The Great Ordeal: Review and Discussion

I just finished reading The Great Ordeal, which is the third book in R. Scott Bakker's Aspect-Emperor series, and the sixth book in the larger Second Apocalypse series. It took me nearly two months to read this book, in part because I burned out on reading after Christmas and had to take a break, but also because this book is so dense that I had to read the fucker much slower than usual. And if we are being honest, these two factors are almost certainly intertwined.

Bakker's books keep getting more dense, particularly in terms of the prose. It also gets deeper into philosophical ideas, the subjects nowhere near as simple as they used to be, but this was never really an impediment, given that I find these kinds of things to be intrinsically interesting. Either way, I read this one very slow, and I imagine that the last book will be another slog like this one.

But what did I think of it? Let's get into that.

No Spoilers

Prose

Because I mentioned the prose above, I figure I should cover that first. The prose, especially during certain climactic scenes, seems to be less clear than before, and a lot of his descriptions are very metaphorical. In many cases, this is a good thing. Some of his descriptions are quite amazing, evoking disturbing imagery. Here is a good sample:

The riders gazed out over thronging, twisted miles, countless figures packed in orgiastic proximity, worm-pale and screeching. To the sweeping eye it shivered for lunatic motion and detail, a world of depraved maggots, at once larval and frantic, trowelled across the contours of a dead and blasted plain. To the eye that darted, it horrified for images of licentious fury, Sranc like hairless cats spitting and wailing, nude figures kicking across the ground, rutting, scratching and scratching at earth plowed into fecal desolation.

Descriptions like these are littered throughout the story and they are delicious to the eyes. Some are also really funny in a certain macabre manner, and not at the expense of the writing either: I can't get over his description of Sranc as "fish-skinned beasts." And the phrase "orgiastic proximity" is still burned into my mind months later.

My gushing is the case even if it sometimes exacerbates my tendency to spiral into overanalytical sprees that end with me rereading the same passage twelve times over.

But far worse for this bad tendency in me is the vague and unclear way in which Bakker presents some of the climactic scenes in the book. I swear I had to reread so many of these scenes over and over again, and I still don't entirely understand what happened. And it's not like the entire book is this vague, so I know Bakker is able to keep the story grounded enough that I don't get too confused. The entire point of writing stories like this is to create emotional responses in the reader, but the only response I had to some of the events was confusion about what happened, which is also kind of frustrating. Maybe Bakker did this on purpose, but I'm not going to lie, I don't think that really explains or justifies it. It's kind of like Stephen King deliberately eschewing plot in favor of characters and circumstances: sure, it's on purpose, but it's still my least favorite characteristic of him as a writer.

A lot of what I have talked about here so far is present in all his other books. This did not just come out of nowhere. But I also get the sense that the tendency to write like this has increased in this novel. Bakker seems to be leaning into one of my least favorite aspects of his writing.

Bakkerisms

But enough with the negatives. I usually try to start with the positives, and starting with the prose kind of led me to break that rule. Bakker does not just lean into vague prose, but also into everything else that made all his other books so good. The violence, the depravity, the bleakness, the action, the philosophy, all of this is delivered in spades, and then some.

It was announced at the end of The White-Luck Warrior that the Great Ordeal would have to subsist off the flesh of the Sranc in order to survive on their march to Golgotterath. And that aspect of the book is just amazing. This is one of those series defining moments that people think about first and foremost when the books come up in conversation. In this sense, it is the Red Wedding of The Second Apocalypse. And the ways in which Bakker takes this plot line makes the whole ordeal even worse than you could imagine. Bravo.

There is also the plotline that takes place at Ishterebinth. This part of the story is among the more the disturbing, but not just because of the inherent gross-out nature of the story world (like having to eat the humanoid Sranc), but because of the spiritual implications. I can only say that I was struck by the truly grotesque nature of their reality. This was true existential horror.

While I mentioned above that some of the climaxes were a bit hard to understand, this does not detract from the overall experience of the book's end. The primary battle sequence at the end was as amazing as you can expect from Bakker, and there is even a particular character introduction at the end of this book that is amazing (And expected. I accidentally spoiled myself for it).

Achamian's plotline regarding the Dûnyain is also amazing. It reveals some disturbing truths about the Dûnyain without dumping everything at once, and then takes it in a direction that you don't expect. That plotline's climax is fascinating and philosophical, and I will definitely have to touch upon it again in the spoiler section of this review.

The approach to Proyas' character is also great, his discussions with Kellhus being another source of some of the more philosophical portions of the story. This is a continuation of what we have seen with the characters before, but I forget where it left off in White-Luck, so I won't mention anything else here for fear of spoilers.

Momemn

Finally, I want to touch upon the Momemn plotline, particularly the climax of this portion of the story (again, no spoilers). I'm not going to lie. I kind of thought this portion read a bit like a first draft, rather than something polished. The story also felt like it was in the realm between relevant and irrelevant in many places, where Bakker should have massively expanded on some sections or cut them entirely. I think I mentioned this in the previous book review, so nothing seems to have changed going into this next book.

I also sat on the climax of the Momemn storyline for a day before finishing the rest of the story, and my attitude kind of changed over time. I was kind of negative for the whole book after reading this part. Only when I read the rest of the story did I reevaluate what I read before and reconsider it in a more positive light. This is just a way of saying that I thought the Momemn arc kind of colored my perception of the rest of the story. I had to remind myself that the rest of the story was not like this. And maybe the Momemn arc isn't absolutely awful, but it is the worst part of this book without contest.

Assorted Musings

Another thing that stuck with me as I was reading this book was this trend for Bakker to write the story from a more detached and objective perspective in certain parts. This is true for all his books, and I do have to wonder to what degree Bakker might be nullifying the impact of certain sequences by describing them from over and above. Part of what makes a story so emotionally impactful is inhabiting the head of the character and experiencing things as they experience them. While this book contains some of the more depraved things that I have ever read, I also think the impact could have greatened by presenting some of the sequences in the limited third person perspective. Describing things from over and above has its place, but it also has to be balanced.

Conclusion

I finished this book with mixed feelings. When I finished the Momemn arc, I was left with a sour taste in my mouth for the reasons mentioned above and expounded upon below. I was thinking about a 6/10, which is still positive overall for my rating system. Finishing the last chapter made me reconsider, as stated. But then I've further changed as I've sat on this book. Especially as I write the spoiler section, I am finding that this book is absolutely loaded with the most gorgeously macabre and grotesquely magnificent sequences that I have seen in any fiction ever. The philosophical discussions are exactly what I need. And I have to admit that I am reconsidering the worldbuilding of my own fantasy series because of Bakker, and because of this book specifically.

I will give this book an 8/10. I can't give it the 9 that White-Luck received for the problems of prose and execution especially glaring in the Momemn arc, but the positives are heavily weighted.

Spoilers

The Main Entrée

Eating the Sranc. Egad. The meat is chewy and slimy, and tastes like catfish meat. He describes how legs, and sometimes whole corpses, of Sranc are roasted over a spit. Lol. I love this book for this fact alone. The rest that I'll mention here simply adds to the mountain-sized positive that is this quasi-cannibalism. I just admire Bakker's balls with taking the story to this level. The best part is how much sense it makes. Bakker didn't just shoehorn this in. No. The Great Ordeal needs to subsist on something. And all Bakker had to do was zero in on the practical limitations that are inherent to real life military campaigns, limitations that fantasy authors typically brush over. Alexander the Great planned his military routes based on where he could acquire food, all so he did not have to expend the effort of taking food stores with him. These realities matter.

Bakker builds upon this, then, by showing that there are consequences to eating the meat, despite the practical necessity of doing so. By consuming the flesh, they are slowly becoming more like the Sranc in terms of behavior. They become more rash, more sexual, more violent, and depraved all around. This is where things really start to get fucked.

The climax at Dagliash is a high point of the novel. We get to see the Great Ordeal spiral into depravity and insanity, some literally stripping naked and hurling themselves into the Sranc hordes, arched penis and all. Others, like Sibawul, become an unexpected asset as they bore into the horde, causing it to part like the red sea. Schoolmen occupy the high points in the mountains, exterminating the Sranc on mass as the horde is pinned up against the sea, the mountains, and the river. And the whole endeavor ends in catastrophe as Kellhus manages to find a tekne artifact, something brought by the Inchoroi, and he sets off the nuke-like contraption, annihilating the Sranc and a portion of his own army in the process (including Saubon).

The section of the book ends with Kellhus revealing to Proyas that he is abandoning the Great Ordeal, suggesting that it is now up to his last remaining Exalt-General to lead the Ordeal in his absence. How long this will extend, or for what purpose is still unclear, and I personally have no idea what might be in store. All we know is that Proyas has been molded for this moment over the course of this novel.

One final thing that I have to comment on is the brief account of the Inchoroi's Arc falling from the void that takes place in this section. Bakker shares accounts suggesting that the arrival of the Inchoroi violated our understanding of causality, that the arc's impact preceded the arc itself, with the latter falling no faster than an apple into its proper place after the fact. No explanation is given and none of the implications are explored, but the implications are profound and terrifying all the same. First, it suggests that causality might be an illusion, or that certain things can violate causation. Interestingly enough, this might actually be the way in which free will might be possible in this universe. Maybe not. Bakker does suggest that the Dûnyain, while wrong, are not completely off the mark; Kellhus's power of manipulation is undeniable. But this does make me wonder. Second, it implies that the Inchoroi are outside of human comprehension in ways that shatter our assumptions about the nature of the universe, and especially about how Kellhus and his Dûnyain friends see the world. How will this play into The Unholy Consult? The No-God series? We will see.

The Ordeal Characters

This leads rather neatly into the next section, where I will talk about Proyas, Saubon, and Kellhus.

Proyas's loss of faith is completed in this volume. The Exalt-General has been having personal meetings with Kellhus, where his Lord and Savior has been slowly chipping away at his convictions. Up to this novel, we saw things purely from the point of view of Proyas, showing how he simply doesn't digest that Kellhus is Dûnyain, even when Kellhus tells him so. Here, Kellhus presses harder, breaking down Proyas' understanding of certainty, and then attacking his faith, even disgracing "The God" by referring to him as "it." Then he rapes Proyas, and the question of the Meat's taint is on our minds. But there is still a macabre point to it all. The disgraceful act breaks Proyas, and even horrifies Saubon, someone whose culture rejects homosexuality.

The philosophical topics touched upon are admittedly more generic—at least to my perspective, I'm sure there are others who disagree—but these scenes are still an excellent showing of how to break down someone's worldview from its foundations. I've been involved in philosophy for long enough to see the staggering comparisons Kellhus's interrogation has to people of all persuasions. And also in myself. It's so easy to overlook the complications in one's own beliefs. There are different parts to your belief system, and something that I've noticed in myself, and everyone for that matter, is that you focus on the parts of your belief system that are the strongest, and ignore the weakest parts. Until someone challenges those weak parts and makes you flounder accordingly. The reason this works so well, though, is because of who Kellhus is to Proyas. Kellhus has used Proyas for years, and is only now breaking the truth to him—and it's all to use him in yet another way. Proyas now has to come to terms with the fact that all the killing he has done over the years has been done in the name of a lie, that he might just be a murderer, rather than a man fighting for some absolute moral good.

Achamian was the real prophet! The guy who chews his fingernails.

Much of what happens with Proyas is set up for what is to come, and as I mentioned in the previous section, Proyas's time is only just beginning by the time his storyline comes to a close for the book itself. So, we will have to wait until The Unholy Consult to see where this is all going.

Saubon is an interesting contrast with Proyas. Sociologically, he is in the same position as Proyas, occupying the same military status, and also going through the same talks that Proyas has been going through. And seeing Saubon's lack of care at the revelation, that his truth was only ever the power that Kellhus could display, not the facade he grafted over it, showed the perspective that I think I would have most likely occupied in that situation. I really do agree with basically his entire philosophy, about how power is ultimately what matters, though I might dispute the specifics.

But even Saubon finds himself broken by Kellhus when he suddenly finds his faith, as twisted as his version might be, only to be callously discarded by Kellhus in the last moments of the Dagliash battle. This might also be part of the effect of eating the Meat, as he starts to go rabid with sexual desire and the desire to kill. And also because his faith is so tied to his belief that expressions of power are the only real truth in life.

Kellhus also receives his first perspective chapters in this book since the Prince of Nothing trilogy. Many of the scenes where Proyas is questioned are done through the perspective of Kellhus, and we get to see his meticulous deconstruction of people's characters that I loved to see in the original trilogy. Additionally, there are cryptic features to this perspective that I do not understand, and from what I've seen, no one seems to understand—at least at this point in the reading of the series.

There is a head on a poll behind you.

And it cannot be moved.

It was real heartwarming to see Kellhus up close again. Bakker, of course, is very careful not to reveal too much (read: little to nothing) to the reader while you occupy his head. Kellhus is still playing some game of interdimensional chess that we don't entirely understand, but I still appreciate the opportunity to see into his head again.

Ishterebinth

Sorweel's arc through the declining fortress of nonmen wins the award for the creepiest and most existentially disturbing thing that I have read in any story up until now. I have always found the idea of living forever and watching the ages go by to be incredibly appealing. Imagine being that guy who basically lived history thousands of years into the past. That would be awesome. Most people say they don't want to live forever because they don't want to lose all their loved ones, but I don't give a shit about that. That, at least, would not be my reason to avoid it. If I did end up choosing to forego eternal life, it would be for the reasons provided in this series. As far as we know, there is no limit to human capacity for knowledge—but humanity hasn't exactly lived forever, either. Bakker's portrayal of the nonmen as slowly going insane from the weight of their memories, especially as they degrade away and slowly forget everything, is horrific.

But why should Bakker stop there?

Think about the world of Earwa, as a whole. The nonmen's life is a living hell, an abomination of experience, that horrifies you in its own right. But it is within these chapters that Bakker reminds you that there is an afterlife of judgment, and that basically every nonman is damned. Whatever terror they are experiencing in this life will only increase in the next life. And what kind of existence is that? Bakker constructs a world that is an efilist's wet dream. Where are all the anti-natalists? And one wonders why a plague of wombs would be considered anything but a blessing in this world. Life is an imposition and a terror.

I finished this book thinking that the Judging Eye had essentially confirmed the damnation of basically every character in the series. Is there a single one that isn't damned? I think I read somewhere—either a fan review or Bakker's own summary of his series—suggesting that Mimara is not damned, at least not yet, so we have that, lol. And this is what makes this series so interesting. Anti-natalists and efilists get mocked in our world, and those ideas will always be fringe, but dear lord does Bakker make me think I would adopt both positions if I lived in his world.

I have much more to say about the Judging Eye, but I want to save that for the section that takes place in Ishual, so the last thing I want to cover in this section is the whole question of certainty. Kellhus ripped Proyas and his convictions apart as their Ordeal chased after the fish-skinned beasts they're feeding upon, and you would think this skepticism would be applied consistently. Which opens up one of the more interesting questions, which is how the characters know that the gods exist and that there even is an afterlife in the first place? Sorcery exists. And there is some strange shit going on related to the gods—like the scene where Yatwer gives Sorweel his chorae—but something tells me that there might be more to this. The quote from White-Luck about how the gods appear to us as human because otherwise we'd recoil from them as spiders comes to mind. And because Bakker is so philosophical, it makes me wonder if he's going to massively reinterpret his metaphysics and completely shatter our understanding of how the world works. I always think of Thomas Kuhn and his notion of paradigm shifts. Is there going to be a gestalt switch moment in the next book? And will Bakker only make the world uglier? Is that even possible?

Still, I think it is worth asking about this afterlife. There are good meta reasons to believe that there is an afterlife. After all, the entire plot of the series is based on this assumption: the Consult wants to save their souls from damnation, and this drives literally everything that happens in the series. But perhaps we shouldn't put it past Bakker to end the series with the reveal or suggestion that this whole conflict is a pointless delusion, that the Consult were simply killing people without any actual effect, and there really is no afterlife to be liberated from, after all. That would be darkly funny, too.

I think I got a little lost in the philosophical side of things (not that this is a bad thing), so let me wrap up this part by talking about the actual scenes. Sorweel is led into the depths of Ishterebinth by Oinaral, a nonman who opposes that fact that the nonman fortress has fallen to the influence of the Consult. They seek out the latter's father in the hopes that he can turn things around and stop the current nonman leader (whatever the fuck his name is). The descent leads them through the increasing levels of insanity that the nonmen go through over time. These are outright horror sequences that actually remind me of the scene from McCarthy's The Road where the father and his son go into the basement full of begging, pleading food—desperately grasping at them for reprieve. My god. And it's in this context that we are reminded of what the afterlife has in store for them. They are unable to kill themselves because of their intrinsic nature, and no one dares kill them given that this is just bliss in comparison. And my god.

An interesting addition is the amiolas, which is a helmet that connects Sorweel with the soul of another nonman. Partly, it's a convenient device (not in a bad way) for Sorweel and the reader to receive important worldbuilding information about the nonmen. Bakker takes advantage of the thing to draw out the implications of joining two consciousnesses together. Sorweel not only remembers things that he ought not to know, but also feels things and reacts to things in ways that the nonman he is fused with would. There was a point in the journey that I thought Sorweel might be being taken advantage of and would be subsumed by the nonman in the helmet altogether, but luckily for him, that did not happen. One gripe would be the execution of Sorweel's realization of the amiolas. He almost immediately draws out the implications and laments that he is not himself anymore. The idea of this is not a problem; we actually got interesting philosophical musings from Sorweel in the Judging Eye when he learned a new language; I just thought Bakker's execution of this was a little too sudden. Bakker could have pushed back his musings and fear to a later point, like when he recognizes a lover because of the shared consciousness.

It has only just occurred to me, but this might have interesting connections to Chucky, who I will talk about later in the post. Both have a kind of dual consciousness that I expect Bakker to touch upon later in the story. I can't think of any detailed implications off the top of my head, but I will mention them below if I do come up with some.

Finally, let me talk about the more specific discussion of the gods not being able to see the No-God. There is still no in story explanation for why this is (this is false, apparently), though I have mentioned in previous reviews that I spoiled the fact that the No-God is a philosophical zombie. I do wonder how Bakker is going to portray this, however. I keep thinking of how the Dunyain have stripped themselves of their identity (which I will cover below), and I think this might tie into the No-God, somehow. If Kellhus is the No-God, then will his Dûnyain nature affect how the No-God operates? The post-eugenics Dûnyain did not exist during the last apocalypse, so the question is how things will change. I suggested immunity to the heron spear before, but we will see.

Another brief thought regarding Kellhus being the No-God (or perhaps someone else), is the idea that the No-God is a clone. If this is the case, this might explain how the No-God is a philosophical zombie. A clone is simply a physical copy of a person, and thus will not have a copy of the original person's soul. It also implies that Kellhus will be there to see his soul-dead twin take action.

I mentioned above very briefly that there is, in fact, an in-story explanation for the No-God being invisible to the Gods. It's because the No-God causes the end of everything. Not only is it invisible, but the Gods can't even conceptualize the No-God. I'm definitely going to have to reread this series to expand on this point, however.

Momemn

I mentioned before that I thought the Momemn plot line was between relevancy and irrelevancy, that it should be beefed up or cut out entirely. I think the best example of this is the reveal that Psatma had Fanayal under her thumb the whole time! Dun dun dun. And I felt nothing. Genuinely, my thought was "who cares?" Malowebi, or whatever his name is, recalls the fall of some city I can't remember the name of and how it wasn't actually a victory for Fanayal, but for Psatma. The whole time! But all that happened off page. Who cares? Bakker should have shown us more of the campaign. Reinterpreting off screen events that are recalled in the very moment of reinterpretation are void of emotion. Who cares? If we had actually experienced Fanayal's success and indulged in the associated emotions and later experienced the reinterpretation that put Psatma on top, then I would have felt something. But here? Who cares?

One thing I did like was how Theliopa increasingly took center stage in this book. Her conflict with Chucky is not some epic show down (that comes later . . . kinda). Instead, Bakker uses her to discuss more philosophy and unpack more character. In this book we learn that Inrilatas actually managed to make Theliopa cry, and then Chucky guesses that she was raped by her brother, which actually manages to get a rise out of her. There is also an interesting mention about Theliopa from Kayutas. Kayutas mentions that the children of Kellhus all speculated about who Kellhus actually was underneath all of the performance. They would come up with theories and then go back to the drawing board when Kellhus would seem to refute that very theory. Naturally, Kellhus knew what was going on. Bakker then reveals that it was Theliopa who finally came up with the answer.

Before I get to that answer, the fact that Theliopa in particular was the one who speculated correctly stood out to me. Theliopa was only just coming into her own in this book. Before, she seemed rather incompetent, in part due to her stutter (which is an act?), but also how she is portrayed overall. But she become more threatening, particularly from Chucky's perspective with her knowledge of his shenanigans. (My first thought was that she was tricking Chucky up to this point, knowing she is Dûnyain. Though maybe she was more like Maithanet, because that was also implied). Either way, Theliopa's character is granted extra power for her ability to understand her father the first. I liked that choice on the part of Bakker.

But let's get to the actual answer to the question of who Kellhus is. Kellhus does not exist. There is no real identity underneath the performance that he puts up. He is simply whatever he needs to be. There is nothing there to truly unify him into a particular identity. Basically, this is a postmodern understanding of identity, perhaps like Judith Butler, to make a culturally relevant reference. What does unify him, of course, is an ideal. The principle of salvation is what binds everything that we call Kellhus together—his actions, his effects.

And the principle is interesting, in its own right. Partly because the Consult is seeking salvation as well. This brings me back to my prior theories about Kellhus being the No-God, though this would imply that Kayutas (and Kellhus) knows. And why would Kayutas mention it to Proyas, anyway? Another interpretation is that it simply references the lie that Kellhus embodies as the Jesus of Earwa. This seems more likely.

Even more important, though, are the implications regarding consciousness. By stripping away the irrationalities of passion and history and the like, and reaching toward the Absolute, the Dûnyain seem to have erased their very humanity. They have stripped their very identity away, and turned themselves into walking performances. What is individuality to them? What I would have found interesting, and which Bakker has managed to escape addressing, is how Dûnyain society functions. How do Dûnyain interact with one another? How often do they interact with outsiders (I mean, their ignorance of sorcery implies that it's quite scant)? Do they even need to put up a facade when interacting with one another? How do their abilities interact and perhaps nullify one another?

Yet this view might not be fully correct. There are some interesting discussions in the Ishual plotline that might confound this to a degree. What matters is that Bakker also seems to imply that the Dûnyain still have irrational impulses, even void of emotion. This is seen when the full-blooded Son of Kellhus recalls grabbing the grandchild without thinking. If this is the case, then Kellhus might actually exist, even in the bare form that he does. And I have to remember the discussion between Maithanet and Inrilatas about the former's fears regarding Kellhus appeasing Esmenet's desires and forsaking the thousandfold thought. Bakker isn't ignoring the possibility of Kellhus's existence at all. The Unholy Consult will likely build on this in interesting ways (I hope, lol).

Yet still related are other discussions, particularly the discussion between Chucky and Theliopa, where they talk about how the better you understand a person, the more you dehumanize them. Inrilatas understood the people he interacted with to such a degree that they all seemed to be meat puppets of the darkness to him, rather than actual people. This is another way in which Bakker challenges the notion of identity. If people really are just determined beings, then what we see ourselves as is just an illusion. And this ties into the Dûnyain's perception of self, where the son of Kellhus simply rejects the idea that he is even a unified entity. In his own mind, the Dûnyain is simply a bundle of "fractions" that cause and are caused in the world. Quite literally, Bakker refers to the man as "a fraction" through dialogue tags and as the subject of sentences. The Dûnyain seem to have perfectly embodied this notion that our identities are just illusions that mask the truth: that we are bundles of fractions causing and being caused.

But this also opens up the question about what the difference between the Dûnyain and normal people is. The discussion between Kayutas and Proyas seems to imply that the Dûnyain stripped themselves of identity, while this discussion between Chucky and Theliopa suggests that the identity was never there for the Dûnyain to strip away in the first place. Maybe the mask, the facade, was simply removed by their efforts. The essential absence of identity remains unchanged, however. This is an open question that I don't know if I have answers to. Maybe Bakker will wrap some of this up in The Unholy Consult. If Kellhus is the No-God, a philosophical zombie, then Bakker might add whole new dimensions, here.

Chucky's interactions with the White-Luck Warrior are a bit hard to talk about. They are odd and they end on a cliffhanger that just left me confused. Apparently, Chucky was outside of the White-Luck Warrior's view of the future. He did not account for Chucky being there, and he failed to kill Kellhus, instead being killed in his own right. I don't really have a problem with this idea. But the way Bakker wrote the scene was baffling in execution and completely threw me off. I mentioned in the non-spoiler review that the Momemn arc just left a sour taste in my mouth, and this is what I had in mind. I know that The Unholy Consult will cover this, but I don't think Bakker should have ended it like this. The lack of clarity didn't have me asking questions about how things might proceed, but rather questions about what the hell happened—and this isn't really the right effect. As I said, this read a bit like a first draft. It is very strange.

I honestly have no idea why the White-Luck Warrior was unable to see Chucky. The obvious suggestion is that it has something to do with Chucky's dual consciousness, because that is the notable feature of Chucky, and it still has to be unpacked. But then, the philosophical implications of this escape me. The idea that the No-God can't be seen because it lacks a soul makes sense, but having two souls? I'm not sure. I'm very interested in how Bakker will take this.

The climax at Momemn involves a sudden earthquake that shatters the earth, breaks the walls of the city, and purportedly gives Fanayal the opportunity to invade. There is no straightforward explanation for why the wall falls. Psatma claims credit for it, yet her goddess did not seem to benefit from the action because Kellhus shows up right at the moment and kills her and Fanayal in quick succession. Additionally, did Yatwer need the wall to fall? She was relying on the White-Luck Warrior to kill Kellhus and his family. I guess there is no reason not to break the wall, however. And then Kellhus is another possible explanation, as it happened right at his return, and the fact that he killed his daughter in the process would add a macabre spin. Though, he wouldn't want to break the wall, right? We will probably get the answer in the next book.

Another thing that I need to touch upon is Kellhus's use of a whirlwind of debris to prevent chorae from being used against him. The idea is brilliant of course, and the first thing I thought was that this was an interesting parallel with the No-God, which is quite literally a whirlwind. I have mentioned before and in this very review that I theorize that Kellhus might be the No-God, so this might be Bakker teasing a hint of the twist. I don't think the whirlwinds serve the same purpose, however. Kellhus uses it to block chorae, while the No-God is not sorcery at all, but some tekne artifact (I think); in any case, only the Heron Spear can stop the No-God, so blocking chorae is not its purpose. This is just a long way of saying that this parallel is just a cool foreshadowing, rather than some practical connection (if the theory is true).

I also want to briefly mention that I learned that the title of the third series was something that Bakker kept under wraps because he thought it constituted a spoiler. Unless I have bad information, the series is called the No-God, apparently having been announced after The Unholy Consult dropped. This only strengthens the theory that Kellhus is the No-God. I don't know why else Bakker would think the title itself was a spoiler.

Penultimately, Kellhus's return to Momemn, aside from being long awaited and exciting, does make me think about the story's future. It looks like Kellhus might have planned to do this all along. We still don't know what his plans are overall, and we only have Maithanet's reasoning with regards to Momemn and the rest of the Empire. This seems to imply that Kellhus wasn't really abandoning it, given that he was preparing Proyas for taking up the mantle as the head of the Ordeal. But why did he ignore them up to this point? Probably because he didn't want them pestering him until the time was right. More importantly, I think this supports a prior suggestion of mine that the twist would be that Kellhus's Empire was the actual last stand against the Consult, with the Ordeal being wiped out before it.

I don't think I suggested that Kellhus would plan for this; I think I suggested an ironic ending, with Kellhus abandoning the Empire even as the Empire becomes the necessary tool to save the world. But Kellhus planning it seems to be the case now. Either way, I think The Unholy Consult will be the low point of the series: the Infinity War of Bakker's series, the Empire Strikes Back of his expanded trilogy. And I'm reminded of Doctor Strange and his suggestion that giving his stone up was "the only way." It implied that Strange was making a gamble and choosing to lose in the short term in order to win in the long term. And I think Kellhus might be doing something similar. Might. I know that The Unholy Consult is dark as fuck, so this isn't going to be implied there. There may be a recontextualization in the next series, however. We'll see.

Finally, I have to wonder what Yatwer's plan is. Her plan with the White-Luck Warrior seems to have failed in this one, but it also seems to be a contingency because of her manipulation of Sorweel to her ends. Is this just an example of having contingencies, or is Psatma her own thing? Technically, Yatwer seems to have been connected to Sorweel's plotline more so than Psatma's, if actual appearances are to be considered. We just have to take Psatma at her word, and now she's dead along with her Divine assassin.

Ishual

We are reminded in this book that Achamian is receiving memories that he has never seen before, and they are not even from Seswatha's point of view. It is for these reasons that Achamian was able to find Ishual in the first place, and in this book he receives another terrifying one showing the inside of Golgotterath and the fate of one of the Anasûrimbors in history. And especially important is when Mimara points out that not only is he getting these memories, but that there is a certain timing to them. Why now? And what does this suggest about the origins?

We still don't know the answer, and I'm still stuck on Kellhus. He might be sending the dreams to Achamian to manipulate him. We know his father could send dreams to people, that was how he summoned Kellhus. So, Kellhus might be feeding him information, false or otherwise, to string him along. We know that Kellhus used Lord Kosoter to get Achamian to Ishual, far from trying to impede his attempts to find out about the Dûnyain. And then Achamian immediately suggests that Kellhus destroyed his home to preempt the Wizard. This makes sense. But then the sight of the Sranc leads him to conclude that it was actually the Consult. But then, why didn't Kellhus do it? Did he expect/know that the Consult already did it? Or did he direct them/have connections to them?

The revelation of Ishual's destruction at the end of the last book is honestly kind of a cop out. I was interested in how the Dûnyain society functioned. Bakker might touch upon it in flashback, but I won't expect it. But it also makes sense why Bakker did it, as it also opens up the question of how Achamian could come out the other end. The Wizard hasn't thought about the implications of visiting a Dûnyain society even once, and now he won't have to worry.

Regardless, what Bakker does end up doing with the Dûnyain in this book is not a loss by any stretch. We see the brutal implications of the Dûnyain eugenics program, with the women being bred for the purpose of giving birth, and nothing else. Mimara concludes that the Dûnyain are the most evil thing that she has ever seen. It is an ominous revelation about Kellhus' origin, and suggests horrors for the man himself.

Bakker also gives us the perspective of another Dûnyain in this book, and the philosophical discussion and the events that transpire are fascinating. The Dûnyain, who is Kellhus's full-blooded Son, starts out thinking that he'll easily dominate Achamian and Mimara. In the beginning, he is right. Mimara wants them dead, and convinces Achamian, but they don't actually go through with it. (While I'm here, I think a nice writing touch was when Bakker ends a chapter with the latter two intent on killing them, and when we come back, they are simply traveling together. I appreciate Bakker's confidence that the reader knows what is happening.) After the quartet set off toward Golgotterath, the new plan to lead Mimara to Kellhus, the Son comes to know of the Judging Eye. His expectations, and then his whole worldview, are forced to change.

The execution of this section is the main positive. It was fascinating watching the Son slowly realize that Mimara has some worldview shattering ability. It starts with the Son noticing that Mimara (who is using the Judging Eye on him) is acquiring knowledge from an unknown source. To the Dûnyain, this is incomprehensible. Effects have causes, and the magic of the Judging Eye operates outside of this realm. He is forced to reconsider the foundations of his belief system, including the Logos, which they consider to be the Absolute. The Son realizes that the Absolute cannot be something so passive as a simple principle about the laws of causality, nor is it something active like the gods, but is this Judging Eye, instead. No longer can that son treat the Logos as the measure of all things. The Judging Eye is the measure of all things. And through Mimara's attitude toward him, he knows that he, and the Dûnyain, have gone horribly wrong.

Already, this is fascinating in terms of its implications, but things take a turn toward the insane when the Son snorts the nonman ash and concludes that the only way to attain the Absolute that is the Judging Eye is to kill himself. My interpretation of this mad conclusion is that he understood the Judging Eye considered him evil, and that it accordingly called for his judgment which would come in the next life. Regardless, watching this breakdown over time, culminating in suicide was not only unexpected, but also feels so natural. Even still, as you step outside his perspective and see it from Achamian and Mimara's view, you see just how insane it was. Bakker's ability to use these perspective shifts to shock you is amazing: you adopt a perspective and have them follow a particular chain of logic that makes sense, only to jolt you from outside that perspective. It reminds me of how ideologies often work. They usually look crazy from the outside, but inside their assumptions and their chain of reasoning, it seems completely sensible.

One thing that the Son got right was the importance of the Judging Eye. I think this is going to have world-shattering implications later down the line, and naturally that makes me skeptical of it. I mentioned Thomas Kuhn's paradigm shifts earlier in this post. I think this might not just apply to Bakker's metaphysics, but also to more specific things like the Judging Eye. The Judging Eye purportedly tells the viewer the morality of things they see, but I'm wondering if this might be false.

What if the Eye simply shows the user's perception of good and evil, based on real facts about the person's past. So, Mimara isn't actually seeing the morality of things, but instead seeing what she herself would conclude to be good or evil. This would imply that all these people aren't actually damned, but are simply considered damned by Mimara's views on the subject. Society tells her that sorcerers are all damned, the Judging Eye reflects that, and then this "confirms" her belief. I think there is further reason to entertain this possibility with a comment made by Mimara at the beginning of the book. She said the Judging Eye confirmed the inferiority of women. I doubt Bakker thinks this. And my interpretation of the Eye suggests that this might just be confirming Mimara's internalized misogyny. I guess there is reason to doubt this, as well. Mimara was not necessarily convinced that sorcery was damned before she got the Judging Eye, was she? From what I remember, this confirmed something she at the very least was not settled on. Idk. Regardless, how will this play into the finale, with their interactions with Kellhus (almost certainly seeing him as evil)? Can't wait to find out!

Addendum: I forgot to talk about the return of Cnaiur, lol. I actually spoiled myself on this. I looked on some wiki page for his character because I was fuzzy on some details at the end of the Prince of Nothing, and it listed that he appeared in The Great Ordeal. The second Achamian and his companions ran into the Scylvendi raiders, I knew his time had come. He's more damned than any Mimara has seen, of course. And like the First Apocalypse, the Scylvendi seem to have sided with the Consult. Maybe he'll show up in the next book, too.

Cnaiur's appearance is exciting for all the reasons we've come to love over the original trilogy. His dialogue, the philosophical spin of his discussions, the way he interrogated Achamian, all of it, was excellent.

Speaking of the Dûnyain, he says:

"Had they faces like fingers, you would cry out for swords and fire. But no, they possess souls like fingers instead. Their perversion can only be guessed, argued, and never seen!" He spoke with savage gesture, arms low and wide, snapping into fists and bladed palms. "My beast has been contrived to listen to secrets, while yours has been fashioned to speak them, bred—bred like fighting cocks!—to wind through the gut of our souls, to eat with our mouths, shit with our anuses! Bred to tangle the chambers of our heart, twine about our pulse, to own us from within, to nest in the pitch black of our follies, our conceits, our hopes, our loves!—all our womanish weaknesses!"

Quick Musing

In one of the discussions for the Prince of Nothing trilogy, a commenter said the Nail of Heaven was not the North Star, which was my thinking up until that point. This book has dropped some interesting hints for the real answer. The first was the comment that the Nail of Heaven marked the direction of Golgotterath. This is easily handwaved, admittedly, given that Golgotterath is literally in the North, but taken with the knowledge that it is not the North Star, this subtly suggests that there is a connection there. In the discussion, it was suggested that the Nail might be a wormhole from which the spaceship fell. While it was neither confirmed nor denied, this seems the be most likely answer, at least for now.

One final hint was the use of the phrase "Nail of the World." This was a phrase used by Kellhus's full-blooded Son. If there is a Nail of Heaven and of the World, what might that imply? The man might simply be talking about the religious attitudes regarding the Nail, that it is a guiding principle like the North Star, but there might be metaphysical implications buried in this as well. I don't know what they are, I'm not that clever, but it is worth asking if someone smarter comes along.

Conclusion

I finished this book with mixed feelings. I was thinking about a 6/10, which is still positive overall for my rating system. But then I've further changed as I've sat on this book. This book is absolutely loaded with the most gorgeously macabre and grotesquely magnificent sequences that I have seen in any fiction ever. The philosophical discussions are exactly what I need. And I have to admit that I am reconsidering the worldbuilding of my own fantasy series because of Bakker, and because of this book specifically.

I will give this book an 8/10. I can't give it the 9 that White-Luck received for the problems of prose and execution especially glaring in the Momemn arc, but the positives are heavily weighted.

Video:

Non-spoiler: https://youtu.be/dpsvqnxL_tE

Spoiler Part 1: https://youtu.be/vfHJkqwjWxk

Spoiler Part 2: https://youtu.be/cpyENmmx6Po