching things, so I, if I understood correctly, and I think there's different ways this could have been done but she was killed because I thought, please let me know what you think. I thought she was killed because she was being blasphemer, because she was saying he was the god.
Speaker 1:It was wasn't until she said no oh sorry, I I think it was because they were trying him for claiming to be of a higher caste than he is and they were trying him according to the tusk, which the punishment for that is, the wife is killed and the blood the what the offender is tied to the wife and they die tied to them, like that's. That was in one of the epigraphs.
Speaker 4:I miss that, so they wouldn't. I didn't understand why.
Speaker 2:Okay, oh boy, yeah yeah, I think because they he called him a false prophet and that there was a section two where noir, when he finds out that survey was killed, he he says they were supposed to kill the whore. That was on page 532. So it sounds like he had it home in that too that he plotted to have s-minute killed to clear the way for he and survey to be. And I kind of felt like that was also a way for him to hurt a commune too if he was still alive, just to just to get rid of them. But he wanted her dead, not survey what?
Speaker 1:what did nair have against a commune?
Speaker 2:I forgot oh, I don't think that it's anything specific, I just think he's he's angry and bitter, you know hateful, so he just thought and those probably just like a bonus for him to you know kind of exert his power.
Speaker 5:I agree, that's certainly how I read it thanks, sense.
Speaker 5:I yeah, I mean just to touch on the survey thing we've talked about how she just hasn't, you know, nestle, felt like she's as well realized as three-dimensional on some of the other characters and, and to some degree I think that's an intentional choice, you know, I think to kind of play with this idea of you know, kind of this archetype she embodies I, you know, can't even really think of the right word for it, but kind of like the like, you know, the modern, like kind of other sexist term for it is like the bimbo, you know, and I don't know, I just felt like she never really went beyond that and that disappointed me. And then to kill her, which is to me like the most obvious thing to do with her, just disappointed me. I was relieved the baby lived. I really thought the baby was dead. The way Baker wrote the whole sequence, I mean, yeah, like I was sad she died, you know, and I certainly didn't want her to die, but it was, I don't know I that that would be a little like.
Speaker 5:I like I think if I were to ratings are so stupid but like, if I were to rate this book, I would still rate it five stars, but with, like the caveat that, like you know, I'm not actually without my criticisms, but I just found it overall like a really emotional, compelling experience and, like Sir Wei was one of you know, I think, just an overarching criticism for me. And what? And while we're talking about that, my only other thing was I felt like Kellis's downfall happened way too quickly. People been talking about it for a long time but I felt like the chapter itself, I wanted like a little more. It just felt like everything happened really fast and I just wanted to be a little more developed. I felt like everything that came after that, when he was just like hanging there in the circle and everything was like paced really well, but for me the the actual downfall itself, that chapter happened a little too fast. I almost wanted like another chapter, kind of chronically all of that.
Speaker 1:I suppose we don't get to see in detail what they did to him. We just see Sir Wei dead next thing. Kellis is hanging from a tree, which I think what upset me the most about her death. I I couldn't. She felt pretty caricature-ish the whole time to me and I I don't.
Speaker 1:I don't see the point of her character in the sense not that she wasn't useful in the story, but in the sense of I'm not sure what it was he was trying to represent. I still don't know, but. But what angered me was that Kellis let it happen and or what upset me about it, and I think the the reason that it happened so quickly could be is it perhaps that Kellis let it happen so we don't need to see his downfall? If we almost get the impression I think from Neyar's point of view later on that it's not that he made it happen, but he let it happen because he wanted to lead to a certain conclusion. I get this thing over with and get to where I really want to be. Almost like it was somewhat deliberate on Kellis' part, so it almost feels like it went quickly because he doesn't, because it's not an actual downfall, it's just something that he allowed to happen, yeah yeah, I mean I agree with that.
Speaker 5:I just felt like like I literally think like the writing of the chapter itself was like to like there were, there was amazing, like amazing prose, some amazing scenes, including that final scene where Kellis has tried I just like skipped around time a lot. It skipped around the city a lot. We were just like constantly hopping and changing you know perspectives, and not just like different perspectives and the same thing, like wildly different days, different events. It was just a lot happened in a short period of time that for me I sort of had like whiplash because I felt like the rest of the book was in place, like that yeah, go ahead.
Speaker 4:Yeah, no, no, I would. I definitely agree. I wrote down in my notes like it was a big chapter, there was so much that that happened. I think there's a lot going on with Sarcellus as well, doesn't he get burned there's? And then a Kamiyan comes back. There's a lot going on with Nyur as well. So it's one thing that was interesting to me about with Keles, but maybe this is very simple. But so he had all of these bodyguards and the supposedly tens of thousands of his followers, but where were they? I just I did I wondered about that and they didn't seem to show up later, when he was hanging from a tree, because I thought there was a lot of build up with his. And then he has the night, these nine Nascente or whatever, whatever you. But maybe I was just digging into that too much.
Speaker 5:No, I mean, I think it's, it's a fair question, asked like why didn't they do anything? Particularly because they were there when he was tried Some of them were, I mean, maybe I do remember them being like kind of held back, but you, it is kind of surprising that they wouldn't, you know they were even guarding him right, like when he was hanging from the tree.
Speaker 1:I thought they were the ones keeping watch.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they were. They were okay kind of sort of protecting him.
Speaker 1:But yeah, but they didn't do anything. Maybe he forbade them to or yeah, that's a good point.
Speaker 4:I mean maybe all of it was according to his plan. You know, like the thing with with he were saying he didn't care about Sarawak. I don't think he ever cared about her once. I don't think he cares. I really don't think it's even mentioned in the what came before section, like like he's not. It's there. I didn't write it down or I don't remember the exact words, but it's something about how like they're just, it's just about the logos, it's just about the logic and his ultimate goal, yeah, but but it there.
Speaker 4:He's good at making it seem as though he's this gentle soul and, you know, leader and can close the tusk and all of these things. But I'm not. And yeah, he's such an enigmatic character. I don't think I've read anything like that before. But there must be thumbs. That's one thing that's really unique about this whole story. You know he's just so it was to me it's just like a quite an idea that that baker had here to come up. He's, I guess he's kind of this is terrible, but he's kind of like Spock from Star Trek, a little bit like he's just, you know, all logic and not much emotion and all of that, and of course that's that's a struggle that that character goes through, to know I he's really fascinating. It's just, yeah, I do feel like there is so much that happened in that chapter.
Speaker 4:There is a lot of build up or there's a lot of description throughout this book about what's happening with, with, you know, the Holy War. The one thing that I I found interesting is how everybody is dealing with this famine and they're all like skeletons, essentially they're it's. So I'm I'm very impressed that anybody's able to still fight because they they're, they're eating, they're eating rats, they're eating leather and books, and that that just added so much more attention. I appreciated that. But yeah, I don't, I can't think that's. And then, and then, of course, there's also the what's the epidemic going on? Hemoplexy or something I similar to, I guess, bubonic plague or maybe a little different. But all that's going on in the background, which I did, I wanted to say I really appreciated, I thought I like that kind of thing. It's not good. No, it's really awful it happens.
Speaker 4:It's happened so much throughout history, famines that are not well documented in parts of the world that people don't maybe realize just over the years, and so that's, I think that's pretty accurate.
Speaker 5:Absolutely.
Speaker 5:Yeah it's pretty. I briefly touching on Sirways death again, I think it was. Who was it? Someone you know was saying you know that like Kelly sort of allowed it to happen, and I don't even get like she didn't need to die, like it's not like she inspired anyone, she wasn't like a martyr, he was the martyr, so why did she need to die? Like it just all feels so pointless, which is part of the tragedy of it, certainly, but also as part of my frustration, where I'm like I wanted more from her. You know, if she felt like a more realized character, I think I would have what like grieved her more, but I don't know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what do you think, Steve? What? What was her purpose in the story?
Speaker 2:Well, I have to be careful with how I answer that, but I will say that I think the whole sequence of thing, carl, you nailed and I was trying to figure out what I didn't like about it. But when you talk about pacing it is, it does happen very fast, like it goes from him being followed to he seemed worried, and then he's surveys, killed, and then he's hanging from a tree and it just seemed to happen very fast after all this build up and we don't really see how he was captured or what like how they managed to get him after he's been so formidable and combatant and it seems like he could defeat pretty much anyone. He could have killed noir twice. So it just it seemed a little like something was missing. From the point where sirways kill to when they're hanging up together. It just like it seemed a little bit jarring that well, how did that happen? So? But, sirway, I think okay, see, I can answer this.
Speaker 2:So from this point, I think so, sirway, what, what is she done To this point up into her death? So she's given birth to Moangus, which I thought was a little bit of that, and that was how to that had to have been done to elicit some kind of response to right. So you wonder if callus did that on purpose. So noir would push his, his enemies to push for him to be tried as a false prophet. So there's lots of different things happening. Because they intentionally told him, they were told to intentionally tell, make sure that he knew they named the baby Moangus. You know, of course he's gonna not have a not so great reaction to that.
Speaker 5:For sure, absolutely.
Speaker 2:Callus being callus, I guess.
Speaker 5:Yeah, how do we think he survived? Like, just like, is that a logos thing? Or like sure will power, like sirway? I mean, maybe she took a more serious wound, but like my understanding is they like flayed callus, like, or the very least like whipped the crap out of him and he didn't get. You know, his wounds didn't get infected. I mean, I guess maybe some of his followers they might have. They might have said something about followers coming up and like cleaning his wounds or something, although maybe I'm making that up, I don't remember I'd have to reread, but it's still. It's just like. It seems like he was in a really bad place for like several days and like, I guess, through sheer willpower the logos, I don't know managed to survive. That was one of my like yeah, this is a fantasy novel, like you know I'll. I guess I'll suspend my disbelief for this one.
Speaker 1:He did survive the seven days with of meditation, without food or anything else, when he was just a child. We have to assume that his training may have been amped up several times from there, but yeah, it is it does stretch the imagination of it, for sure.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I think what you were saying Steve makes so much sense and I think everything that he does is is for a purpose. You know pretty much and if you think about it later, after, after whatever, after he's freed, they make a flag of the. I want to say circumfix. Is that the name of the symbol of them? Because it's a circle of the two bodies. I'm just trying to picture them in my maybe I misunderstood, it was a ring of the two of the two of them. I thought they were. Then I thought that in my head does that mean that they were like wrapped around the tree? But I think they were. I thought they also thought they were hanging.
Speaker 5:So they were there. So I, while looking at fan art, I found a picture of the flag. So it's, like you know, the classic like Leonardo da Vinci, like the human anatomy, where, like the human is like all spread, equal and everything. Okay, that's, it's kelly. The flag that we see towards the end and what they're on is like just a big ring and that ring essentially holds them spread eagle, and they're pressed up against each other and so they're both just like. They're just tied out. Like you know, it's like a cross, but instead of a cross they're like tied to this big ring and that ring is hanging from a tree.
Speaker 4:Okay, okay, so that I mean I guess he wanted that. You know it became like the symbol of the cross, which is, as we know and you know, in Christianity is pretty big deal. Yeah, these is he is. Is that what's gonna happen in the next? So I am predicting something here.
Speaker 4:If it's okay that in the next I have no idea what happens in the next book, but I'm assuming that his followers are going to overtake the holy war.
Speaker 4:That's what I'm, that's what I'm guessing, because there's so many of them now, there's tens of thousands, and there's only so many left from quite a few that died from the famine and from from the illness, because he's gaining a lot of momentum and this is going to be enough to push him over, you know, to the tipping point. But then I also have a question which is unresolved, and maybe you all understood it better than I did is and that's the title of the next book is is there something about how he has possibly attained the thousand fold thought and I forget exactly when that happens, but I thought it was right after, might have been right after this, but I don't know what that means. I don't think it's explained yet, but I just feel like he's. The whole holy war is going to be changing momentum quite a bit. It has been so. To me that's a trend. They see it just going, you know, even further. I don't know what that means exactly, but to me it's just really. This is going to put him over the top.
Speaker 5:Yeah, no, I agree. I mean, I think that's what we see at the end is he's basically taken over the holy war. I think that's his whole arc here in this book. Is him, yeah, conquering it, basically claiming it as his own? You know, they this was the other lords like attempted stopping that and instead they made it inevitable. You know, I think he may not officially be in charge, right, but I think basically is at the end of it all is like at that point they tried to kill him, they failed, they made him a martyr and now he's, you know, the top dog, and that's that's how I read it, kind of at the end of it all. And they all had to kind of accept that they need him. You know, they were convinced quite reluctantly, you know that the consult is real and that he is on a sword or callous and they need him to fight. And now he is even more, you know, symbolically powerful because he quote unquote, you know like died and came back to life. Even I guess he never actually died.
Speaker 4:Yeah, that's even confesses. Do we think, confesses convinced.
Speaker 5:No, no chance. No, he's reluctantly going along just because he's one of the generals, but I don't know he's still. He's going to keep scheming. The confess ain't done yet. No chance.
Speaker 2:So what did all of you think when Kellis was hanging his inner dialogue Because I felt like that was very he was he was almost like questioning how could this have happened? Or you know, that was a little bit surprising to me, that he is almost like he didn't see it coming, or like he was he wasn't sure what to do next.
Speaker 5:I definitely got the sense that things got out of hand a little bit for him, like I think he was planning things, like we know. Again, he wanted Nair to find out about the sun's name, like he clearly was, like wanting to create his own downfall so he could rise up again. But it seems like things did get out of hand and you know exactly where the dividing line is there. I'm not sure, but beyond that, like one of the additional things we know, is he started feeling more things that was really interesting to read, to have him like very explicitly and clearly lose you know the logos, to fall into the darkness that comes before Including. You know something we talked about last time he seemed to explicitly express affection for Esmenet and his unborn child and his newborn child Moingus.
Speaker 5:You know their blood, like he felt that instant blood attraction which is, you know, biologically programmed into every species we got to procreate, and he couldn't, you know he fell victim to it. I guess you could say certainly that would be his point of view, which was interesting to see him to see that flickering of weakness I guess you could say vulnerability is maybe a better word and I think that troubled him, you know I probably even more so than everything around him, kind of falling apart, because I think to some degree it was part of his plan. I think his internal battle was what was really troubling him and why he, you know, was really questioning everything. But that, that's just my reading, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that was surprising. I'm not sure. Yeah, maybe he thought he let things get out of hand, but more than that, I think what he allowed to happen was intentional, but he wasn't anticipating how he felt about it. Like, I think this whole thought sequence starts with him demanding that commanding survey to breathe, but she doesn't. And then he has this whole dialogue with his father about how he gave her to them and and he said, like I gave her to them for you. So he was like it sounds like he allowed it to happen.
Speaker 1:I don't know whether he wasn't anticipating the feelings that he would experience afterwards. So he's getting the impression that things are in disarray that's the word he uses. All is in disarray, yeah, so perhaps he's out of his depth. I mean, they must feel out of their depth sometimes, right, like I think that the logos or whatever they follow. I must be about gaining control back whenever you lose it. There has to be provision for that, I'd imagine. But yeah, anyway. So I agree with everything you said, carl, but it was very interesting that he's experiencing some emotion here that he wasn't expecting.
Speaker 5:And I'm so glad you pointed out the survey thing, because he mourned her there Like he, he didn't want her to die, and so that definitely made me wonder, you know, was his plan for her to survive? We know he had the. I mean, if we, if you remember, way back he had that vision of everything that we questioned, is it magic or is it just part of his logos, you know, predicting the future thing, the shortest path, what have you? And we had the. You know, the head in the air with the sunset, which I now understand to be near, holding up the consult Sarcellus's head and the dead wife we heard about, which is Sir Way.
Speaker 5:And you know, I don't know that he necessarily knew that was going to happen. I mean, even though he had the vision, I think in some ways that surprised him too and I, and maybe that was the aspect of it that felt the most like out of his control, I, you know, I don't know that he I mean, like I said earlier, like it didn't seem like Sir Wayne needed to die, so I don't know that that was his intent. You could definitely say he let it happen because he didn't really try to stop it, but I don't know that he went to that trial thinking she was going to die too. I mean, he were thinking he was going to be murdered.
Speaker 1:We, we know how he is in a fight. He held it together on a hill all by himself in the previous battle that we saw. So he could have hurt all of them and stop them from hurting Sir Way if he wanted to, but he used her for a purpose. And I just now remember, as you were talking about the prophecy, that one of the things that was prophesy, prophesied, prophesied was a dead wife, right? So I guess that's survey and we don't. We faded to black after he saw all of that. But let's say for a moment and he knew this was coming, or even planned for it that he plotted. If we go with the theory that it he predicted that by that he has to take a certain path to get to that point. That means all of this was delivered to the point of survey is death. What was I going to say about that? So, yeah, I don't know. I don't know if he didn't intend for survey to die. I think he's just. He just didn't intend to mourn her, which he is currently doing.
Speaker 5:So I would. Where I would argue with you is that I think he, while he does make plans I think they can be, in fact are imperfect, and that sometimes they're more accurate than others but like he has trouble here seeing predicting the future, like he has an explicit moment I forget where it is, but I remember being like whoa he doesn't know what's happening, the future seems shaky to him and I think one of those you know, maybe the reason he took two wives is so that one of them could die I so maybe it's that aspect to it right, but I don't know that he necessarily specifically intended for survey to die. His reaction just doesn't to me read like that. To me it's. It's kind of like again, like genuine surprise and genuine mourning, as much as he can mourn, and you know him willing her to breathe again, like that's such a great moment and does make him feel a little more human, despite you know how horrible and cold he is.
Speaker 5:I, you know, I don't know I think he lays out these plans, but I don't know that, like I don't know that how everything went, played down was exactly how he thought it was going to play down. You know, like I think he set these pieces in motion but he wasn't sure exactly what the result would be, and that's so. That's part of the reason, and you know, in one aspect of it, I think, was that then he emotionally lost control and I think that really troubled him probably more than anything more, even in certain steps. I totally am with you there. That, like, I think his reaction to it all was probably the most troubling part for him. But I don't know that his plans are like these infallible, perfect things. I think there is room for error and I think he's aware of that and becomes viscerally aware of that with how everything plays out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I agree that his plans are not quite infallible, but that he more that he saw that this is the end goal. Maybe his what, his vision or prediction or prophecy, whichever it was what's telling him is that this is the point you need to get to, to take over the holy work, Because do I remember correctly that that prediction happened before he started becoming a prophet? Because, and we see, the dead wife thing is from the law of the tusk, right? So let's say that Akamyan has taught him all of that, so that could have been input data to his predictions that he needs to get here.
Speaker 5:So, yeah, it that's an interesting thought.
Speaker 1:It's possible that this plan happened to work out, but it is still like, yeah, that's my theory that it was a plan that he laid out to get here for that end goal, that this is how he wins the holy war, and, specifically, sir way's death, or okay, yeah, yeah, I mean all of that, all of his entire vision was around this moment, right, like you pointed that out.
Speaker 1:I didn't realize it until you did, but his entire vision was around when he's persecuted for being the warrior prophet, and with the excuse that he claimed to be a prince, right? So that's. That's the end point. Now the holy war is his, and what he was meditating on then was how to make the holy war his own, if do I remember that correctly?
Speaker 5:So I don't remember distinctly, but that sounds likely and I think again I would have to reread it detailed to just like really look at all of the kind of the foreshadowing and be like, oh, it does map onto everything here, because I think it's possible it just kind of maps onto the general plot of this book with some distinct images from this particular section. But certainly there are those images like the head has to be near with Sarcellus right and that wife is clearly sir way. So in that regard the vision is definitely about this, at least that portion of it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, I mean I, yeah, I I.
Speaker 5:I both agree. I don't know.
Speaker 1:I think there's no, there's nothing to say one way or the other. It just knowing the character seems more likely to me that he, if not necessarily planned, he knew that this is what will get him the holy war and he allowed all of it to happen. The more cynical interpretation which I think would still apply is that he, he, caused it to happen. And then of course, there's the third option, which is that some of it at least, he didn't plan for, but it happened anyway, that's what I'm leaning towards is, I think, the general events he intended.
Speaker 5:But some of the details, including sir way dying, or maybe even like, maybe he was again, maybe he was thinking as a man that would be the one who dies, like I don't, I don't know, yeah, I, I just think that he seemed suitably surprised and you know. As for the question of, well, why didn't he fight back? One, I think even he couldn't be everyone, you know, 1000 people swarming him. But two, it's a lot harder to like, you know, I think it's a stronger martyrdom to just give in peaceably, you know, as opposed to fighting back. And beyond that, I think it would be harder to stop himself from getting injured in such a way that he could not recover from. I think if he actively fought back, you know, and if someone cuts off his head, like what is he going to do? I don't think even he can survive that.
Speaker 5:So I think that's some of why he went peacefully. That is my speculation there.
Speaker 4:And he was going up against Sarcellus, who we find out later is like this, ultimate fighter, because Nyira was losing to him. So maybe he knew that.
Speaker 5:Great tool. By the way, we want to transition to Nair's stuff. Like I loved his storyline here. I was sad to see and but not at all surprised to see him be like oh yeah, you know, my, my. The solution to all my inner turmoil is to embrace being a monster and to just be the worst man that I set out to be. It was oh. Nair.
Speaker 4:Classic.
Speaker 1:What? What was it that he figured out about Callis's plan? I don't think I understood that.
Speaker 4:That the secret of battle, kept saying, is that what that was referring to?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, oh.
Speaker 5:I, I, I read that as him knowing that Callis was intentionally murdering himself and was going to survive through sheer conviction. You know, that's how Cal survived was conviction, and that's how they ultimately win the big battle at the end.
Speaker 1:I see, I see.
Speaker 5:Like Mike was talking about how you know these are starving people. You know what's the one thing they're like. Feeding on is just there's Eletry. You know their blind religious faith, Like that's what keeps them going and that's what you know made them win. I guess in the end it's certainly thematically a potent statement, potent thing that Baker's exploring there.
Speaker 4:It's the, it's, yeah, it's the comes up again later in chapter 25, that the secret of battle is conviction and belief, and a lot of discussion about belief and truth. That comes up over and over again and is even the saying the truth shines, or whatever, which is kind of like you know, god be with you, or I don't know what you call it, but that's fascinating to me because all along, I think one of the themes is that, you know, truth is a farce or well, it's the opposite of what a commune seems to believe, right, which is you do need to kind of question things. You need to, and it seems that I mean this is this. We see this in politicians and leaders, right, all the time.
Speaker 4:I think this is commentary on that is that people that just do have conviction and believe, and maybe they're not always enlightened about what they believe or what they're doing I don't care if we go into it like, but there's a lot of examples out there that we see it's even in Dune Totally, quite, quite a lot, and I know that you know not to go right, completely off the tangent here, but you know, frank Herbert was like, you know he was a speechwriter for politicians.
Speaker 4:I think he just got fed up. You know and I just see that here coming up with that that even though that seems to win for him, here there is that running theme of this kind of conviction and belief is not necessarily the best thing, but it's winning. It's winning the battle here and it's convincing. You know, I have no idea, but throughout so much at least American history there's been all of these. You know, they're not prophets, but they're like cult leaders and that sort of thing and if you think about them they're very charismatic, they're very well liked, they have their conviction. So I just I do appreciate that theme coming up in here a lot, absolutely, it's really.
Speaker 4:I noted that you know, for especially this last part. Yeah, go ahead.
Speaker 5:I mean, I think the parallel to Dune are, I mean, a great thing to point out and totally intentional. And you know, we know it's a big inspiration for this series and you can see it. I think Callis is clearly a Paul Trady's figure and strangely well, I'm not in a debate what which one is better or worse as a person, but I will give this series credit because it gives, because it's a, you know, a trilogy. I think it explores the power of that sort of conviction and that, that zealotry, in a way that is even more impactful than Dune does, because you really get it play out over and over again and see, you know, different scenarios, how it can shape things and the danger of it, and that you know it's dangerous because it is powerful, because it does shape the works. It works exactly like it absolutely works, and so it's and it's so easy, you know, to fall into it if you just are convinced that you have all the answers, or this one person you're following has all the answers, and you know again, it's it's warning, like Frank Herbert was against sort of this unceasing, unblinking belief in charismatic leaders that, like you know, it's good and beyond, I think, any individual ideas too, that you know you should be more.
Speaker 5:You know a skeptic you could say came in sort of the perpetual skeptic, right, where you challenge your own thoughts and the thoughts of others and that you don't just accept things blindly but you're, you know, constantly looking for enlightenment, I guess you could say.
Speaker 5:But also, you know, I guess part of that sort of train of thought too is that enlightenment is impossible and that the whole way to kind of attempt enlightenment is like that's what matters. I guess, you know it makes you wonder about Kellis too, because he is, you know, in many ways he's like a rationalist, but he is a rationalist to the degree where it's like it is a religious belief for him too, right, like he's not skeptical about the logos, he's not skeptical about the darkness that comes before he drinks the Kool-Aid too of the Duun Yang. You know he starts to, you know, face some doubts here, right, like he starts to wonder like, oh, you know, doesn't work. What is the thousand-fold thought, what's all that? But he himself is a zealot, just a zealot of a different ideology, and I think it's really wonderfully explored here and it's certainly one of the highlights, I think, of this reading experience.
Speaker 4:And bringing it back to Nayur is. He's the only one that's seen in the world is. He's the only one that seems to know what's up, still, with Kellis, and he's the one that that basically sees not just Kellis but also the men of the tusk as being delusional. The Kamiyan doesn't really know. We know what his thing is right with the consult and all that, but he doesn't really know what Kellis is about. He still thinks which is one of the things that I found really interesting is like so he towards the end here, does that mean that the decision ultimately that Kamiyan makes to you know, to carry out what was written in the MISIV from Mathanet I guess he didn't have to like stand up for Kellis there really, I mean he is, because there was a moment where he kind of realizes who he is, that he's conning everybody. So he's still kind of wondering what's pushing him and why he hasn't contacted his people or why they haven't contacted him.
Speaker 5:Well, you know, I can tell you my interpretation of it, certainly, because you raise an interesting point. There is that even a Kamiyan, who is a Kamiyan, who is purported to be a skeptic, you know, and certainly takes pride in that, and challenges other people, most of all to embrace, he takes his visions, you know, for granted. He takes the prophecy of On a Swimming Boar, you know returning, and as a harbinger of the second apocalypse and as perhaps the only hope of stopping it. You know he takes all that for granted, he or not for granted, he like, takes it to heart. He's like this shouldn't be questioned, it's fact.
Speaker 5:And Kellis, regardless of his personal failings, is our savior. He never challenges that thought, he never wants to think. Well, maybe he's not, you know, maybe he's hurt by Kellis because of Asmanet, but he never, like he too falls into the same pitfalls of just that conviction. He's like okay, I have this ideology, you know, of the mandate schoolmen, and you know, and of sesuatha, and you know you want to. You can wonder too is that sesuatha inside of him, like those memories sort of? I mean they've clearly shaped his whole life, like he's? I mean, I guess you could call that the darkness that comes before in a sense right, or as well part of it, for his version of that, where it's like he can't cut himself off from that. It's, it's all. Yeah, it's, it's interesting, it's fascinating they all have their convictions and leads them with stray.
Speaker 2:Not to not to bickrack too much, but we talked about Kellis and him being tried. When Asmanet comes to warn him that he's they're going to try him, he tells her on page 519, sometimes we must cross death to reach our destination.
Speaker 5:Great quote too, yeah.
Speaker 1:So he knew. He knew what was coming.
Speaker 5:It's so interesting to me that Kellis yeah, I think he definitely knew that was coming, but I that he is this sort of subversion of kind of the the Jesus Christ narrative but the faith he's coming into already sort of has that.
Speaker 5:I mean I guess we don't fully know the full like Inres Eugenius story, but we also know he was like a martyred prophet who you know preached the modern version of the tusk. It's just interesting to me that like it's sort of this, like almost like repeating narrative, which maybe that's the point, you know that he's like taking advantage of sort of this like cultural historical mythic cycle but like you know, you have everything down to like Nair being Judas Iscariot and getting paid in silver to betray him and you know, as Manette I think kind of fills the Mary Magdalene roles and it's. It's interesting Again just because I mean on a lot of levels it certainly adds additional subtext to it all, but that this religion already has their sort of their prophet and he's now coming in and is like no, I'm, you know I'm, I'm the new big deal, but the same sort of narrative I guess I don't know, we'll see how he changes it right, like how he's changing the religion.
Speaker 1:Sorry, I was looking up Mary Magdalene.
Speaker 5:She's a prostitute, a former prostitute who followed Jesus in the Bible.
Speaker 1:Interesting.
Speaker 5:There's a lot of theology around the idea that she maybe was you know, there are theories and stuff. The allusions argue about it maybe the wife of Jesus. It's, yeah, there's. There's a lot around the sort of the lore you could say of Mary Magdalene. She's not necessarily one of the like most widely talked about figures, you know, not like Jesus or the mother Mary, but she has an interesting place and I wondered, as soon as Esmenet was introduced as a prostitute, if that's what we were going to get, and indeed that is what we have gotten. We'll see where her story goes. I don't know, I have no idea still, what he wants with her. Is it truly? Does he just like actually kind of care for her? Like I don't know?
Speaker 1:I thought, I don't know. The seems almost as dumb as the one where he probably cares for her, but the does. He just want her to have his child, is that? Maybe that's a potential purpose for her now, but I don't know. She is a vessel. So, yes.
Speaker 5:One thing I did I wanted to apologize for last week. I, I for some reason thought she was like 39, 40. And I saw on the glossary she's like 31. Yeah, she's totally like easily can have kids. You know, I, I, I for some reason was under the impression she was like a decade older than she is. But she, she is not. It's just the way she talks about her. It's the sexism again, right, or she's described as like aged and things and it's like, oh my God, she's 31 years old, like she's younger than my older sister, like she's younger than my older brother, like this is it's crazy, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that was the thing about it, Right, I don't know. I didn't think I thought she was in her late twenties because I don't know if it was this book or somewhere else. But apparently for a prostitute greater than 25 or something I think it was in this book is considered old. So anyway, the topic, the. When Kallus is hanging from the tree, the no God talks to him, or he hears the no God like a Kami and us. So is he starting to see, say short as dreams, what do you guys know? What happened there?
Speaker 4:He was dreaming right, I think he was dreaming. Yeah, that was really something. I don't know what was happening. It was gonna ask you all. But maybe there is some connection between his people and Suswata, I think, because they were from the same time. So maybe. But yeah, it's a good question Maybe a Kami and taught him enough things so that now he can channel. So I don't know, I doubt it.
Speaker 1:He wasn't, he didn't.
Speaker 5:He didn't give him that right. He didn't give him the gnosis, Like that was the one thing he had to do. He was planning on teaching him the gnosis, but he then he went off to library so he just like I mean, yeah, I don't know if he managed to like transmute what a Kami and had taught him somehow in to like touching the gnosis. I don't know.
Speaker 1:Or has the no God become powerful enough that he's that one doesn't have to be a mandate schoolman to feel that he's around? Or is he seeing prophetic visions?
Speaker 5:Oh, you know what I bet? I bet that's what it is. That hadn't even fully occurred to me, but I'm telling you that one at the start of the book, like I don't think he's just calculating things. I think, he's in the future. Like this is magic shit. Like we're past the like oh I'm science in the shit out of this.
Speaker 1:Like I think let's say for even for argument sake, let's say the thing with a dead wife and a severed head against the burning sun is prediction, not prophecy. The the other stuff seems. I don't know if this happened in this book nameless schoolman climbing a steep, gravelly beach. That hasn't happened yet. Right, a nipple pinched between fingers. What the heck that means A gasping climax. I assume that's related to the nipple apparitions marching out of a severed head. We already talked about apparitions marching out of morning mist those are other things that I think haven't happened.
Speaker 4:Where is then the prophecy I got?
Speaker 1:in the Kindle book. It's page 271. Chapter nine it's the end of chapter nine.
Speaker 4:Okay, thank you, yeah, yeah, don't remember that at all.
Speaker 2:Don't forget, we have another severed head with the martinous. He gets beheaded here.
Speaker 5:Oh, you're right, it could be martinous.
Speaker 1:And and converse keeps the head.
Speaker 4:I think also, uh isn't three heads. So they're, uh, sarcellus, the thing called sarcellus. Isn't he decapitated to?
Speaker 5:Well, that what who? Who's the third? Then? That was the first one we named, oh Well whoo, whoo.
Speaker 4:What's the head? That is that the head that I came in has, because I thought he picked it up.
Speaker 1:I think he just had the spider minus the head, but for Sarasas was it the head or the spider?
Speaker 5:Both. Yes, because that's what it is. It's like, it's hard to picture and I still I don't believe it. I necessarily can, but the spider like curls up and forms a head.
Speaker 1:Hmm, and is that the console? Does that the creature? Yes, so whatever got burnt, that thing is dead. But as long as you it's able to escape from the body, it is Alive, okay.
Speaker 5:Yes, and this is again remember, this is not the first the thing called Sarasalis. There was one before he died, and Then this is number two.
Speaker 4:Well, and then but then so the thing before is the one that was posing as Kellis, right.
Speaker 1:Is the same one. The power is also post, as Kellis, yes.
Speaker 4:Yeah. So do we think that the face is dead? This face is definitely dead. I'm not sure it's dead, it seemed dead.
Speaker 1:Did it crawl away in the end. I forget. I forget what happened to me. I need to go back to Sarasas I.
Speaker 5:Don't think it disappears, I think. I think it gets like burned or something.
Speaker 4:Stevie, what happens to the face on girl?
Speaker 5:That would be so pathetic. I'm gonna be honest, if Nair's like holding this thing up, like look, look at this, and then it's just like it escapes like no, yeah, no, cuz. Then a came in, burns it it's the same one, right, okay, that's in, came in, shows it it's dead.
Speaker 1:And then I thought those two happen in paddle. I thought those two things happen in paddle because a came in was showing that thing. So Kelly sent a came in to find a burnt one in the yard. Came in, took that to the council and what was happening in the council Sarasalis was repeating, except Nair caught him out on it and said how do you know that? I followed you?
Speaker 5:Yes, so wait, are there any sort of?
Speaker 1:houses, then no, I think there's several consult. The one that a came in held up might have been a non Sarasalis consult, right.
Speaker 4:Okay, I think it was yeah where did he get that one? That's what I couldn't remember, but I'm pretty sure it was a different one, because it was like rotting and stuff.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't know how it got there, but Kelly sent a, came in to the yard or something to go get it. But I don't know how it got there.
Speaker 4:Yeah okay, so that was all same is like three different. There's like three different like beings. One is this face thing, one is the, the bird with the pink head, little crow. And the third one is what's in the very last chapter. Is I, I understood, which was the incorae Like with this, which is this place thing with a, with a thing that's like sliced the head, that sliced with another face, like I.
Speaker 5:Had to look it up. If you guys don't want to, I didn't get spoiled on anything, I can't do it. It it's basically like if you've seen that any of the aliens movies, it's like one of those xenomorphs if it's face where its mouth is at a human face inside.
Speaker 5:Yeah, well, I was thinking the basically is like it's like a human head wearing one of the xenomorph heads Is kind of what it looks like. It's, it's, it's freaky, it's cool. I'm not a lie, I saw it. I was like, oh, that's what it is and like, okay, that's cool. It's like it's very fantasy, like it looks a little goofy but it also looks really cool. I Was here for it. There's some cool fan art out there. I was surprised.
Speaker 1:What did you start off with? The fan art, or like what was?
Speaker 5:it, I'm not off. I think I did wore your profit Incoroy or something like that.
Speaker 5:Varsha yeah, thanks. Anyway, yeah, they're there. I definitely got some some fan art of the scene with Kallus in Sir Wei and the ring and then and Nair with the head there. There are a few cool. Yeah, people have drawn some stuff I was pleased to find. Yeah, no, so my understanding is the thing we see at the end is that's one of the consult and that is one of the incoroy. The synthies may also be one of the incoroy. The bird with the old man's head.
Speaker 5:They, through tech-nay, which is called the old science, which may or may not be magic, it may just be some, like you know, mad science stuff. They make the skin spies Because they're like sci-fi aliens. I Mean, I literally think they're like. They're almost like the Xenomorphs. If they were slightly more intelligent and like all of the that stuff in a fantasy setting, like they like, for whatever reason, came to this world and Decided it was gonna be theirs. And then they got involved. We found out with the no God, they did not come with him, they were separate, and then they found him and decided we like you, you're gonna work for us.
Speaker 1:Now I thought he was awakened by not the incoroy, but Humans who learned the arts of the incoroy right.
Speaker 5:Well, the the incoroy Didn't, didn't the incoroy try first? And then they got beaten, and then the humans went and found him after that, after the incoroy had been fought back.
Speaker 1:So the same place. So they built something thing Somewhere what was that? And these guys went and disrupted it and awoke the no God, yeah right, what. What did?
Speaker 5:they build.
Speaker 1:There was a hole in the world.
Speaker 5:It was of another realm, they said yeah, the no men did the whole magic, like locked away sort of. There was a glamour, I know, so no one could find it and it's work, go gutter up. Yeah, yeah, we're that places. We got yet more names for it. I can only remember.
Speaker 4:There was a huge a call a position dump there I.
Speaker 5:Enjoyed it. I liked getting my that either. Is it? It reframed a lot of things, definitely in an interesting way.
Speaker 1:Is that the same place where Sabon had his vision? No, that was planes of.
Speaker 5:Megeta, which is where the final battle to know God happened, versus where. I Think that's where they were trying to resurrect him, but that's not where he originally was.
Speaker 1:Yeah so go got the rod, have we that sounds familiar. Have we seen that name before?
Speaker 4:it's on the map oh.
Speaker 5:It is the Consult place, strong like it's, it's, it's, it's Mordor, it's Mordor, that's we, that's what we've been hearing, and we've heard it referred to as Golgo Rath. However, you say it Good number of times.
Speaker 4:It's at the very far north and actually just south of there, is also mentioned in this section, where where I assume is where the non men still live, which is Injur Nias Maybe that's the name of the, the region, and then the town is Ishtarabinth. I Do like maps.
Speaker 4:I look at what these places I mentioned, like where the heck is that? And I was low and behold this. You know Some of the names you know I couldn't find on there, but it, this, this non men Stronghold or area is and go, got her at there, both on there.
Speaker 5:Which the talk of non men who I'm excited to see more of Eventually, but we did get is some of them are working with the consult now. Yeah, that was Made me sad. I'm not a lot. I mean not that we got good vibes about the non men, but they were fighting with the humans before and now they're at least some traders. Not good, not good.
Speaker 1:I thought the non men Word, the cons.
Speaker 5:No, they weren't but I thought they were always with the console. No, Unless my memory is Incorrect, which is very possible, we are only understanding was they fought against the console. The console are, I Think, have become clear. Are the aliens. Hmm or or maybe they're just part of, I don't know. The console is probably just named for the order at this point, right Because we have the term incoroi for the race itself of aliens.
Speaker 1:Oh, I, as the console the descendants of that school that Akamian mentioned, the. He mentioned one school of sorcery who, the followers of which went and reopened that place, and a book, the no God Is that where the console is I.
Speaker 5:Don't know. Yeah, that's a dense diagrams.
Speaker 4:I was told by you all that I don't need to read too deeply into this. It's red through it. I think once I could, you know, gone back because I get caught up on some of these names big time.
Speaker 5:I I think in our we're doing a little break Between for the next couple weeks Before we start the thousand volt dot, and I think during that I may be. I'm gonna reread some of these little sections in the end night. You know the first apocalypse a bit more.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the. So I want to start a new topic, but before that quick question. I thought cinemas had his Mouth hurt or something. That's why he said bees when they had him, but then the people in the end also said bees instead of please, let us go. So what is that word?
Speaker 5:No, I think it is please. I think you're right. I think they just had their mouth hurt, and that's how he Baker writes it in, like kind of a slightly goofy way. I mean, I read it the same way that it's just please. But they're like teeth are punched in.
Speaker 1:Okay, okay, make sense. So the non man or the console, who, who is it? Says that we are a race of lovers. We've seen that before in an epigraph. I have to say this is really far away from any imagination I had of what a race of lovers might be.
Speaker 4:Yeah well, not in this. Yeah, it's a different culture, I guess. So, yeah of the strength to, but sorry, yeah, no, they get, they get turned on by death destruction. By everything, apparently everything it's still unclear to me with it. Yeah, that's fascinating.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that that was really twisted. I was. I Mean usually in poetry, which is where we first encountered this concept of a race of lovers. It's meant to be something romantic, slash, poetic, something nice, that some actual love associated with the term. But oh my god, this was so twisted when compared to, I Guess what the default interpretation might have been in poems. I don't know, what did you make of it.
Speaker 5:It definitely feels ironic. I mean, I'm with you, it's.
Speaker 4:Wow, yeah, you're referring to the necrophilia.
Speaker 1:Just everything. So the concert whenever we've met them first, all the things that Sarcilla is, the thing called Sarcilla's gets Turned on by. He wants to kill people, and then I think he said something to that effect to Nair, or Kaldis too, about what he'll do with survey, and we got a bunch of impressions from him about all the things that turn him on, none of which was anything remotely good. The, I Think, the crow Person at some point does something that was disturbing. And then the consult who slept with Esminette I don't know if that's the same one, it was at Sarcilla's too and then, finally, what happens here, the rape scene. In the end, all of that is Disgusting, borderline disgusting and not borderline, it is disgusting. And the creatures who indulge, slash, engage in these activities are calling themselves a race of lovers.
Speaker 4:Yeah, the last chapter would. We would be remiss if there wasn't a reference to black seed.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah.
Speaker 5:Anytime I read it, I have to vomit a little bit in my mouth.
Speaker 4:I wrote down black black jizz, but I'm not a writer.
Speaker 5:Very poetic.
Speaker 1:Just as poetic as a race of lovers. Oh my God, that seems like such a twisting of that phrase. That's all that, that. That those are my feelings on it. I'm. It's hard to wrap my head around. This is who is meant by this phrase.
Speaker 2:No, it almost makes it worse, right? Yeah, they call themselves the race of lovers.
Speaker 5:Yes, absolutely. Do you guys have any theories about what their deal is Like, why they're so afraid of the consult? Like, do they just think the consult is like the only crew powerful enough to, or not? Sorry, not the consult, not the consult, the the uh, c Charm, because they're essentially orchestrating this whole holy war to destroy the C Charm it seems like the consult are. So I'm curious what your y'all's thoughts are on that.
Speaker 1:Is that tied to the fact that? So I think it became clear in this section that the reason they thought they were spice, um, that the slices, is autumn word, not because of the face thing, but because you can't see their sorcery right, that's so. Do this is autumn, have the technique, magic thing. So is that what makes them fearsome?
Speaker 5:Oh, interesting thought that they can identify them.
Speaker 4:They can have me perceived by the few the C Charm are not.
Speaker 1:They cannot be.
Speaker 4:Is it the right wording? It's, it's in there, yeah, not be, yes, they're not viewed as magic users.
Speaker 5:I mean, yeah, they clearly have the magic, but it doesn't. It works differently. So they are not. They don't have the bruising that appears, I guess, on the other magic users, including the mandate schoolmen, so which we still we don't know what's up with that. I suspect we will find out in the next book, but we currently do not know. That's my theory. I'll drop it theory. We're going to find out why we don't see the mark on them. Next book will figure out what's going on with the C Charm. Yes, I do not think we will have to wait until the next series. This, this was a mystery set up early on. We will find out. Do you think that we're going to see more of the other?
Speaker 4:side of things. I think you mentioned that Carl was the last time, the last chat or earlier, but I totally agreed with you. I wanted to know, I want to know more about the Keaneen, the C Charm. We just get little glimpses. I think we're going to see more of the other side of things, the C Charm. We just get little glimpses.
Speaker 4:I don't, I'm not convinced that they're, I'm not convinced that they're bad. You know what I mean. They got they're not convinced that they're the bad guys, or I don't know if that's the right, you know way of putting it. But like, what are their motives? I guess they've taken over a part of. They view Sejanus as a false prophet themselves or they reject him. So they're, you know they. It's just another belief system, but we don't know.
Speaker 4:There's so much, there's so much questions on that side of things that I have, including obviously Moengas and whether or not he. You talked about it the last time in depth. That was really intriguing. You know, moengas is not training the C Charm as though they're Dunyain, but it's maybe giving them something. We don't know what. We don't. Well, they're, they're, they're people with no eyes and they have snakes. You know what I mean. Like I don't. It doesn't connect. I don't see the connections, you know yet, with Moengas and the Dunyain and all of that, and then and then, at the very end of course, the, the console still don't have any clue with the Dunyain are.
Speaker 5:I am increasingly convinced that the reason Baker is not showing us their point of view is because it would give away all the secrets on that, because that's where Moengas is involved and has his own sect. You know that that's. They have this mystery of the magic, of why you know they don't. You can't see them, even though they're one of the few. Technically, I think it's just because all the secret you know and it's wrapped up with the consult stuff. Now I think that's why is you know, we're surrounded by a bunch of people who don't know what's going on, even Keles. To an extent Keles knows more than a lot of people, but he's, you know, he's a fish out of water, right Like he didn't know magic was real until he left home. So I think that's why we're not seeing. It is because the C-Sharam lie at the center of a lot of these mysteries, which is still like I would. I like when we see more of them. But I understand now why Baker has been keeping them at arm's reach.
Speaker 4:Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 5:And I'm with you, mike, I don't think they're the like bad guys per se. I mean, you know they are antagonistic to the characters we follow, but they're just another faction, you know. I mean I wouldn't call them the good guys either, like I'm sure we've seen them. They have slaves and things, like you know. Like I think they're just, you know, they're just people and but potentially people who pose a real threat to the consult, which is interesting, right.
Speaker 4:That's why I said it's not the right word, but I you know they're. It's. Yes, they pose a threat exactly, and they're being. They need to be crushed.
Speaker 1:They need to be crushed.
Speaker 5:Oh, my God, you know what just occurred to me. They totally killed the head of the Scarlet Spires because he was like a skin spire or something. I bet that's why they assassinated him. I'm firm, but I get. I like I'm willing, I would put that money down, theory established. I mean once again, I'm sure we'll figure it out next book, but that's been one of the things. Why did they kill the head of the Scarlet Spires when there was a peace and starting this war? I bet they did it because they was consult and they were, like you know, taking out the enemy. They're waging a secret war against the consult.
Speaker 4:The guy we found out that what's his name? Kefra Muni, isn't he? He's like the same, from the same region as the Scarlet Spires, I think. Is that who you're referring to?
Speaker 5:Because we find out that he's a skin spy. Ellie, we do that's right. Ellie Azar, the guy who was the top dog before Ellie. Ellie Zasaris, because he was not the top dog. He took over from someone who was.
Speaker 4:Which was a start with an S Scoladius or something like that.
Speaker 5:Yeah, Because that's what we find out right in the opening of the first book, right In chapter one, when we first meet a camean. He finds out from the spy in the Scarlet Spires that their leader just got killed. And not only that, he got killed because they couldn't see the mark on the sea shawram.
Speaker 1:Did they tell us how he died?
Speaker 5:The sea shawram no.
Speaker 1:I mean, did he set him on fire or something? I'm thinking, if he was a consult or skin spy, would they have sacrificed themselves to not show that they exist? If I remember correctly, we got an Ellie Zasaris POV which talked us through that scene. Maybe we cut off before we could see the skin spy release themselves. But then he's also sufficiently surprised by the skin spies. That may not be the case, but yeah, I was trying to think if they were killed in a way that wouldn't reveal the existence of the skin spy, but maybe that's not necessary.
Speaker 5:I don't know.
Speaker 4:It's beginning of chapter 23.
Speaker 1:In this book.
Speaker 5:I mean, I know, we know that Ellie Zasaris thinks the skin spies are sea shawram. He's convinced that's their thing. I mean, I guess you're right, it would have had to have been destroyed, right, because otherwise they would have seen their leader had that face. I don't know. I mean, maybe part of it could also be that maybe he wasn't a skin spy but was something else, like a human aligned with a console, right. Yeah.
Speaker 5:Rather than like I don't know, this is just a theory, no, that makes sense. It's not pull proof but, like you know, that's been one of the mysteries, Like why did they start this war when there was peace? I think that would be reasonable. That's what we know. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4:So so many strands I'm excited. Oh yeah.
Speaker 5:We're going to get a lot. I mean, yeah, I expect a lot of answers in the final book. A lot of mysteries, though you know, particularly around, I imagine the console and the non men and all the Lord of the Rings lore, but I think with the Holy war and the sea shawram and Moengus, we'll get a lot of answers. Yeah.
Speaker 4:I can't. I can't help but but think not everything is going to be solved, because what the heck is the next four books? Yeah, I can't help but think that. So there's got to be not everything is going to get resolved, I suppose, but hopefully a couple of these big ones are going to, we're going to going to come through, and we know, we know that most of it, a lot of it, takes place in Shima. I think. I kind of read the you know the table of contents and there's a, there's a. Shima map.
Speaker 4:Yeah not to go too far ahead. I'm going to want to get in trouble.
Speaker 2:Last five chapters are Shima Just want to say really quickly, for anybody listening, the synopsis on the on the. I read the synopsis on one of the books on the second half of the series and it spoiled some things for me, so be very careful.
Speaker 5:Yeah, it's an opposite, for I'm sorry Of the book on the back of the book.
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah, it does. It's not like major, but I like to be surprised and kind of experience it. So if you like me and you avoid spoilers at all costs, then just be careful with them.
Speaker 4:What about the? There's a very long section of what came before in the next book. Is that that's okay? Yeah?
Speaker 2:you're good. You're good to read those. They they add on a little bit more, but it's very subtle. So it does evolve as you get through the series and it adds in more and more detail and things that are relevant to the book you're about to read. So those are good and they. They helped me stay on track with all the lore and the story. And then it's neat because you get a little bit more every time. So you get little bits and pieces of information.
Speaker 1:Definitely Is there as much battle in the next book, Steve.
Speaker 2:Um, I don't remember there being a lot of battles.
Speaker 5:Not at least be at Shimei.
Speaker 2:There's battles, but it's not, as it's about the same. I don't remember really being bothered by too many battles, so it must not be too much more.
Speaker 1:Cool, I'm with you, I don't. I don't like battle scenes that much, but every chapter that started with the high level overview battle things, I had to plow through it. Like let's get to the good part.
Speaker 4:I felt the same and there was a few times when I was like, okay, this is building building up some tension here, but that would be one of my biggest gripes there. There are pages where I'm I'm not tuning in too much, Not, not.
Speaker 1:not that they are badly written or anything. I think they are great. I just battled those.
Speaker 5:All of me, you know like he intentionally throws a lot of like new names of you and you're like, oh, okay, and it's honestly it's hard to picture a lot of the maneuvers, like short of you describing them very specifically and carefully and non poetically, you know, and even then oftentimes it takes you, you know, kind of at least it takes me a bit. You know, I read a lot of history books and like when they're describing battles, even when they're very blunt about it, you know it takes a minute to kind of like picture the battlefield and like make sure you kind of have an idea of where everyone is. And that's just made way harder by the fact that then he gets poetic about it, you know. And so it's just kind of like, okay, I'm just getting the vibes generally like who's winning, who's losing? What's what's going on here?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think. I think that that was all I looked for at the end of the section and understanding of who won the last one, the Padirajah dice, right.
Speaker 5:So yes, who's killed by Dallas?
Speaker 1:He's the dude who was ruling in Sheeme right, or who was supposed to be, but some of his heirs ran off.
Speaker 5:No he doesn't rule in Sheeme, he, he's just like, like, like for the real life equivalent, right like it the Iubid? No, is it the Iubid or the Abbasid? Okay, well, whichever Caliphate was in charge? And like the first crusade that ruled over Jerusalem, like they weren't based in Jerusalem. It was just that Jerusalem was like one of the cities they happened to control, and so, you know, they had their, their capital, elsewhere. So he's like based elsewhere, but he is defending Sheeme because he owns it. It's like one of his cities.
Speaker 1:I see, but he's the Lord of Sheeme, he's the first person of Sheeme is.
Speaker 5:I think he's like the very top dog, but I'm pretty sure there's someone else who's like like the governor.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 5:Like I want to say, the term they use is like Sapa Tisha, so I want to say is like in charge of like particular territories within.
Speaker 4:Kuska Mandari is the Padirajah. I thought he was the top dog.
Speaker 5:He's the top dog, like like it's like King versus like feudal Lord is my understanding Right, and the Padirajah, I think, is like the King and the Sapa Tisha is like the feudal Lord and my understanding is there's a Sapa Tisha of Sheeme who maybe died. I don't know, I don't know if that guy's died yet.
Speaker 1:Is Moengas the Sapa Tisha.
Speaker 5:Maybe. Yeah, I don't know what's up with Nathanette. I still don't know. Is Nathanette and Moengas? Are they the same person? No. I recently think probably not, but you know.
Speaker 1:I don't know anymore, yeah.
Speaker 4:I don't think so yeah, yeah. I don't think so.
Speaker 1:That theory is losing water more and more.
Speaker 5:What are your theories now for the last book? I'm curious. I told you some of mine.
Speaker 1:For the last book I the thousandfold thought. We talked about that briefly. I not that there is any remote clue as to what it might be, but it seems like it has something to do with developing a huge following because he decided that he knows or understands the thousandfold thought when people were like basically cheering him and saying, I don't know, I imagine long live the warrior prophet. I assume it has something to do with developing a following. So there's that.
Speaker 5:I don't know, maybe it's like because, yeah, I remember that section too Maybe it's like when everyone's thoughts sort of become one, like they all fold over into each other like their thousandfold, and so it's it's like when a thousand are directed by one and they all have the same thought you know the thought of their leader. That's just my best guess. Otherwise I I don't know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. I think that that's similar to what I was thinking as well. The I wonder what do you think will, as minute, have her baby in the next book, or will that go over into the next series?
Speaker 5:The baby's going to die. I feel calm, I'm going to. I don't want it, but a baby's going to die. Hey baby. I don't know if it's going to be Mwingis, I don't know if it's going to be Asmanets baby, something's going to happen. A baby will die. That's just. This is grim, dark series. That's. That's the like. You know, that's the gun on the wall A baby. Something horrible is going to happen to a baby.
Speaker 2:I think the next book is the predictions.
Speaker 1:In the next book or the people died next book, I think running series.
Speaker 5:Who do we think is going to die?
Speaker 2:Do you think a baby will die in the next book or the next series? What would be?
Speaker 5:the next book. I think I think one of the two babies will not survive the next book. If they both survive, I will be shocked. Maybe they will, maybe they will. I would be very pleasantly surprised if both of their babies survive. Of course, if they do, they're going to survive and then grow into like tyrants or something. That's what we're dealing with here. So I don't know, I'll be wishing that they died.
Speaker 1:I decided I like your theory that Kaelis will go become the king of Shimei, but who do you think the aspect emperor is going to be? Do you think I forget his name now? The emperor Ikurai Sirius? He keeps having these dreams that he wants to be aspect emperor. Do you think Confess will be aspect emperor? No.
Speaker 5:Not a chance. That dude is going to try so hard that he's going to fall on his face. I mean, if I had to guess, I would say Kaelis. But who knows, there's a whole other series, so there could be a bunch of new characters. I don't know.
Speaker 4:I think it's one of his children.
Speaker 5:Oh good, that's a good guess. I'm on board with that.
Speaker 1:The Anasurimba will rise again.
Speaker 4:Anasurimba could be. We assume it's Kaelis, but we don't know that for certain.
Speaker 1:I think we're going. I have a theory that okay, not a theory, but the prophecy. I feel like the mandate schoolmen are too keen to believe that the Anasurimba returning is going to save the world, or at least a communist. All the prophecy says is that an Anasurimba will return at the end of the world. Nothing about whether they'll cause it, whether they'll save it, whether they'll be involved in it at all, just that they will exist at the time.
Speaker 5:We have a winner. I agree a thousand percent.
Speaker 1:So I don't know. I feel like all the Akamyan trying to teach Kaelis things so that he can save the world is going to backfire big time. So that's my theory, I guess, for either the next book or the next series.
Speaker 5:I agree.
Speaker 1:What else, Mike? Some theories? Then we'll ask Steve for quotes.
Speaker 4:I don't have a theory, but I'm very curious why Akamyan doesn't get in touch with his people, and is that going to happen in the next book? I think it'll be very interesting to see what happens with them. I'm curious because, he's really been very forthright with what's going on.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. I like how the mandate schoolman got caught in the crossfire of Akamyan. I don't care anymore, I'm a bitch.
Speaker 5:I kind of like Akamyan at the post-torture, just like I don't give a shit anymore, Even freed.
Speaker 1:Yeah, actually that's a great point. I think it's about time the other mandate schoolman got involved in this thing, or maybe that's a thing for the next series.
Speaker 4:It's alluded to quite a lot, and then there's nothing happens.
Speaker 5:We have to deal with learning about Kelis though I'm with Mike on that. That has to come up next. Kelis is now super famous. I suspect that will happen. What do you guys think will happen? Akamyan, we know, survives and writes a history book. We know at least that much. Who knows exactly? But we know he survives and writes a history book of the Holy War. What do we think happens to Esmenet and air Live die? What do we? What rise fall, or proys and confis, for that matter? Do we think any of them die?
Speaker 1:I don't know if I die, but I think some of them will become irrelevant after the next book. Thank you, yeah.
Speaker 5:Nair has doomed to be written all over him. I think he dies, if not in the third book, early on in the next series. I don't think he makes it very far, but if I'd choose between the two, I think he dies towards the end of the next book.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's the other big confrontation, right, Nair, and I always said maintenance Nair and Moeng. That's the other confrontation. I think that one may be even slightly more intriguing than Kallus and his father.
Speaker 5:I agree, I totally agree. I think I also am more interested in that and I think Nair will confront him and I don't think he'll be able to bring himself to kill him.
Speaker 1:Do you think Moeng is working for him?
Speaker 5:I think that's a very real possibility. I think there's a very real chance that either Moengus or Kallus kills Nair and if I'd have bet between the two, I would bet on Moengus.
Speaker 1:That makes sense yeah.
Speaker 5:I mean, that's just so right for drama. You know, like that it's even driving him like his demon and then to go, and then whatever happens, whether he does end up fighting him or not being able to kill him, or what have you and then Moengus literally kills him. You know, the thing that has been eating him alive is what gets him killed. It's very Greek tragedy. I feel like that's another theory. All right, there you go, okay.
Speaker 5:Kallus I think I think will live out. I don't know, I'm unsure. I feel confident will live. As a matter of fact, I also think will live because they killed Surwe and I don't think Baker is going to kill the only other significant female character. I don't think he has that in him and I suspect she will be in the second series, proyes yeah, I don't know, proyes could go either way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, speaking of Proyes, akamian and Proyes, that conversation they had where Akamian said I don't care anymore, there are things bigger than you. So yeah, all of these things made the badass aspect of Akamian. I really was enjoying slash, appreciating Funny he was coming right away.
Speaker 5:That whole scene frustrated me so much though, because I totally understood why he was being that way. I'm like I like Akamian being more active and just screw it, I'm going to make things happen, but he was so condescending and it was like you could influence him so much more if you talk to him. I don't think he even realizes how vulnerable Proyes is emotionally right now, and I feel like, if he really reached out, he had a moment there and he totally blew it. Yeah.
Speaker 4:He's kind of his own worst enemy, for sure. I mean, so many of the characters are flawed. Yes, you know, that's what's beautiful about it.
Speaker 5:It's beautiful. It's beautiful about it, yeah. Because, it's so human, absolutely.
Speaker 4:I think that Moengus is this other person's name, malahet, who is the head of the Kishar arm. I think that seems kind of obvious, though, but we have not. That name has not been used since book one from a long time ago, but that's why I think he is.
Speaker 1:The head of the C-Sorum.
Speaker 4:Yeah, but maybe that's too obvious.
Speaker 1:I mean I like that. But also, if that were true he said the dude who met Keles said there's a subset within the C-Sorum right that that knows off, that is aware of the logos and maybe, maybe the head has reason to only share those things with a subset. Or has Moengus infiltrated the C-Sorum in some way?
Speaker 4:Yeah, that's a good point. It's the only other name I could find, so maybe you're yeah.
Speaker 1:I don't come up with theories of my own, I just quash other people.
Speaker 4:No, no, it's. Yeah, I mean what you said, carl, is what I thought from book one is that Keles is priming himself to take over, or I think I said he's going to fight for the other side. I feel like.
Speaker 4:I think that could happen still, because there, I don't know if I maybe I need to reread the section, but I was not convinced yet. I think there's still factions within the Holy War, but I was. I kept thinking, well, oh, in the next book, because this the faction there's, the Orthodox and the Zodunyani that's been brewing to just be quickly over, and now everyone is going to follow Keles. I don't know, you know, I don't know if that's the case yet. That is what, that was what was convenient at the time, I think. But we'll, we'll see.
Speaker 5:No, there'll still be conflict. I'm sure it's not. It's, they're not done. You know grasping for power. I mean, confess is still there and we know Confess is going to be on his same old ship, the Schemer. Yeah, so yeah, that dude never stops. It's in his blood.
Speaker 4:We haven't heard from his, his people, the emperor. For a while I guess we were separated, but who knows if he'll show up again and his and his dear mother and his dear mother.
Speaker 1:Yeah, their fleet got destroyed by the Padiraja's ships, right, but he wasn't on the ships. But maybe he'll show up eventually. I feel like he feels more like a sit on my behind and watch from afar kind of person, but we'll see, I'm sure so. Quote Steve, many quotes.
Speaker 2:I have a couple I really liked on 514, the noir was was a fantasize, and I think about carving his nose, the way a child may draw on the mud. I thought that was pretty cool. A couple of them was we talked to, we talked to, talked about. Sometimes we must cross death to reach our destination. I made flesh. That was repeated a few times. One that I liked a lot was on 585, which is emptiness, always laughed.
Speaker 5:Nice. What's the context for that?
Speaker 2:I forget, exactly but 585.
Speaker 1:I liked the one when Proyes yelled at the council to listen to a commune and there was a passage about how he was always the calm one who never lost his school in a council meeting. And so it was like children going silent not because of what their father had done, but because of what they made their father do, something like that.
Speaker 5:That's right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that was brilliant. Any others?
Speaker 2:All those ever in down. I'm sure there's other ones in there, but there's ones. I wrote down this week I had one.
Speaker 4:It's a short one For men. No circle is ever closed. We walk ever in spirals.
Speaker 5:That's a great one. That's the doubt to me too. Cool.
Speaker 1:So, if that's everything, we are going to meet in two weeks to talk about the first four chapters of the Thousandfold Thought, which is the third book in the trilogy. Until then, where can people find you, starting with Steve.
Speaker 2:He individually asked. You can find me on page2ingcom and join our forums, and if you'd like to join us, for these we have a two week break, so it's time to catch up. Mike.
Speaker 4:Yes, I'm also can be found on page twoing forums and you can listen to me and Steve discussing our weekly comics. We might also have a brief hiatus as well, but we're having some good discussions there. On the other podcast, I forgot the name, Steve, so it's a little late for me, so it's okay, yeah.
Speaker 5:I think it's page twoing comics, right yeah?
Speaker 4:Thank you. Comics and manga.
Speaker 5:Ah there you go. Okay, and you can find me. You can find me on page twoing. You can find me on other social media, at Carl D Albert, but just find me on page twoing and you can find my book Truth of Crowns wherever books are sold, hopefully, unless something has gone horribly wrong.
Speaker 1:Cool, and you can find me on the page twoing forum as well and on my YouTube channel Reading by the Rainy Mountain. Like Steve said, if you'd like to join us for these discussions, consider checking out the page twoing forum, where we do all the planning. We'll see everyone in a couple of weeks. Enjoy your reading of this book. Until then, bye.