{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/3624",
    "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": 3624,
    "subject": "Typhon, Quetzal, Scylla Hypothesis",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "2002-11-27T21:36:58+00:00",
    "last": "2002-11-27T21:36:58+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0211-2286@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "James Jordan",
        "address": "jbjordan4 at cox.net"
      },
      "date": "2002-11-27T21:36:58+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Typhon, Quetzal, Scylla Hypothesis",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "At 02:10 PM 11/27/2002, you wrote:\nCrush responds:\nIt's all quite moot with Charles' recent post, but still nicely done. Still,\nyour suggestion has two problems:\n\n(1) Remora is one of the \"slaves of Scylla\" in this chapter and he's very\nun-inhumi-like."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "         Well, he serves Quetzal, even if he's a better man. So on my \nmooted paradigm, he's also be a slave of Scylla if Quetzal is one. On my \nparadigm, neither Remora nor Quetzal would WANT to be a slave of Scylla. \nRemora would want to make an exodus from Whorl and Scylla to a \"Christian\" \nBlue, while Quetzal would want to escape Whorl and Scylla to a hellish Green."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "(2) Scylla is not a serpent in mythology, etymology, association, nor on the\nWhorl. Echidna is the serpentine goddess."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "         Okay. It's been a while since I read the books, and I've become \nconfused about these big-babe goddesses. But IIRC Scylla is Mother, and was \nclose enough to Typhon for Typhon's daughter to get linked up with her \nUrth-manifestation. (Am I right here?)\n         If that much is right, then at least my hypothesis that Scylla was \ninvolved in building Starcrosser might be of some value, and that the \nallegory might mean Starcrosser is her tree.\n         If not, I'm satisfied that Quetzal is just referring back to the \noriginal Biblical story. I notice the reference to permanent exile from the \ngarden in Quetzal's version, and I don't know how to link that with the \nevents of the novel itself. I.e., if Urth is the garden, then the exile \nwould not be permanent, since Narrator & Co. do go back and visit there.\n         Perhaps the safest, if more humdrum, way to read it is that \nQuetzal refers back to the original Garden story, and then sees the tree \nthat he himself has planted as Green, a tree he as snake hopes to lure \nhumanity up into. In that case, the Garden story has no allegorical \nreference to the whorl. Rather, Quetzal is simply identifying with the \nUr-serpent, in the way perhaps that Silk is an extension of Christ the \nRedeemer. Humanity is spiritually \"up a tree,\" and Quetzal thinks of Green \nas an extension of that ur-tree, and himself as an extension of the \noriginal serpent.\n         Still, I kind of like your suggestion in the main. Wolfe is \nmany-layered, and some allusion to the building of the Whorl seems likely \nto me. And since Quetzal is not the original serpent, then how about \nScylla? Well, that suggestion may founder on your point that Scylla is not \nassociated with serpents elsewhere. Typhon might be the serpent who lured \n(forced in his case) the people up into the Whorl-tree. Scylla might be his \nassistant.\n         How about Scylla as Lilith? Wolfe recently put out a story about \nLilith, so she's been in his mind. (I don't recall the title.) Scylla as \n\"Mother\" might be a Lilith figure, with Lilith as the original and evil \n\"mother\" replaced by Eve.\n         Does this work? You tell me. Try it on:\n         1. Original serpent + spiritual-daughter Lilith lure humanity up \nthe original (spiritual-symbolic) tree.\n         2. Typhon + daughter-associated Scylla replay that event, putting \npeople on Whorl.\n         3. Quetzal (+ ?) intends to replay it again, putting people on Green.\n\nJust grist for the mill. Any thoughts?\n\nNutria"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}