Subject: (urth) ancient city

From: maa32 <maa32 at dana.ucc.nau.edu>
Date: Tue, 19 Mar 2002 03:01:22 +0000

to one of my comments about the vanished people on green,I was answered:
"? When Horn first met the Neighbors, and they formally turned over
possession of Blue to him as representative of all the people, the Neighbor
who called himself Horn said, in the course of asking permission to visit
Blue at will: "From this whorl we sprang." (OBW, 271)"
I am referring to the statement in In Green's Jungles that tells of how the 
city of the Vanished People there was far older than anything on Blue.  Of 
course those neighbors "sprang" up from Blue: they were produced just then 
when Horn fell in the pit on Blue.  On the other hand, the terraformed trees 
did orginally spring up on Urth before being transplanted to Lune, I suppose 
... they just evolved further there.  (obviously, the older cities are 
underwater on Blue so the narrator doesn't really know about them)

As far as Babbie looking completely like Horn in the astral travel: Silk 
looked like a combination of Horn and Silk at certain points.  I argue that a 
huge portion of Horn transfrerred into Babbie at the end of On Blue's Waters, 
but not QUITE all of him. Of course he looks like Babbie, too, but he is 
humanoid (note that he is far more humanoid that Scylla in Oreb).

Also, if we want to talk a little bit more about time travel in these books, 
there is a fascinating conversation between Seawrack and the narrator in On 
Blue's Waters in which she says she can move events from one time in her 
memory to another as she recounts her story; she then says the narrator can do 
that, too.  I was a bit baffled by that - could it be related to a 
time-traversing principle?  After all, "certain mystes" aver that the real 
world exists only in the human mind, and that our dreams are someone else's 
reality.  (Severian as dream of Silk?)

Some good responses to my challenge ... but I'm just not buying the actual 
presence of God and his angels as a valid explanation for a lot of those 
things.  That's a bit too pat, isn't it?  It just doesn't seem like Gene to 
blatantly put them into such a huge role unseen ... why would God manifest 
himself to Silk again after his first enlightenment, which occured outside of 
time and has since stayed with Silk? and how could that be logically 
determined from the text?  
Also, some simple shrimp release their gametes into the water and actually 
form a allopolyploid viable life cycle for a short span, then become haploid 
again to mature. (let me look this up again and see if I can find a source for 
you). Maybe the inhumu are like simple shrimp ... but they do, in fact make a 
point of gathering those vines as symbols of something ... and perhaps that 
something is the hope of leaving behind their vegetative and animal pasts and 
becoming true humans.

And as far as the secret goes, I still argue that its importance lies in its 
ability to incorporate mystical genetic material into offspring in one 
generation: the parents are not the ones who receive the beneficial properties 
of the blood, but their offspring do.  I still argue for a hybrid 
understanding of the secret.

Nice point about Scylla - I guess Cillinia was already in the thrall of the 
sea creature when she was downloaded.

Marc Aramini

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From: Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net>
Date: Tue, 19 Mar 2002 07:19:50 +0000

Marc quoted me:
-------------------

-----------------
city of the Vanished People there was far older than anything on Blue.  Of
course those neighbors "sprang" up from Blue: they were produced just then
when Horn fell in the pit on Blue.<<

I guess I should have quoted the whole paragraph:

"From this whorl we sprang. You spoke of a hundred years, and of a thousand.
There are rocks and rivers, trees and islands here that have been famous
among us for many thousands of years. This is one such place. I ask you
again, may we visit it, and the others?"

The Neighbors _did not_ spring into existence when Horn fell into the Pit.
They abandoned Blue for, er . . . greener pastures, many thousands of years
earlier.

there is a fascinating conversation between Seawrack and the narrator in On
Blue's Waters in which she says she can move events from one time in her
memory to another as she recounts her story; she then says the narrator can
do
that, too.  I was a bit baffled by that - could it be related to a
time-traversing principle?  After all, "certain mystes" aver that the real
world exists only in the human mind, and that our dreams are someone else's
reality.  (Severian as dream of Silk?)<<

I just finished reading OBW again, and recall no such conversation. Have you
a source? I think you may have meant Seawrack's comments about trying to
forget her life under the sea before she met Horn (OBW, 249):
------------------
    "Not what you think. I was trying to forget the water, and everything I
did in it. Every time I remembered something that happened there, I would
think of something that's happened since I've been with you, some little
thing or something you said, and put it there instead."
    "Can you do that?" I was incredulous, as I still am.
    "Yes!" she said fiercely. "So could you."
-------------------

There's nothing there about time travel.

-Roy

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From: Michael Straight <straight at email.unc.edu>
Date: Tue, 19 Mar 2002 13:05:58 +0000

This is probably forshadowing Silk trying to replace his own painful
memories with those of Horn's.

-Rostrum

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From: Jerry Friedman <jerry_friedman at yahoo.com>
Date: Wed, 20 Mar 2002 23:28:06 +0000

--- maa32 <maa32 at dana.ucc.nau.edu> wrote:
...

> humanoid (note that he is far more humanoid that Scylla in Oreb).

Humanoid is one thing, but why doesn't he at least *resemble* Horn?

Maybe he just likes Hoof because he likes Silkhorn and understands that
Hoof is SH's son in some sense.

> reality.  (Severian as dream of Silk?)

I took this as moving memories from one "slot" to another but not
changing the "time stamps" on the memories.
 
> time and has since stayed with Silk?

Because (from the Catholic point of view) this is the reinstitution of
the real Eucharist and the narrator is in the "real presence" of God.
He says so.  Some saints and angels might want to be spectators.  I
wouldn't bring them up for the interpretation of a lesser event.

> and how could that be logically determined from the text?  

I don't see that it can, but it's the most sensible explanation that
I've seen.

> something is the hope of leaving behind their vegetative and animal

I think that's true.  They're building houses like ours.

> understanding of the secret.

I can see there's a thematic relationship:  the "hybridization" of
the inhumi and the people whose blood they drink gives "better"
inhumi; cross-pollinating pure strains of corn gives better corn;
Horn's spirit in Silk's body gives a truly good person who is not
(so) depressed and is comptetent on Blue.

> sea creature when she was downloaded.

Very charitable of you--something like that is what I should have
meant, but not what I did mean.  I was forgetting about the difference
between Cilinia and the real Scylla on Earth.

Jerry Friedman

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