Subject: (urth) Typhon's vanity and Pas's Two Heads

From: Michael Andre-Driussi <mantis at siriusfiction.com>
Date: Fri, 08 Nov 2002 21:20:28 +0000

I dunno, Roy, but it seems to me that the same vanity of Typhon would make
him more inclined to create a two-headed Pas.

(I guess this is one of those "It isn't a bug, it is a feature!" answers.)

We know that Typhon planned to be one-headed asap.

We know that Typhon had the mountain carved in the shape of his one-headed
form.

We sense, iirc, that Typhon's two-headed phase was something of a secret,
something that was disturbing to those who knew and guarded from the bulk
of the population.

So it seems easy to imagine Typhon saying, "Yeah, watch this: I'll make
them all worship this transitional, inferior form of me!"

That is to say, the Mountain and other things that remain in the solar
system are more important to Typhon than the Whorl.  The only important
thing about the Whorl is that Typhon had the power and prestige to send it
out -- it is kind of like a potlatch, in that sense.

It seems to me that a scan of one-headed Typhon might actually threaten
Typhon's sense of self: if we get beyond simple narcissism, I think we can
agree Typhon is not narcissistic, and if he met a true equal he would react
in a kill or be killed sort of way.  Because Typhon w/ two heads is a
transitional stage, and Typhon fully expects to be much bigger and better
in the near future, Typhon would make Pas as a two-headed god.

(As for Typhon's self-stimulation in audience with Severian, Greg Feeley
first pointed out many years past that this scene is rather close to a
Satanic scene in James Blish's BLACK EASTER.  FWIW.)

=mantis=

Sirius Fiction
booklets on Gene Wolfe, John Crowley
hurt books eBay auction coming soon
http://www.siriusfiction.com/

--

---

From: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <ddanehy at siebel.com>
Date: Fri, 08 Nov 2002 22:32:13 +0000

> (I guess this is one of those "It isn't a bug, it is a 

Well, yeah ... and I think we can also take it that Mr
Wolfe's reasons for Pas being two-headed might be quite 
different from Typhon's reasons for making Pas two-headed 
... that is, that Mr Wolfe has his emotional/thematic/
symbolic/etc. reasons for a two-headed Pas. Given this, 
Typhon's reasons (presuming that Mr Wolfe bothered to 
work them out; I don't recollect anything in the text 
that would really indicate that he did) might be nothing 
more than after-the-fact rationalizations ... on Mr 
Wolfe's part, certainly, and even more so on ours.

In fact, I wonder if we're playing the old  game of 
taking the 'reality' and 'consistency' of the fictional 
world waaay too seriously ... in other words ... acting 
like a bunch of fanboys (I'd say "and girls," but in 
fact I don't think any* of the fems on the list have 
jumped in on this topic).

-----
* Or should that be "either"?)
-----

> The only important thing about the Whorl is that Typhon had 
> the power and prestige to send it out -- it is kind of like a 
> potlatch, in that sense.

Yeah. I think it was important to him as an act of 
defiance of the Hierodules. Urth had just been 
quarantined; I envision Typhon muttering, "quarantine
_this_ assholes..." -- which also helps explain why 
it was important that he, personally (in some form) 
be present on the _Whorl_. "You won't quarantine _me_,
suckers!"

> simple narcissism, I think we can agree Typhon is not 
> narcissistic, 

... no, I don't think we can. The mountain says he is.

> (As for Typhon's self-stimulation in audience with Severian, 
> Greg Feeley first pointed out many years past that this scene 
> is rather close to a Satanic scene in James Blish's BLACK 
> EASTER.  FWIW.)

Ditto several scenes of the character known only as "the 
demon" in Arthur Byron Cover's AUTUMN ANGELS. This is a 
pretty common habit among (literary) demons. It probably
symbolizes the sterility of their acts, blablablah.

--

---

From: Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net>
Date: Sat, 09 Nov 2002 05:20:18 +0000

>(I guess this is one of those "It isn't a bug, it is a feature!" answers.)

It's a bug!!

>something that was disturbing to those who knew and guarded from the bulk

Yes, and that's the problem! "The face--the face!", as he put it. "The face
would be lost, and it is the face that men are accustomed to obey!" To his
way of thinking, he couldn't afford to be seen as a freak with a second
head, a second head that looked like, as Sev put it, "a species of idiot".
That's why he stayed behind the curtain on the mountain. With the peasants
in open rebellion, he had all the more reason to avoid the public eye; with
his authority already challenged, he couldn't afford to undermine it further
by being seen with an idiotic second head on his shoulders.

I suppose it has to do with why he wanted the _Whorl_ built in the first
place. Typhon didn't have an altruistic bone in Piaton's body. He didn't
send the ship out to ensure the survival of all-things-that-had-been-Urth
lest the ice-future foreshadowed by the dying sun should snuff it all out.
Mankind was long ago seeded all over the galaxy, and beyond. Typhon knew
that; he didn't even come from Urth, himself. So why *did* he want the ship
built, especially if he never intended to be aboard himself?

As a colossal monument to his own ego is the only reason I can see, just
like the carved mountain. Typhon planned to live forever, if he could, by
any means he could find. If he could've pulled off his dream of a Second
Empire to rival the First, it would've massaged his ego to someday travel to
a planet or two where he was worshiped as a god. Blue and Green turned out
(whether by accident or design) to be those planets. The decades of delay
while the ship orbited the new short sun were not part of the original plan.
The rebellion by his family screwed up his plan. Had things gone as planned,
I suspect, the gods of Mainframe would have followed the cargo to the new
worlds. Typhon would have been top god from day one. If he showed up someday
from the heavens, the god in Mainframe come as flesh, he had better look
like the image the people were used to seeing in the Sacred Windows and art.
"The face--the face!"

So, it all comes back to one question: did Typhon, when he decided to build
the _Whorl_ and set himself and his family up as gods in it, do so with one
head and one face in mind, or with two?

I think the answer is one. Unforeseen circumstances forced him to act in
haste. He couldn't rid himself of Piaton when the time came for him to be
scanned. It may even be, as Nutria suggested, that Piaton's presence was a
mitigating factor in the mellowing of Typhon into Pas.

-Roy

--

---

From: Joe Cilluffo <cilluff1 at optonline.net>
Date: Sat, 09 Nov 2002 14:25:30 +0000

Roy wrote:

<>

That is an interesting take on it, Roy.  I can't say I disagree with
you, but I'll offer my take on it fwiw (and without any promises that it
is worth much : ) ).  As we know from the descriptions of what Typon and
his children actually looked like vs. what they portrayed themselves as
to the populace of the Whorl, they more or less could portray themselves
however they wanted. Tartaros moderates this a bit by telling Auk that
he is invisible because each of them deified appears incarnate to
citizens of the Whorl in a form matching his or her conception of what
they should look like.  Kypris is preternaturally beautiful (although
I'm sure she was attractive if Typhon scanned her into Mainframe)
because she conceives of herself as such.  Tartaros, being born blind,
takes on no physical form whatsoever because he has no mental conception
of what he should look like. 

Coming to Typon/Pas, so, why the two heads?  I guess on a metaphysical
level we could say that Typhon conceives of himself as the Typhon/Piaton
hybrid, perhaps because he has had Piaton hanging around for so long
ungraciously refusing to die that he can't conceive of his own
appearance sans Piaton.  However, I don't quite buy this, because of
course the Pas that Whorlizens know doesn't have a species of idiot for
a second head but a more robust and strong Piaton.  Psychologically
perhaps Typhon has a split in his personality, two strongly competing
streaks within himself.  Or perhaps during the scanning-in phase a
little of Piaton sneaked in (as someone, Alga I think, speculated).

Ultimately, though, and this may sound like an easy answer (Occam's
Razor again!), I think that Typhon probably simply thought the
two-headed monster looked cool and appropriately "father of the
gods"-like.  : )  I look to Scylla for support here, and for the
purposes of the gods in Mainframe really is.  Scylla is portrayed as
having many arms -- Why, when obviously she didn't on Urth.  So, why?
There is the Hindu symbolism of it, but I doubt she would know enough
about Hinduism to choose this appearance for such reasons (although of
course GW knows enough to choose it for her, but GW's purposes vs. the
gods' purposes is a different story).  IMHO, we know from the
description of her personality that she is a ruthless and power seeking
person, and she looked at the whole god-thing as an opportunity to
dominate her worshippers.  She choose an appropriately "more than human"
impressive appearance for herself to cow her worshippers.  If I'm not
mistaken, too, she was described as being equally ruthless as her pop,
who, similarly, choose the awe-inspiring dual-headed bodybuilder look
for himself.  

Although on Urth "the face" is all-important, on the Whorl (or Blue,
etc.) that looses its significance because Pas is stuck in Mainframe.
Pas may be his "scanned-on" digital self, but this digital version is
just a copy of Typhon, it's not Typhon himself even if it has all the
mental characteristics of him.  We are told they can copy their
Mainframe selves again and again and even put the pieces of themselves
back together (as the resurrected Pas is to do).  If Pas or any other
god ever is to leave Mainframe, to take physical form he has to possess
someone, like Scylla and Chenille.  So it doesn't matter what they make
their godself look like to Whorlizens, because the Whorlizens will never
see "the face" in the flesh again.  If they get to Blue and Pas wants to
leave Mainframe, he has to possess someone to do it, so it doesn't
matter if Typhon at that point would have one head or two, because the
person Pas possess won't look like either version anyway.  I think this
gets us to who exactly Pas and Family are and why they are there --
IMHO, they are not Typhon and family fleeing Urth.  Typhon and family
live on on Urth -- he tells Sev he didn't have time to board one of the
ships leaving Urth.  Pas and family are just digital selves of Thyphon
and family put there to keep the Whorlizens from killing themselves
until they reach Blue -- that was Typhon's plan (the Plan of Pas) in
setting up the physical settings of the cities and how many soldiers
each got, etc., and the gods are there (in Typhon/Pas' mind, at least)
merely to oversee and make sure nothing goes awry, much like the Fliers.
Because of this, it doesn't matter to Typhon whether Pas will look like
him when he manages to kill off Piaton, especially because they will
have to look different if they're going to leave Mainframe and take on
physical form anyway.  Typhon simply chooses a form for Pas most
suitable in his opinion to his plan, the supra-human two-headed
bodybuilder. 

That's my two cents on it anyway.

- Joe    

--

---

From: Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net>
Date: Sat, 09 Nov 2002 19:48:32 +0000

Joe wrote:
[snip]
>>I look to Scylla for support here, and for the
purposes of the gods in Mainframe really is.  Scylla is portrayed as
having many arms -- Why, when obviously she didn't on Urth.  So, why?<<
[snip]

Typhon's first-born child, Cilinia, didn't have many arms, true. But there
is some connection between her and the Mother on Blue. At any rate, she was
a girl who had been scanned when she was near the age of puberty (WHORL,
347). The kids were all presumably scanned at about the same time so, as the
eldest of seven, she must have been about the age of 12, which means that
the youngest couldn't have been much more than about 6 years old, even if
they were stair-step children. (This rapid-fire reproduction may have
something to do with Echidna's aversion to things sexual on the _Whorl_.) It
puts a different perspective on reading the LS books when you realize seven
of the nine gods in Mainframe were just scans of little kids, doesn't it?
This is getting away from my point, but someone asked recently about when
Typhon's children were scanned.

[snip]
>>I think this
merely to oversee and make sure nothing goes awry, much like the Fliers.<<
[snip]

Yes, this does get back to my repeated, but unanswered, question: Why did
Typhon decide to build and launch the _Whorl_ in the first place? I have
suggested it was just a sop to his monumental ego, for reasons given in an
earlier post. Does anyone have a better answer?

-Roy

--

---

From: matthew.malthouse <matthew.malthouse at guardian.co.uk>
Date: Mon, 11 Nov 2002 13:30:06 +0000

>mitigating factor in the mellowing of Typhon into Pas.

It's certainly one with a certain degree of plausibility.  However
remember that Paiton hated Typhon for what had been done to him.  The
stronger Piaton's influence the less I would expect "The Plan" to figure
in Pas' prorities.

Further there has been rebellion in Mainframe.  Other influences are
possible, perhaps even probable, but without clues we're left in the dark.

Matthew

--