Subject: (urth) The Book of Typhon part two: Silk as Typhon

From: Lisa Schaffer-Doggett <harlekin at earthlink.net>
Date: Fri, 07 Mar 2003 04:56:58 +0000

Hi everyone, Don again.  This obviously needs a lot of work and 
support, but the ideas are sound, I think.

The Book of Typhon part two:  Silk as Typhon

	This segment is more speculative than the last since I haven’t gotten 
to a second reading of the Long Sun books.  Nevertheless, I am firmly 
convinced of its correctness overall.  My argument is simply that Silk 
is a clone of the monarch Typhon and, by extension, the genetic father 
of Severian who is a clone of Ymar.
	Let’s establish some basic facts.  First, Silk was an embryo frozen at 
the time of the Whorl’s launch, and thus from the time of Typhon.  
Second, Silk is blond, as I’m reasonably sure Typhon is (though I’ve 
never found a conclusive statement of this).  Third, Silk is very tall, 
like an exultant, and a natural leader, charismatic enough to be known 
all over the Whorl and on Blue.  And finally,  Wolfe describes Silk as 
having a “reddish-blond beard” (Litany of the Long Sun p. 187).  So?  
Here is a passage from Graves’ King Jesus describing JC:
	“You have a Typhonic, or harvest-red, beard. . .” (KJ p. 221)
How coincidental that Wolfe gives Silk a feature that ties him not only 
to sacred kingship but also directly to Typhon.
	Now, here are a few rhetorical questions.  Why did the White Headed 
One, Hierax (who most likely really was Hierax, much as Oreb was Scylla 
in SS) attack Silk so violently?  Could it be he recognized him?  Why 
was Kypris so helpful to Silk, and so drawn to him?  (A tangent 
question to this is why did Kypris spend so much time possessing 
Hyacinth, who I think was also an embryo.  My guess is that Hy is 
Kypris, or rather her Urth counterpart and thus Severian’s genetic 
mother.)  Why was Silk allowed to merge with Pas?  I’ll answer this.  
It is because Pas couldn’t collect all of his personality that he’d 
scattered.  Pas is a scan of Typhon, so the easiest solution is to scan 
Typhon back in to complete Pas.  But, as Quetzal says, the jokes of the 
gods are long.  The Outsider has had twenty years and an enlightenment 
to work on Silk in Pas’ absence.
	So here is my version of the Plan of Pas.  The Whorl flies to wherever 
it is supposed to go.  When the time is right, the embryos of Silk and 
Hyacinth (not their names in this version) are thawed and brought to 
fruition.  They are then possessed by Pas and Kypris and effectively 
become Typhon and “Katharine”.  Most likely the other “gods” have 
embryonic counterparts as well, but perhaps Typhon pulled a 
doublecross.  But this didn’t happen.  Pas is scattered, Silk is thawed 
early, and the Whorl ends up back where it left from (sorry, couldn’t 
resist).  Silk is the Outsider’s long joke, the redemption of Typhon.
	This father-son relationship between Silk and Severian is the 
operative principle in where the “astral” travel takes place in the 
Short Sun books.  Silkhorn ends up on Green to seek out Sinew, Horn’s 
son.  If you believe Severian is on Green, then he ends up there 
because Severian is Silk’s son.  This also explains why he ends up on 
the Red Sun Whorl.  It has nothing to do with Rigoglio.  Silk’s tie to 
Severian is what draws him.
	I realize that this argument about Silk is not as well documented as 
I’d like, but I haven’t given LS and SS a second read yet. (so many 
things on my list!)  I plan to revise this as well, but in the interest 
of completeness, I’ll send it in this form.

Thanks for reading.

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From: Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net>
Date: Sat, 08 Mar 2003 06:58:29 +0000

Don wrote, in part:
>>My argument is simply that Silk
is a clone of the monarch Typhon <<

Had Silk been a clone of Typhon, then Silk would have looked exactly like
him (at least as Typhon looked before he acquired Piaton's body), which is

One, Hierax (who most likely really was Hierax, much as Oreb was Scylla
in SS) attack Silk so violently?  Could it be he recognized him?<<

The painted canvas Silk destroyed at Orchid's was a "mockery of Campion's
celebrated painting of Pas enthroned". My point is that images of the gods
were commonplace on the _Whorl_. Silk was familiar with the image of Pas.
Typhon had a hang-up about his face, believing that it was necessary to
insure continued obedience to the person of the monarch. He believed that so
strongly that he accepted a second head rather than give up his own face. Up
until his "death", about thirty years before the action in LS, Pas had
appeared regularly in the sacred windows of Viron and other cities. Many
individuals who knew Silk had seen Pas appear in the sacred windows during
their lifetimes. It strains credulity to believe that no one in LS or SS
ever even hinted anything along the lines of "Hey, Silk, you know who you
look like?"

-Roy

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From: Lisa Schaffer-Doggett <harlekin at earthlink.net>
Date: Sat, 08 Mar 2003 17:08:20 +0000

> ever even hinted anything along the lines of "Hey, Silk, you know who 
To which Don replies:

This has occurred to me, and here is my solution.  The Gods in 
mainframe are not actual visual representations of their scans but 
archetypal god figures, unless of course Typhon's wife has snakes for 
hair.  The fact that Typhon had a hang-up about his appearance supports 
this.  He was eager to get rid of his second head.  Why scan that into 
Mainframe?  It's a problem for consideration, but it's not fatal.  The 
thematic signs IMO point to Silk being Typhon.

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From: Lisa Schaffer-Doggett <harlekin at earthlink.net>
Date: Sat, 08 Mar 2003 17:14:45 +0000

> in SS) attack Silk so violently?  Could it be he recognized him?<<

I realized that I didn't quite reply to your question.  When I said 
that Hierax perhaps recognized Silk, I meant that he recognized him as 
Typhon, not necessarily as Pas.  The other Gods had the memories of 
their Urth counterparts (as per Kypris' recollections) and they most 
certainly knew the Plan, or part of it.

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From: James Jordan <jbjordan4 at cox.net>
Date: Sat, 08 Mar 2003 17:22:42 +0000

At 11:08 AM 3/8/2003, you wrote:

>This has occurred to me, and here is my solution.  The Gods in mainframe 
>are not actual visual representations of their scans but archetypal god 
>figures, unless of course Typhon's wife has snakes for hair.  The fact 
>that Typhon had a hang-up about his appearance supports this.  He was 
>eager to get rid of his second head.  Why scan that into Mainframe?  It's 
>a problem for consideration, but it's not fatal.  The thematic signs IMO 
>point to Silk being Typhon.

Without compleatly buying into your thesis (yet), there might be two 
differences between Pas and Silk:
         1. Pas has two heads, and these are probably stylized to look 
similar, unlike the reality.
         2. Typhon was older and Silk is still young. Especially if 
Typhon/Pas presents himself with godlike white hair, they would not look 
alike unless someone spent a bit of time studying them.
         In all, I think that Pas with two heads would throw anybody off. 
Even if one head looked a lot like Silk's, who would make the connection? 
Pas is, after all, Pas! and Silk is just a man.
         FWIW.

Nutria

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From: Joshuafalchion <joshuafalchion at aol.com>
Date: Mon, 10 Mar 2003 02:26:06 +0000

Hello fellow Wolfeans!  I'm new to the Urth group, and trying to catch up 
with the various correspondence.  Don, I liked the discovery in Graves of a 
reference to a red beard as "Typhonic."  I had not considered that Silk might 
be a clone of Typhon; that makes a good deal of sense.  I have read the Book 
of the Long Sun only twice, and while I don't ponder the relations in the 
books too much (preferring instead the experience of the whole world to wash 
over me), there surely is some direct relationship between Pas and Silk.

As I said, I'm new, and I'd like my group name to be something that, though a 
small reference from Citadel of the Autarch, means something rather more 
significant to me (and has nothing to do with Wolfe).  Readers of Gene Wolfe, 
of course, won't need any explanation of what my name means.

Call me

the Falchion

ps:  what is the advance word on "The Wizard" and "The Knight"?

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