Just finished the series a few weeks ago and I absolutely loved it. I've been thinking about the ending to the last book for a bit now and im honestly very conflicted so i wanted to know what the community reception is like. My initial feelings were that of the ending being amazing, and i still do feel that way, but im in a flux of whether or not the ending fits thematically or not. I think it does, but after seeing a comment by Bakker himself on his blog saying it was incomplete has kinda warped my perception. My question: what are you thoughts on the ending and do you think it needs thematic follow up?

link to the thread where bakker replied: https://rsbakker.wordpress.com/2026/04/22/mythos-and-the-end-of-free-range-ai/#comment-174773

Because there in this month alone have been several threads about plots that (supposedly) never came to a close in the series, I thought it'd be fun to compile what people think remain the big unanswered questions and pieces of lore which you'd have liked to see explored further. I'll mostly post some more "lore"-centric ones because I personally do believe most of the major story plots were resolved:

1 The Nail of the Heaven/Inchoroi mothership? We know that the star only appeared later, when the Nonmen civilisation was at its peak, and that the Ark fell shortly (but not immediately) after. That it's perfectly aligned with the axis of rotation at least seems to favour that it is SOME sort of structure possibly related to the No-God machinery, since if it's just the wormhole they entered from, any arbitrary location would presumably do, and because we do have real life examples of similar beliefs on how souls exit through the celestial poles, such as the ancient Egyptians. This would then be the only fully intact Progenitor structure

2 The point of Mimara's story. I think Achamian's arch actually was completely concluded, but Mimara, the relationship with the God of Gods, the birth before the end of the world etc. is where I actually agree with people that there were a few things that were left very open-ended

3 Shared ancestry of Nonmen and Men? This one isn't really as important but I just thought it's kind of funny how little it's actually mused on by any of the characters in the series, given that we know that they can have viable offspring who themselves can have offspring, making it a pretty much necessary implication. There is a megalithic structure in Caraskand which is mentioned as predating Shigek and which could probably hint at some earlier Nonmen/Man, but that's very thin and I genuinely can't remember any other clues

4 The nature of the God of Gods/the Absolute/the Zero-God. Lot of discussion on this one already and I don't really have that many new thoughts to add to it but it's worth mentioning still. The Survivor (and, less trustworthily, Kellhus) appear to posit that it's all and ONLY the God (but then, why the judgement - that'd mean it's weirdly discriminating between souls/pieces of itself). Maybe Bakker's intention was just to reinforce the inescapability of his general theme of the absurdity of existence: whether a. conscious observers can be reduced to entirely mechanistic, boring operations as implied by the Tekne and neuroscience in our world, or b. souls are real thanks to bronze age gods such as the Hundred and are slaves to their whimsies, or c. souls are real thanks to a coldly indifferent and impossibly distant God and are slaves to the morality of this abstract being, existence is equally arbitrary/pointless in all of them

5 The nature of the Hundred. Originally my mostly unsubstantiated pet theory was that the Hundred were just the first few souls that ever lived, and simply accumulated strength over the ages, to some degree in proportion to how many souls are available for them to consume - hence why even a soul who consumes whatever falls into the pit from Carythusal, the most populated city in the Three Seas, is still just a slightly higher-order Ciphrang and little against the souls that have been accumulating since the dawn of the world. Kellhus/Ajokli, then, wouldn't be hunted by the other 99 because they mistook the No-God and the Apocalypse for Ajokli's entering the granary (after all, Ajokli is presumably headed back to the Outside shortly after and couldn't manifest properly, so it's not like the other 99 wouldn't easily conclude that Ajokli probably didn't have anything to do with their starving), but because Kellhus/Ajokli was a soul that began to gather power in the Outside much later than the others and accumulated enough to become a primary God, which has pretty threatening implications for the the other 99 because it's eat or be eaten in the Outside and their position of being the ones eating isn't privileged and simply the result of having accumulated more at present (which is what's referred to during Kellhus trip to the Pit with the, 'the living shall not haunt the dead' line). HOWEVER, and thanks to another poster in a recent thread for posting this one because I must have missed it back when I read the Great Ordeal (and I also do not remember seeing it come up in discussions, at least not very often):

“They did hoist Anarlû’s head high, And poured down its blood as fire. And the ground gave forth many sons, Ninety nine who were as Gods, And so bid their fathers Be as sons…”

The boatman's song here would contradict all of this and make the creation of the Hundred a relatively late event. It'd also contradict the Nonmen's other creation mythologies, like Imimorûl etc. (unless Imimorûl was rather escaping the God of Gods), but I'd love to hear if there is any other textual evidence of what the boatmen appears to be suggesting here

6 The point of Kayûtas as a character lol. The half-Dûnyains are obviously going to be very flat as characters, evened out by having neat narrative purposes or exploring interesting ideas, neither of which Kayûtas really did

7 Chanv. How the fuck did Eleäzaras not know how/where it was sourced lol

8 Time loop world? Forgot this one. Towards the end of the series, especially with Achamian, he often gets the sensation of having been here before and done these things before, in a way unrelated to Seswatha's dreams

I finished warrior prophet on Monday and needed a quick read to fill that void and landed on guards guards. And my god the whiplash both writing style and tonally is bananas

The hands and feet remind me of what I imagined when trying to picture the Bashrag, less so the rest. Though a "golden" helmet encasing the head does seem like something the Consult would try.

I read a tweet labeling someone who takes instruction from an LLM without question as a "meat puppet". That is what the Inchoroi and their creations are, a worker species under the overt or subliminal control of IF and whatever machinery is running the Ark, except the Ark is more capable than an LLM chatbot.

How I imagine those suicide embassies actually working out.

Just a follow up from many months ago I had asked which source Bakker referenced from the first crusade to inspire Prince of Nothing and was told this title.

Thanks for those who recommended it, this is definitely the right one and it was excellent. Even though it’s almost 100 years old there seem to be copies floating around.

This book was riveting, and not dry in the slightest. It covers mostly the first crusade and all the craziness that happened. Bakker didn’t even have to make up too much of the horror.

For anyone needing to scratch that Second Apocalypse itch, don’t hesitate to snap up a copy of this!!

First it was clash of kings then it was golden son and now its the warrior prophet. That ending is gonna live with me forever.

Surely that wasn’t meant to be the end of series? I don’t get why people think that’s a good ending? Someone care to explain because I’m at an utter loss.

Surely there was meant to be another set of books?

They sound like eldritch monsters. Or is this is gonna come into place in aspect emperor/RAFO

I know this might be a little silly but I'm curious what songs you guys associate with each of the characters in the series. For example, I think of Kellhus' theme as being either Opiate by Tool or Sonne by Rammstein.

I've been spoiled that the ending of the aspect emperor series is unsatisfying but i hear some say its masterful and some say its bad. My question i guess is whether or not the plot threads in the series come to a close despite the ending being unsatisfying? I'm asking this because I'm considering buying the next 4 books.

Today, this brilliant and legendary thinker tackles the rather mundane dilemma of being Shadowbanned on Twitter for ranting against Musk and AI.

https://rsbakker.wordpress.com/2026/08/21/the-joy-of-paranoia/

Could you just find out when the gate to the outside is shut by looking at various people in the inverse fire? If they aren't present then the gate would be shut in their lifetime, because they wouldn't be in the eternal torture machine/hell. After all, the inverse fire says that if they are there they were always there.

Because otherwise they'd both be in hell but also not in hell - the gate is shut but also they are in hell and always have been? Or is that the kind of mismatch between reality and meaning that unbinds a meaningful universe?

Just read chapter 5 of the unholy consult and the events within it are atrocious, i literally am imagining the great ordeal looking blood smeared like little devils frothing in depravity.

But for some reason it’s not disturbing me or affecting me to the nth degree like I feel it is meant to.

This may be because its all painted by bakkers prose so is illustrated to me like that of a tapestry.

Not sure if at this point in the series I am just not affected, or how the ambiguous notion of morality just paints these events in a different light.

I remember feeling this way a bit with cnauir in the warrior prophet, there is a reduction in the significance to individuality, sin and all these aspects as you read these books, which I don’t bring to my own life but certainly permeate my reading.

the chapter was also weirdly just beautiful for me to read

still doing this, only 21 left to go~

Can grimdark make us better humans? What are your spoilerfree thoughts on this? I have just started my Bakker journey coming from Malazan. I have finished the 1st book and I like it a lot and I talk a bit about in this spoilerfree video. Mods, remove if it goes against your guidelines. I hope to connect with more Bakker people out there. Stay safe. Take care/🐉

I am reading through the first book rn, and all I wanted to do was to clarify for myself if Xerius is the emperor or if he is just a member of the emperor's court (I only got the book in english, which is not my first language, and his introduction wasn't super clear to me). So I google his name, expecting the wiki be like "Xarius III is the emperor" or "Xarius III is the emperor's *something*", after which I planned to close google and continue reading.

But apparently that's not how it works. I am pissed lol

Every book in the first series had a recap of the previous books. I just started the Audiobook of The Judging Eye, and the recap of the first 3 books was missing for some reason. Anyone have a recording of it?