Reread of The Warrior Prophet: Chapter Twenty

Reread of Prince of Nothing Trilogy

Book 2: The Warrior Prophet

by R. Scott Bakker

Part 3
The Third March
Chapter 20
Caraskand

Welcome to Chapter Twenty of my reread. Click here if you missed Chapter Nineteen!

The vulgar think the God by analogy to man and so worship Him in the form of the Gods. The learned think the God by analogy to principles and so worship Him in the form of Love or Truth. But the wise think the God not at all. They know that thought, which is finite, can only do violence to the God, which is infinite. It is enough, they say, that the God thinks them.

MEMGOWA, THE BOOK OF DIVINE ACTS

…for the sin of the idolater is not that he worships stone, but that he worships one stone over others.

8:9:4 THE WITNESS OF FANE

My Thoughts

The first quote is how men can only see the god through their own, limited views of an infinite being, having to use imprecise metaphors and to see the god as the ultimate king or the ultimate expression of truth, to worship them in how they think they’d want to be worship. The last line about the wise don’t think the God is any analogy. A wise man knows his limitations, that he doesn’t understand everything. And thus realizes, as a finite being, he can never understand the infinite. Not really. So to try, is to shove the God into a hole that he doesn’t fit. This can also connect to Esmenet’s thoughts on the two halves of humans and how we cannot appreciate the full of ourselves or others or even the God. Kellhus says wisdom is recognizing this.

The quote from Fane is similar to the above quote. The Fanim believe in the Solitary God, the one God, not a bunch of lesser beings who are aspects of the god (as Inrithism interprets the polytheism of the Cultic religion of the Tusk). And thus, by worshiping one rock over another, you are putting the god into too fine of categories, putting him in a hole he doesn’t fit. Kellhus is doing this with the Holy War, transferring their worship of the God and the Hundred onto solely himself.

Late Autumn 4111 Year-of-the-Tusk, Caraskand

Catapults hurl rocks at Caraskand’s walls as siege towers creep forward. The Holy War assaults, crying “Die or conquer!” The Inrithi gain the walls, fierce fighting erupts. However, Imbeyan and his Grandees counterattack and drive the Inrithi back. Very few escape alive. Two more times over the next two weeks, the Inrithi attack and are repelled.

Worse, the plague known as the hollows (to the commoners) and hemoplexy (to the nobles) strikes hundreds. The High Priest of Akkeägni informs the Holy War that “the dread God indeed groped among them with his hemoplectic Hand.” Panic grips the Holy War and many desert into the hills. The healthy launch attacks while the sick huddle in tents. After a week of fevers and chills, a person recovered or fell into a deathlike sleep. Lazarets are organized by the priests. The scent grows terrible. And no one is spared as Cumor, Proyas, Chepheramunni, and Skaiyelt all fall sick within days. 300 die in a single night. And through it all, the rains continue.

Athjeäri returns from scouting and pillaging with “news of doom.” After numerous battles and sieges, crushing Heathens when he can, he captured the Sapatishah of Xerash. He cut a deal with the man for information and learned the Padirajah Kascamandri himself led a host northward.

That night, Prince Skaiyelt, leader of the Thunyeri, dies. Other nobles follow and the physician-priests believe Proyas and Chepheramunni would follow. A fear seizes the surviving leaders. Caraskand stands defiant, their own god Akkeägni hurts them, and a new army advances. The God has turned his back on them far from their homes. The grow desperate.

And for such men questions of why, sooner or later always become questions of who

Sarcellus meets with Conphas. It is the first time they had met formally, though Conphas had seen the Shrial Knight with Grandmaster Gotian. Conphas finds Sarcellus’s white surcoat “improbably clean, so much so that he looked an anachronism, a throwback to the days when the Holy War still camped beneath Momemn.”

Sarcellus just want tot talk about troubling things. Conphas is always interested in that, joking that he’s a masochist. Sarcellus jokes back that council meetings have proved that true.

Conphas had never trusted Shrial Knights. Too much devotion. Too much renunciation… Self sacrifice, he’d always thought, was more madness than foolishness.

He’d come to this conclusion in his adolescence, after perceiving just how often—and how happily—others injured or destroyed themselves in the name of faith or sentiment. It was as though, he realized, everyone took instructions from a voice he couldn’t hear—a voice from nowhere. They committed suicide when dishonored, sold themselves into slavery to feed their children. They acted as though the world possessed fates worse than death or enslavement, as though they couldn’t live with themselves if harm befall others…

Conphas just can’t understand such levels of self-sacrifice. At an intellectual level, he understands about scripture and damnation, which he considers rubbish. He understands people motivated by avoiding damnation, even it it was ludicrous. Because scripture was external, not this internal voice. And hearing voices “made one mad.” He had heard enough hermits in markets to know that fact. And Shrial Knights became fanatics when they hear this voice.

Conphas asks Sarcellus what is the trouble. He answers, Kellhus. Sarcellus starts to talk, implying he and others know something. Conphas asks who the “we” are. This irritates Sarcellus and makes Conphas reevaluate the man, sensing a “whiff of conceit.” Conphas thinks he might be a man of reason. Sarcellus says the we is just him and a few other knights, but not Gotian, They know Conphas tried to assassinate Kellhus. Conphas denies it. Sarcellus says his group shares Conphas’s sentiment, especially after the desert.

Conphas frowned. He knew what the man meant: Princes Kellhus had walked from the Carathay commanding the worship of thousands, and the wonder of everyone, it sometimes seemed, save himself. But Conphas would’ve expected a Shrial Knight to argue signs and omens, not power…

Conphas had found the desert madness. He had shambled on foot with the rest, cursing General Sassotian who commanded the Imperial Fleets. For a while, Conphas even thought “the prospect of death seemed something he merely indulged for decorum’s sake.”

Please, he thought. Who do you think I am?

Then he begins to doubt that until it became a certainty. He realizes that his life’s destination led him to die in a desert. And then he found Prince Kellhus wading in a well, drinking while he died of thirsts. Conphas realizes he is saved by a man he tried to kill. It was galling and ludicrous. And yet, he felt a flutter in his heart. He wondered if Kellhus was a prophet. “The desert had been madness.”

Conphas studies Sarcellus, pointing out the man saved the Holy War, both their lives. Sarcellus says that’s the problem. Before, Kellhus was just another zealot, but now he claims more. And the Holy War is being punished by the Dread God. Half of the knights acclaim Kellhus as the next Inri Sejenus, the other half as the cause of their misery. Division is coming, and someone is needed to preserve the Holy War.

“After you’ve killed Prince Kellhus…” Conphas said derisively. He shook his head, as though disappointed by his own lack of surprise. “He camps with his followers now, and they guard him as though he were the Tusk. They say that in the desert a hundred of them surrendered their water—their lives—to him and his women. And now another hundred have stepped forward as his bodyguard, each of them sworn to die for the Warrior-Prophet. Not even the Emperor could claim such protection. And you still think you can kill him.”

A drowsy blink, which made Conphas certain—absurdly—that Sarcellus had beautiful sisters.

“Not think, Exalt-General… Know.”

Serwë is in labor, in pain, screaming, with Esmenet and a Kianene midwife assisting. Kellhus watches, looking both wise and sad. Esmenet is worried, but his eyes speak reassurances. Still, her apprehension remained. She reflects on how long it had been since Achamian left her.

Not that long, perhaps, but the desert lay between them.

No walk, it seemed, could be longer. The Carathay had ravished her, fumbling with knot and clasp, thrusting leathery hands beneath her robe, running polished fingertips across her breasts and thighs. It had stripped her past her ski, to the wood of her bones. It had spilled and raked her across the sand, like seashells.

It had offered her up to Kellhus.

In the beginning, she was drunk on just walking with Kellhus and Serwë, laughing and talking, sharing their new intimacies. She remembers what it was like in her adolescence “before whoring had placed nakedness and coupling beyond the circle of private, secret things.” Making love to Kellhus and Serwë had transformed sex back to something demure. She feels whole. When Kellhus walks with his Zaudunyani, she and Serwë held hands and joke, laugh, and “plot pleasures.” They hold back nothing because “the bed they shared brooked no deceit.” But when the water failed, did she truly walk in the desert. She remembers becoming a stranger walking in her own body, Serwë a stranger being held in Kellhus’s arms.

Nothing branched in the Carathay. Everything roamed without root or source. The death of trees: this she had thought, was the secret of desert.

Kellhus had asked Esmenet to surrender her share of water in the desert so Serwë wouldn’t lose her baby. She did, watching “him pour her muddy life into a stranger’s mouth.” She understood then that there’s more than just her. Kellhus says she’s the first to realize this. Later, when they reach Enathpaneah and find a river, Kellhus strips Esmenet and bathes her in the water, declaring she is his wife. They crossed the desert. She sees the sun-haloed palms.

They make camp by the river, Kellhus foraging for food, and the three recover while Esmenet feels like they are the only people left alive in the world. That they alone “gazed and understood that they gazed.”

They had become the measure… Absolute. Unconditioned.

When they made love in the river, it seemed they sanctified the sea.

You, Esmenet, are my wife.

Burning, submerged in clear waters—in each other… The anchoring ache.

The desert had changed everything.

Serwë crying out in pain draws Esmenet out of her reflection. Serwë thinks something is wrong, but Kellhus assures her everything’s fine. Esmenet is struck by the fact Kellhus is the Warrior-Prophet. Esmenet has felt like a child being led by the hand her entire life, having no idea where she was going, until now.

But now, after the desert, after the waters of Enathpaneah, she knew the answer. Every man she’d bedded, she had bedded for him. Every sin she’d committed, she had committed for hi. Every bowel she’d chipped. Every heart she’d bruised. Even Mimara. Even Achamian. Without knowing, Esmenet had lived her entire life for him—for Anasûrimbor Kellhus.

Grief for his compassion. Delusion for his revelation. Sin so he might forgive. Degradation so he might raise her high. He was the origin. He was the destination. He was the from where and the to which, and he was here!

Here!

It was mad, it was impossible, it was true.

It makes Esmenet laugh in “joyous wonder.” Before, the holy was distant to her, something she only glimpsed. She hated it and feared it. Not surprising since she was a whore in Sumna. She knew it was hard to reach, witnessing pilgrims who sacrificed what little they had to come to Sumna only to succumb to her charms and sinning with her. And now she was close.

Serwë’s child is born, crying out with strength. Esmenet tells Serwë she has a son and “he isn’t blue.” Serwë laughs and cries while Kellhus exams the child. When Kellhus looks at Serwë, anger strikes Esmenet for an instant. As Serwë holds her child, Esmenet feels grief at her jealousy and flees the tent.

Outside, the tent is surrounded by the men of the Hundred Pillars, Kellhus’s Zaudunyani bodyguards. They protect him from Heathens and Men of the Tusk, “another thing the desert had changed.” Two Galeoth recognize her and greet her with “Truth shines,” discomforted by the obeisance the Zaudunyani show her more and more.

As she hears Shrial Priests blow horns for evening prayers, she wonders why she can’t “give this moment of joy to Serwë.” In the desert, she gave her water. She doesn’t understand why, thinking it is not jealousy since she didn’t feel bitter.

Kellhus is right… We know not what moves us. There was more, always more.

A voice cries out for piteous help, a plague sufferer. He asks for help, begging for her care. He’s lying in his own filth. But she can’t help, saying it’s forbidden, Kellhus comes u behind her, saying the man can’t hear. “They hear only their own suffering.” Like Esmenet, still wondering why she ran. He tells her to be strong, and sometimes she feels strong, feels new. He tells her she is new, reamed by his Father, but her past remains. “Forgiveness between strangers takes time.” She’s struck by how he can always knows her heart, questioning how and then realizes she knew the answer.

Men, Kellhus had once told her, were like coins: they had two sides. Where one side of them saw, the other side of them was seen, and though men were both at once, men could only truly know the side of themselves that saw and the side of others that was seen—they could only know the inner half of themselves and the outer half of others.

Esmenet thought it foolish until Kellhus told her to think about conceited and arrogant behavior. This is why people aren’t themselves, but seek to “secure the good opinion of others.” Because on an instinctive level, they know they aren’t whole, but want to be.

The measure of wisdom, Kellhus had said, was found in the distance between these two selves.

This makes her realize what sets him apart. He could see the whole of both himself and of others. He had closed the distance with his two halves. She realizes he’s inside her, and this brings “wondrous tears” as she rejoices at being his wife. He needs her to be strong because “the God purges the Holy War, purifies us for the march on Shimeh.” She thinks the plague, but he means the Great Names. They are starting to fear him. She realizes he fears “a war within the Holy War” and urges him to speak to the opposition and in them over.

He shook his head. “Men praise what flatters and mock what rebukes—you know that. Before, when it was just slaves and men-at-arms, they could afford to overlook me. But now that their most trusted advisers and clients take the Whelming, they’re beginning to understand the truth of their power, and with it, their vulnerability.”

He says they won’t move yet, but the worse things get, the more likely they will try to kill him. So she says to kill them first. She’s shocked by “the thoughtless ferocity” of her words, but isn’t sorry for saying them. Kellhus laughs, chiding her for saying such words on this night. It reminds her of why she fled, asking Achamian why he left. Then she admits she envied Serwë and feels ashamed.

“You, Esmenet, are the lens through which I’ll burn. You… You’re the womb of tribes and nations, the begetting fire. You’re the immortality, hope, and history. You’re more than myth, more than scripture. You’re the mother of these things! You, Esmenet, are the mother of more…”

Breathing deep the dark, rainy world, she clutched his arms tight against her. She’d known this, ever since the earliest days of the desert, she’d known this. It was why she’d cast her whore’s shell, the contraceptive charm the witches sell, across the sands.

You are the begetting fire…

No more would she turn aside seed from her womb.

Early Winter 4111 Year-of-the-Tusk, the Meneanor coast, near Iothiah

Achamian dreams of Mengedda, the No God asking his question “WHAT DO YOU SEE?” He wakes up without crying out. He’s in a bed, a luxury that once seemed impossible. But after destroying the Scarlet Spire, the Baron Shanipal (Proyas’s representative left in Shigek) took him and Xinemus in as honored guests. They are now in a Kianene villa on the coast. It’s been weeks of convalescing for the pair. Achamian sets out to find Xinemus, who didn’t return to his room last night.

He found himself cursing the Marshal as he searched the rooms. The healthy always begrudged the sick: being shackled by another’s incapacities was no easy thing. But the resentment Achamian suffered was curiously ingrown, almost labyrinthine in its complexity. With Xinemus, every day seemed more difficult than the last.

Achamian feels responsible since Xinemus is his “oldest and truest friend.” That the man sacrificed and suffered to save Achamian only builds on his obligation. But though free, Xinemus still suffers. “Ever day it seemed, he lost his eyes anew.” This makes him accuse Achamian of causing his pain. Achamian would complain that no asked Xinemus to save him, the Marshal responds that Esmi did. Achamian struggles to forgive Xinemus, but it grows harder and harder, making him question how much he truly owed, sometimes thinking the true Xinemus had died.

Achamian cajoles Xinemus to remember who he was, and yet Achamian too has changed. He hasn’t cried for his friend, and Achamian used to cry a lot. He doesn’t cry when waking from the dreams, either. He remembers the act, but it feels hollow. Xinemus appears to need the tears, to know that Achamian was still the weak one, but their roles had reversed and this torments Xinemus more. Achamian mourns for his friend, but can’t weep, like something essential had been cut out of him. Achamian will see Iyokus pay for what happened, thinking hatred had replaced grief in him.

Achamian finds Xinemus drinking on a terrace. As he stares at the drunk, broken man, Achamian reflects on Baron Shanipal’s offer to pay their passage by ship to Caraskand. Achamian needs to go as soon as possible, but he just abandon Xinemus, believing the man would die if left behind. “Grief and bitterness had killed greater men.” Achamian steels himself for the confrontation, but doesn’t know what to say to the drunk man to convince him to leave.

Xinemus talks to the darkness like it’s a leaving thing, demanding where it leads. Achamian still struggles to figure out to say, to explain how he needs to find Esmenet, and knows Xinemus will just yell at him to go and find “your whore” and leave him behind. Achamian is desperate for news about her, he can’t wait to see her, to “smother her with laughter, tears, and kisses.” He believes her alive, knowing she traveled with Kellhus and that he’d protect her. Achamian knows Kellhus will save the world, and he plans on helping the man.

Without thinking, Achamian hastened to him [Xinemus], embraced him.

“You’re the cause of this!” Xinemus screeched into his chest. “This is your doing!”

Achamian held tight his sobbing friend. The broadness of Xinemus’s shoulders surprised his outstretched arms.

Achamian says they need to leave, find their friends. Xinemus agrees, they have to find Kellhus. Despite the emotion, Achamian still hasn’t cried.

Early Winter, 4111 Year-of-the-Tusk, near Caraskand

Conphas is holding a meeting at the estate he had claimed for his residence outside Caraskand. He stands with Martemus as he watches his guest arrival, reflecting on how everything had changed since he left Momemn. The nobles of the Holy War now look like hardened veterans, united into a new and separate people. The fact they are all wearing Kianene clothing and riding their horses only cements their new tribe

Conphas glanced at Martemus. “They look more heathen than the heathen.”

“The desert made the Kianene,” the General said, shrugging, “and it has remade us.”

Conphas regarded the man thoughtfully, troubled for some reason.

Conphas studies Martemus, continuously wanting to suspect him of treason. But even still, he enjoys the man’s company. Conphas reflects how the Empire and the Holy War will soon part company. But first Caraskand and Kellhus have to be dealt with.

They join the arriving Great Names for the counsel, and Palatine Gaidekki asks why Kellhus isn’t here. Gothyelk notes Saubon, Athjeäri, Proyas (who is sick), and Kellhus’s other “ardent defenders” are also absent. Palatine Uranyanak thought this was a council on Caraskand. Conphas says it is, asking why the city resists. Grandmaster Gotian asks for Conphas to explain.

Not for the first time Conphas realized that they despised him—almost to a man. All men hate their betters.

Conphas asks them why so much misfortune has befallen the Holy War after they survived the desert. Gotian says the God is angry at them. This pleases Conphas. While Sarcellus insists that Kellhus will be dead in a few weeks (Conphas has his doubts) they’d need allies in the aftermath. The number of Zaudunyani is unknown, maybe tens of thousands. “The more the Men of the Tusk suffered, it seemed, the more they turned to the fiend.”

Conphas glared at the assembled lords, pausing in the best oratorical fashion. “Who could disagree? The anger of the God does burn against us. And well it should…”

He swept his gaze across them.

“Given that we harbour and abet a False Prophet.”

Howls erupted from them, more in protest than in assent. But Conphas had expected as much. At this juncture, the important thing was to get these fools talking. Their bigotries would do the rest.

My Thoughts

The hemoplectic Hand of Akkeägni. Makes it sound like the God of Disease has a hundred different hands, each spreading a different disease, doesn’t it. Like a Hechtoncheires sworn to Nurgle (for 40k fans and who know their Greek mythology). Great imagery. Also shows how bad life used to be before modern medicine. Large groups of humans breed diseases, usually from contaminated drinking water. Hemoplexy is probably bubonic plague. The welts sounds like bubo. And we saw in the last chapter the Holy War throwing plague bodies into the city, and it was the bubonic plague victims used in the same way in our own history. There is no disease called hemoplexy. In fact, hemoplex is an iron pill for people suffering from anemia.

Bakker just casually mentions that a major character has the plague, slipped in with three names that don’t seem too important (though Chepheramunni, who we’ve been reminded of existing two chapters back, is).

Athjeäri grew bored with the siege so went raiding, captured a few fortresses, having a grand old time out there. Through the Historical accounts, Athjeäri exploits are always shown, this daring leader. But in the character sections, we see he’s just a young man who hero worships his Uncle Saubon. So it’s not surprising he got bored of the siege. So much waiting. And he just wants to go kill Heathens.

With the final line of the historical section, questions of why becoming questions of who, is the first seed of things turning against Kellhus. Things are going badly for the Holy War, and they need a scapegoat. And I am sure Conphas knows just who to blame.

Yeah, a clean, white surcoat is improbable given the holy war’s predicament. And here’s something interesting about white clothing. You know why wedding dresses are white today? This isn’t that old of a tradition, dating back to Queen Victoria in the mid 1800s. Having a white dress was seen as a symbol of wealth and ease, to wear something so easily stained meant you didn’t have to do anything that would dirty you. She wore a white wedding dress. And as the industrial revolution was underway and cleaning clothes became easier and living conditions improved, women began to follow suit until by the 1900s, anyone could have a white wedding dress.

Conphas doesn’t understand self-sacrifice. I am sooooooo shocked. Interesting that he sees it as madness. After all, why are you harming yourself to do something as ludicrous as helping another? And killing yourself or going into slavery, ridiculous. Yes, listen to the scriptures, pretend that there’s eternal damnation, try not to sin, but do real harm to yourself? Madness. And Shrial Knights are all mad to him. Great characterization into the mind of a narcissist. He has no empathy, so he can’t possibly imagine why people do things beyond him. And he hates it because he doesn’t understand it. Because they hear a voice “he couldn’t hear.” He’s denied this internal voice. The great Conphas.

Conphas is rightly confused why Sarcellus is talking about power and not signs or omens, like a fanatic should. Of course, Conphas doesn’t realize Sarcellus is speaking for the Consult, the ultimate Atheists, a group trying to literally kill the gods and the cycle of damnation. They wouldn’t use religious trappings. And just as well, power is the way to talk to Conphas.

And now the Consult is prepared to move openly against Kellhus. He has bought himself a lot of time, building himself into a position of strength. And we know from his “revelation” early in the book, he knows a test is coming, that he’ll have to sacrifice Serwë and survive the Circumfix to prove himself.

Esmenet’s reflection that the desert stands between her and Achamian is profound. The old Esmenet, the whore, died in the desert. She became the Warrior-Prophet’s wife. Even sex is transformed for her, something that didn’t happen with Achamian. Though she did felt like his wife, she never could get past the fact she was used to whore herself, that she had made sex into something so trivial and mundane. And then becoming an other to herself happened as she wasted away, stripping away everything from her.

The line about deserts lacking trees is a true statement. Desertification happens when trees are cut down and bad framing practices are used. The Mongolian Desert has doubled in size because of China’s poor framing tactics. Plants root soil in place, they trap water, and when they’re gone, there’s no evaporation to feed cloud growth. So the land grows drier and drier, more and more plants die, and there’s less water, so it goes dry. Thus, the desert grows. Or look at the Southwest United States. Once there were forests, but the Anasazi cut them down to build their cliff towns. This changed the climate and it grew arid, their population couldn’t sustain itself and crashed, their growing civilization plunged backward into the surviving tribes of the southwest. Or North Africa. It was once the breadbasket of the Ancient World. The Romans and Byzantines fed their empire with grain from North Africa. But slowly, the Saharan desert grew and grew because of poor framing practices.

We see even Esmenet reduced to selfishness in the desert until she surrendered her water, seeing Serwë, this girl she had come to love and share a sexual relationship in Kellhus’s bed, as a stranger. Then she watched her life pour into Serwë’s mouth, reminding her that there is more to the world than herself.

Kellhus, obviously, calculated that Esmenet would survive this. He needs them both still alive for his plans at this point.

I believe after Esmenet’s “rebirth” in the river when Kellhus declares her his wife, she sees his haloed hands for the first time, but I could be mistaken.

And then we see the profound effect surviving had on Esmenet, on the religious revelation she has while recovering. She survived the harshest place on the planet, she had walked on the edge of death, learned the limits of her humanity and reemerged “enlightened.” Bakker is showing us why the desert often produces religious prophets and preachers throughout history.

Esmenet’s revelation about her life’s goal is, of course, the lies she’s telling herself to justify the misery in her life, the things she’s done, betraying Achamian for Kellhus, selling Mimara into slavery and prostitution. And these are the lies Kellhus has crafted in her to use her for his goals. But at least they make her happy. And that’s why we lie to ourselves, so we can be happy with the things we’ve done.

Serwë having a living child is such a powerful moment.

Kellhus examines the child first, studying it like a Dûnyain would, seeing what its defects might be.

Esmenet is uncomfortable with being shown subservience by followers of Kellhus. She’s not used to it, but she will grow so callous about it she won’t even know it in the future. Familiar makes things comfortable, which makes things ignorable.

It’s envy that drove Esmenet out, not jealousy. She wants to bear Kellhus a son. She’s already stopped using her contraceptive talisman. But there’s also anger at Serwë because the girl slept with Achamian months ago. Interesting she is still holding that grudge even though she’s now sleeping with Serwë’s husband, has abandoned Achamian as dead, and moved on with her life. But it’s still there, and seeing Serwë and Kellhus sharing that look reminds her that Serwë also cheated on Kellhus. Esmenet doesn’t know Kellhus sent Serwë to seduce Achamian.

The coin analogy is great. We often don’t realize how are actions are perceived as others. Just witness someone who goes on national TV and says something they believe is right and just only for everyone else to be horrified by their words, seeing it as disgusting and the person being confronted with how others perceive them. And, of course, we can’t see the mind of the person who said that, we can only react to what they said. What they did. So understanding this duality is wisdom, realizing this fact and thinking more about what you say or do, understanding your not whole but doing what you can to come close.

Now we see Kellhus preparing her for the Circumfix. He needs her to be strong, because once Serwë’s dead and he’s hanging from the tree, Esmenet will have to hold together the Zaudunyani. He’s grooming her for leadership for when he’s not available.

Kellhus, speaking on the truth of power, reminds me of a talk by a behavioral psychologist. Male humans have a natural inclination towards hierarchical structure between their members. On the outside, this appears to be the strongest male seizes control, but that’s not what really happens. Power is elective. The strongest male is only in control so long as the other males allow him, seeing this individual as more virtuous (stronger, smarter, more skilled, more experienced, etc). Now a male can achieve power through pure force, but this can force the other males to rise up and supplant him (revolution). We see this same behavior in chimpanzee tribes, where the most successful dominant males maintain a social structure with the lesser who have allowed elected him. If a male chimpanzee is too authoritarian to the other males, they can (and will) revolt and kill him, choosing another. The Greater Names of the Holy War are beginning to realize this fact. If your soldiers and lieutenants, the people you trust to use fear to keep down the larger population, abandon you, electing to serve another, you also lose your power.

And we have Kellhus admit why he seduced her away from Achamian: he wants her to breed children for him. And, of course, he has her seeing this as an amazing thing. She’s so caught up in the mythos he’s created for himself.

Well, at least this jump of a month when we hop over to Achamian seems to be accounted in the timeline in text properly. Unlike our Holy War spending a month or longer dying of dehydration in the desert.

People tend to know that they’re being a burdened on love ones while sick, and often will try to do what they can, feeling embarrassed that they have to have help, or apologizing for imposing. But when they’re ungrateful, when they’re belligerent and spiteful, it makes it so much harder.

Achamian comes up with self-lie after self-lie to justify abandoning his friend. The fact he doesn’t speaks to his character.

Poor Xinemus. The Scarlet Spire broke him while they only hardened Achamian. Things can never go back, and for Xinemus that’s unacceptable, which only drives him to be harsher and hasher, to get the grief from Achamian he feels he’s owed.

Xinemus drunken rant is so sad, attacking the darkness, his world stolen from him, saying mocking things to try and rationalize his new state as he muddles from one thought to the other. And then for him to hate himself for not being able to see, like through sheer willpower, he could open his eyes. Xinemus’s slow death over this book and the next is one of the most heartbreaking thing, to see such a strong man so utterly broken because he did the right thing. He did the honorable thing. Sadly, the world does not respect either.

Xinemus’s torment drowns out the heartbreak Achamian is in for in the near future as he pines for Esmenet, not knowing the very man he believes will protect her has seduced her away.

Xinemus know hopes that Kellhus can restore his vision, can heal him the way prophets in the past were supposed to be able to. But Kellhus is a fraud.

Martemus is the closest thing Conphas has to a friend. And even a man as narcissistic as Conphas yearns for that relationship. So even though he’s pretty sure Martemus is a traitor, he just enjoys being around the man, talking with him, hearing his blunt observations.

Conphas’s narcissism has caused him to misinterpret why everyone hates and despises him—he’s an asshole. Men can respect and even love their betters. This goes back to male elective hierarchy. Monarchies bypass this, using tradition and custom to give them power, and so long as their soldiers by into it (and Conphas’s soldiers definitely do) they can maintain their power. But such arrogance and poor diplomacy doesn’t build that respect with the other males on the outside or who are being repressed. It is also an example of how wisdom is found between the two halves. Conphas has no inkling to how his outside half is seen by others and does a poor job understanding how other people’s inside halves work.

Conphas does know how to manipulate fear. He’s doing a great job here, using the Holy War’s own religious language (a language he doesn’t subscribe to) as his goad to drive them down the road towards Kellhus’s death.

The pieces are moving into place for the climax of the novel.

To continue on to Chapter Twenty-one, click here!

One thought on “Reread of The Warrior Prophet: Chapter Twenty”

  1. Once the narrative shifts to the camps filled with disease, it always reminded me of “The Plague by Albert Camus”. Bakker managed to capture all those little, gruesome details, which likely would’ve been missed by our POVs.

    I often try to imagine how this masterpiece would work as an TV adaption, mostly even unconsciously. but there is noooo way. not even with an HBO budget of 10 mio per episode. but still, I’d love to see Mads Mikkelsen as Cnaiür, can’t get this image out of my head.
    anyways, just had to get that off my chest. It’s a shame really, those books are so underrated. especially here in switzerland nobody seems no have heared of it.

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