Subject: (urth) Blues vs Greens

From: Andrew Bollen <abollen at cybercityhk.com>
Date: Thu, 18 Apr 2002 08:52:39 +0000

After a few failed attempts to subscribe - Ha! Mainframe at last! Now to integrate ...

Blue and Green whorls had me thinking of Blue & Green factions in the Roman & Byzantine worlds. Originally the colors of different chariot racing teams in the circus, and by extension their fans, the "colors" became established as part of the state during the Gleichshaltungen of the later empire & early Byzantine times. Merged with the claques of the theater, the fan factions had the ceremonial function of praising the emperor during his public appearances. 

Over hundreds of years, throughout the empire, Blues & Greens would periodically erupt into factional violence against each other, causing widespread death & destruction. Modern analyses generally eschew attempts to tag class, religious or other "objective" division onto this rivalry. If you were a Blue, you supported the noble Blues against the contemptible Greens, and vice versa. Not class warfare, but soccer hooliganism, on a large, empire-wide scale, from the Emperor on downwards.
"The population in every city has for a long been divided into two groups, the Greens and the Blues ... The members of each faction fight with their opponents not knowing for what reason they risk their lives, but realizing full well that even when they vanquish their opponents in brawls, they will be carted off to prison and that, after they have suffered the most extreme tortures, they will be killed. ... Neither human nor divine affairs matter to them compared to winning these fights. When some impious act is committed by one of them against God, or when the laws and the state are injured by their comrades or opponents, or perhaps when they lack the necessities of life, or their country is suffering dire need, they ignore all this as long as events turn out well for their own "faction." For this is what they call the bands of rioters. ... And this is how things are among the people of every city." (Procopius)

Blues vs Greens to me are emblematic of the human tendency to fom divisions, for the sake of forming divisions. One of the themes of TBOTLS and TBOTSS is, I think, the problem of achieving good governance in the face of this tendency. The inhumi are an externalization and a mirror of divisiveness, which makes them stronger & will lead to the extinction of humans on the whorls, unless a solution is found.

No idea whether Wolfe intended this kind of imagery or parallel, but it's nice to think about. Taking it a little further, apart from Blues and Greens, all through this period the chariot teams included Red and White. In a way which does not seem all together clear, White was a junior partner to Blue, and Red to Green. In the extension beyond teams to fan factions, Red and White therefore did not make an appearance as separate divisions. 

But it's perhaps possible to see a reflection in Wolfe - White is the color of the Long Sun Whorl (it is described as "white" when viewd from Blue at some point), and Red is of course Urth. The pairing of Green/Urth and Whorl/Blue make some kind of sense to me: each of the former pair in desperate straits, each of the latter just needing some hard work to set right.

Finally: did Wolfe have a story years ago about an Army experiment gone wrong - a group of men isolated for a long period, splitting into two parties (Blue & Green?) and fighing each othee to the death? 

- AB

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From: Andy Robertson <andywrobertson at clara.co.uk>
Date: Thu, 18 Apr 2002 10:51:41 +0000

----- Original Message -----
From: Andrew Bollen

>> Blues vs Greens to me are emblematic of the human tendency to fom
divisions,
>> for the sake of forming divisions. One of the themes of TBOTLS and TBOTSS
is,
>> I think, the problem of achieving good governance in the face of this
tendency.
>> The inhumi are an externalization and a mirror of divisiveness, which
makes
>> them stronger & will lead to the extinction of humans on the whorls,
unless a
>> solution is found.

Very interesting post indeed.

One point, which does not exactly contradict what you say, but supplements
it;   Wolfe is strongly pro "divisions" in humanity.   He is distinctly
anti-Universalist.

That this is one of the fundamental messages of the books.

In TBOTNS his pattern for a Universalist society are the Asciians, where
communism and socialism have indeed removed all human racial and class
"divisions".

The Commonwealth, contrasted to this, is apparently divided and weak, but in
fact alive and strong, because it consists of organic tribal and racial
communities, not an anomymous mass of cannon fodder.

    hartshorn

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From: Andrew Bollen <abollen at cybercityhk.com>
Date: Thu, 18 Apr 2002 10:58:24 +0000

> it;   Wolfe is strongly pro "divisions" in humanity.   He is distinctly

You're right, of course. I mean "factions", subgroups warring for no reason
other than factionality, rather than substantive "divisions" such as, say,
Good vs Bad. Wolfe sure ain't Ghandi!

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From: Michael Straight <straight at email.unc.edu>
Date: Thu, 18 Apr 2002 13:26:53 +0000

On Thu, 18 Apr 2002, Andrew Bollen wrote:

> Blue and Green whorls had me thinking of Blue & Green factions in the
> Roman & Byzantine worlds.

Wow.  How is it I've never heard of this?  What years would this be?
Extremely fascinating!

> Finally: did Wolfe have a story years ago about an Army experiment
> gone wrong - a group of men isolated for a long period, splitting into
> two parties (Blue & Green?) and fighing each othee to the death?

You're thinking of "When I Was Ming the Merciless."  I believe that in the
story there were four colors--Yellow, Blue, Green, and Red--and that the
color divisions were an original part of the experiment.  "Ming" was, I
think, part of the Yellow group.

-Rostrum

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From: James Jordan <jbjordan4 at cox.net>
Date: Thu, 18 Apr 2002 13:50:33 +0000

> > Roman & Byzantine worlds.

Given Wolfe's research into Byzantium for the Severian Quintet, surely he 
knew all about this. Thus, you may well be onto something. OTOH, planet 
with vegetation and water on them will look either bluish or greenish from 
space, and one would think that is the primary source of the terminology.

Nutria

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From: Andrew Bollen <abollen at cybercityhk.com>
Date: Thu, 18 Apr 2002 14:54:13 +0000

----- Original Message -----
From: "Michael Straight" <straight at email.unc.edu>
> Wow.  How is it I've never heard of this?  What years would this be?

The team colors went back as early as anyone discover in Roman
(pre-Imperial) history. The factions became an important  factor (so to
speak) around the 5th century, and continued to be a problem for several
hundred years. The most notorious incident involving the factions was the
Nika Riot in Justinian's reign - a general pillaging of Constantinople, many
deaths. This is a link to a (probably) verbatim transcript of a dispute
between representatives of the Greens & Blues before Justinian in the circus
(or theater?), possibly at the commencement of the riots, tho others say it
should be dated earlier.

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/theophanes-chron1.html

IMO it's one of the most bizarre historical documents out there.

> think, part of the Yellow group.
Thanks!

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From: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <ddanehy at siebel.com>
Date: Thu, 18 Apr 2002 16:02:23 +0000

Andrew (Welcome!) Bollen wrote:

> Blue and Green whorls had me thinking of Blue & Green factions in
> the Roman & Byzantine worlds....

(etc.)

Omigod. It's the Drazi.

"Green!"
"Purple!"
"Green!"
"Purple!"

(H'mmmm... "Truth is a three-edged sword" sounds very 
Lupine, doesn't it?)

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From: Michael Andre-Driussi <mantis at siriusfiction.com>
Date: Thu, 18 Apr 2002 16:20:11 +0000

Welcome aboard, Andrew Bollen.

On the topic of Blue and Green factions . . .

About ten or twelve years ago I asked Gene Wolfe whether there were
Blue/Green style factions in Nessus, in the armiger quarters to the north.
I asked this because as Severian walked up that way he saw people wearing
silks, and the colors were red and yellow, iirc.  This was a sudden riot of
color.  The bringing up of silk had as much connection to Byzantium as the
suggestion of color factions.

In response, Gene Wolfe told me that no, they were not factions; and he did
not have an opinion as to whether the autarch's government had a monopoly
on silk or not.

=mantis=

SIRIUS FICTION
booklets on Gene Wolfe, John Crowley
36 Lexicons left until OP!
http://www.siriusfiction.com/

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