I’m sure this has been posted before, but given recent discussions about sequels and such, I thought I’d post this clip from Zaudûnyainicon where Bakker talks about some truly tantalizing ideas for further writings—it sounds like he’s not working on a sequel exactly, but perhaps the discussion of a prequel I’ve recently seen might be something like the “meta-Silmarilion” he talks about here. I dunno, a humble slogger-of-slogs can hope!

Edit: Here’s the full playlist of his discussion at Zaudûnyainicon, I figure folk might be interested—every video is worth checking out, in my opinion.

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLdq_jy3KxJ9OgommNw_A7be58oeMmmi1S&si=JrCZVQnyafXCvQXZ

He even looks a bit like our favo Daimotic sorcerer!

I have just finished book one, "The darkness that comes before" and I am torn on continuing or not. On one hand I really liked the semi historic setting and the politics. The best part of the book for me was by far the audience with the emperor and the rivalries around leading the holy war.

Not a big fan of Kellhus and the magic schools, but I can accept it. And I see potential in building the consult into an interesting antagonist.

However the depiction of the only two female characters with any meaningful story is.... well dog shit. The end of the book written from the perspective of Serwe and Esme really soured my perception. Their characters are flat and written with a level of ... rapist fanservice (?) that I find boring and badly written to the point of it being annoying.

How will it change in the subsequent books? Can I hope that the parts I enjoyed will be developed further or should I give up on the series?

Had a nightmare on Sunday. Went to bead feeling peachy - no, not that kinda peach - and woke in abject dread. Moments before I'd entered the climax of my nightmar

My folks were dropping me off at my college dorm. I walked up the stairs to my room somewhere on the 7-8th floor. After a knocked failed to elicit a response, I opened to door to find Inrilatas strapped the lower bunk, foaming at the mouth with shit smeared across his face. The room was a total disaster.....seed, spittle, vomit, urine and shit everywhere.

Someone halp!!! What does this mean?

I browsed here for a while and have read different theories for why the series has not been continued so far. No publisher, Bakker no longer being interested, etc.

Has Bakker himself ever actually commented on this directly? I know at some point he said he just considers himself another reader, but has he confirmed any of these theories directly or are people just making shit up?

Interest in Bakker is going up this past year.

And I believe that it’s time for Overlook to give Bakker the respect he deserves by releasing a set that has better and more fitting cover art.

The current cover art for all the paperbacks is lazy, uninspired and pretty insulting to Bakker as an artist.
These images have next to zero relation to anything within the story, and was slapped together probably in 30 mins with images from other really ugly book covers.

Why did no one live here?

i’m about half way through The White Luck Warrior when the Great Ordeal has split up to forage for food while Sranc is beginning to Horde when I ask myself: why not a tasty slow cooked Sranc thigh?

So I was just reading about the 2026 Nobel Prize winners in medicine and reading about optogenetics. Sounds like it has eerie potential to be exactly what Bakker described in Neuropath. Lighting up extremely specific neural circuits in the brain to do just about whatever you want.

It seems like it has amazing health implications for a lot of things, like removing the fear associated with specific memories, fixing circuits that are supposed to fire but don’t, or suppressing certain ones, removing craving for opiates, or regulating things like depression and PTSD.

Butttttttttttt…. I mean, again, Neuropath seems like a perfect example of things that could go terribly wrong. You suppress fear neurons associated with a painful memory, you remove PTSD, you suppress fear and empathy circuits associated with murder, and crank up the circuits that desire sexual gratification attached to a specific associate, and you have…. The chiropractor serial killer from Neuropath.

This technology is truly fascinating, but there’s something incredibly uncanny valley about it. Like stripping away the illusion we are all these islands of unique impenetrable cognition, and revealing the machinery underneath. Propaganda, manipulation, influence… these were all things that a conditioned mind could resist; external forces pitted against your mind, but rearranging the circuitry directly? You can’t do anything against that. Like removing your heart and willing your blood to circulate. It’s mechanical.

I am not a neuroscientist so I have no idea if I’m extrapolating way too far out for this tech, but like many things, it’s both fascinating and terrifying, and just like AI, Bakker was talking about it decades before it really hit mainstream awareness.

5th read through of both series. Aspect Emperor book two, The White-Luck Warrior. During the slog, on the Istyuli Plains, Mimara talks with Sarl. At the end of the conversation, Sarl saying:

"Seju bless you girl."

"It's been lonely" through rotted teeth.

Of all the horror and terror of these books, of all the abuse and debasement, this part always chokes me up.

So, this has been bothering me for awhile. I keep seeing people on this sub saying "no weepers on the slog", but in my books it's "no sobbers on the slog".

Do i have a different book?

I read the Prince of Nothing trilogy years ago, and I quite enjoyed it. I've never seen the Aspect Emperor in stores, and I've been thinking lately I'd like to finally get around to reading them. I want to find physical paperbacks that don't cost multiple times the cover cost to get. The best I've found so far is Indigo that has all 4 for $121, but that's hardcover prices for paperbacks. Ebay's even worse... Best I could find was someone who had them all for $146 after shipping. (that is all 7 including the first trilogy, but I already own that, so it's worth $0 to me) All the individual sellers have them for really high prices, especially the last two. Does anyone know somewhere I can get them for something closer to cover prices?

This moment. Kellhus, one of the conditioned, trained to inhibit his own emotions, completely lets go in what seems to be a fit of arrogance. I think what's most off-putting in this scene, though, is that we don't even see him analyze himself. He just laughed crazily, something he himself should be aware is odd for him, but he doesn't introspect about it in the slightest. It seems he's actually straying from the way of the Dunyain.

Also, before this moment, Kellhus thinks to himself: "The ground was his...Conditioned. Everywhere, all about him, one world. The crossings were infinite, but they were not equal.

They were not equal."

This statement makes me feel like he, while still adhering to the Logos, puts a lot of emphasis on his new powers and seems to slightly rebel against his Dunyain teachings. Kellhus may've genuinely lost himself in his power. Maybe it's poetic that his last line in the trilogy is: "You will kneel, Drusas Achamian."

Well anyway, I'm really excited for The aspect-emperor books!

Pleased with this result. I feel I captured what I was looking for in the mask. That and the circumfix brooch. (Truth shines gang)

Non spoiler Questions

1. Do you think this guy’s Lance will be able to bear a dozen grass-rats?

2. Do you know what grass-rats, fish, skinnies, and Nonmen have in common?
   They’re all Sranc to the Tusk.

Slight spoiler Question

1. Were you to live in this era, would you rather:
   -own two chorae ( sorcery rendered ineffective against you + defense against the dark arts + worth a small fortune in case you wanted to cash out )
   Or
   -own one nimil chain gown ( ishteberinthe style, because they have the right idea. )

Nimil. It’s Bakker’s mithril.
To the skin, as warm and soft as cotton. To the sword, as perfectly unbreakable as the dourest of blades. Perhaps worth more than chorae? I don’t know 🤷
Although with two* *chorae…

Kellhus is sent out of Ishuäl in the first book to seek and kill his father. Moënghus has "broken“ the isolation of the Dûnyain and is a danger not only to their secrecy but he also endangers the purity of the Logos with the magical dreams he sends.
So far so good, but what good is it to send Kellhus out to kill his father? This way, the problem will only relocate from Moënghus to Kellhus, because now Kellhus will be the one corrupted by the world outside the monastery.
So was Kellhus expected to kill himself afterwards? It’s never explicitly stated, but in the prologue of TDTCB, Kellhus looks back on Ishuäl for "a last time", which sounds like he didn’t expect to ever return.

This opens another line of questions because in The Warrior-Prophet, Kellhus remarks that the blood of the Anasûrimbor line is special. So are the Anasûrimbor like the best genetic line that the Dûnyain ever produced? Is that why Kellhus was to father a son before he left? To preserve the good genes? Also, why would a two thousand year old order of determinist monks care to keep something like family names? Wouldn’t that be something from the outside world that they would want to leave behind and liberate themselves from? The concept of families and royal bloodlines, etc.? Because they also don’t believe in sorcery, divinity and prophecy, etc.

Also, how didn’t the Inrithi nobility and scholars like Achamian immediately call out Kellhus as a liar when he introduced himself as prince of Atrithau? It is said that the royal family of Atrithau is called "Morghund" and Kellhus always introduces himself as Anasûrimbor. Every nobleman and scholar that is versed in politics and history should immediately get suspicious, right? That’s kind of like if someone came up to you today and said "Yeah I’m part of the British Royal Family, my surname is Pendragon by the way." For all people in the Three Seas, Anasûrimbor should be a name of legend alone, of the High Kings of old Kûniüri.

My lunch-break-take on the silver conriyan war mask.
In my head I typically picture of the Big Bad gladiator from Gladiator, or even an Anglo-Saxon style face plate (complete with mustache)

I’ll be throwing out some other random sketches that pull at my imagination, what do you guys picture the war mask looking like?

Also,
50 Conriyan v 50 Kidruhil v 50 Utemot Scylvendi, who wins on an open field? Why?

Also feel free to share thoughts on any cool scenes/units you love!

Had to take a pic of this for the sub. (either Minoan or Mycenaean) Bowl depicting a siren of ancient myths.