{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/3552", "note": "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.", "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'" }, "archive": "urth", "thread": { "id": 3552, "subject": "Typhon's vanity and Pas's Two Heads", "messages": 6, "voices": 5, "first": "2002-11-08T21:20:28+00:00", "last": "2002-11-11T13:30:06+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Michael Andre-Driussi", "address": "mantis at siriusfiction.com" }, "date": "2002-11-08T21:20:28+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Typhon's vanity and Pas's Two Heads", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I dunno, Roy, but it seems to me that the same vanity of Typhon would make\nhim more inclined to create a two-headed Pas.\n\n(I guess this is one of those \"It isn't a bug, it is a feature!\" answers.)\n\nWe know that Typhon planned to be one-headed asap.\n\nWe know that Typhon had the mountain carved in the shape of his one-headed\nform.\n\nWe sense, iirc, that Typhon's two-headed phase was something of a secret,\nsomething that was disturbing to those who knew and guarded from the bulk\nof the population.\n\nSo it seems easy to imagine Typhon saying, \"Yeah, watch this: I'll make\nthem all worship this transitional, inferior form of me!\"\n\nThat is to say, the Mountain and other things that remain in the solar\nsystem are more important to Typhon than the Whorl. The only important\nthing about the Whorl is that Typhon had the power and prestige to send it\nout -- it is kind of like a potlatch, in that sense.\n\nIt seems to me that a scan of one-headed Typhon might actually threaten\nTyphon's sense of self: if we get beyond simple narcissism, I think we can\nagree Typhon is not narcissistic, and if he met a true equal he would react\nin a kill or be killed sort of way. Because Typhon w/ two heads is a\ntransitional stage, and Typhon fully expects to be much bigger and better\nin the near future, Typhon would make Pas as a two-headed god.\n\n(As for Typhon's self-stimulation in audience with Severian, Greg Feeley\nfirst pointed out many years past that this scene is rather close to a\nSatanic scene in James Blish's BLACK EASTER. FWIW.)\n\n=mantis=\n\n\nSirius Fiction\nbooklets on Gene Wolfe, John Crowley\nhurt books eBay auction coming soon\nhttp://www.siriusfiction.com/" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes", "address": "ddanehy at siebel.com" }, "date": "2002-11-08T22:32:13+00:00", "subject": "RE: (urth) Typhon's vanity and Pas's Two Heads", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "(I guess this is one of those \"It isn't a bug, it is a \nfeature!\" answers.)" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Well, yeah ... and I think we can also take it that Mr\nWolfe's reasons for Pas being two-headed might be quite \ndifferent from Typhon's reasons for making Pas two-headed \n... that is, that Mr Wolfe has his emotional/thematic/\nsymbolic/etc. reasons for a two-headed Pas. Given this, \nTyphon's reasons (presuming that Mr Wolfe bothered to \nwork them out; I don't recollect anything in the text \nthat would really indicate that he did) might be nothing \nmore than after-the-fact rationalizations ... on Mr \nWolfe's part, certainly, and even more so on ours.\n\nIn fact, I wonder if we're playing the old game of \ntaking the 'reality' and 'consistency' of the fictional \nworld waaay too seriously ... in other words ... acting \nlike a bunch of fanboys (I'd say \"and girls,\" but in \nfact I don't think any* of the fems on the list have \njumped in on this topic).\n\n-----\n* Or should that be \"either\"?)\n-----" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "The only important thing about the Whorl is that Typhon had \nthe power and prestige to send it out -- it is kind of like a \npotlatch, in that sense." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Yeah. I think it was important to him as an act of \ndefiance of the Hierodules. Urth had just been \nquarantined; I envision Typhon muttering, \"quarantine\n_this_ assholes...\" -- which also helps explain why \nit was important that he, personally (in some form) \nbe present on the _Whorl_. \"You won't quarantine _me_,\nsuckers!\"" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "simple narcissism, I think we can agree Typhon is not \nnarcissistic, " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "... no, I don't think we can. The mountain says he is." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "(As for Typhon's self-stimulation in audience with Severian, \nGreg Feeley first pointed out many years past that this scene \nis rather close to a Satanic scene in James Blish's BLACK \nEASTER. FWIW.)" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Ditto several scenes of the character known only as \"the \ndemon\" in Arthur Byron Cover's AUTUMN ANGELS. This is a \npretty common habit among (literary) demons. It probably\nsymbolizes the sterility of their acts, blablablah." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Roy C. Lackey", "address": "rclackey at stic.net" }, "date": "2002-11-09T05:20:18+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Typhon's vanity and Pas's Two Heads", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "mantis wrote:\nI dunno, Roy, but it seems to me that the same vanity of Typhon would make\nhim more inclined to create a two-headed Pas.\n\n(I guess this is one of those \"It isn't a bug, it is a feature!\" answers.)" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "It's a bug!!" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "We know that Typhon planned to be one-headed asap.\n\nWe know that Typhon had the mountain carved in the shape of his one-headed\nform.\n\nWe sense, iirc, that Typhon's two-headed phase was something of a secret,\nsomething that was disturbing to those who knew and guarded from the bulk\nof the population." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Yes, and that's the problem! \"The face--the face!\", as he put it. \"The face\nwould be lost, and it is the face that men are accustomed to obey!\" To his\nway of thinking, he couldn't afford to be seen as a freak with a second\nhead, a second head that looked like, as Sev put it, \"a species of idiot\".\nThat's why he stayed behind the curtain on the mountain. With the peasants\nin open rebellion, he had all the more reason to avoid the public eye; with\nhis authority already challenged, he couldn't afford to undermine it further\nby being seen with an idiotic second head on his shoulders.\n\nI suppose it has to do with why he wanted the _Whorl_ built in the first\nplace. Typhon didn't have an altruistic bone in Piaton's body. He didn't\nsend the ship out to ensure the survival of all-things-that-had-been-Urth\nlest the ice-future foreshadowed by the dying sun should snuff it all out.\nMankind was long ago seeded all over the galaxy, and beyond. Typhon knew\nthat; he didn't even come from Urth, himself. So why *did* he want the ship\nbuilt, especially if he never intended to be aboard himself?\n\nAs a colossal monument to his own ego is the only reason I can see, just\nlike the carved mountain. Typhon planned to live forever, if he could, by\nany means he could find. If he could've pulled off his dream of a Second\nEmpire to rival the First, it would've massaged his ego to someday travel to\na planet or two where he was worshiped as a god. Blue and Green turned out\n(whether by accident or design) to be those planets. The decades of delay\nwhile the ship orbited the new short sun were not part of the original plan.\nThe rebellion by his family screwed up his plan. Had things gone as planned,\nI suspect, the gods of Mainframe would have followed the cargo to the new\nworlds. Typhon would have been top god from day one. If he showed up someday\nfrom the heavens, the god in Mainframe come as flesh, he had better look\nlike the image the people were used to seeing in the Sacred Windows and art.\n\"The face--the face!\"\n\nSo, it all comes back to one question: did Typhon, when he decided to build\nthe _Whorl_ and set himself and his family up as gods in it, do so with one\nhead and one face in mind, or with two?\n\nI think the answer is one. Unforeseen circumstances forced him to act in\nhaste. He couldn't rid himself of Piaton when the time came for him to be\nscanned. It may even be, as Nutria suggested, that Piaton's presence was a\nmitigating factor in the mellowing of Typhon into Pas.\n\n-Roy" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Joe Cilluffo", "address": "cilluff1 at optonline.net" }, "date": "2002-11-09T14:25:30+00:00", "subject": "RE: (urth) Typhon's vanity and Pas's Two Heads", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Roy wrote:\n\n<>\n\nThat is an interesting take on it, Roy. I can't say I disagree with\nyou, but I'll offer my take on it fwiw (and without any promises that it\nis worth much : ) ). As we know from the descriptions of what Typon and\nhis children actually looked like vs. what they portrayed themselves as\nto the populace of the Whorl, they more or less could portray themselves\nhowever they wanted. Tartaros moderates this a bit by telling Auk that\nhe is invisible because each of them deified appears incarnate to\ncitizens of the Whorl in a form matching his or her conception of what\nthey should look like. Kypris is preternaturally beautiful (although\nI'm sure she was attractive if Typhon scanned her into Mainframe)\nbecause she conceives of herself as such. Tartaros, being born blind,\ntakes on no physical form whatsoever because he has no mental conception\nof what he should look like. \n\nComing to Typon/Pas, so, why the two heads? I guess on a metaphysical\nlevel we could say that Typhon conceives of himself as the Typhon/Piaton\nhybrid, perhaps because he has had Piaton hanging around for so long\nungraciously refusing to die that he can't conceive of his own\nappearance sans Piaton. However, I don't quite buy this, because of\ncourse the Pas that Whorlizens know doesn't have a species of idiot for\na second head but a more robust and strong Piaton. Psychologically\nperhaps Typhon has a split in his personality, two strongly competing\nstreaks within himself. Or perhaps during the scanning-in phase a\nlittle of Piaton sneaked in (as someone, Alga I think, speculated).\n\nUltimately, though, and this may sound like an easy answer (Occam's\nRazor again!), I think that Typhon probably simply thought the\ntwo-headed monster looked cool and appropriately \"father of the\ngods\"-like. : ) I look to Scylla for support here, and for the\npurposes of the gods in Mainframe really is. Scylla is portrayed as\nhaving many arms -- Why, when obviously she didn't on Urth. So, why?\nThere is the Hindu symbolism of it, but I doubt she would know enough\nabout Hinduism to choose this appearance for such reasons (although of\ncourse GW knows enough to choose it for her, but GW's purposes vs. the\ngods' purposes is a different story). IMHO, we know from the\ndescription of her personality that she is a ruthless and power seeking\nperson, and she looked at the whole god-thing as an opportunity to\ndominate her worshippers. She choose an appropriately \"more than human\"\nimpressive appearance for herself to cow her worshippers. If I'm not\nmistaken, too, she was described as being equally ruthless as her pop,\nwho, similarly, choose the awe-inspiring dual-headed bodybuilder look\nfor himself. \n\nAlthough on Urth \"the face\" is all-important, on the Whorl (or Blue,\netc.) that looses its significance because Pas is stuck in Mainframe.\nPas may be his \"scanned-on\" digital self, but this digital version is\njust a copy of Typhon, it's not Typhon himself even if it has all the\nmental characteristics of him. We are told they can copy their\nMainframe selves again and again and even put the pieces of themselves\nback together (as the resurrected Pas is to do). If Pas or any other\ngod ever is to leave Mainframe, to take physical form he has to possess\nsomeone, like Scylla and Chenille. So it doesn't matter what they make\ntheir godself look like to Whorlizens, because the Whorlizens will never\nsee \"the face\" in the flesh again. If they get to Blue and Pas wants to\nleave Mainframe, he has to possess someone to do it, so it doesn't\nmatter if Typhon at that point would have one head or two, because the\nperson Pas possess won't look like either version anyway. I think this\ngets us to who exactly Pas and Family are and why they are there --\nIMHO, they are not Typhon and family fleeing Urth. Typhon and family\nlive on on Urth -- he tells Sev he didn't have time to board one of the\nships leaving Urth. Pas and family are just digital selves of Thyphon\nand family put there to keep the Whorlizens from killing themselves\nuntil they reach Blue -- that was Typhon's plan (the Plan of Pas) in\nsetting up the physical settings of the cities and how many soldiers\neach got, etc., and the gods are there (in Typhon/Pas' mind, at least)\nmerely to oversee and make sure nothing goes awry, much like the Fliers.\nBecause of this, it doesn't matter to Typhon whether Pas will look like\nhim when he manages to kill off Piaton, especially because they will\nhave to look different if they're going to leave Mainframe and take on\nphysical form anyway. Typhon simply chooses a form for Pas most\nsuitable in his opinion to his plan, the supra-human two-headed\nbodybuilder. \n\nThat's my two cents on it anyway.\n\n- Joe " } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Roy C. Lackey", "address": "rclackey at stic.net" }, "date": "2002-11-09T19:48:32+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Typhon's vanity and Pas's Two Heads", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Joe wrote:\n[snip]" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "I look to Scylla for support here, and for the" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "purposes of the gods in Mainframe really is. Scylla is portrayed as\nhaving many arms -- Why, when obviously she didn't on Urth. So, why?<<\n[snip]\n\nTyphon's first-born child, Cilinia, didn't have many arms, true. But there\nis some connection between her and the Mother on Blue. At any rate, she was\na girl who had been scanned when she was near the age of puberty (WHORL,\n347). The kids were all presumably scanned at about the same time so, as the\neldest of seven, she must have been about the age of 12, which means that\nthe youngest couldn't have been much more than about 6 years old, even if\nthey were stair-step children. (This rapid-fire reproduction may have\nsomething to do with Echidna's aversion to things sexual on the _Whorl_.) It\nputs a different perspective on reading the LS books when you realize seven\nof the nine gods in Mainframe were just scans of little kids, doesn't it?\nThis is getting away from my point, but someone asked recently about when\nTyphon's children were scanned.\n\n[snip]" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "I think this" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "gets us to who exactly Pas and Family are and why they are there --\nIMHO, they are not Typhon and family fleeing Urth. Typhon and family\nlive on on Urth -- he tells Sev he didn't have time to board one of the\nships leaving Urth. Pas and family are just digital selves of Thyphon\nand family put there to keep the Whorlizens from killing themselves\nuntil they reach Blue -- that was Typhon's plan (the Plan of Pas) in\nsetting up the physical settings of the cities and how many soldiers\neach got, etc., and the gods are there (in Typhon/Pas' mind, at least)\nmerely to oversee and make sure nothing goes awry, much like the Fliers.<<\n[snip]\n\nYes, this does get back to my repeated, but unanswered, question: Why did\nTyphon decide to build and launch the _Whorl_ in the first place? I have\nsuggested it was just a sop to his monumental ego, for reasons given in an\nearlier post. Does anyone have a better answer?\n\n-Roy" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "matthew.malthouse", "address": "matthew.malthouse at guardian.co.uk" }, "date": "2002-11-11T13:30:06+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Typhon's vanity and Pas's Two Heads", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 09/11/2002 05:20:18 Roy C. Lackey wrote:\nI think the answer is one. Unforeseen circumstances forced him to act in\nhaste. He couldn't rid himself of Piaton when the time came for him to be\nscanned. It may even be, as Nutria suggested, that Piaton's presence was\na\nmitigating factor in the mellowing of Typhon into Pas." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "It's certainly one with a certain degree of plausibility. However\nremember that Paiton hated Typhon for what had been done to him. The\nstronger Piaton's influence the less I would expect \"The Plan\" to figure\nin Pas' prorities.\n\nFurther there has been rebellion in Mainframe. Other influences are\npossible, perhaps even probable, but without clues we're left in the dark.\n\nMatthew" } ] } ] }