{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/3739", "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": 3739, "subject": "Mother/Seawrack/Hyacinth", "messages": 2, "voices": 2, "first": "2003-01-03T07:27:48+00:00", "last": "2003-01-03T13:24:08+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Andrew Bollen", "address": "abollen at internode.on.net" }, "date": "2003-01-03T07:27:48+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Mother/Seawrack/Hyacinth", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "James Jordan had this to say in a post a year ago:\n\n\"Wolfe expressed to me that Mother Goddess worship is the essence of\npaganism. Those weren't his words, but the gist of our conversation. [...]\nPhilosophically,\nMother Goddess worship is simply pantheism in action: the universe as\nMother Earth is the ultimate thing in existence, so that violence and\n\"evil\" are as \"natural\" as peace and goodness. The true God is the Outsider,\nthe Creature of nature. From Wolfe's standpoint, Mother Earth is created by\nFather God, and because of human sin, is fallen. Mother has her role, but as\na creature of Father. Sin means disorder, while redemption means the\nrestoration of\nproper order. Paganism means to ultimatize and worship the creation (nature)\nrather than the Creator.\"\n\n\"Mother Earth\" is pretty much the same as \"Mother Ocean\", in these kinds of\nspeculations.\n\nTo repeat my view: Much of SS/LS is the working out of Wolfe's view as\noutlined by James, versus the \"White Goddess\" kind of view of Graves and\nothers, in which the Mother is the first principle, and the solar, male,\ncreator-god is her upstart & usurping son. No, says Wolfe, but nevertheless,\n\"Mother has her role\" - she is not simply the demon of misogynist\nimagination.\n\nSome more notes on the text:\n\n- At the end of RTTW, Silk heads off to the stars with Seawrack, Nettle and\nMarble. As I think others have pointed out, there is a clear resonance here\nwith the Gravesian imagery of the \"Hero\" (Jesus, Arthur, whoever) ferried\noff to a paradiscal Avalon after death by the Goddess in her triple aspect\nof Maiden (in the sense of \"young woman\"), Mother & Crone, to await rebirth\nas her son with the coming of the new year. But in Wolfe's co-option of the\nimagery, Silk is already reborn, and he does not go under the protection of\nthe Goddess to her realm; rather, they go under his protection to the Whorl\nwhich he rules in some sense, and ultimately to the stars ruled by the\nCreator.\n\n- The imagery is not the defeat of the Mother - Silk is not Beowulf, or St\nGeorge, and she is not Grendel's mother or a monstrous dragon. Rather, it is\nher *redemption* - Eve saved from sin, Scylla becoming Cilinia, Seawrack no\nlonger a monster's lure, Hyacinth no longer the erotic emissary of Aphrodite\netc etc.\n\n- Seawrack and Hyacinth. As many others have said, there is a dimly lit\nnexus between Hyacinth/Seawrack/Kypris. On one level, a connection via\nKypris makes sense, since Kypris is Aphrodite, an aspect of Mother Ocean;\nand perhaps there is some hint at Venus de Milo. But I just don't see room\nin the narrative for a real possession of Seawrack by Kypris, or by a ghost\nof Hyacinth, or whatever. I prefer to see the connection rather in terms of\nroles: both \"things\", created or used by the Sea Goddess in an erotic aspect\nas snares for men, both abused by men, both desparately in need of\nredemption, one loved by Horn & the other by Silk, in similar kinds of ways.\n\n- In terms of the narrative, I think Silk retrieves Seawrack after his\nrebirth not in order to start up again with the old jiggedy-jig; I doubt\nthat she goes with him to the Whorl as his mate. Rather, he takes her as\nrecompense for his previous abandonment, to remove her from a world where\nshe is a thing of the Mother more than a real human being, and because she\nparallels Hyacinth in many ways, so by helping her, he helps Hyacinth's\nmemory.\n\n- Just as I see SilkHorn as a better Silk - strengthened by Horn, more\nrooted and efective in the real world - so it is possible to see Seawrack as\nan improved Hyacinth. The final scene has her helping load the boat, despite\nher missing arm: Hyacinth would have had the vapors if she ever tried\nanything this practical.\n\n- A side note on Sirens: Thelxepeia and Molpe were names of sirens in some\nGreek & Roman accounts. Sirens count as sea monsters, so it seems likely to\nme that Cilinia was not the only one of Typhon's extended brood to worship\nAbaia and the rest.\n\n- Seawrack and the Mother. Horn says somewhere in OBW that the big riddle is\nwhether the Mother has had a change of heart - releasing Seawrack from her\nrole as lure - or whether she is just moving into Phase II - releasing\nSeawrack to make her a better lure. It's reasonably clear to me that this\n\"Phase II\" would not be more chomping on unfortunate sailors; rather, it\nwould be assuming the role of goddess to the new population of Blue & having\nthem worship her. There is much that is unclear to me about this, but I\nbelieve that if Phase II had been the plan originally, it is not by the end\nof RTTW. Somehow, SilkHorn has performed a reconciliation, as I asserted in\na previous post. When Seawrack comes back, it as a human, not as a lure.\n\n- Harking back to the original post by James, I think it is clear what\nworship of the Mother would lead to. Juturna at the end of UOTNS: \"[Abaia]\nmight have destroyed you ... He's tried to tame you instead. Catch Catodon\n... cast out his conation. What good? Abaia would make of us a great\npeople.\"\n\nGoogling: \"Conation refers to the connection of knowledge and affect to\nbehavior and is associated with the issue of 'why.' It is the personal,\nintentional, planful, deliberate, goal-oriented, or striving component of\nmotivation, the proactive (as opposed to reactive or habitual) aspect of\nbehavior (Baumeister, Bratslavsky, Muraven & Tice, 1998; Emmons, 1986). It\nis closely associated with the concept of volition, defined as the use of\nwill, or the freedom to make choices about what to do (Kane, 1985; Mischel,\n1996). It is absolutely critical if an individual is successfully engage in\nself-direction and self-regulation.\"\n\nIn other words, the freedom of will which makes morality possible. Abaia's\noffer is the living hell experienced by the Ascians. I imagine Wolfe's view\nis that in a pantheistic universe, morality is irrelevant, and volition\nessentially meaningless. Catodon is probably Physeter catodon, the giant\nsperm whale - I suppose the point being that despite the whale's huge brain,\nit differs fundamentally from humans in lacking conation.\n\n- My guess at a history of the VP: A parallel to the war between the Ascians\n(on Blue) and the Commonwealth (on Green); the Commonwealth analog\nultimately destroying both parties by misuse of inhumi assistance." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "StoneOx17", "address": "stoneox17 at aol.com" }, "date": "2003-01-03T13:24:08+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Mother/Seawrack/Hyacinth", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Andrew Bollen writes" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "To repeat my view: Much of SS/LS is the working out of Wolfe's view as\noutlined by James, versus the \"White Goddess\" kind of view of Graves and\nothers, in which the Mother is the first principle, and the solar, male,\ncreator-god is her upstart & usurping son. No, says Wolfe, but nevertheless,\n\"Mother has her role\" - she is not simply the demon of misogynist\nimagination." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "\"Mother Earth\" is pretty much the same as \"Mother Ocean\", in these kinds of \nspeculations." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "\n\nThis is a beautiful analysis, and I suspect that some of these views of Wolfe\non the Mother Goddess also apply to There are Doors -- in which our \nworld is represented by the land and the goddess's by the sea !!! \nOne of the names the goddess goes by in TAD is Lara Morgan. I googled \nand found that the meaning of Morgan is \"of the sea\". This relation of the\ngoddess with ocean is a recurring theme of Wolfe's.\n\n-- Stone Ox" } ] } ] }