# pen case and stiff walking fellow *The Urth list — 2 messages, 2 voices, 30 Jan 2002* > 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. --- ### maa32 *30 Jan 2002, 17:33* Hey Joe. The pen case has some other odd things about it - the narrator claims he picked it up between the time he left Pig and the time he first glimpsed Olivine through the window, but in the portion directly narrated by Silk he claims he cannot have acquired it that way - yet he did. Some kind of paradox going on, and then the actual finding of the pen case is out of order in the otherwise strictly chronological third person sections of Return to the Whorl - presented in flashback while he talks to Olivine, I believe. Also, the stiff walking fellow: I think I have made a pretty good case for the narrator's staff being a primitive form of the inhumu, the evil liana branch. If you accept that trees are sentient and eating everybody and recombining with their DNA, then the staff is the parasitic embryonic inhumu sans animal consumption: it can walk in astral travel (remember the words Hoof uses to describe an epiphany? "When you realize a stick was a snake without moving". Also, the narrator spends a great deal of time talking about a walking stick that is not a walking stick when it leaves it's master, just a stick that walks. and Krait is always described as being snakelike, while Jahlee clings "liana" like. The reason that Silk can complete the astral sojourn is because he has his staff and it is a primitive inhumu, and that was it's spirit ... or so I believe, unless someone wants to make a case for colorless being fuligin and bird-like being limping. (I honestly believe my blue is ushas theory - bwa ha ha.) Actually, the better case for the presence of Severian is that some of his DNA was preserved in that immortal four armed dude that comes up from the sea in On Blue's Waters. Perhaps either the claw or Severian himself was exposed to the big trees of the island (where all that blue glass was). Wasn't there something about Severian's blood on the claw? Or was that some episode of Star Trek where the Klingon savior was cloned from blood on a blade or something? My memory has finally failed me! If you want me to clarify any of these points, feel free to ask. Marc Aramini Questions or problems: write ranjit at urth.net --- ### Michael Straight *30 Jan 2002, 18:37 · follows maa32* > On Wed, 30 Jan 2002, maa32 wrote: > Hey Joe. The pen case has some other odd things about it - the > narrator claims he picked it up between the time he left Pig and the > time he first glimpsed Olivine through the window, but in the portion > directly narrated by Silk he claims he cannot have acquired it that > way - yet he did. Some kind of paradox going on, and then the actual > finding of the pen case is out of order in the otherwise strictly > chronological third person sections of Return to the Whorl - presented > in flashback while he talks to Olivine, I believe. Since the first have of RTW is reconstructed by Hoof, Hide, et. al. from what Silk told them about what happened on the whorl, it wouldn't be surprising for them to have a few of the details in the wrong order. -Rostrum Questions or problems: write ranjit at urth.net ---