Subject: (urth) Heracles and Sisyphus

From: maa32 <maa32 at dana.ucc.nau.edu>
Date: Sun, 11 May 2003 00:36:21 +0000

Crush,
excellent points about Latro's contiguity with Heracles, especially since 
Pindaros calls him Heracles in his little prose ending to Soldier of Arete.
There is something to note: Latro easily finishes Sisyphus' task for him - and 
Sisyphus was like a 3/4 god.  There is some indication that Sisyphus feels 
like an old relative of Latro - is freeing Sisyphus the only reason Asopus 
gave Falcata special powers way back at the opening?!

The wolves seem to be both a homage to Gene Wolfe's name and an easy tool for 
prophecy: when the wolf's young and the wolf's tooth, etc.; when wolf, faun, 
and nymph gather round, etc etc. (Hey, the nymph is Elata and the faun is 
Aglaus, I'm 100% positive he's one of those crazy goatmen.)

There IS a reason to link Ares with Zoroastrianism: the people of thrace say 
that Pleistorus IS a form Ahura Mazda.  This is strictly in Wolfe's book, not 
in any other way.  I can't imagine why he would do this without us wanting to 
associate ares with the all good God.

I think that the Lernean Hydra (or the Lamia, or whatever Drakaina is) 
certainly makes a good case for Latro being more like Hercules, but I think 
Ares did make both sides mad, and was forced to walk the world as a mortal 
because everybody hates him (yet now they kind of feel bad, especially about 
that whole memory thing, so they treat him a lot more nicely since he's 
learned his lesson).

We've directly seen Heracles talk to Latro in his match with Basias, so we 
know he can't BE Heracles.  But he might be reliving that epic heroes tasks, 
just because.  Interestingly enough, that would make Ares his archenemy, 
right?!  Weird.

Marc Aramini

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