{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/3804", "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": 3804, "subject": "the great god Pan", "messages": 6, "voices": 6, "first": "2003-01-24T01:13:12+00:00", "last": "2003-01-26T00:58:39+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Russell Wodell", "address": "hse at telus.net" }, "date": "2003-01-24T01:13:12+00:00", "subject": "(urth) the great god Pan", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " \nAs I recall (dimly), Plutarch said a sailor heard a voice from a\ndistant island commanding him to proclaim that \"The great god Pan is\ndead!\"\nSince Pan's name literally means \"All,\" I had always assumed that this\nwas supposed to be a coded message that the entire Greek pantheon of\ngods were dead - i.e., that the Christian era was coming. In Soldier in\nthe Mist the lamia complains that Io has dropped her chains into the\nsnake's hole, that supernatural beings dislike iron, and that \"The\nreason is to come.\" Again, dimly do I recall that faeries were supposed\nto shun iron because of the significance of the nails holding Christ to\nthe cross. \nThis raises the wider question of Wolfe's ambiguous and often quite\nterrifying presentation of the Greek deities. I think we are to view\nthem as actual gods, not just Latro's hallucinations, but Wolfe says in\none interview that they were \"not worthy of being worshipped.\" Would\nthat make them demons? What is the orthodox Catholic position these days\non rival religions and their supernatural beings? Certainly the\nunderlying logic of the Latro novels thus far is the move from\nEarth-worship to Father-worship, and as usual in Wolfe all the major\nevil characters are either female (or in one case) become female. (Not\nthat he's totally misogynistic: the Amazons are portrayed entirely\npositively, and Io the slave girl is the brightest and best of all his\ncharacters.)\n " } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Chris", "address": "rasputin_ at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2003-01-24T01:38:09+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) the great god Pan", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "The bit about iron is interesting- while I'd heard that the sidhe had a \nproblem with iron, I never knew there was an underlying reason behind it. \nAre there any other sources that might explain the significance of iron, and \nwhether it was referred to before the Christian Era or not?\n\nI do think that sometimes too much is made of Wolfe's Catholicism, as I \nthink has been mentioned here before. And jamming this story into an \n\"orthodox\" Catholic framework is likely to be an uncomfortable fit.\n\nI never felt, reading the stories, that any of the goddesses were purely \nevil, though certainly inhuman and for the most part cruel. I doubt any of \nthe male gods would behave any better when push came to shove. I don't think \nit's misogynistic - I really think the most villainous characters in this \nstory were male, actually, though they knew how to put a good face on it.\n\nThat said, the bit about Io... she's a bright character, but that is at \nleast in part because Latro cares about her and portrays her positively. \nDespite that, there are some things to be uncomfortable about- and I suspect \nthat Latro's deep (mysterious) depression had a bit to do with the way she \nchanged the nature of their relationship to protect herself, among other \nthings. He may not have remembered any better, but I suspect he'd have still \nfelt like something was wrong there.\n\nChris" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "As I recall (dimly), Plutarch said a sailor heard a voice from a\ndistant island commanding him to proclaim that \"The great god Pan is\ndead!\"\nSince Pan's name literally means \"All,\" I had always assumed that this\nwas supposed to be a coded message that the entire Greek pantheon of\ngods were dead - i.e., that the Christian era was coming. In Soldier in\nthe Mist the lamia complains that Io has dropped her chains into the\nsnake's hole, that supernatural beings dislike iron, and that \"The\nreason is to come.\" Again, dimly do I recall that faeries were supposed\nto shun iron because of the significance of the nails holding Christ to\nthe cross.\nThis raises the wider question of Wolfe's ambiguous and often quite\nterrifying presentation of the Greek deities. I think we are to view\nthem as actual gods, not just Latro's hallucinations, but Wolfe says in\none interview that they were \"not worthy of being worshipped.\" Would\nthat make them demons? What is the orthodox Catholic position these days\non rival religions and their supernatural beings? Certainly the\nunderlying logic of the Latro novels thus far is the move from\nEarth-worship to Father-worship, and as usual in Wolfe all the major\nevil characters are either female (or in one case) become female. (Not\nthat he's totally misogynistic: the Amazons are portrayed entirely\npositively, and Io the slave girl is the brightest and best of all his\ncharacters.)" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "James Jordan", "address": "jbjordan4 at cox.net" }, "date": "2003-01-24T02:24:53+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) the great god Pan", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Russell rote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "This raises the wider question of Wolfe's ambiguous and often quite\nterrifying presentation of the Greek deities." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " A whole lot of what we are brought up on about ancient Greek and \nRoman religion has been cleaned up. You never hear about the human \nsacrifices offered before important battles, so that human entrails could \nbe read. Stories about the gods have often been cleaned up too. In reality, \nthey were a pretty frightening bunch, which is why they had to be appeased \nand bought-off all the time. Happily, modern scholarship seems much more \nopen about such matters, not writing books for children and for 19th c. prudes." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": " I think we are to view\nthem as actual gods, not just Latro's hallucinations, but Wolfe says in\none interview that they were \"not worthy of being worshipped.\" Would\nthat make them demons?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " Probably. Fallen angels." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": " What is the orthodox Catholic position these days\non rival religions and their supernatural beings?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " I think Wolfe would agree that when Adam gave the world to Satan, \nand put his posterity under Satan (though he probably does not take the \nstory literally), he gave the world and humanity over to the demonic realm. \nHe is clearly \"conservative\" on the general matter, anyway, since he does \nnot demythologize demons and \"gods\" into \"aspects of human consciousness\" \nor some such thing.\n I don't know that Wolfe would say, \"There was a demon named \nAthena, and another named Baal.\" But I think he would say that demons did \noccasionally interact with people, who then concocted names and stories \nabout them." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Certainly the\nunderlying logic of the Latro novels thus far is the move from\nEarth-worship to Father-worship, and as usual in Wolfe all the major\nevil characters are either female (or in one case) become female. (Not\nthat he's totally misogynistic: the Amazons are portrayed entirely\npositively, and Io the slave girl is the brightest and best of all his\ncharacters.)" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " I think that's right. Latro is on his way to some kind of contact \nwith Israel -- which doubtless will be muted and concealed in the text, \nproviding Wolfe lives to write it. The evil female characters have to do \nwith worshipping the creature (earth) rather than the creator (God). Wolfe \nshows us where he thinks such an orientation leads, to cruelty and horror.\n\nNutria" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes", "address": "ddanehy at siebel.com" }, "date": "2003-01-24T17:09:56+00:00", "subject": "RE: (urth) the great god Pan", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Russell then Nutria wrote:\nI think we are to view them as actual gods, not just\nLatro's hallucinations," }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I think rather \"actual 'supernatural' beings,\" though not\nnecessarily gods. -- I put the word \"supernatural\" in quotes\nbecause I believe, and I believe that Wolfe either believes\nor, at least, takes as a given for his fictions, that the\nword \"supernatural\" implies a false (possibly a Manicheistic)\ndivision. The only \"supernatural\" being, by this understanding,\nis God; the rest are all creatures, and, as such, bounded, \ndelimited as it were, by the rules of their making. These rules \nmay not be exactly the same from one type of being to another, \nof course, but all creatures exist within some such bounds.\nThe point here: beings like the \"gods\" of the _Soldier_ books,\nor of the Short/Long Sun books, are much (infinitely) more like\nus than they are like the one supernatural Being. " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "but Wolfe says in one interview that they were \"not worthy \nof being worshipped.\" Would that make them demons?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": " Probably. Fallen angels." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Not necessarily ... demons are not the only creatures \"not\nworthy of being worshipped.\" There are, for example, you\nand me and the rest of the human race. Non-fallen angels, \nalso, are not worthy of being worshipped. In point of fact,\nfrom the Catholic, or merely Christian, point of view, all\ncreatures have this in common ...\n\n... but creatures mistakenly worshipped are not necessarily\nfallen angels. Wandering back to that C**F** discussion, I\nhurry to point out that both Tolkien and Lewis give examples\nin their fictions of how beings may be taken for gods and \nstill be under the Obedience -- indeed, that being taken for\ngods may be an aspect of their obedience. (The clearest \nexample is the wizard on the island of the Dufflepuds, in \nTHE VOYAGE OF THE DAWN TREADER.) \n\nAnd, too, there is Wolfe's interesting dictum that what\npretends to be a god tends to become the god ... to which \nend I point to Lewis again; his last, and possibly best,\nnovel, TILL WE HAVE FACES, makes use of the Greek Psyche\n-- himself disguised as a local god -- as a disguise or\nmask for the one God. (Well, sort of ... that's at least \none well-worn interpretation ...)" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": " What is the orthodox Catholic position these days\non rival religions and their supernatural beings?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "...deleting James' response...\n\nAs far as I've been able to tell (and this means, among\nother things, having searched the Catechism of the Catholic\nChurch [CCC], a more-or-less complete document of What \nCatholics Are Expected To Believe), there is no officially \northodox position on this matter ... which would mean that \na Catholic is at liberty to believe what s/he chooses, \n_provided_ it doesn't contradict any of the things a \nCatholic _is_ expected to believe. \n\nA great deal of Catholic ink has been spilled over the years\nconcerning the idea that pagan religions are best understood\nas a \"preparation\" for the Gospel (as, indeed, is the Jewish\nLaw); for example, this is referred to in CCC at #843. The\nexact mechanism by which this \"preparation\" is performed,\nhowever, is left open -- and can mean anything from a natural\ntendency of the human mind towards God (CCC #781) to purely\nspeculative and para-orthodox ideas about God using angels,\nor even demons, to plant religious ideas and thus to prepare \npeoples for the Gospel." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Jeff Wilson", "address": "jwilson at io.com" }, "date": "2003-01-25T08:18:21+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) the great god Pan", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "From:\n\"Russell Wodell\" " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Certainly the \nunderlying logic of the Latro novels thus far is the move from \nEarth-worship to Father-worship, and as usual in Wolfe all the major \nevil characters are either female (or in one case) become female. " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "=All= as usual? Is there something we don't know about Typhon or Baldanders?" }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Jeff Wilson\nHow Am I Posting? 1-800-555-6789\n\"If your SecOp can see you, so can the enemy.\" -Cpt Law\n\n\n\n-- " } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Michael Straight", "address": "straight at email.unc.edu" }, "date": "2003-01-26T00:58:39+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) the great god Pan", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "On Sat, 25 Jan 2003, Jeff Wilson wrote:\nEarth-worship to Father-worship, and as usual in Wolfe all the major\nevil characters are either female (or in one case) become female." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "=All= as usual? Is there something we don't know about Typhon or Baldanders?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Or Musk? Or Lemur?\n\nAnd even in Latro, I'd say the Spartan leaders are *the* major evil\ncharacters.\n\n-Rostrum" } ] } ] }