Subject: (urth) Pas's Two Heads

From: James Jordan <jbjordan4 at cox.net>
Date: Fri, 08 Nov 2002 15:53:38 +0000

At 11:24 PM 11/7/2002, Roy wrote:

>So, when Typhon decided to build the _Whorl_ (for whatever reason), he *did
>not* plan to have himself scanned as a two-headed god. At some point before
>the launch, events overtook him. He was forced to change his original plans
>and have himself scanned *after* he had been grafted to Piaton. (Why he
>didn't have himself poured into a custom-made, look-alike chem body, like
>Loris, and Potto, and the others, I don't know.) But, so far as I know,
>Typhon never set foot in the _Whorl_. There was *no reason* for his scanned,
>digitized personality to have been depicted as two-headed. Given Typhon's
>vanity, it doesn't make sense for it to have been done that way.
>
>The entire pantheon of Pas and his family and friends is all the more a
>travesty, some sort of sick joke, apparently. Yet the manteions in the
>pre-fabricated cities were built before the human cargo was put aboard. The
>Sacred Windows, the gods in Mainframe, all of that seems to have been
>planned from the beginning. Did Typhon's original plan call for him to be
>scanned as his one-headed self (with a new body)? Did he have time to have
>the Writings composed to reflect his two-headed godhead, create the whole
>mythology that permeates the _Whorl_? Why bother? If he wanted to play god,
>he didn't need to be two-headed to do it, and from his egocentric viewpoint,
>it wouldn't have been desirable.

Maybe. Maybe not. Janus of Rome was two-headed, and thereby ruled the past 
and the future. Typhon may well have wanted a two-headed image for Pas, so 
that he was visibly greater than other gods. Think also of the 
double-headed eagle of Russia, and similar images. We don't know that Pas's 
two heads looked like Typhon and Piaton. They may have both looked like 
Typhon. Of course, on the other hand, the reason Pas is not as bad as 
Typhon may be because the second head is Piaton's, and Piaton's nature has 
become highly influential in Pas. I don't think we have the information to 
decide about this.

Nutria

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From: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <ddanehy at siebel.com>
Date: Fri, 08 Nov 2002 18:14:59 +0000

There is nothing in the books which seems to me to suggest 
that the appearance of the Gods of Mainframe is necessarily
based upon the appearance of the bodies in which they resode 
when they were scanned -- it seems to be more a matter of 
either self-image or a chosen image. (Does Tartaros manifest 
visibly?) 

The "scan" seems to be a sort of brain-snapshot, or perhaps 
soul-snapshot. So even if it was taken when Typhon was 
grafted onto Piaton, it would only be a scan of the one 
brain.

It is not at all clear to me why Pas has two heads, but it 
seems clear that this is a choice Typhon made, either
consciously or un-. It might have some reference to the
Piaton body; it seems likely to me that he would want to 
scan himself at the last possible moment before the launch 
of the _Whorl_, to preserve as much of his self as possible.

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From: Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net>
Date: Fri, 08 Nov 2002 20:18:21 +0000

>either self-image or a chosen image. (Does Tartaros manifest

No, he doesn't.

>grafted onto Piaton, it would only be a scan of the one

Having been blind from birth, the scan of Tartaros is limited by the
biological abilities of the brain he was born with. Knowledge he acquired
after birth becomes a part of his personality, or whatever you want to call
it that gets scanned, but he can't learn to see, not even digitally, because
the requisite areas of his brain were never developed, and no amount of
computer-enhanced tinkering can change that. At least that is the essence of
what he told Auk.

I agree that Piaton's brain was unlikely to have been scanned. The only
reason Typhon kept Piaton around at all was to handle biological functions
that Typhon's brain hadn't yet learned to assume. Typhon had no body to
worry about in Mainframe, so Piaton was entirely superfluous.

As regards two-heads-being-better-than-one for inspiring or enhancing
religious awe, as Nutria suggests, I must have been born lacking that gene.
<g> A two-headed man is a freak, like a two-headed calf; the idea of
worshiping such a thing would never cross my mind. Sev's thoughts on first
seeing Typhon were:

"A man, larger than I and far broader of shoulder, stepped from between the
foot of a cataphract, and it was as though one of the monstrous
constellations of the night sky had fallen to Urth and clothed itself in the
flesh of humankind. For the man had two heads, like an ogre in some
forgotten tale in _The Wonders of Urth and Sky_.
    "Instinctively, I put my hand on the sword hilt at my shoulder."

Sev's gut reaction was not to fall to his knees, but to grab a weapon. And
the more Sev found out about him, the less he liked him. Sev may have feared
the power of the monster, but that didn't stop him from killing it, having
first refused, specifically and emphatically, to worship it.

-Roy

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From: James Jordan <jbjordan4 at cox.net>
Date: Fri, 08 Nov 2002 20:49:14 +0000

>first refused, specifically and emphatically, to worship it.

But then, why would Typhon make himself look like an ogre? My point was 
that two-headed gods are not unknown, especially in Rome, and Rome is a big 
deal for Wolfe. In the symbolism of the Whorl novels, the mainframe gods 
are like the Roman ones, the Whorl like the Roman empire, and Viron like 
Israel at the time of Jesus. So a two-headed Roman god like Janus makes 
sense. The Romans did not view Janus as an ogre, however Severian might 
have looked upon him.

FWIW

JBJordan

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