So my interpretation is that Khellus never intended to become possessed by Ajokli. In fact it seems that the possession was progressing without his knowledge as he delved deeper in Ark. Bakker in his AMA said that the Dunyain spiritual strength is quite weak, leading me to believe that his work with the Daimos may have made him an unknowing conduit for Ajokli to enter the World.
Remember, the Gods are blind to the No-God. However, they see it’s shadow. Many of the Gods laid blame to Khellus for the madness (who else could be behind such maddess as the ordeal than the one leading them). This is why Yatwer was so intent on killing him.
However, it seems that Khellus somehow travelled to the Outside and became an Inverse Prophet, warning the Gods of the dangers that lay in the World. I need to re-read TGO because a lot of the head on a pole passages may be related to this interaction. I have a feeling that Khellus was hoping to be able to control enough of the Daimos to keep Ajokli at bay while using his powers for some reason. But he succumbed.
This may also be why Khellus couldn’t see the danger that was his son. The Gods live outside of time, so once Kel became the No-God, he was always the No-God, through all of time.
Bakker also stated for definite that Khellus’ goal was the stop the Second Apocalypse and the Resumption, thereby saving the world. He failed.
Crazy theory: the Ark’s Goad is an interdimensional virtual hell that souls are stored in, and fear of that hell is used to drive the meat to do things in an efficient manner. They literally brought hell with them. Maybe they created hell, and it’s just a VR in some other dimension.
I thought Kellhus intended the possession and Ajokli was tagging along as a decapitant. My current theory is Kellhus moved his soul into the Zeumi guy’s head on his belt. Somehow the head is going to get reunited with its body and then we’ll have Zeumi Kellhus at some point in the next books.
I don’t think he’s in the Zeumi guy’s head. He’s in one of the other heads, which are Ciphrangi/demons, right?
By the way, I loved how we never witness any scenes through Khellus’ perspective. If there are no other main characters around to see what he’s up to, we get the decapitant’s perspective. Great narrative device.
I think there’s only two decapitants. One is Zeumi guy (Malowebi) and the other has 4 horns. Well, Ajokli is the 4 Horned Brother. Kellhus killed him? He killed Kellhus? Unsure of what exactly that was about.
If I remember, when Kellhus got Malowebi, he put a different demon’s head onto Malowebi’s body, which then marched off… Somewhere, we never found out.
Remember, Kellhus turned back to himself just before he got salted. Thought, maybe some kind of wizard stuff happened in that fraction of a second? I think Bakker has also said that TUC was as far as he’d envisioned The Prince of Nothing going originally. I’d actually be pretty happy with that being the end of Kellhus.
The entire sequence is titled The Second Apocalypse, which in its initial conception way back in the 1980’s was to be a trilogy consisting of three books, The Prince Of Nothing, The Aspect-Emperor, and The Book That Shall Not Be Named. The Prince Of Nothing, of course, turned into a trilogy in its own right, as has The Aspect-Emperor. The final book will likely be a standalone or a duology, with the second book containing a massive omnibus.
I don’t know that I believe that site? But it would be such a weird thing to make up. It’s also from 2009, so RSB may have altered the deal since then.
I see what you are saying, I never really thought intention mattered else Akka would be clean but sorcery is probably one of those special cases.
What was with the false vision of Kellhus, flying around and bearing no mark seen at the end of the penultimate chapter? The men of the great ordeal saw their saviour and cried out. Akka saw Kellhus cleansed. Mimara saw it as a vision of the No-God.
Was it the No-God in some kind of illusory disguise?
That’s pretty much what I’m saying. The “trick” he plays on Ajokli, the reason Ajokli can’t find his soul in hell or whatever, is that he is hiding in Mallowebi’s (sp) head. Mallowebi actually went down at the last second in Kellhus body.
And yeah, I’m very curious what the second Ciphrang head was. I have not gone back to look at the descriptions. Gilgaol? Maybe?
As for all the conjecture about what’s damning, intent, etc; word from the author’s mouth in his AMA is basically “lol gods are arbitrary”… which is probably intentional.
You think Kellhus swapped himself into the Malowebi head, and that Malowebi is dead. But that can not be the case.
“Unable to think, Malowebi witnessed, watched it all in golden reflection, how the Mutilated seized a begging Kelmomas, first with sorcery, then with hands lacking five fingers, how the child had wailed and kicked and shrieked, realizing he had traded one tyrant for four. Malowebi glimpsed the flutter of small limbs as the Dûnyain thrust him into the great black sarcophagus, heard the porcine shrieks of bodily violations, the heartbreak of his blubbering, his whimpering cries, as the great face of the Carapace closed upon its ancient seal … “Mu-mu-mum-meee …” He could remember! The Carapace climbing soundlessly upright … The very root of the Horn roaring. The Aspect-Emperor dead. Never had Malowebi been so immobile, so windless within.”
How could Malowebi witness this and recall witnessing it if he was swapped into Khellus body to be the one who got salted?
Also, Malowebi was no sorcerer. Wouldn’t chorae not affect him if he were swapped into Khellus’ body somehow?
Malowebi is stuck in his decapitant head. He’s not going anywhere. Just hanging out. Probably for a long long time.
We know that he was salted before Mog-Pharau sealed the world, so his soul isn’t just floating freely around Earwa. What happens to your soul if you die when the world is sealed? Just die like a human in the real world where souls aren’t a thing?
Khellus’ soul must be in one of these places.
He wasn’t damned, and the gods have him in the outside or whatev. i.e.: went to “heaven.”
He was damned, and he died and went to hell. Of course, I’m sure an aspect emperor who has been to hell previously has quite a different experience on their “final” visit. It wasn’t written that death came swirling down for him, so…
Chilling in the other decapitated head and experiencing things. Just like Malowebi is chilling in the other head. Or just like Cinialrig is chilling in Amiolas. Or just like a wathi doll. There’s a lot of precedence for this.
Perhaps bound similarly to the way that Shauriatas bound his soul to the world with those heads on the back of the shield. Perhaps this is also similar to the things I mentioned in option 3.
He’s in the chorae? We still don’t know enough about how chorae work and such.
Something completely new and made up! It’s fiction!
On one point, “Malowebi is a Mbimayu Schoolman” taken straight from the wiki. Remember, he tried to fight back against Kellhus for like all of a second in self defense before he was decapitated.
It’s also possible Malowebi’s soul is in the demon head on his belt at the end, and Kellhus pulled a simple cup game and somehow left without sacrificing him I guess.
Yes, there are two decapitants. All we know is that Malowebi’s soule is definitely in one of them. We don’t know which one. We don’t know which soul, if any, is in the other one. We don’t even know who the physical heads originally belonged to.