Subject: (urth) Severian's skin color

From: Kieran Mullen <kieran at ou.edu>
Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2005 12:38:36 +0000

Begin forwarded message:
>
> Message: 8
> Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2005 20:08:15 +0200
> From: Hmpf MacSlow <hmpf1998 at gmx.net>
> Subject: (urth) Is this a BotNS illustration?
> To: The Urth Mailing List <urth-urth.net at lists.urth.net>
> Message-ID: <6.2.0.14.0.20050616200223.03762390 at pop.gmx.net>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed
>
> http://www.elevenland.com/amano/view.php3? 
> picName=The+Claw+of+the+Conciliator&picImage=pic16.JPG
>
> What do you think? It doesn't really *look* like anything I remember  
> from
> the book... but why else call the picture 'The Claw of the  
> Conciliator'?
> The artist is Yoshitaka Amano, a renowned fantasy illustrator who
> collaborated with Neil Gaiman on 'Sandman: The Dream Hunters'. He  
> seems to
> like doing random illustrations for fantasy stuff - there's some Elric
> illustrations on that website, too. Basically, high-calibre fan art.  
> *g*
>
> Anyway... if that is supposed to be a Wolfe illustration, then what do  
> you
> suppose it's meant to be? Is this Severian? (Surely not!)
>
> Hm.
>
> Hmpf
>

What color is Severian's skin?  I always thought it was quite dark, but  
maybe I've been mistaken all along...

Kieran Mullen

>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ---
> "I don't get out much, so I read."
> Pilot, Farscape
>
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---

From: Hmpf MacSlow <hmpf1998 at gmx.net>
Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2005 12:51:31 +0000

>maybe I've been mistaken all along...

IIRC, it's fairly light, for Commonwealth standards - I think that's one of 
the things that gets him being 'mistaken' for an exultant occasionally. Of 
course, to judge what 'light' in that context means we'd need to know what 
'normal'/'dark' would mean in the Commonwealth. *g*

And it's been a while since I read the book, so I may be wrong, anyway.

Hmpf

---
"Senseless property destruction has failed me, and so I must resort to 
wackiness."
- Patrick Shaughnessy, Triangle and Robert

---

From: David Lebling <dlebling at hyraxes.com>
Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2005 13:04:59 +0000

> maybe I've been mistaken all along...

I thought he was described as very pale-skinned with black hair.

-- Dave Lebling aka vizcacha

---

From: Seth Lombardi <sethlombardi at hotmail.com>
Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2005 17:52:26 +0000

>-- Dave Lebling aka vizcacha

Same here. I have the first issue of the comic adaption and he looks a lot 
like Neil Gaiman's Morpheus. The guy's pretty much a goth.

seth
*****************************
Seth Lombardi
sethlombardi at hotmail.com
http://sethlombardi.blogspot.com/
AIM: melombardi
"Two faces are alike; neither is funny by itself, but side by side their 
likeness makes us laugh" -Pascal

---

From: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <danldo at gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2005 20:13:10 +0000

This is a clear case of artists assuming that the generic SFF hero
is white no matter what the writer says.

Somewhere in there Wolfe (or Severian) makes a comment to
the effect that each of the continents has a characteristic 
physical "type," and that peoples who live on a continent long
enough will tend towards that "type." (Something like a hundred
generations?) Since the Commonwealth (a) is on - roughly - 
the South American continent, and (b) has been there a long 
time, we can reasonably conclude that its citizens resemble 
contemporary native South Americans.

--Dan'l

-- 
I do not fear Satan half so much as I fear those who fear him.
                        -- St Teresa of Avila
http://www.livejournal.com/users/sturgeonslawyer

---

From: Sarah Dorrance-Minch <isobelwren at yahoo.com>
Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2005 20:44:51 +0000

> I thought he was described as very pale-skinned with

Just like his mother. The "blonde" fan art picture
must be borrowing his father's hair colour...

Midori/Sarah

Ah, love couldst thou and I conspire/ To grasp this sorry scheme of things entire/ Would we not break it all to bits, and then/ Remold it nearer to the heart's desire - Omar Khayyam

Reach me a gentian, give me a torch
let me guide myself with the blue, forked torch of this flower
down the darker and darker stairs, where blue is darkened on blueness.
 - D.H. Lawrence, "Bavarian Gentians"

---

From: Sarah Dorrance-Minch <isobelwren at yahoo.com>
Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2005 20:47:37 +0000

> like Neil Gaiman's Morpheus. The guy's pretty much a

Ooh! Ooh! There's a graphic novel version of the
Timescape series? I can see where my next tax refund
is going.

Midori/Sarah

---

From: Sarah Dorrance-Minch <isobelwren at yahoo.com>
Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2005 20:51:46 +0000

> contemporary native South Americans.

Indigenous, or descendants of European colonists? I
used to be an ESL tutor; most of the businessmen I
tutored were pretty pale, especially the Brazilians,
some of whom (from southern Brazil) had German
surnames and seemed to be an average of six feet four.

It's a big continent. There are currently as many
"types" as in North America. As a side note, I wonder
what the typical North American will look like
millions of years from now...

Midori/Sarah

---

From: don doggett <kingwukong at yahoo.com>
Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2005 21:44:40 +0000

> must be borrowing his father's hair colour...

Ah, yes.  This brings me to something I had nearly
forgotten.  I'm assuming you're implying that Typhon
is Sev's father (which is not a terribly popular
opinion here since it's generally accepted that Ouen
is sev's pop).  This may be true but it's just as
likely that Piaton is his father since Typhon's head
is grafted onto him at some point.  Ymar is certainly
the son of Typhon or Piaton, and if Sev is not
actually Ymar (meaning he's a clone), he's certainly a
vessel for the first Autarch.  In my mind this
explains the parallels between Sev's and Ymar's lives
and Sev's confused memories.  All my humble opinion,
of course.

Don

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---

From: Seth Lombardi <sethlombardi at hotmail.com>
Date: Fri, 17 Jun 2005 16:09:15 +0000

>contemporary native South Americans.

But much of South America is peopled by people who do not necessarily 
resemble "native" South Americans.

Assuming Severian's theory be true, then we also have to assume that the 
people who happen to live there have lived there in isolation without 
invasion or other ethnic turmoil for a hundred generations, and also that 
there have been no significant changes in diet or environment on that 
continent between now and TBOTNS. We already know that the sun has dimmed 
significantly. It is also harped on that Severain is tall and may or may not 
have some exultant blood in him, and it's not even clear if exultants are 
natives of Urth, much less what was once called South America. So, while I 
think it may be reasonable to assume that Sevarian may be tale, pale and 
sunken-cheeked only by the standards of his community and not that of 
contemporary Europeans, I think it's a bigger stretch to assert one way or 
another that he or the people of Nessus look like contemporary native South 
Americans, or any other ethnic group we can imagine.

seth

---

From: Andrew Kertesz <andrew.kertesz at gmail.com>
Date: Fri, 17 Jun 2005 16:43:26 +0000

Actually, I was under the impression that the people of Severian's day
(at least those of the "lower" social orders) are somewhat
Neanderthalic. Wolfe makes a few references to high foreheads and
thick brow-bones (IIRC - I may be completely off-base here...)

---

From: Sarah Dorrance-Minch <isobelwren at yahoo.com>
Date: Fri, 17 Jun 2005 20:33:24 +0000

--- don doggett <kingwukong at yahoo.com> wrote:

> is Sev's father

No, I was under the impression that the waiter Ouen is
in fact his biological father. I recently took the
pairing _Sword and Citadel_ from the library, and I
remember reading near the end of _Citadel of the
Autarch_ that Ouen had fair hair. At least I hope I
read that right. I will confess that my short term
memory can sometimes be almost as bad as Dori's memory
(the Imperial Blue Tang fish in Finding Nemo, who
"suffers from short term memory loss")

I find this alternative interpretation of Severian's
parentage intriguing, although it's warping my mind.
All right, I admit it, my brain cells aren't turning
the hamster wheel of my mind fast enough today. What's
the rationale behind it?

Oddly, I don't find it all that odd that one of
Severian's closest love interests was his dead
grandmother. I'm afraid to ask myself what that says
about me.

Sarah Dorrance-Minch
(in SCA, THL Isobel Wren, called "Midori")

Mother to Sophie and Liesl and militant lactivist cult member

---

From: Sarah Dorrance-Minch <isobelwren at yahoo.com>
Date: Fri, 17 Jun 2005 20:49:21 +0000

--- Seth Lombardi <sethlombardi at hotmail.com> wrote:
> So, while I 

Your explanation was a lot clearer than mine. And yes,
that's what I had been trying to say. 

Sarah Dorrance-Minch

---

From: Andy Robertson <andywrobertson at clara.co.uk>
Date: Sat, 18 Jun 2005 00:50:06 +0000

> So, 
> while I think it may be reasonable to assume that Sevarian may be tale, 
> pale and sunken-cheeked only by the standards of his community and not 
> that of contemporary Europeans, I think it's a bigger stretch to assert 
> one way or another that he or the people of Nessus look like contemporary 
> native South Americans, or any other ethnic group we can imagine. 
> 
> seth

The people of the Commonwealth do look like contemporary south Americans.  
There's a largely European upper class (some of whom have pale/blond hair 
and blue eyes), a lower class of Amerindian "autocthons" with dark skin and 
straight thick dark hair, and a mixed group between. 

In the far South there are people who look like contemporary Scandinavians 
with "pale hair and speckled skin" (ref innkeeper describing the levies as 
he chats to Severian in Nessus). 

I agree this makes zero sense at umpty zillion AD, but Wolfe describes these 
groups quite clearly. 

. 

.

---

From: don doggett <kingwukong at yahoo.com>
Date: Sun, 19 Jun 2005 16:59:12 +0000

> the hamster wheel of my mind fast enough today.

It's been discounted by most people on the list, but
the rationale  in a nutshell is the parallels between
Sev's life and Ymar's, clues in the Tale of Frog
(sorry, my  books are on unintentionaly permanent loan
- I  should know better by now.)  And the fact that
Sev's confrontation with Typhon reflects the hero's
confrontation with his father in Joseph Campbell's
whatever-you-call-it theory. Here's the links to my
argument from long ago. 
http://www.urth.net/urth/archives/v0303/3022.txt.shtml
and
http://www.urth.net/urth/archives/v0303/3023.txt.shtml

Don

---

From: James Wynn <thewynns at earthlink.net>
Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 14:54:01 +0000

>>I find this [Typhon/Piaton/Severian] alternative
>>interpretation of Severian's
>parentage intriguing, although it's warping my
>mind...What's the rationale behind it?

>whatever-you-call-it theory.

For the record, I concur with the gist of the interpretation
although I couldn't say what the parallels between Sev &
Ymar's life are, I didn't originally find Don's interpretation
of the Tale of the Frog drastically compelling, and I'm
contemptuous Campbell's interpretation of myth and don't
see it as much of an influence on Wolfe.

I believed it, initially, because the Short Sun declared that 
Severian's crypt held Typhon's immediate family. After that,
things began to fall into place and make more sense. 

In an interview with Nick Gevers he was asked:
http://www.sfsite.com/03b/gw124.htm

NG: Why did you choose in Short Sun to have your
characters cross over into the milieu of New Sun? In
particular, do the meetings of Horn/Silk and Severian have
a decisive impact on the destinies of both? 

GW: Because the books would have been lame if they had
not. Once you see that Pas is or was Typhon, and know the
Rajan can travel by astral projection, he's got to do that.

What Wolfe doesn't explain to my satisfaction is why it was
necessary. It doesn't seem that obvious to me. I mean,
it would seem more obvious for the Rajan to go back and
meet Typhon wouldn't it? Or at least stand over his
lifeless body. Why Severian?

In some interview that I can't currently place, Wolfe said
that early on in the writing of the Long Sun, he came to
realize it had to be a story about the family of Typhon.
Which made me say "Hmm...I thought it was about Silk
and Tussah and Pike and Marble and Awk and Chenille 
and Horn."

Well?  That's why I think Severian *had* to make an appearance.

~ Crush

---

From: Chris <rasputin_ at hotmail.com>
Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 15:34:08 +0000

I can think of another way to read this than an implication that the Rajan 
should go back and meet Typhon. Basically Pas was Typhon, but became 
something a little different (and perhaps a little more). Recall that Silk 
at this point is maybe not the original, but comes from "Silver Silk" which 
supplanted Pas, but probably incorporated at least some elements from Pas. 
Thus in a certain way the Rajan *is*, or is descended from, Typhon.

So the Rajan, as a stand-in for Typhon, fittingly gets to visit Severian in 
his formative years. Though of course whatever influence he exerts over 
Severian is not what the original Typhon would have chosen.

---

From: don doggett <kingwukong at yahoo.com>
Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 20:44:50 +0000

I have to admit that my essay was very by the seat of
the pants, and that it was later disclosed that Wolfe
had never read King Jesus.  However most of the ideas
in that work can be found just as readily in The White
Goddess, which I read after I wrote the essay and
which GW has almost certainly read.  Silk and Severian
are genetically related, father to son, brother to
brother, or brother to half brother I don't know, but
it's there. IMVHO.

Don

> things began to fall into place and make more sense.

__________________________________ 
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Make Yahoo! your home page 
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---

From: James Wynn <thewynns at earthlink.net>
Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 09:08:31 +0000

>Severian is not what the original Typhon would have chosen.

Hmm...Well, I doubt the Rajan contains 'Silver Silk' (have there been any
proposed etymologies to this title?), and I don't know of any compelling
reason to think SS has any of Pas in him/it.

However, interestingly, I think you are definitely on to something because
I believe Horn is a clone of Typhon. There, I said it.

~ Crush

---

From: Chris <rasputin_ at hotmail.com>
Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 13:51:38 +0000

>I believe Horn is a clone of Typhon. There, I said it.

I was thinking of Silver Silk as the combination of uploaded Silk with the 
remaining fragments of Pas, but browsing through the archives seems to 
indicate my memory is mistaken on that point - still, the situation seems 
very confused with Silver Silk, Silent Silk, and "Pas-silk" involved. 
General speculation seems to be that the version that was in Pig was 
Pas-silk, and that was the one I was thinking of.

The question of whether Silk gets into Silk/Horn via Pig, or from Pig to a 
monitor into Silk/Horn, or was there all along, is contentious and I'm not 
going to try to argue it here. The relevant question for me here is whether 
whatever version of Silk is in Silk/Horn had ever had access to fragments of 
Pas. And I think there's a good chance, or at least a live possibility, that 
he did - though I won't claim it's not arguable.

What becomes even more intriguing is the question of where, in the 
chronology of the New Sun, Typhon scanned himself as Pas. Was it before he 
ever encountered the Conciliator, or between the first and second times (of 
course the first visit chronologically was the second from Severian's 
subjective point of view). If it took place after, you get the possibility 
that Silk/Horn might actually *remember* Severian. But it has been argued 
(fairly well) by Roy Lackey that the Whorl had to have been launched before 
Typhon's first encounter with the Conciliator (ref: 
http://www.urth.net/urth/archives/v0303/3073.txt.shtml) so if that holds 
then this is a dead end. Regardless, it is still poignant to have fragments 
of a transformed, "kinder, gentler" Typhon encounter Severian near the 
beginning of his journey.

---

From: James Wynn <thewynns at earthlink.net>
Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 15:06:52 +0000

Chris speculates
>The relevant question for me here is whether 

Well, after Pas re-emerged and began to purge the Mainframe of the rebel
modules, I'm sure there were plenty of opportunities for Silk to encounter it.
But if an aspect of Pas were hiding in Silk, I can't imagine him agreeing to
Silk's resignation and hermitage. That doesn't sound like any simulation of Typhon.

If Roy Lackey and Blattid are correct in their posts that Silk is a clone
of Typhon, then he would carry Typhon's very face back to the Whorl
to meet Severian. As appealing as that would be to me. I don't believe it. 

Wolfe has said (when asked about Silk's "ancestry"), that Silk is the son of the
Calde and his mistress. The question was regarding his *ancestry*, not his
parentage. I resolved this quandray by asserting that Tussah was Typhon's
clone, and that Silk is a clone of the son of Typhon and Kypris' original ("the
son not of my body shall be Calde after me").  Thus, Tussah and Pas are
murdered about the same time and Silk rises to take both their places.
And that's why Silk meets 2 pairs of parents during his death: Pas,
Kypris, Tussah, and his aknowledged mother.

For a lot of reasons, I would still like to say that Silk's "original" was a clone of
Typhon emplanted in proto-Kypris. But the text suggests that Chenille looked
*very* much like Tussah and Horn told Silk that he and Chenille didn't "really
look that much alike." There's no way around it for me. Silk is genetically the
bio-child of Typhon and proto-Kypris.

Which brings me back to the question of why it was *Silk* who was chosen to
be scanned to repair Pas. I understand why Wolfe did it thematically; I wish
he had justified it narratively. Perhaps it could have been anyone, but they
chose Silk as an honor because of his help against the Ayuntamiento.

>subjective point of view)...But it has been argued 
>then this is a dead end.

Well, I consider it self-evident that Typhon's scan occurred after he got his
new body, since Pas has two heads. I don't have my books, but I seem to
recall a suggestion that Typhon had *just* got Piaton's body when he met
the Conciliator. That would place the Whorl's launch just before or very soon
after his confrontation with the Concilliator. In that case, the scan must have
occurred as the capstone to the Whorl project before launching. Since I say
the taking of Piaton's body was punishment for his taking part in the rebellion
with his siblings and mother, there is the very real possibility that Typhon had
himself rescanned with this new body after executing his family. Would Typhon
have permitted his rebellious family to be a worshiped pantheon on the Whorl
after they had betrayed him? Well, look how their are depicted and you tell me.
Pas and Kypris depicted naturalistically. The rest of his family are monsters.
Typhon might have had himself scanned again simply because he wanted Pas to
be knowledgible of his family's potential treachery.   

But this is irrelevant to our discussion since I find it hard to believe Pas was in
Silk when the Rajan entered his body.

~ Crush

---

From: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <danldo at gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 15:57:37 +0000

Point of order:

> to meet Severian. As appealing as that would be to me. I don't believe it.

I find this theory appealing, for very much the reason you show
-- Typhon is very concerned about "the face of command," which 
is why he wants a full-head transplant rather than a brain transplant
-- but I'm not prepared to defend the theory, I can't say "this is how
I think it is." It's just an interesting possibility.

Which is how most interpretations of the solar books seem to me,
come to think of it.

--Dan'l

---

From: Chris <rasputin_ at hotmail.com>
Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 23:27:04 +0000

>Silk's resignation and hermitage. That doesn't sound like any simulation of 

It depends on what state Pas was in, I suppose. I don't think there was 
enough left of him to form a coherent person, and what is left is bound up 
into the persona uploaded by Silk, and the combined Passilk is probably 
technically different from either of them, but much more like Silk than 
Typhon.

Given this even in the best case it might be impossible to know just what 
Typhon lost, and whether possible memories of Severian would be among what 
remained.

>to meet Severian. As appealing as that would be to me. I don't believe it.

Well, I don't have much to say for or against the clone theory, but to me it 
always seemed a little beside the point. The DNA Silk had in his meatybits 
is only of peripheral interest (at least to me), and the only problem I have 
with the clone theories is that they tend to make that aspect central to 
their interpretation.

>new body, since Pas has two heads.

True, and I find this to be dead-on convincing personally. But at the same 
time it seems almost impossible to maintain continuity either way, because 
there's a pretty strong case going the other way. I hate to suggest it but 
perhaps this is just the product of an error on Wolfe's part.

>Silk when the Rajan entered his body.

But it would make a difference, regardless of whether Pas was there, if we 
were to believe that Silk had knowledge of Severian. At that point in the 
story, if I recall correctly, Silkhorn was no longer narrating. Was there 
any point where he and Severian were "off camera" and could have had a 
conversation the narrator wasn't privy to?

---

From: Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net>
Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2005 00:57:28 +0000

>to meet Severian. As appealing as that would be to me. I don't believe it.

I think you must have meant "carry Typhon's very face back to _Urth_". In
any event, I never claimed that Silk was a clone of Typhon, as the
previously referenced post and others from the same time period indicate. I
argued against it.

>son not of my body shall be Calde after me").

To assert that Tussah was a clone of Typhon is an unnecessary plot
complication for which there is no textual support. It is enough that the
old Calde was Silk's spiritual, adoptive father who designated his 'son' as
the heir to his office.

> Thus, Tussah and Pas are

Let's see -- "Silk is a clone of the son of Typhon and Kypris' original".
So, Typhon fathered a son on his mistress, and Silk is a clone of that son?
Did Typhon father that child before or after he lost his body? Did the male
half of the genetic material come from the original Typhon or from Piaton?
And who was that son? Why isn't he in the pantheon? Why isn't he in the
books?

And Kypris had the hots for a clone of her own son, and the clone
reciprocated. Tisk, tisk.

>I believe Horn is a clone of Typhon. There, I said it.

I'd like to see the textual basis for that claim. You have, genetically
speaking, Typhon = Tussah = balding Horn. And no one noticed. Not Quetzal,
who knew the latter two. Not Hammerstone, who had seen both Typhon and Horn.
Not Marble or Kypris, who had seen all three. And it seems to have escaped
the notice of _everyone_ how much Horn looked like Chenille.

Typhon was proud of his face. He had 'command presence'. Horn had trouble
ruling his own family.

-Roy

---

From: James Wynn <thewynns at earthlink.net>
Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2005 08:44:59 +0000

>is why he wants a full-head transplant rather than a brain transplant

Well, I didn't intend to pin this tail on you. I only referred to you and Roy
because in the post Chris cited, y'all were, at the time, putting it forward.
Actually, I also find the concept very appealing as I said. I probably have 2
dozen reasons for wanting it as an explanation for what is going on. But alas.

However, I think you are right about Typhon's interest in his own face in that
Typhon or Pas *did* intend for Typhon's face to lead the colonists. But Echidna
& Co and the Ayuntamiento spoiled it by knocking off Pas and Tussah. 

~ Crush

---

From: James Wynn <thewynns at earthlink.net>
Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2005 08:45:31 +0000

>old Calde was Silk's spiritual, adoptive father who designated his 'son' as

"It is enough" is a key word here. I once had about 5 potential
explanations for Tussah's relationship with Silk. The one you give *could*
have been the explanation among others.

I settled on this "unnecessary plot complication" only after
Wolfe himself shut every other door. Wolfe was asked explicitly about Silk's
"ancestry" and he said Silk was "the son of the Calde and his mistress". 
Unless one argues that Silk is the natural biological son of Tussah and his
mistress (which is not explicitly denied in the text but is still untenable) then
we are left to consider who that Calde in Silk's ancestry is. 

>half of the genetic material come from the original Typhon or from Piaton?

That's an interesting question. But as you know, Typhon was blonde like Silk.
Piaton dark-featured. But you make a significant point that Typhon has two
heads *and* two bodies. This is important in some of the themes Wolfe riffs
on. But not in this case.

>And who was that son? Why isn't he in the pantheon? Why isn't he in the

I direct you to the Book of the New Sun...the story of Spring Wind
(synonymous with "Typhon") and Bird of the Woods (the "People and
Places" section of "Exodus otLS" or "Calde otLS" mentions Chico, Mamelta's
pet parrot - this bird is not elsewhere mentioned in the whole saga
-  I take this an identity flag).

>reciprocated. Tisk, tisk.

(sigh) Kypris was not Silk's genetic mother. She was a algorithmic
simulation. I don't think even "Silver Silk" and Kypris could have
had sex so what is your point? I could spend reems detailing the
mythological types regarding mother and son that Wolfe is riffing off of,
but I'm sure you know them already.

>I'd like to see the textual basis for that claim [that Horn is a clone of Typhon]. 

It starts with the understanding that Tussah is a clone of Typhon. I
realize that that is hardly self-evident from the text. As I said. I settled
on it only after Wolfe shut every other door. But once you read it that
way, much more starts to make sense. Give it a shot. And once you
accept THAT, and once you accept that the story is littered with those
frozen embryos like the ones in the looted freezer Silk and Mamelta
found...then Horn's discussion about Pas at the beginning of "On Blue
Waters" and other places start fall in to place.

>You have, genetically
>speaking, Typhon = [bald] Tussah = balding Horn. And no one noticed.
>Not Quetzal, who knew the latter two. Not Hammerstone, who had seen both Typhon and Horn.

What makes you think Quetzal didn't notice? Horn was too young be of
use overturning the Ayuntamiento, and the Trivigaunte spies were doing
a lot of the work for him in putting Silk in that place. Quetzal knows a lot
he doesn't talk about...certainly not to Horn and Nettle who are the narrators.
Kypris? Same thing. What help could Horn provide for bringing back Pas?
The Plan of Pas had been totally screwed 30 years before. The powers on
the Whorl who wanted to see it happen had to work with what they had.

Pas was a god with two heads, both with hair. Tussah was a bald middle-aged
man. Horn was a teenager. Do you really think whatever simularities they
had in features were not ignorable? 

Wolfe could have had chosen to have someone note these things. He could
have explained a lot of things more clearly in this 7 volumn novel.

>Typhon was proud of his face. He had 'command presence'. Horn had trouble

I'm glad you brought up this similarity between Typhon, Pas, and Horn.
Pas was master at keeping his family in line. He did a much worse job than
Horn. You really think Typhon was so different? We know for a fact at least
that his 12 year old daughter was conspiring against him with his enemies.

Also, Horn is the one person that the leaders of New Viron turn to when things
are clearly going south. He leads a war against the Inhumi on Green.
Thus his thoughts on the embryos that were given special genetic abilities in
"leadership" becomes significant.

~ Cursh

---

From: James Wynn <thewynns at earthlink.net>
Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2005 09:09:37 +0000

>with the clone theories is that they tend to make that aspect central to 

Thematically, I consider it very important.  Tussah=Typhon means that
Tussah;s and Pas's murder that happened at about the same are
connected so far as the story goes. Much has been made of Pas's
possible intentions for Silk. It shows that Pas' original plan did not
include Silk. Silk came later, after things went awry. If Silk is genetically
Horn's son, then the fact that the Rajan is simultaneously Silk, Horn, and
Horn the Neighbor builds on the theme of rationalizing the Holy Trinity
which Wolfe takes at many levels in The Short Sun. 

Basically, knowing Silk is Typhon's son, is as useful as knowing that Krait
is Horn's son. Hmm..no one ever asks if any of the other Inhumi bear the
souls of named characters in the story. Don't you think they would
gravitate toward the same roles their originals had in one way or another
if possible?

>>Well, I consider it self-evident that Typhon's scan occurred after he got 
>>his new body, since Pas has two heads.

>perhaps this is just the product of an error on Wolfe's part.

Gasp! heh heh
Actually, I agree that shoehorning the launching of the Whorl into the
apparently brief period between Piaton getting his new head and the
first death of Typhon is a tight squeeze. But I think it can be done. And so
far, I'm still inclined to my stated opinion on this. But I would love to be
convinced otherwise.

>conversation the narrator wasn't privy to?

Well, even if Typhon's scan occurred after his meeting with the Concilliator,
*and* that the Rajan carried the memory of that meeting, there is no
guarantee that the Rajan would associate a boy he encounted
with the somewhat older haggard prophet he encountered on before
the launch.

On the other hand, if that boy was the image of Typhon's own son...well,
perhaps there would be something there.

~ Crush

---

From: don doggett <kingwukong at yahoo.com>
Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2005 10:19:05 +0000

> seen both Typhon and Horn.

Is this an acknowledgement that Quetzal personally
knew Typhon?  You realise you're saying that Quetzal
came from Urth then, and didn't slip onto the Whorl 30
years prior to the start of LS.  I'm not trying to
dredge up the old blushas greeshas blurth blah blee
debate but I would like a clarification. Thanks

Don

---

From: Chris <rasputin_ at hotmail.com>
Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2005 10:39:25 +0000

>debate but I would like a clarification. Thanks

Quetzal knew Pas, the same as any other augur in the Whorl. And given 
Typhon's preoccupation with his face, it is assumed that he would *not* have 
given Pas a different face than himself.

---

From: don doggett <kingwukong at yahoo.com>
Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2005 11:08:10 +0000

> given Pas a different face than himself.

Ok, but Roy didn't say Pas, he said Typhon.  Not to be
nitpicky but I think that requires clarification,
especially with this series. It also keeps Roy from
being misquoted later.

Don

____________________________________________________ 
Yahoo! Sports 
Rekindle the Rivalries. Sign up for Fantasy Football 
http://football.fantasysports.yahoo.com

---

From: James Wynn <thewynns at earthlink.net>
Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2005 11:26:24 +0000

>--- "Roy said:
>> who knew the latter two.

>given Pas a different face than himself.

I think Roy was saying that Quetzal only knew Tussah and Horn.
Wolfe has clarified when Quetzal entered the Whorl on the urth list by saying
that Quetzal was "a late arrival" but that he's not the only Inhumi on the Whorl.
I'm inclined to believe that the Neighbors/Inhumi were involved in the Whorl's
launching based the Inhumis' thematic connection with Dionysus and the LS/SS
similarities to the "King Midas and His Golden Touch" story. 
http://www.urth.org/whorlmap/midas.htm

But it's not iron-clad. Wolfe's interweaving of myth and literature can provide
clues but he *does* go off-script as I have learned with frustration. And of 
course, the text itself says nothing of this.

~ Crush

---

From: Mark Millman <millman at heimdallr.dyndns.org>
Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2005 11:26:33 +0000

Dear Mr. Doggett,

Actually, what Mr. Lackey said, is that Quetzal
knew -Tussah- and Horn.  The statement was:

> You have, genetically speaking,
> Typhon = Tussah = balding Horn.
> And no one noticed. Not Quetzal,
> who knew the latter two.

The "latter two" are Tussah and Horn.  The char-
acters that Mr. Lackey mentions as having seen
Typhon are Hammerstone, Marble, and Kypris.
The full posting is in the archive at:

http://listserver.dreamhost.com/pipermail/urth-urth.net/2005-June/001168.html

It is, so far, the only post by Mr. Lackey this
month, so you can just search on his name to
find it.

I hope this provides the desired clarification.

Best,

Mark Millman

On Thu, 23 Jun 2005, don doggett wrote:

> > Quetzal knew Pas, the same
> > as any other augur in the
> > Whorl. And given Typhon's
> > preoccupation with his
> > face, it is assumed that
> > he would *not* have given
> > Pas a different face than
> > himself.
>
> Ok, but Roy didn't say Pas, he said
> Typhon.  Not to be nitpicky but I
> think that requires clarification,
> especially with this series. It also
> keeps Roy from being misquoted later.
>
> Don

---

From: Chris <rasputin_ at hotmail.com>
Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2005 12:14:26 +0000

Though I try to remain agnostic about the whole clone thing, I might as well 
throw in some things that I think are problematic.

>we are left to consider who that Calde in Silk's ancestry is.

I find the application of the term "Calde" to Typhon to be very out of place 
here; the natural implication one would normally draw is that Wolfe is 
referring to Tussah. If you assume that Wolfe is being conversationally 
perverse here, then the term "Calde" could be applied to almost anyone. 
Which is not to say it's impossible that things are as you say.

For the life of me, though, I can't think of what purpose it might serve for 
Typhon to do this. It has been suggested that it was a body that Typhon was 
meant to inhabit, but that doesn't really work - why not clone himself and 
possess that body, rather than his son? And if he were going for 
optimization, why go with a natural biological pairing instead of a 
genetically engineered alternative? On the other hand if the embryo is 
supposed to be raised as an actual son for Pas in the new world, he would 
make a dangerous potential rival.

>-  I take this an identity flag).

I am not sure what you are getting at with this. But all in all if Typhon 
and the-mistress-who-became-Kypris did have a child I don't see why this 
would necessarily need any mention in the books or pantheon. The son could 
have been born during the rebellion, and very possibly killed by Typhon's 
wife and her children before developing a personality extensive enough to be 
worth scanning. One would certainly expect his bastard children to enjoy a 
very short lifespan in those circumstances.

> >I'd like to see the textual basis for that claim [that Horn is a clone of 

And I would add, I would like to see the textual *purpose* for Horn being a 
clone of any kind.

>Waters" and other places start fall in to place.

Those little frozen embryos were enormously expensive and not easy to come 
by, and Horn's family was not of any great wealth. Nor is there any 
indication of who, if anyone, would give such an embryo to them to raise, or 
why. If you are suggesting that he was planted there in order to later be 
exposed to Silk, this would have had to have been planned long before Silk 
even came to that manteion.

>had in features were not ignorable?

Later on, there should have then been a marked similarity between Horn 
(genetically Typhon) and Silk (genetically Typhon's son). This is something 
that lots of people should have noticed.

>"leadership" becomes significant.

The subtext I always took from this was that the primary reason they sent 
Horn was to get him out of the way, not because they had high hopes of him 
returning successfully. And Horn knows he is being maneuvered, but has 
little choice in the matter. You could argue Horn as a religious leader, and 
certainly he was influential. Although his influence extended mostly to 
people who had never seen him, through his book - and it's implied that 
Nettle was at least as responsible for the persuasive force of that book as 
he was - but in any event the influence he wields is not the product of his 
face or "command presence".

---

From: Chris <rasputin_ at hotmail.com>
Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2005 13:44:45 +0000

>which Wolfe takes at many levels in The Short Sun.

This is the kind of thing I was talking about, and I do think there's a very 
big thematic problem here. You are suggesting that Wolfe is "rationalizing" 
the Holy Trinity by deriving it from Typhon, who is on several levels *the 
Demiurge*. Perhaps you can justify this, I don't know, but any attempt to 
work this into the theme changes the implications of the entire series from 
top to bottom - and, as far as I can tell, not for the better. It seems like 
you'd be left with nothing but a sort of Gnostic pamphlet piece.

This isn't the only way the clone angle can be explored, of course, but it 
seems like many of the Clone Interpretations that have been proposed tend to 
center the theme on this one aspect at the direct cost of turning other 
aspects into mere farce, or simply discounting them.

---

From: don doggett <kingwukong at yahoo.com>
Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2005 13:59:43 +0000

Don blushes and shrugs.  You know, I have trouble with
left and right too. :)

---

From: James Wynn <thewynns at earthlink.net>
Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2005 14:34:28 +0000

>throw in some things that I think are problematic.

Cool.

Crush said:
>>Wolfe himself shut every other door. Wolfe was asked explicitly about 
>>Silk's "ancestry" and he said Silk was "the son of the Calde and his
>>mistress".
>>mistress (which is not explicitly denied in the text but is still 
>>untenable) then we are left to consider who that Calde in Silk's ancestry is.

>here...the natural implication one would normally draw is that Wolfe is 
>referring to Tussah...If you assume that Wolfe is being conversationally perverse here...

I do think Wolfe was being "conversationally perverse" as you put it. The questioner
asked about Silk's ancestry. He is taking it as a given that Silk is not the natural son
of Tussah. Wolfe acts dumb...he answers the question but with a major misdirection.
I *was* stunned by this answer since at first glance it seemed be saying Silk was
Tussah's natural born son. I recall that Don Doggett, on reading this response was
initially prepared to scrap every all his clone theories and start from scratch...after
all, if the text could be misread to this extent....

But Calde' is not an unworkable appellation for Typhon. A calde' is a combination
executive officer and sole judge. That is an accurate designation for any dictator.
Originally the word was applied to an official over a town, but by the same token an
onager is a half-wild ass used for carrying small loads, not a what-ever-it-is that was
in The Book of the New Sun. Wolfe takes words and uses them by their function, not
their strict definition (at least in the Sun Cycle).

>If you assume that Wolfe is being conversationally 

No. There's no evidence that Whorl technology was capable of producing NEW special
embryos available for implantation. But they did have the technology to implant the
embryos after the fact. If Silk was one of those and it is clear he was, then he came
from Urth.  Now, 1) we know Silk is not naturally conceived, that he was not the natural
son of Calde' Tussah, 2) there is another "calde'" in the story who has a mistress
who takes special note of Silk (and there are no others), and 3) by virtue of becoming Calde', Silk has identified
himself as Tussah's "son not of my body".

There are LOTS of ways to *possibly* resolve this, but I can think of only one way to
take Wolfe's answer as anything approaching the truth *and* put all the other pieces
together:

Silk was Tussah's son because Tussah was Typhon's clone. But he was a son
"not of Tussah's body".

I can't make it work any other way. Prior to this, to have Silk meet
Tussah in the Mainframe struck me as seriously unbelievable. He had never
even met Silk. It was as unlikely (or more so) as if Blood were to seek
Mucor's company after death.

>possess that body, rather than his son?

I don't know whether Typhon intended Pas to inhabit a body when the
colonists disembarked. I kind of doubt it since why would he tinker with
the embryos to give them added leadership abilities if he was only going
to possess a host with a simulation of himself? He *did* clone himself.
When the Whorl came in to orbit around their destination, TUSSAH was in
charge. But the Echidna & Co rubbed out Pas and the Ayuntamiento rubbed
out Tussah. Tussah planned for Silk to rule after him, because Silk was
genetically designed to lead...as Tussah was.

Why use himself and his family and court to make cloned embryos? Why not?
You have to get the clones from somewhere, I'm sure he thought he had the
best of the best starting material all around him. It seems obvious to me that
he would take the genetic material from close by.

I'm speculating here. I didn't decide that Tussah should be a clone so I could
justify having clones wander around the Whorl. I attempted to work out the
mysteries in the text and found that was the only solution left to me.

>And if he were going for optimization, why go with a natural biological pairing
>instead of a genetically engineered alternative? On the other hand if the embryo
>is supposed to be raised as an actual son for Pas in the new world, he would make
>a dangerous potential rival.

I don't think Typhon was concerned about that. The question was whether the
colonies would survive at all. They wouldn't have the technology to return to Urth
or to set up rival empires. He DID genetically engineer leaders for the colonies.
That's clear from the text in The Short Sun. He was trying to give them the best
chance for survival. Any clones leading the colony in the first years would be dead
before they could cause Urth any trouble. And they weren't supposed to be milling
around normal people on the Whorl. Their purpose was to descend with the colonists.
Things went wrong. The embryos leaked out on to the black market. The colonists
did not disembark when they were supposed to. So you ended up with the
embryos being implanted at various time under varying circumstances.

>>>And who was that son? Why isn't he in the pantheon?
>>>Why isn't he in the books?
>>
>>I direct you to the Book of the New Sun...the story of Spring Wind and Bird of the Woods

>I am not sure what you are getting at with this...The son could 
>worth scanning.

I'm just saying that the children of Typhon and proto-Kypris *are* mentioned
in the books. And yes, you are right, it is not necessary for them to be in the
pantheon but is it not unreasonable that they would be there. The text makes
it clear that there are many lesser gods not mentioned in the LS/SS (Kypris
is a lesser god herself). There are some that *are*  mentioned such as 
Hephaestus and Thyone's Son. If Kypris was scanned it is reasonable any
children she had were alive at that time. If the child was anything but a
baby, or perhaps even then, it might well have been scanned. It would look
no more like Silk than Scylla looked like her original. Maybe he *is* Thyone's Son.

>I would like to see the textual *purpose* for Horn being a 
>clone of any kind.

The same purpose for Rose having red hair or Kypris having blond hair
while her original looked more like Hyacinth. It provides narrative depth.
I've given thematic purposes for having Horn be a clone of Typhon.
What sort of textual purpose would suffice? The SF New Age writers
provide the multiple viewpoints with limited knowledge to tell a story
and leave reader to divine the gaps. They tell a story with a certain
amount of "negative space". This is just one more thing Wolfe has
left for the reader to find in that negative space. 

>by, and Horn's family was not of any great wealth.

Neither was Silk's mother.

>Nor is there any 
>why. 

This is a very good point. In my opinion, the person was Quetzal and his
purpose was as a backup plan in case neither Silk nor Awk succeeded in
bringing about the Plan of Pas. That's my guess.

>that lots of people should have noticed.

As the text states, there were very few people who knew Silk first hand...
certainly not for very long. Most of those who did, were still on the Whorl.
Without the two side-by-side, whose to compare them?

>>Also, Horn is the one person that the leaders of New Viron turn to when 
>>things are clearly going south. He leads a war against the Inhumi on
>>Green. Thus his thoughts on the embryos that were given special
>>genetic abilities in "leadership" becomes significant.

>face or "command presence".

Well, you might have said the same thing about Silk prior to the revolution.
Horn was "the leader of the boys at the palaestra". He led a revolt against
the Inhumi on Green. Even if you are right that the leaders of Viron were
trying to get rid of him, what does that say? A hermited paper manufacturer
is a threat to them? 

If it is The Book of Silk that is the danger, then they  should have sent Nettle too.

~ Crush

---

From: James Wynn <thewynns at earthlink.net>
Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2005 15:02:38 +0000

>aspects into mere farce, or simply discounting them.

I don't care if you completely deny there are *any* clones in the entire Sun
Cycle, it is still extremely arguable (but I'm not arguing it) that the books are
to Gnosticsm what The Chronicles of Narnia are to Orthodox Christianity. That's
just a fact, and discounting clones doesn't solve it. You still have a Gnostic
pamphlet.

Severian is named after a 2nd century Gnostic sect. Silk is an "enlightened"
man who becomes divine. Pas is an evil maker of an evil world who is
undermined by the original "good god" from outside it. I would really like get
Wolfe to provide a definitive answer on this.

But that is totally aside from Wolfe's rationalization of the Trinity....which he
does for example in his discussion regarding Thyone's Son in RTTW...
he is showing through the Rajan that it is possible...theoretically...for a
person to be three persons yet one person. He's not saying that's how God
*is*. He's only showing that it is not unreasonable.

Wolfe has said that originally The Long Sun was about a "good man in a bad
religion". Perhaps Wolfe is showing that you can't savage the knowledge of
the true God so much that he can't reach people's hearts. That, as they say,
when you get far enough away you are on your way back home. A demon
who imitates a god will be transformed into that god. So the more evil Pas is,
the better he exemplifies Wolfe point.

He's also clearly interested in mythical divine triads. Robert Graves made
much of the female ones in "The White Goddess" (which Wolfe illustrates
in the term "trivigaunte" and in the three sibyls) but there are plenty of
important male triads as well in the mythologies of Greece, Scandinavia,
Syria, etc. 

~ Crush

---

From: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <danldo at gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2005 15:31:50 +0000

On 6/23/05, Chris <rasputin_ at hotmail.com> wrote:

> >If Silk is genetically
> >Horn's son, then the fact that the Rajan is simultaneously Silk, Horn, 
> >and Horn the Neighbor builds on the theme of rationalizing the Holy 
> >Trinity which Wolfe takes at many levels in The Short Sun.
> 
> big thematic problem here. You are suggesting that Wolfe is 
> "rationalizing" the Holy Trinity by deriving it from Typhon, who is on 
> several levels *the Demiurge*. Perhaps you can justify this, I don't 
> know, but any attempt to work this into the theme changes the 
> implications of the entire series from top to bottom - and, as far as I can 
> tell, not for the better. It seems like you'd be left with nothing but a sort
> of Gnostic pamphlet piece.

Ummm.

I think that the Trinity theme is there, with or without the cloning
aspect: but I think it isn't about "rationalizing" at all. I think that 
the Whorl, as a Gnostic parody of the true Creation, has its own
parody of the Trinity....

--Dan'l

---

From: Chris <rasputin_ at hotmail.com>
Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2005 16:56:54 +0000

I agree with both you and Crush that there is a Gnostic element *there* 
regardless - that's the reason I find the possible relation to the Trinity 
to be problematic. A "parody" of the Trinity suggests a cosmological 
framework that's something like this (this is a rough, quick sketch so 
please don't kill me):

You have the Outsider standing "outside" from on high, and the Demiurge in 
control. The Trinity then springs from the Demiurge, but the Trinity is 
subverted from the Demiurge's purpose by the Outsider, thus becoming a 
genuine instrument for good. If you take this *seriously* you're drawn to 
the inference that the Gnostic elements in this book are an intended 
parallel to real cosmological principles, including a strongly heretical (to 
Catholic orthodoxy) suggestion of the Demiurge somehow standing necessarily 
in between the relation of man and God.

The difference thematically is in what role the Gnostic elements are 
supposed to play in the story. On a "standard" or "naive" reading you can 
place them as Typhon's attempt to have his way - but the Gnostic structure 
is overturned by the Creator and, in effect, cancelled out. Going the extra 
step and putting forward a Trinity which springs from the demiurge creates a 
stronger (and different) symbolic connection with theology and the story 
begins to *mean* something different, in a way that legitimizes at least 
some important aspects of that Gnostic structure.

re: the "rationalizing" Crush was talking about, as a simple device of 
showing how a 3-in-1 nature can work it may actually be somewhat 
inoffensive, but the minute you make that device central you call up these 
symbolic connections - which I can't help but think Wolfe would have wanted 
to avoid, even if he is not exactly the Voice of Orthodoxy.

---

From: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <danldo at gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2005 17:36:53 +0000

Chris,

> A "parody" of the Trinity suggests a cosmological
> You have the Outsider standing "outside" from on high, and the 
> Demiurge in control. The Trinity then springs from the Demiurge,
> but the Trinity is subverted from the Demiurge's purpose by the
> Outsider, thus becoming a genuine instrument for good.

Ummmm ... not really what I had in mind.

What I'm saying (and have been saying for a couple of years
now) is that the _Whorl_ itself is a miniature Gnostic Kosmos,
with Pas/Typhon as the Demiurge who creates it and the
Outsider as the True God. Silk's "enlightenment" - for which 
I have no proper name in terms of the "orthodox" true 
Creation; perhaps it might be likened to a moment of 
prophetic vision? - is, within the context of this miniature 
Kosmos, a moment of pure Gnosis. In pretending to be a 
whole and self-contained universe, the Whorl is thus a 
parody of the true Creation. 

Because the Outsider is the True God of this Gnostic
parody Kosmos, but also and more basically the God 
of Christianity, the Outsider is able to bend the false 
gods of the _Whorl_ to (ultimately) serve His ends. At
one point Silk observes that demons and other entities 
who pretend to be gods "become" them - that is, they 
all tend toward Outsider-ish-ness - they are subsumed 
ultimately into His design (rather like Melkor and the
Music of Eru Iluvatar). 

I'm still not saying this very well. I have a clear vision of
what I'm saying but it's hard to put into words. I need
to draw pictures or something.
 
> If you take this *seriously* you're drawn to the inference
> that the Gnostic elements in this book are an intended
> parallel to real cosmological principles, including a
> strongly heretical (to Catholic orthodoxy) suggestion
> of the Demiurge somehow standing necessarily in
> between the relation of man and God.

That is exactly what I am suggesting, with the caveat
that "the Demiurge" is not the metaphysical being of 
old Gnosticism but Pas/Typhon. He does his best to
make the inhabitants of the Whorl think he is the Father
God, the Creator, and to make them forget the old
religions - but he can do no better for a Scripture than
create a patchwork of the Bible, Marcus Aurelius, and
God knows what all else.

> The difference thematically is in what role the Gnostic
> elements are supposed to play in the story. On a
> "standard" or "naive" reading you can place them as
> Typhon's attempt to have his way - but the Gnostic structure
> is overturned by the Creator and, in effect, cancelled out.

In what sense is this naive?

> Going the extra step and putting forward a Trinity which
> springs from the demiurge creates stronger (and different)
> symbolic connection with theology and the story begins to
> *mean* something different, in a way that legitimizes at least

What I was thinking was rather more orthodox: as Pas tries 
to replace (or displace) the Outsider as God, he will naturally
(and perhaps not knowingly) tend to take on more and more
seeming aspects of Outsider-ness, and ultimately a parody 
Trinity will be the result. I don't really see Tussah as part of it
though... 

--Dan'l

---

From: Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net>
Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2005 23:30:15 +0000

>I hope this provides the desired clarification.

Dear Mr. Millman,

Thank you for saving me the trouble. I only wish more people read so
carefully.

-Roy

---

From: nastler <nastler at yahoo.dk>
Date: Fri, 24 Jun 2005 02:24:20 +0000

Before the old Gnostic argument cycles through again,
I'd just like to flag the discovery of the secular
nature of Silks enlightenment made by Marc Aramini
almost two years ago (10Oct2003) but not really
discussed on the list.

This makes spurious the easy assumption (which I had
also made) that the Outsider is the True (Christian)
God breaking into the closed Whorl to directly
enlighten Silk on the court.

If God takes a hand in LS (or SS) then He is massively
indirect. As Dan (and Silk) says, it can only then be
an assumption that the intentions of Tyhpon and
Kypris, in giving such a cyberpunky message to Silk,
and the actions of the other "demons and false gods",
in some way accord with His wishes. Which is another
way to say "God is the Universe".

nastler

---

From: James Wynn <thewynns at earthlink.net>
Date: Fri, 24 Jun 2005 06:11:17 +0000

Chris says:
>framework that's something like this ....
>[Chris gives a decent sketch of The Long Sun as an allegory for Gnosticsm]
>

I don't think Wolfe is writing an allegory. He's playing with many different ideas
in many ways often at the same time. He's cooking a multiple course meal
tossing in different flavors that kick in at different times amd ways. This story,
like all his novels, overlays certain symbols and concepts that were adopted as 
central to Gnosticism but were also seen as CONFIRMATIONS of the deity of
Jesus of Nazareth by Christian mythopoetics like C.S. Lewis. So there's bound
be some potential confusion here.

Even if the Whorl is a miniture Gnostic universe, Silk, Horn, and Horn! become
the Rajan mostly OUTSIDE it. If Wolfe were *merely* trying to create a Gnostic
set-piece then the Rajan Trinity confuses or devastates it. Horn, a clone of Typhon,
is *ironically* the FATHER the Trinity. But he is neither Typhon himself nor Pas. He
was reared in a vastly different environment than Typhon. Horn! the Neighbor is the
Spirit. They become 3-1 on the Whorl when they join with the Son (Silk). Fine for our
Gnostic story, although Silk has already been enlighten and so this event is out of
order. But THEN the Rajan preaches the will of Pas to the Whorl!!! That's hardly the
Gnostic story. 

If Wolfe were determined to avoid the chance of people thinking he was endorsing the
Gnosticsm then he should have avoided making Silk so appealing or naming his hero
in The New Sun after a Gnostic sect.

~ Crush

---

From: Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net>
Date: Fri, 24 Jun 2005 13:10:36 +0000

>Well, I consider it self-evident that Typhon's scan occurred after he got
his
>be knowledgible of his family's potential treachery.

I've pointed this out before, though it keeps being ignored -- perhaps
because it plays hell with all sorts of beloved theories, but the textual
fact of the matter is that Typhon's children were exactly that -- little
children -- at the time they were scanned for the _Whorl_. Cilinia (Scylla),
Echidna's firstborn, was close to the age of puberty:

"I saw the bird was really a girl old enough to take care of other sprats
but not old enough to get married." "[. . .] a big girl that would be a
woman in another year." (RTTW, 347)

And:

"'I died young. It can't have been long after I was scanned for the
_Whorl_.'" (392)

Her siblings were all younger; the youngest could not have been much more
than six years old when scanned. The idea that seven little kids took part
in any meaningful way in a conspiracy against their father is laughable on
the face of it, for the same reason I laugh when I see one of our kittens in
mock-attack mode take a swipe at one of our old toms.

I don't know if it's possible for a computer persona to "grow up" over the
years, and grievances arise, but if it happened to Typhon's children, it
happened on the _Whorl_, not Urth. The rebellion against the father can have
taken place only on the _Whorl_, not Urth, in so far as the textually-given
insurrection influenced events in the LS and SS books. The ship was gone
before the children even grew up.

As for the notion that Piaton was/is Typhon's son . . . my blood pressure is
much too high as it is. A moment's reflection on the above textual facts
should suffice to show that it couldn't have happened as Crush theorized.
And if that's not enough, just read chapter XXV of SWORD, where it tells how
and why Piaton was chosen. Piaton was a slave chosen, after testing, for his
physical strength. That's all there was to it.

-Roy

---

From: Chris <rasputin_ at hotmail.com>
Date: Fri, 24 Jun 2005 14:22:24 +0000

Crush said:
>But Calde' is not an unworkable appellation for Typhon.

I don't think it's unworkable, I just think it's significantly awkward. And 
when you start trying to divine his intention here, you can go a number of 
ways. Just as one example, does he mean the "Calde" (in its non-obvious 
sense) is Silk's father, or does he mean the Calde (Tussah) is his "father" 
(in a figurative sense - even given the question was about Silk's 
"ancestry", even this can be taken figuratively). I'm sure other 
interpretations are possible, and I'm skeptical of all of them - I don't 
think this quotation does much to back up any theory.

>charge.

Tussah was in charge of one city, among how many? Hundreds? I don't think 
this provides any special reason to believe that Tussah is a clone of 
Typhon. And I don't see how it would be especially advantageous to have a 
clone of Typhon "in charge" when the time came - sure, such a clone might be 
genetically predisposed to successful leadership, but then *anyone who 
gained and held that post* would likely be predisposed to successful 
leadership. And children don't always turn out the way you'd like them to, 
even if they have the "right genes" - unless of course Pas was going to 
possess Tussah when the time came, but you've already argued against that.

Here I'd like to make a general comment that applies to things brought up in 
several different posts (and not specifically here) - we have to be careful 
not to give Typhon too much credit for omniscience. What he did was a feat 
of social engineering on a massive scale; it's an inexact science, but all 
in all it seems to have worked fairly well. Still, the plan worked far from 
perfectly. Furthermore this kind of planning does *not* let you micro-plan 
events at an individual level, nor would you want to go about long-term 
planning on such a level. If you put your eggs in the basket of a single 
individual, no matter what their genes, there are just too many 
unpredictable things that can happen to disrupt your planned development.

>bringing about the Plan of Pas. That's my guess.

I don't understand this, for reasons somewhat connecting with what was said 
above - it implies instrumental roles for specific individuals in "the Plan 
of Pas", sight unseen. Quetzal would then have to have known their roles 
something like 12 years in advance to get Horn in place. And since Pas had 
been out of commission for some time before that, Pas would have had to have 
planned out the course of events before many of the key players were even 
born.

Aside from that it seems impossible that Horn could possibly have filled in 
for Silk, even if he had supergenes. If the plan was for him to be a backup, 
it would seem safer to seed him in place much earlier.

The alternative here seems to be either to say that cloneHorn was dropped 
into place by some supreme agency capable of micro-managing individual lives 
in a city full of people just from their genes, or else Horn is there for 
some other (possibly purely incidental) reason. I don't think the former is 
viable, and offhand I can't think of a convincing argument for the latter.

>Without the two side-by-side, whose to compare them?

Lots of people in New Viron knew Horn first hand. And they get to see Silk's 
body when Silkhorn returns to New Viron. I do not think Silk was so old that 
a family resemblance would have been that impossible to discern. Especially 
in a family that striking.

>If it is The Book of Silk that is the danger, then they  should have sent 

There are subtleties in play which I only loosely grasp, but they wouldn't 
have sent Nettle because they don't want to lose their ability to 
manufacture paper. Besides which with Horn gone, Nettle presumably falls 
into line out of a keen awareness of how vulnerable she and her family are. 
They want to maneuver it so that Horn's departure is voluntary, to avoid 
creating a martyr. By making the pretext a search for Silk - which they 
presume to be more or less impossible - Horn can go (in which case they can 
later scorn him as a failed prophet) or he can stay (in which case he has 
failed to put his money where his mouth is). Either way, regardless of 
Nettle they can use this to try to discredit the *Book*, and the Book is 
more of a threat to them than Horn and Nettle off on their little island.

---

From: Stanis³aw Bocian <sbocian at poczta.fm>
Date: Sat, 25 Jun 2005 12:23:06 +0000

Friday, June 24, 2005, 2:36:51 AM, Dan'l Danehy-Oakes wrote:

 ....

DlDO> Ummmm ... not really what I had in mind.

DlDO> What I'm saying (and have been saying for a couple of years
DlDO> now) is that the _Whorl_ itself is a miniature Gnostic Kosmos,
DlDO> with Pas/Typhon as the Demiurge who creates it and the
DlDO> Outsider as the True God. Silk's "enlightenment" - for which 
DlDO> I have no proper name in terms of the "orthodox" true 
DlDO> Creation; perhaps it might be likened to a moment of 
DlDO> prophetic vision? - is, within the context of this miniature 
DlDO> Kosmos, a moment of pure Gnosis. In pretending to be a 
DlDO> whole and self-contained universe, the Whorl is thus a 
DlDO> parody of the true Creation. 

DlDO> Because the Outsider is the True God of this Gnostic
DlDO> parody Kosmos, but also and more basically the God 
DlDO> of Christianity, the Outsider is able to bend the false 
DlDO> gods of the _Whorl_ to (ultimately) serve His ends. At
DlDO> one point Silk observes that demons and other entities 
DlDO> who pretend to be gods "become" them - that is, they 
DlDO> all tend toward Outsider-ish-ness - they are subsumed 
DlDO> ultimately into His design (rather like Melkor and the
DlDO> Music of Eru Iluvatar). 

DlDO> I'm still not saying this very well. I have a clear vision of
DlDO> what I'm saying but it's hard to put into words. I need
DlDO> to draw pictures or something.

....

DlDO> --Dan'l

Yes. One of constant topics of Wolfe is that we became something by
acting like it.

And something not quite on topic, but, I think, interesting. In "When
I was Ming the Merciless" Wolfe alludes to a passage from "City of
God" of St Augustine. The most striking fragment of that passage are:

"This Egyptian, however, says that there are some gods made by the
supreme God, and some made by men. .. he asserts that visible and
tangible images are, as it were, only the bodies of the gods, and that
there dwell in them certain spirits, which have been invited to come
into them, and which have power to inflict harm, or to fulfil the
desires of those by whom divine honors and services are rendered to
them."

"Dost thou not know, O AEsculapius, that Egypt is an image of heaven,
or, more truly, a translation and descent of all things which are
ordered and transacted there, that it is, in truth, if we may say so,
to be the temple of the whole world?"

It should also be noted that for Gnostics Egypt was the symbol of the
false world of matter, created by Demiurg, in which we live. So, I
think that there can be no doubt that Whorl is symbolically Egypt, and
leaving the Whorl is the Exodus.

Gene Wolfe "When I was Ming the Merciless"

"He had a theory-I don't know whether he believed it himself. I
didn't, but still. . . . There was something in it. Do you understand
what I mean? It wasn't true; but still. . . .

"All right, here's what he thought. Or anyway, what he said he
thought. That there are things we don't know about that live in the
world with us-things in another plane of reality. And when you make
something like that, it comes- one of them comes. It shapes itself to
fit your image of it, becoming the real Spirit of the Yellows. Anyway,
when we had the torchlight processions, sometimes you might think you
could see it move. It was just the flickering light, of course, and
the fact that because it was so tall the face was illuminated from the
bottom. Any face will look strange when you light it from below, I
suppose. We caught rats and pigeons when we built it and put them
inside, so it would make strange sounds; some of them must have lived
a long time.

"No, I don't know what happened to it, and I don't care. You can't
kill the thing, the Spirit of the Yellows. Not unless you kill all of
us, and you won't do that. We'll be free someday. How could we forget?
The experiment was the greatest thing in our lives. At night, before
we had won, we used to sit around the fire-outside, the buildings were
too dangerous then-and talk. You've never done that. You weren't
there.

St Augustine "City of God"

 http://ccel.org/fathers/NPNF1-02/Augustine/cog/t45.htm#t45.htm.0

" The Egyptian Hermes, whom they call Trismegistus, had a different
opinion concerning those demons. Apuleius, indeed, denies that they
are gods; but when he says that they hold a middle place between the
gods and men, so that they seem to be necessary for men as mediators
between them and the gods, he does not distinguish between the
worship due to them and the religious homage due to the supernal
gods. This Egyptian, however, says that there are some gods made by
the supreme God, and some made by men. Any one who hears this, as I
have stated it, no doubt supposes that it has reference to images,
because they are the works of the hands of men; but he asserts that
visible and tangible images are, as it were, only the bodies of the
gods, and that there dwell in them certain spirits, which have been
invited to come into them, and which have power to inflict harm, or
to fulfil the desires of those by whom divine honors and services are
rendered to them. To unite, therefore, by a certain art, those
invisible spirits to visible and material things, so as to make, as
it were, animated bodies, dedicated and given up to those spirits who
inhabit them,--this, he says, is to make gods, adding that men have
received this great and wonderful power. I will give the words of
this Egyptian as they have been translated into our tongue:

"And, since we have undertaken to discourse concerning the
relationship and fellowship between men and the gods know, O
AEsculapius, the power and strength of man. As the Lord and Father, or
that which is highest, even God, is the maker of the celestial gods,
so man is the maker of the gods who are in the temples, content to
dwell near to men."

And a little after he says, "Thus humanity, always mindful of its
nature and origin, perseveres in the imitation of divinity; and as the
Lord and Father made eternal gods, that they should be like Himself,
so humanity fashioned its own gods according to the likeness of its
own countenance."

When this AEsculapius, to whom especially he was speaking, had
answered him, and had said, "Dost thou mean the statues, O
Trismegistus?

"--" Yes, the statues," replied he, "however unbelieving thou art, O
AEsculapius,--the statues, animated and full of sensation and spirit,
and who do such great and wonderful things,--the statues prescient of
future things, and foretelling them by lot, by prophet, by dreams, and
many other things, who bring diseases on men and cure them again,
giving them joy or sorrow according to their merits. Dost thou not
know, O AEsculapius, that Egypt is an image of heaven, or, more truly,
a translation and descent of all things which are ordered and
transacted there, that it is, in truth, if we may say so, to be the
temple of the whole world? And yet, as it becomes the prudent man to
know all things beforehand, ye ought not to be ignorant of this, that
there is a time coming when it shall appear that the Egyptians have
all in vain, with pious mind, and with most scrupulous diligence,
waited on the divinity, and when all their holy worship shall come to
nought, and be found to be in vain."

Hermes then follows out at great length the statements of this
passage, in which he seems to predict the present time, in which the
Christian religion is overthrowing all lying figments with a vehemence
and liberty proportioned to its superior truth and holiness, in order
that the grace of the true Saviour may deliver men from those gods
which man has made, and subject them to that God by whom man was made.
But when Hermes predicts these things, he speaks as one who is a
friend to these same mockeries of demons, and does not clearly express
the name of Christ. On the contrary, he deplores, as if it had already
taken place, the future abolition of those things by the observance of
which there was maintained in Egypt a resemblance of heaven,--he bears
witness to Christianity by a kind of mournful prophecy. "

-- 

    Stanislaus Bocian

----------------------------------------------------------------------
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---

From: Chris <rasputin_ at hotmail.com>
Date: Sat, 25 Jun 2005 15:32:32 +0000

>in The New Sun after a Gnostic sect.

There is some sense to this, of course, but the thematic interpretation 
still *feels wrong* in a way that's difficult to put a definitive expression 
to. My intuitive reaction to this is that I could accept the proposed 
trinity as ironic if it were a case of it being an *apparent* construction 
whose meaning on further examination is called into question. In this case 
the trinity analogy is not "apparent", not without considerable examination 
and scrutiny (more so even than the average effort that goes into reading 
one of Wolfe's stories). So even if on *further* further examination it 
turns out not to be so, the reader's attitude on reaching the construction 
you suggest is not one of surface appearances but one of having uncovered 
deep secrets. So the ironic mode does not seem to drop into place entirely 
naturally.

I can't say that it's an invalid reading, if there is such a thing (I think 
there is, but that's just me), but the constellation of meanings and 
insights that can be drawn here all just seem fundamentally "off" to me; 
they also don't seem to represent an improvement over the meanings that can 
be drawn from the story without the Typhonic trinity. I'm aware that this 
seems a weak criticism, but at the same time I also think about half the 
magic to textual interpretation consists in that intuitive feeling of 
rightness or wrongness that leads you to settle on a meaning, or else keep 
looking.