# DOORS: The hero's name *The Urth list — 4 messages, 3 voices, 12 Jan 2003* > 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. --- ### StoneOx17 *12 Jan 2003, 17:02* This question Spectacled Bear asked earlier about the hero's name (Wolfe always refers to him as "he") is making me wonder whether something strange is going on. It later becomes clear in TAD that the protagonist's last name really is Green (e.g., the crate he gets is addressed to Mr. Green). The first time it's mentioned, however, the context is as follows. He has gone to the downtown mental health center to look for Lara, and he mentions to the therapist that Lara's eyes are viridian. "Viridan, Mr. . . ?" "Green -- viridian's a bluish green." Later in the conversation, the therapist calls him Mr. Green, and he wonders how she knew his name. But we eventually discover that she should have known his name anyway, because she was a therapist that he had already been seeing regularly. However, from the snippet extracted above, it seems that the therapist did not know his name when she first sees him. I'm wondering whether it is possible that it really was his first time at the Mental Health Center, and if his name was not originally Green, but that somehow the goddess altered reality so that he would ex post facto be a mental patient and thus not be believed (and maybe so that his name would be Green, which fits in well with the winter-spring-renewal-Attis theme)? This seems like a lot to be reading into those three dots above, but something similar happens with his first name. During the "Lunch with Lara" chapter, when he learns that the sea captain's first name was William, it seems to be implied, although not explicitly stated, that the hero's first name is also William. But later, at the fight, Lara introduces him as Adam K. Green. Adam is a name that our hero comes up with when North checks him in at the Grand Hotel pseudonymously as A. C. Pine, and Herr K. is what Klamm has been calling him throughout the book. Also, as maybe a little more evidence that he never actually went to the therapist before the first session in the book, he never seems to recover his memory of this, although he does recover his memory of most of the things about Lara that he forgets after the electroshock treatments. The changing of his name fits in quite well with the theme of a man jettisoning his old life and rededicating it to the goddess, which I believe is the central thrust of the book. What do people think? Am I yet another fan who has gone off the deep end in overinterpreting? -- Stone Ox --- ### Bratt Ian *12 Jan 2003, 19:31 · follows StoneOx17* > "Viridan, Mr. . . ?" > "Green -- viridian's a bluish green." > > Later in the conversation, the therapist calls him Mr. Green, and he wonders > how she knew his name. But we eventually discover that she should have > known his name anyway, because she was a therapist that he had already > been seeing regularly. However, from the snippet extracted above, it seems > that the therapist did not know his name when she first sees him. > > I'm wondering whether it is possible that it really was his first time at the > Mental Health Center, and if his name was not originally Green, but that > somehow the goddess altered reality so that he would ex post facto be a > mental patient and thus not be believed (and maybe so that his name would > be Green, which fits in well with the winter-spring-renewal-Attis theme)? It was not his first time at the Mental Health Center. He had been going there to treat his depression and that is how he met Lora the goddess when she was working as a receptionist. Her name was Lora Masterman. She felt sorry for Green and changed her appearence slightly and her name to Lora Morgan to allow Green to pick her up in the park. Later, when Lora breaks off the relationship, she leaves Green's world and has to quit her job as secretary. The secretary that replaces her is new and doesn't know Green's name. on page 267: Lunch with Lora "You started blocking. You forgot -- I mean on the conscious level -- that you were a patient, and that was very bad. You even forgot that we'd met in Dr. Nilson's office. You talked about us meeting in the park, because we took that walk during lunch. And now --" Green later accuses Lora of lying and says that she slightly changed her appearance from Lora-the-secretary to Lora Morgan and let him pick her up in the park. He does, however, admit that Lora was right about the mental Health Center. "But you're telling the truth about one thing: I didn't want to admit I'd been seeing a psychiatrist -- not even to myself. Somebody like that wasn't good enough for you -- I knew that." -Insula > -- --- ### StoneOx17 *13 Jan 2003, 20:56 · follows Bratt Ian* I wrote: I'm wondering whether it is possible that it really was his first time at the Mental Health Center, and if his name was not originally Green, but that somehow the goddess altered reality so that he would ex post facto be a mental patient and thus not be believed Insula replied: Green later accuses Lora of lying and says that she slightly changed her appearance from Lora-the-secretary to Lora Morgan and let him pick her up in the park. He does, however, admit that Lora was right about the mental Health Center. O.K., there goes that theory. But it looks like he didn't realize Lara Morgan was Lora-the-secretary until much later, which makes things a lot clearer to me. How does a goddess hold down a full-time job as a secretary anyway? ``` Stone Ox -- ``` --- ### Alice K. Turner *14 Jan 2003, 08:51 · follows StoneOx17* > How does a goddess hold down a full-time job as a > secretary anyway? > -- > Stone Ox You may find this hard to believe, but I know a goddess who holds down a more-or-less full time job as a secretary for casual moguls, the private jet-set type. She is a sort of Holly Golightly figure, once married to a famous Hollywood director (and it's no-kidding famous), now subsidized by a bigtime (married) financier who is currently in prison (and it's no-kidding bigtime), hops over to Italy on odd weekends to hobnob with her clandestine race-car boyfriend. She is, as you would expect, gorgeous. She has exactly one topic of conversation, herself, but I am always quite fascinated when I am with her--goddesses have charisma to burn! She is such a curious, old-fashioned figure that I feel quite privileged to know her, even casually. -alga ---