# Silk's narrative ubiquity *The Urth list — 2 messages, 2 voices, 17 Feb 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 *17 Feb 2002, 17:32* Rostrum stated > I have a hard enough time believing that the Narrator recounted whole conversations to them verbatim, much less that he told them in detail about all the dreams he had in the Whorl. So I'm guessing that they made up this dream, for "literary" reasons, forshadowing Silk-in-Pig, etc. I said briefly before that I believe one of Silk's special attributes is his ability to inspire other people, who have not even met him, to write about him in a way that is true in spirit if not in letter. He can affect Fava's story, enter it, and CHANGE details as she tells it. I believe that Silk has always had this power, from the first chapters of Nightside the Long Sun, when suddenly everybody knows he's been enlightened, even if he hasn't told many people yet. Stories about Silk spread like wildfire. I believe he has the power to inspire stories that reflect the truth, and that these dreams may not have been directly related to Hoof and Hide, but that his spirit works through them to produce these texts. As I said, I asked Wolfe about this ability to influence the narrative of others, and he didn't deny it, and said that Silk would use this power for emphasis, not to hide anything in the portions he did not directly write. My opinion for the factual status of the Book of the Long Sun is that Silk actually inspired it, and that it can therefore be relied upon even if Horn's information might have been inaccurate or skewed, whereas the narrative written about Horn by Silk and Horn together can not be entirely relied upon because the auto corrective powers of Silk do not extend to Horn's life. I don't know if that helps ... I like the idea that the Book of the Long Sun parallels the conception of the gospels in that it is divinely inspired and true without suffering from the onus of literal truth (from a Catholic perspective, of course; and no offense to those who would maintain its literal truth as well -> the faults of the narrator as a fallible man could certainly creep into the narrative if it is not taken as "literal truth" without destroying the spiritual truth) It is difficult to identify exactly what makes Silk so special ... obviously, his special gift is NOT his leadership skills, or he would not have faced such political problems from his closest friends as Calde of Viron, leading to his eventual resignation and exile. Marc Aramini --- ### Michael Straight *18 Feb 2002, 12:56 · follows maa32* > On Sun, 17 Feb 2002, maa32 wrote: > I said briefly before that I believe one of Silk's special attributes > is his ability to inspire other people, who have not even met him, to > write about him in a way that is true in spirit if not in letter. I kind of like this idea; it's not much harder to swollow than Mucor's powers or the Narrator's dream travelling. But if you're saying Horn-in-Silk really did have a dream about Jahlee being his daughter and the mother of Krait, long before he'd ever dug Jahlee up from the ground in Gaon, does Horn/Silk then have prophetic dreams? Are there others? Why doesn't Horn/Silk recognize Jahlee when he digs her up? Why does Horn/Silk later seem unable to believe the idea that Jahlee was the inhuma who bit Sinew? -Rostrum ---