Subject: (urth) ending and other stuff WK

From: aramini1 at cox.net <aramini1 at cox.net>
Date: Wed, 05 Jan 2005 21:38:51 +0000

I only have about 36 more messages to read before I'm caught up, so forgive me if someone has said this.

It seemed pretty clear to me at the end of the Wizard Knight that Able is going back to the missing years of his childhood with Desiri, the part between leaving the log cabin and showing up on the island where he planted the spiny orange. (The years when he would have grown up to be the man he was acelerated into)  

The Wizard EXPLICITLY states that Able watches himself plant the spiny orange during his time in Skai, and Michael also explicitly states Able was the only person on the island when the knight appears - this means that Able has, in some fashion, been freed from the passage of time.

Able is going back to his childhood at the end, the lost time that was taken from him.  The great lord whose service will be required is Arnthnor, and Able will go on to forget everything that happened.  The book is a big circle.  But it isn't the first Wolfe book to work like that.

Maybe someone said that - I'll see either tonight or tomorrow when I catch up.  

Marc

(PS - Anyone notice Sir Marc in the last chapters? Throwing rocks at the throngs and starting the final battle?)

---

From: StoneOx17 at aol.com <stoneox17 at aol.com>
Date: Thu, 06 Jan 2005 03:56:54 +0000

In a message dated 1/6/2005 12:39:07 AM Eastern Standard Time, 

> It seemed pretty clear to me at the end of the Wizard Knight that Able is 
> going back to the missing years of his childhood with Desiri, the part 
between 
> leaving the log cabin and showing up on the island where he planted the 
spiny 
> orange. (The years when he would have grown up to be the man he was 
> acelerated into)  

> The Wizard EXPLICITLY states that Able watches himself plant the spiny 
> orange during his time in Skai, and Michael also explicitly states Able was 
> the only person on the island when the knight appears - this means that 
> Able has, in some fashion, been freed from the passage of time.

Watching himself plant the spiny orange was one of those things he did during
his missing 20 years in Skai.  Here we are (it's really difficult to find 
things in 
this book, although not as difficult as in Peace).  Page 56.

"We went to the spring Mimir,"  I said at last.  "I drank its water and 
remembered 
you and Gylf, and a lot of other things.  I visited myself, watching myself 
drink
water in the ruins of Bluestone Castle.  Afterward the Valfather laid his 
condition
on me. ..."

Presumably, respecting time is part of the condition the Valfather has laid 
on him.
Although, even when he broke the condition, he still wasn't able to go back 
in time 
and save those people who had died, so even time travel has its limitations 
in 
Mythgarthr.

> Able is going back to his childhood at the end, the lost time that was 
taken from 
> him.  

But he remembers his missing years after delivering his message to Arnthor, 
so 
they're not lost to him in the end.  Page 404.

   I shook my head.  "We played together as children, Uri.  Disiri and me.  I 
remember now."
   Her voice was tender. "Do you, Lord?"  
   "I do."  Until that moment I had not known I remembered.  "I thought they 
wiped those memories away, but they only hid them under the message. ..."

> The great lord whose service will be required is Arnthnor, and Able will go 
> on to forget everything that happened.  The book is a big circle.  But it 
isn't the 
> first Wolfe book to work like that.

I don't see any evidence for this, and I don't like the idea at all.  WK 
seems to me
to be a coming-of-age book, where Able learns stuff and grows up.  You don't 
make
big circles out of coming-of-age books -- it defeats their whole purpose.  
(OK, in
some sense, Fifth Head of Cerberus is an exception to this.  But my point 
still
stands.)  

The idea (that somebody proposed here) that Able's going back to America to 
serve the Most High God -- and I sure hope the great lord in need of a knight 
is 
the Most High God and not the American President -- I find much more 
convincing.  

-- Stone Ox (Peter)

---

From: Andrew Bollen <abollen at internode.on.net>
Date: Thu, 06 Jan 2005 04:11:19 +0000

> the Most High God and not the American President -- I find much more

One reason I don't like this: if he's going back to America, surely he can 
meet Ben in person, rather than send him a huge letter?

---

From: James Wynn <thewynns at earthlink.net>
Date: Thu, 06 Jan 2005 08:39:18 +0000

>is the Most High God and not the American President -- I find much more
>convincing.

Well, that's not exactly what I said, but then I like the idea that Able
will return to America in "knight's service" to the Most High God. But that
is a whole extra level above Kleos, and Able must first succeed in his
mission there.

Incidentally, for reference sake, here is the instance in Able's dream in
Mythgarthr where he sees an ambulance taking him (to a hospital? a
morgue?).

"Beyond the black pavilion was a highway. Cars, trucks, SUVs, and minvans -- 
all sorts of vehicles -- were traveling on it, going so fast that it seemed
certain they would crash. There was a school bus, a red hook-and-ladder, a
black-and-white police car, and a white ambulance. Those stand out even now.
The ambulance rocked from side to side as it tore along with its light bar
blazing and its siren screaming. I climbed down and went to the highway. The
drivers would not stop for me, and I shouted at their cars, thinking how far
the ambulance was getting ahead of me. Able -- the real Able -- was in that
ambulance.  I knew that, and I wanted to help him."
-- "The Wizard" pg 459

---

From: stilskin <acronus at yahoo.com>
Date: Thu, 06 Jan 2005 08:49:52 +0000

I'm not sure, in the context of the WK universe, that
America is above Kleos.  I seem to recall a place
where Able muses that it is located sort of sideways
to Mythgarthr.  Of course, he might very well be wrong
about that!

One thing I kept thinking throughout was that Gene
Wolfe was the Most High God, as is every author in
terms of his/her fictional creations.  But I got the
feeling that Wolfe was setting up an analogy between
his creations and God's -- that we are fictional
characters in the mind of God who may, through our
actions, take on a reality we might not otherwise
possess.  I wonder if Able, at the end of the novel,
is not being taken by Michael to Able's America but,
rather, to ours . . .  That just as, in the Catholic
faith, virtuous souls receive the reward of rising to
a realer existence, in Heaven, so, too, does Able rise
(with Disiri)to an incarnation outside the pages of
the novel.

Paul

--- James Wynn <thewynns at earthlink.net> wrote:

> >serve the Most High God -- and I sure hope the
> great lord in need of a
> knight
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From: James Wynn <thewynns at earthlink.net>
Date: Thu, 06 Jan 2005 09:04:59 +0000

>to Mythgarthr.  Of course, he might very well be wrong

I don't recall this, can anyone think of where this may have been said?

~ Crush

---

From: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <danldo at gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 06 Jan 2005 09:30:01 +0000

> I don't recall this, can anyone think of where this may have been said?
Where, no, but I do recall it also.

I think though that the point is not that America is above Kleos, but that
the MHG is - so that in his "evolution" upward, Able has to complete his
service to Kleos before he can serve the MHG directly, whether in the
Mythgarthr-system or in America.

-- 
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Freedom has no barcode.
     --J.G. Ballard

---

From: David Lebling <dlebling at hyraxes.com>
Date: Thu, 06 Jan 2005 09:54:19 +0000

> I don't recall this, can anyone think of where this may have been said?

I don't recall that statement specifically, but there is a passage where
Able says that all the levels of the WK universe from Mythgarthr on up have
multiple "places" or "worlds" in them. I believe the context is the
discussion of how each level is infinite but ten times smaller than the
level above it, and how the "place" where the Giants of Winter and Old Night
live is part of Skai but different from where the Valfather lives. He also
states that Aelfrice and the levels below it only have one "place" in them,
if I recall correctly.

America could be another "place" sideways from Mythgarthr.

-- Dave, aka Vizcacha

---

From: James Wynn <thewynns at earthlink.net>
Date: Thu, 06 Jan 2005 09:56:56 +0000

>Mythgarthr-system or in America.

I agree. The idea that America is above Kleos is not intended.

(I didnt' realize, until Dan'l posted this, that this concept was being
conveyed in saying that Able would wake up when he finally came face-to-face
with the Most High God.)

However, this fact did not prevent me, when Able visited the MLG, from
imagining doctors around Arthur Ormsby going crazy shouting "We losing
him!!"

Speaking of the MHG and the MLG, these designations suggest that there might
be a Middle Most God in Mythgarthr and god in every other level as well.
The god of Skai, I presume, would be Valfather. I imagine the god of Kleos
would not be Michael since he's being punished (I would guess) by that god
via his quest. Maybe it is Parka (btw as I write this I remember that the
Fates were beyond the command of Jupiter, Zeus, and Odin -- although the
Norns only spoke to Odin).

Kulilli seems to be the god of Aelfrice and Garsecg/Setr is a usurper.

Who is the god of Mythgarther? Not Able...he doesn't seem specially
connected to a particular level. Arnthor? Well, Able is sent with a message
to him, but I thought he was also seen as more of a usurper considering his
heritage from the second to lowest level. How about Bold Berthold?

~ Crush

---

From: David Lebling <dlebling at hyraxes.com>
Date: Thu, 06 Jan 2005 10:59:08 +0000

Crush asks:
>connected to a particular level. Arnthor?

The whole point of the message Able carries is to enable the Aelf to ask
Arnthor, the god of Mythgarthr, to be a better god.

> How about Bold Berthold?

Given Able's vision of Bold Berthold killing the new King of the Giants,
perhaps he _will_ be the new god, as you suggest. Of course, there is room
for worship of multiple gods; Toug is Baki's god, after all.

-- Dave, aka Vizcacha

---

From: Dave Rolsky <autarch at urth.org>
Date: Thu, 06 Jan 2005 11:16:52 +0000

> Arnthor, the god of Mythgarthr, to be a better god.

That's a terribly confusing phrasing.  Arnthor is not the god _of_ (over) 
Mythgarthr, he's a god of Aelfrice who lives _in_ Mythgarthr.  I think the 
god of Mythgarthr is the Valfather, clearly, though he's just one of many.

Kulilli may be another god of Aelfrice, as James Wynn suggested, although 
it's not clear to me if she is _of_ Aelfrice or Mythgarthr.  I think it'd 
have to be the latter for her to be a god of Aelfrice.

-dave

/*===========================
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Your guide to all that's veg.
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---

From: Dave Rolsky <autarch at urth.org>
Date: Thu, 06 Jan 2005 11:17:29 +0000

> level above it, and how the "place" where the Giants of Winter and Old Night

Anyone else think of John Crowley's Little, Big when they came to this 
part?

-dave

---

From: stilskin <acronus at yahoo.com>
Date: Thu, 06 Jan 2005 11:25:43 +0000

It seems that there can be multiple gods on every
level except the highest and the lowest.  I find 
Wolfe's scheme confusing, I must admit.  Kulilli is
the original inhabitant of Aelfrice.  Why isn't she
worshipped by the dragons of Muspel?  Nor does it seem
that the Most Low God worships the dragons.  And
though the Angrborne live on Mythgarthr, they are not
worshipped by the Aelf.  I wonder if descent from Angr
has anything to do with who is and isn't a proper
object of worship.

P

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From: David Lebling <dlebling at hyraxes.com>
Date: Thu, 06 Jan 2005 11:55:32 +0000

> has anything to do with who is and isn't a proper

I think a more important component of who is worshipped and by whom is the
level on which they live. As you go lower in level, the inhabitants are less
likely to be moral beings, though Able admits there is a range on each level
(from the Valfather to Lothur in Skai, for example, not to mention the
Giants of Skai). The less moral, the less likely to worship the proper god
for your level.

Given that Kulili created the Aelf, their position is somewhat unusual. I
can imagine several reasons why they wouldn't worship the Angrborn,
including the Aelf's apparent desire to conceal their true natures by
mimicking humans, which indicates they are ashamed of being created from
leftovers and thus would disdain worship of other beings so created.

The dragons of Muspel would be extremely unlikely to worship the god
appropriate for them, and in fact attempt to displace the gods/rulers of the
next two higher levels. The Most Low God worships himself and states that he
is also the Most High God.

We know little of Kleos, but obviously they are patterned on angels and all
faithfully worship the Most High God. Those that did not were expelled, if
the mythology parallels Christianity, as it does in most instances.

-- Dave, aka Vizcacha

---

From: Andy Robertson <andywrobertson at clara.co.uk>
Date: Thu, 06 Jan 2005 12:39:23 +0000

> Anyone else think of John Crowley's Little, Big when they came to this 

It's a parallel derivation, not a sequential one.   LITTLE, BIG gets its 
cosmology through the Victorian legend of Fairies, which is derived from the 
diminished Shakespearian version.   THE WIZARD KNIGHT tries with some 
success to synthesise far older streams - Celtic myth, Gnosticism, Nordic 
legend (overwhelminglky important) and of course CS Lewis and Tolkien.

---

From: James Wynn <thewynns at earthlink.net>
Date: Thu, 06 Jan 2005 12:43:51 +0000

I'm convinced. I think I agree that in this world, all creatures are 'gods'
of somebody and only the MHG and the MLG are distinguished.

>The Most Low God worships himself and states that he

Yes, but the MLG is a liar. He says that if one could see his back he would
see the MHG (like some kind of bizarre Janus), but Able sees his back and it
is only worms and filth.

>the mythology parallels Christianity, as it does in most instances.

Well, Kulilli and Parka don't look like angels...albeit I suppose it is
possible they might look different at different times.

~ Crush

---

From: David Lebling <dlebling at hyraxes.com>
Date: Thu, 06 Jan 2005 12:59:45 +0000

> see the MHG (like some kind of bizarre Janus), but Able sees his back and
it

Precisely my point. The MLG is so morally deficient that he cannot find a
better object of worship than himself, and either out of delusion believes
(or out of mendacity claims) to be the MHG.

-- Dave

---

From: James Wynn <thewynns at earthlink.net>
Date: Thu, 06 Jan 2005 14:55:10 +0000

>there is a passage where

The definitions of "multiple places" I took to mean that there were other
planets in the universe of Mythgarthr. It is not explained what the separate
region of the Frost Giants is in Skai...whether another planet or some
totally different concept. But if we assume it is somehow analogous to the
separate worlds in Mythgarthr then Mythgarthr's worlds should be
theoretically navigatable *within* Mythgarthr as well.

In Aefrice and below I understood that the sky of Alfrice decended
(infinitely) to the sea of Aelfrice like a dome (as ancient people
understood the cosmos to do). The same would be true for the lower levels.
So there would be no place in the lower levels for other "planets".

It never occurred to me that America could be one of the other "worlds" on
the level of Mythgarthr ala  "parallel dimensions" (rather "worlds" meaning
"planets") but that would make sense too. It would additionally explain why
our world is so much like Mythgarthr.

I wonder if Wolfe ever thought it out this far?

~ Crush

---

From: Andy Robertson <andywrobertson at clara.co.uk>
Date: Fri, 07 Jan 2005 03:00:18 +0000

James Wynn writes: 

> planets in the universe of Mythgarthr. 

One of the "places" Abel visits (with Toug) is Dream, which I assume is a 
dream-share realm of some sort.   This seems more like a matter of alternate 
modes of consciousness than other planets: but this of course does not rule 
out America as being such a "place2.

---

From: stilskin <acronus at yahoo.com>
Date: Fri, 07 Jan 2005 04:21:47 +0000

And the Room of Lost Loves has to be fit into this
somewhere as well.

Has anyone identified Abel's father?

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From: Andy Robertson <andywrobertson at clara.co.uk>
Date: Fri, 07 Jan 2005 05:24:29 +0000

> And the Room of Lost Loves has to be fit into this

I've only read the Wizard Knight once: starting to reread now.   Where is 
that mentioned?

---

From: stilskin <acronus at yahoo.com>
Date: Fri, 07 Jan 2005 05:30:58 +0000

I might be misnaming it -- but it's the room in
Gilling's castle that Abel, Mani, and Lynnet enter,
with the permission of Thiazi.

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From: Andrew Bollen <abollen at internode.on.net>
Date: Fri, 07 Jan 2005 06:14:17 +0000

I think Dream is a shared realm, as Crush says. I think it is the key to Mag 
and Able/Art.

First of all my understanding of Able/Art: they have been swapped, in some 
way, by the Aelf. The original, "real" Able goes to America; Art takes 
Able's place in Mythgathr. I think this is very clear: when Art dreams of 
the ambulance, he knows in his dream that it carries the "real Able".

Mythgathr and Earth are connected though Dream. Art dreams of Able in 
America on several occasions. Dream exists on the same plane as Mythgathr, 
and must be connected to Aelfrice as well.

The Aelf have power over dreams. Baki (can't remember) bring dreams to both 
Idnn and Art. From this we can guess how the Art/Able swap happened. Art 
dreamed in the Downs and the Aelf enticed his dream-self down to Aelfrice. 
Able dreamt and had his dream-self sent back to Art's body on Earth via 
Dream. Art's dream-self replaced Able's in Able's body, which was later sent 
back to Myth via Parka's cave.

As to why the Aelf did this: I speculated earlier that the Aelf wanted an 
American, rather than a local, as their messenger.

As to why Able/Art: because they have the same mother, presumably 
facilitating the swap. We have to assume that Mag and Art's mother are in 
some sense the same person; not least because Art says he thinks Mag was 
both the mother of Berthold and Able, and of himself and Ben (p236).

But the situation is not straightforward. Mag recognizes that Art is not 
actually her son Able. Able seems to recognize that Mag is not actually his 
mother. She seems to have no memory of Art as such, but she does appear to 
remember her "girlhood in America" (p335). Although her message in the green 
glass tube opens thus: "Mag is my name *here*" (p236), implying that she has 
another name elsewhere (ie America), we cannot assume that she has simply 
travelled from America to Mythgarthr.

I think the solution to this conundrum might be suggested by what happens to 
Escan: he leaves behind in Aelfrice a copy of himself  (p424). I think the 
American-Mag dreamed of Aelfrice as a child and left a copy of herself 
there, which continued on as Myth-Mag, the eventual mother of Berthold and 
Able, while her original dream-self returned to America, to marry and bear 
Ben and Art.

I think we know that Art's mother did dream of Aelfrice. Writing of his 
descent to Aelfrice in search of Toug he says, "How far to the dream my 
mother had?" (p314)

---

From: Andy Robertson <andywrobertson at clara.co.uk>
Date: Fri, 07 Jan 2005 06:24:33 +0000

> with the permission of Thiazi.

I'm moved to remember Abel's description of Lady Freya's house.  "You're 
forever finding something new there, and it's always something good.  Secret 
stairs leading to rooms full of books, and instruments you've never seen 
anyplace else, or windows with beautiful views you never knew were there".   
Rivendell, The High House, and a touch of Libraryspace?  I expect they all 
link up.

---

From: Andrew Bollen <abollen at internode.on.net>
Date: Sun, 09 Jan 2005 03:05:56 +0000

Further on Dream, Art & Able ... It seems that you one way you know you're 
in Dream is if
you see the the Valfather's "castle like a star" flying through the clouds.
Toug watches it in Dream (p56), as does Art at the start of Knight, on the 
hillside as he is surely dreaming.
Elsewhere in Knight, Art dreams he is Able dreaming on a hillside (surely 
the same one) as the
castle scuds through the clouds, remembering how he used to live in a place
where there were swords and no cars (p133). I think all this supports the
idea of Art & Able having being swapped, by the Aelf, via Dream.

(Though come to think of it, I guess the swap could have been engineered by 
the Overcyn, given the presence of the Valfather's castle ...)

As a bonus, in the Dream chapter in Wizard, there's a gratuitous-seeming
little passage where Art tells Toug that any horse ridden by an Aelf  "will
be one of ours, a horse taken by the Aelf as a man or woman may be." Or
indeed as Able, Art & Toug all have been at one time or another.

Toug is in some ways the most interesting character in the series. Art 
identifies with him to a certain extent. In the Dream chapter, he more or 
less appoints Toug as his prime agent.  I can't remember who or where, but 
one of the characters says that Art sees himself in Toug. Toug is a key 
piece in the game played by various parties in the first half of the book to 
secure Art's services for their own ends; they recognize Toug's influence 
over Art.

I don't think that Toug and Art have any direct physical or psychic 
relationship with each other, but I do think Art sees him as a kindred 
spirit. More than that, I think Toug is a kind of stand-in for the real 
Able, now in America.

One of the things that surprised me about Wizard was that we hear little 
about Able. I think we get Toug instead: an exceptionally brave peasant kid 
from the same area as Able, also taken by the Aelf & also delivered into a 
strange and dangerous world ... Toug fights against great odds, is wounded, 
fights on & is further wounded. I think we have to assume the same for Able 
in America; we hear of him in America via Art's dreams mainly when he is 
hospital after fighting hijackers, in an ambulance and so on.

Toug, unlike Art, is not a figure of destiny; no god-like beings have 
moulded him for great tasks and he doesn't have "supernatural" powers. I 
think the same would be true of Able in America, and though we don't know 
the details I feel sure his experiences there parallel Toug's.

---

From: stilskin <acronus at yahoo.com>
Date: Sun, 09 Jan 2005 13:38:56 +0000

I think you're onto something about Toug.  Why do you
think he fades from the ms. toward the end?  Is it
simply the return of Able to center stage?

=====

---

From: Andrew Bollen <abollen at internode.on.net>
Date: Tue, 11 Jan 2005 04:01:54 +0000

At the end of Wizard, when Art is wearing his magic helm. I think that 
previously, Berthold would have looked like Berthold, helm or no. Art wears 
the helm a lot and Berthold is around, in all of the fighting leading up to 
this; and the appearance of Ben in place of Berthold after the River Battle 
is obviously a surprise.

The big change is Art's healing of Bert, in which "it took a lot to restore 
the thing he had left in a pond, so long ago." We know that Art doesn't have 
the power to restore the dead. I think the point here is that the "thing" 
which Ben lost in the pond is indeed dead. To restore him, Able has had to 
replace it with something taken from or copied from (a memory of?) Ben, 
though it seems that Art himself doesn't realize this.

---

From: Seth Lombardi <sethlombardi at hotmail.com>
Date: Tue, 11 Jan 2005 13:49:04 +0000

>the thing he had left in a pond, so long ago." We know that Art doesn't 
>have the power to restore the dead. I think the point here is that the 
>"thing" which Ben lost in the pond is indeed dead. To restore him, Able has 
>had to replace it with something taken from or copied from (a memory of?) 
>Ben, though it seems that Art himself doesn't realize this.

I felt it was something along the lives of: the inhabitants of Mythgrather 
and America do more than just live prallel lives, but in fact share a soul, 
and that the differences between the two places were just different points 
of view on the same conflict, or state of being. Thus being a big reveal at 
the end of the book, it's an attmpt to give the work an extra bit of 
relevance or emphasis or emotional punch.

seth

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