Subject: (urth) time/space - whorl purpose, Pas heads

From: maa32 <maa32 at dana.ucc.nau.edu>
Date: Tue, 12 Nov 2002 18:53:27 +0000

Roy stated that the time travelled by the Samru was accounted for by Silk 
before he returned.  I say that the DISTANCE was accounted for - he needed to 
be in the same place to reach back to where the Samru encountered the Mother; 
Silk can overcome both distance and time in his travels.  It is very difficult 
to separate distance and time, but keep in mind how the narrator goes on ad 
nauseum about the symbolic anchor - an item which keeps one in one place.

My evidence for time travel is as follows: Silk appears in the story of 
Inclito's mother.  It isn't her made up story - it's real, and Silk dreams it 
and makes it real by manifesting himself in her past.  In a way, it's kind of 
Philip K. Dickish - Silk's dreams affect the past.  Reality depends on his 
mind.  Perhaps he is a bit more of the primary observer than we at first 
believe.

Also, the real purpose of the whorl is quite simple - it is the second stage 
of (re)colonization from the stars that is heralded in with the play 
Eschatology and Genesis.  Meschia and Meschiane have come - and they are the 
new people - the people from the beginning (or at least Typhonic times) come 
to repopulate the world and do it in a shocking fashion - by becoming the 
Green Man.  Riddle me this - where do Meschia and Meschiane come from?  They 
spring from a tree.  Where do A man and Wo man go?  Up a tree, and they don't 
come down.

Typhon wants to re-establish his authority after he's gone - and the best 
reason for having two heads is because Gene Wolfe wants us to recognize Pas 
and associate him with the Typhon of Urth - Typhon's desires don't matter - 
it's an authorial tip of the hat to us, his careful readers, who would have 
recognized the double headed motiff far before Typhon's name was ever, ever 
mentioned in the text, way back when we first picked up Nightside the Long 
Sun.  That's why Pas has two heads.

Whatever your stance on Blue as Ushas, you have to admit that Horn, with the 
help of the trees, flees Silk's body at the end of On Blue's Water and leaves 
us with mostly Silk.  And it is Silk's body which has these miraculous powers 
- Horn can only travel in conjunction with the vanished gods (trees) or the 
vanished people.  (Of course, Silk carries an inhuma of his own with him at 
all times)

Marc Aramini

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From: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <ddanehy at siebel.com>
Date: Tue, 12 Nov 2002 19:57:19 +0000

Marc writes:

> Whatever your stance on Blue as Ushas, you have to admit that 
> Horn, with the help of the trees, flees Silk's body at the
> end of On Blue's Water and leaves us with mostly Silk.

Well, with the exception of the parenthetical "with the help
of the trees," that seems very likely at this point.

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From: Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net>
Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2002 07:49:34 +0000

>>My evidence for time travel is as follows: Silk appears in the story of
Inclito's mother.  It isn't her made up story - it's real, and Silk dreams
it
and makes it real by manifesting himself in her past.  In a way, it's kind
of
Philip K. Dickish - Silk's dreams affect the past.  Reality depends on his
mind.  Perhaps he is a bit more of the primary observer than we at first
believe.<<

_If_ the strego and talking bird in Salica's story are Silk and Oreb (which
seems probable), and _if_ the story is true, then a supernatural event
occurred (like Pike's ghost at the manse). It occurred before either Silk or
Oreb were even born, to people he never knew, in a place he had never been.
That is "contrary to everyday experience". Salica is a minor character, even
in IGJ. She is of no great consequence to Silk in either the LS or SS books.
Silk was not dreaming when she told her story, had never laid eyes on her
before that day, and had no reason to travel in time, even if he had the
ability, to appear to her old servant and spurned suitor. What would have
been the point? I don't know why he was in her story, but the fact that he
was doesn't constitute proof of time travel.

If Silkhorn had the ability to travel in time, he could have done many more
things with the ability that were of much more import to himself, his
friends, his causes, than what amounts to a pointless parlor trick. Like
keep Horn from falling in that pit. Avoiding all sorts of personal travails.
Keep Krait from taking a bullet. Saving Seawrack's arm, etc., etc.

IIRC, each time Silkhorn uses his dream-travel to go to the same place more
than once, each subsequent trip follows, temporally, those that had come
before, in the customary sequence of events. He never goes back to a time
before an earlier trip to change anything.

-Roy

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