{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/2653", "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it. Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.", "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'" }, "archive": "urth", "thread": { "id": 2653, "subject": "Copperhead", "messages": 5, "voices": 3, "first": "2001-05-19T13:39:01+00:00", "last": "2001-05-24T11:59:09+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "James Jordan", "address": "jbjordan4 at home.com" }, "date": "2001-05-19T13:39:01+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Copperhead", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Having been away for three weeks, I now play catchup.\n\tI think the Lilith business is right. Of course, it is not in the Bible, \nand has nothing to do with Christian doctrine. (It's manichaean basically: \nGood Adam and Bad Lilith.) But the myth is around, in MacDonald, and Wolfe \nis familiar with it. It seems clear enough that the gadget switched an \nearthly copperhead with a parallel-universe Lilith, and then the NEW \npresident with a NEW and unfallen Adam. Still president of the Garden, and \nthe very image of God, this unfallen Adam pronounces a divine curse upon \nLilith.\n\tNo, this is not a post-fall Adam who still has much strength. This is an \nunfallen Adam who thinks the way God thinks, and does what God would do, \nand did do in Genesis 3.\n\tBoone has killed himself, and there has been a significant murder also (p. \n4). It seems clear that Boone has been getting it on with Lilith, and the \nmurder is also connected to her. These, not Cain and Abel, are the two men \nwho have died. Boone killed the other man; Boone was the murderer. As \nothers have noted, the story of Cain and Abel comes after the Fall, and so \nit is not directly in view here. Indirectly, though, it is relevant: Abel \nchallenged Cain for his sin, and Cain murdered him. We might assume that \nthe murdered man challenged Boone for his adulterous relationship with \nLilith, and Boone murdered him for that reason, though more likely Boone \nkilled him in a jealous rage for having sex with Lilith (see below). The \nNew President knows that Boone's note will say both that he murdered the \nman (which has been covered up by Rance -- implied) and also will tell \nabout Jane Doe, so the note must be suppressed.\n\tBack to Cain and Abel: that's in THIS world, and Cains have been murdering \nAbel for thousands of years. That's the implied allusion. I don't think \nthere is any allusion to a Cain and Abel in the parallel, unfallen world. \nAll Lilith has in mind is Boone and the murdered man.\n\tI note some significant language on p. 3:\n\tRance says, \"Find who, Mr. President?\"\n\t\"Who the HELL do you think?\"\n\t\"Jane Doe?\"\n\t\"You're watching her, or you're DAMNED well supposed to be.\"\n\t\"We are.\" Rance said.\n\t\"A HELL of a lot of good it did....\"\nI think that's all the profanity in the story, which makes its presence \nhere significant.\n\tLocation: The action takes place in the west, not in DC. The NP says on p. \n6, \"I'll be going back tomorrow, and when I get back I'll make a slot for \nyou....\" Going back where? To DC. Also, the five-hour trip of Rance & Co. \ngets them to the NP at 11:00 pm, while the NP's wife is back in Washington. \nThus, the house and the hill are out west somewhere. It's near \"Three Mile \nWoods\" (p. 9), wherever that is (I don't find any such place on-line). I'm \nsure Wolfe had some Reason for this western location, but I don't come up \nwith anything.\n\tMore: the hilltop is near a meadow. There are two trees, one fallen. The \nfallen tree is the Tree of Life, which can be considered fallen in this \nworld since we are now under the curse of death. The standing tree is the \nTree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, associated with the serpent. Note \nthe repeated reference to its leaves falling, and plug in the word \"fall\" \nand its larger meaning.\n\tChronology: The spring trip back to the West, and the fall trip back to \nthe West to watch football (p. 7) happened during the year of campaigning, \nnot after the NP was inaugurated, yet that the NP was already president in \nthe fall when he met with General Martens. But I don't think we have to \nimagine a parallel world or a disaster in the US. People burning things in \nSpokane is nothing more than the Los Angeles riots or the activities of \nenvironmentalists in Seattle -- nothing apocalyptic. I just think the NP \nhad become president before his first run for office, and had been VP when \nthe former president died or resigned.\n\tMore: I don't see any reason to believe General Martens pushed any buttons \nbefore he gave the gadget to the NP. He found it right away, phoned the NP \nimmediately, and the NP told him to bring it to him immediately. I think \nMartens did not want to give it up just because he suspected it was a \ndangerous alien device and either (a) wanted to keep it for study, or (b) \nwanted to protect the NP from blowing himself up, or (c) any combination of \nthe above.\n\tI take \"groose\" as \"grouse.\" At first I thought it was Lilith's complain \nagainst the unfallen Adam of her original world. He did not like her \nbehavior. But in context, it seems to refer to Boone, and then to her \nrejection of him (\"you will never grunt over me again\"). Her rejection of \nBoone precipitated his suicide. What did Boone grouse about? Her relations \nwith other men, including the man Boone murdered.\n\tThe weird world the NP comes to is just the unfallen world, when human \nbeings can still hear creation singing.\n\tFinally, I don't think we should try to read a lot of Clinton into this \nstory. Like all of us, Wolfe can hardly avoid Clinton and his misbehavior, \nbut there is no reason to think the NP is a serial adulterer, or that he \nwants to seduce Karen. He's just a fallen Adam, both in the sense of being \na sinner and in the sense of being in charge of the world (as the president \nof the US is). The only dark hint I got was that perhaps he intends to have \nKaren killed, to clean up the mess: \"I know you've done your best...I want \nyou to understand that...no matter what happens tonight\" (p. 5). I got this \nhint because Wolfe spends so much time on the conversation with Karen, \nwhich seems otherwise unimportant. The NP thinks to give her a post in \nLabor, and then says he'll make her an ambassador. What does he really plan \nfor her, if anything?\n\tThus, my take (for now).\n\nNutria" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Kevin J. Maroney", "address": "kmaroney at ungames.com" }, "date": "2001-05-23T15:14:54+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Copperhead", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "At 01:39 PM 5/19/01 -0500, Nutria wrote:\n(It's manichaean basically: Good Adam and Bad Lilith.) " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "There is nothing distinctively Manichean about having a Completely Good\nThing and a corresponding Completely Bad Thing. That idea shows up in all\nsorts of places, including all of the Abrahamist monotheisms. " }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": " Kevin Maroney | Unplugged Games \n kmaroney at ungames.com | (212) 777-1190" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Michael Straight", "address": "straight at email.unc.edu" }, "date": "2001-05-23T22:44:11+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Copperhead", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Wed, 23 May 2001, Kevin J. Maroney wrote:\nAt 01:39 PM 5/19/01 -0500, Nutria wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "(It's manichaean basically: Good Adam and Bad Lilith.) " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "There is nothing distinctively Manichean about having a Completely Good\nThing and a corresponding Completely Bad Thing. That idea shows up in all\nsorts of places, including all of the Abrahamist monotheisms. " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Is this a joke? That's the very thing that Christians have always used to\nsay \"Manichaeanism is not us.\" Satan is the opposite of Michael the\nArchangel; there is no counterpart Bad Thing that is the opposite of God. \nGod created everything, and some things are warped, but to the extent\nSatan has any good thing (intellegence, existence, charisma) it is simply\na warped version of the good thing God gave him. Nothing in orthodox\nChristianity or Judaism gives you the sense that Evil is a real rival to\nGod that might have a chance of ultimately winning. \n\n-Rostrum" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Kevin J. Maroney", "address": "kmaroney at ungames.com" }, "date": "2001-05-24T11:23:19+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Copperhead", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "At 10:44 PM 5/23/01 -0400, Rostrum wrote:\nIs this a joke? That's the very thing that Christians have always used to\nsay \"Manichaeanism is not us.\" Satan is the opposite of Michael the\nArchangel; there is no counterpart Bad Thing that is the opposite of God. \nGod created everything, and some things are warped, but to the extent\nSatan has any good thing (intellegence, existence, charisma) it is simply\na warped version of the good thing God gave him. Nothing in orthodox\nChristianity or Judaism gives you the sense that Evil is a real rival to\nGod that might have a chance of ultimately winning. " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I agree with all of that, but the last time I checked, Adam was not God.\nThe major theological distinction between the Abrahamist religions and the\nreligion of Mani is at the level of a dark equivalent to God. The\nAbrahamist religions all posit the existence of completely evil things\nwhich exist as mirrors to good things less than God. Calling \"Good Adam,\nBad Lilith\" \"Manichaen\" seems to me a misunderstaning of both the\nAbrahamist religions and Mani's religion, since it ascribes a common\npractice of the former group to being solely the province of the latter. \n\nI suppose there would be ways for an Abrahamist \"Good Adam, Bad Lilith\"\npair to be more Manichaen--if, for instance, Lilith were *created* by Satan\nto subvert and destroy Adam--but if such a tradition exists, I'm unaware of\nit. All of the versions of Lilith I've encountered have her created by the\nGood God and then wander astray (much like Adam himself, of course, but for\nsome reason it is not assumed that the children of Adam are all demons). " }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Wombat, a.k.a. Kevin Maroney kmaroney at ungames.com\nKitchen Staff Supervisor, New York Review of Science Fiction\nhttp://www.nyrsf.com" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Michael Straight", "address": "straight at email.unc.edu" }, "date": "2001-05-24T11:59:09+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Copperhead", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Thu, 24 May 2001, Kevin J. Maroney wrote:\nI agree with all of that, but the last time I checked, Adam was not God.\nThe major theological distinction between the Abrahamist religions and the\nreligion of Mani is at the level of a dark equivalent to God. The\nAbrahamist religions all posit the existence of completely evil things\nwhich exist as mirrors to good things less than God. Calling \"Good Adam,\nBad Lilith\" \"Manichaen\" seems to me a misunderstaning of both the\nAbrahamist religions and Mani's religion, since it ascribes a common\npractice of the former group to being solely the province of the latter. " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Ok, I see your point. My only disagreement is that Christians in the\ntradition of Augustine and Aquinas would deny that Lilith or Satan could\nbe \"completely evil\" (nor Adam \"completely good\"), which is what set me\noff. I agree that \"Good Adam, Bad Lilith\" is not necessarily Manachaen,\nif you don't read it in the \"completely good vs. completely evil\" sense.\n\n-Rostrum" } ] } ] }