{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/433", "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": 433, "subject": "Jonas and Hethor", "messages": 2, "voices": 2, "first": "1998-03-20T08:33:18+00:00", "last": "1998-03-20T08:58:29+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Tony Ellis", "address": "tony.ellis at futurenet.co.uk" }, "date": "1998-03-20T08:58:29+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Re: Jonas and Hethor", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " \n18/03/98\n 14:13\n RE>Jonas and Hethor\n\nRight. When I sent this on the 18th it apparently vanished into the\nether, so I'm re-sending. If it appears twice apologies to the list,\nand especially to Mantis, who doesn't deserve to be \nharangued twice.\n\nThe original e-mail began with my wondering why Mantis felt he\nhad to be so ungracious in answering my questions, but I'll cut \nto the action this time. If my tone seems a tad starchy in places,\nplease refer to his piece Jonas and Hethor\": \n\n" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Is it understood that certain prisoners are n-th generation ship\ncrew? Is this unclear? " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "\"Certain\" prisoners may be n-th generation ship crew, for sure,\nbut you said \"the prisoners\", and the only two you seemed to\nbe excluding were Lomer and Nicarete. This was the assertion\nI was asking you to qualify - and that was all I was asking\nyou to do. " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "The death of \"the navigator,\" (II, ch. 16)" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "One navigator doth not a antechamber full of descendants\nmake. The mere fact that Lomer, Jonas and Severian are\n\"ordinary\" prisoners tells us that ordinary prisoners are still \nput in here, and Nicarete speaks of \"all those who have \nbeen here so long that they have forgotten their crimes\",\nwhich implies a significant body of prisoners who have\ncommitted a crime _in their own lifetime_ to be here.\nThey can't be ship crew descendants either.\n\nI can see now why you think that this crew crashed on or\nnear the House Absolute, and it makes sense to me, but\nwe're told that the prison probably predates the reign of Ymar:\nsurely back then there were still ports? In which case any\nship can't have crashed until after the antechamber had\nbeen established, in which case... Just a thought." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "(How many old men poling on the Lake of Birds? You don't suppose\nthat was the =3Dsame=3D old man on hand after Severian's near drowning\n[I, ch. 2], asking about seeing a woman underwater?)" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Sorry if I'm being dim, but I'm not quite sure what you're saying here.\nIf you're saying that the old man poling on the Lake _was_ the same\nas the one asking about seeing a woman underwater you're \ncertainly wrong (the first is Docas's husband, the second is just\npossibly the old boatman we meet again at the end of TCOTA. Am\nI being obscure? Now you see why we sometimes want \nqualifying arguments )." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Is it understood that Hethor is being very crafty in keeping Jonas\nfrom seeing him, even when the two characters are seemingly in the\nsame scene? For instance, at the Wall of Nessus." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Yes, we know about this because Severian tells us plainly. It only\ntells us that J&H _may_ have served on the same ship at some \npoint, and if they have, so what? How does this prove that Hethor\nis Kim Lee Soong?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Is it understood that Hethor has spent time on starship Tzadkiel?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I ask again, how does this prove that Hethor is KLS?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Is it understood...\n...That the most likely source of Hethor's magic mirrors\nis that he stole them from Yesod, making him a sort of Prometheus?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Nope, as I understand it we don't know where he got them from. But\nif they did come from Yesod this still, _still_, wouldn't help the KLS\ntheory." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Is there any real doubt that \"Fortunate Cloud\" and \"Quasar\" are\ndifferent translations of the same anciently named ship?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Uh, yes. Every doubt. A quasar is a compact, star-like source of \nradiation. It is _nothing_ like a cloud. If Wolfe had called Hethor's\nship the \"Nebula\" you might have a point - but he didn't." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Is it understood that Hethor's real name is \"a much older one, that\nhardly anyone has heard of now\" (III, ch. 16)?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "So Hethor hails from Urth's deep past. Nobody is disputing that.\nGiven his profession it's practically a given. But that doesn't \nmake his name Kim Lee Soong. It could be almost anything.\n\nYou suggest that KLS is the only name that Severian has never\nheard before, but we really don't know that because nobody else\never _asks_ him if he's heard a particular name before, as Jonas\ndoes. We do learn that Jonas is a name Severian hadn't heard\nbefore, so maybe Hethor's real name is Jonas? :-) " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Re: the Shepherd of Jonas. Rather than argue, let me turn the tables" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Well, if you want to, Mantis. But you'll forgive us if we assume\nthat you won't argue because you _can't_ argue." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "But nah, I can go to all this effort and more, with the same results.\nYou won't believe my reading and I'm not interested in forcing you or\nanybody else to believe my reading." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "\"You can't fire me, I quit!\"\nNobody is accusing you of forcing us to believe your reading, Mantis.\nAnd it's unreasonable of you to declare that I simply won't believe\nit anyway, when I've been happy enough on several occasions in\nthe past to agree that you were right and I was wrong.\n\nIf this isn't going to be one of those occasions, it's because it \nseems to me that very few of your arguments have anything to\ndo with the assertions I was querying, as I hope I've shown above." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Michael Straight", "address": "straight at email.unc.edu" }, "date": "1998-03-20T08:33:18+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Re: Jonas and Hethor", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "On 20 Mar 1998, Tony Ellis wrote (quoting mantis):" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Is there any real doubt that \"Fortunate Cloud\" and \"Quasar\" are\ndifferent translations of the same anciently named ship?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Uh, yes. Every doubt. A quasar is a compact, star-like source of \nradiation. It is _nothing_ like a cloud. If Wolfe had called Hethor's\nship the \"Nebula\" you might have a point - but he didn't." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Been a while since I was familiar with theories of how stars form, but\nisn't a star (and thus a quasar) a gas cloud that is \"fortunate\" enough to\ncondense into a star?\n\n-Rostrum" } ] } ] }