Subject: (urth) Who's in Oreb

From: James Wynn <thewynns at earthlink.net>
Date: Fri, 24 Jun 2005 15:11:06 +0000

>Pas in Oreb? I don't think so. That was Scylla. (RTTW, 348)

Yes, but Orebs possession by Scylla did not occur until after Pas's
resurrection (RTTW 359-360). Echina, Hieros, Molpe, and Scylla
did not start possessing animals until they became really desperate
to escape Pas.  
[Incidentally, it is at the location I cited that the Rajan denies Pas
intended to rule Blue in person.]

I'm referring the time when Silk first bought Oreb. As you recall,
Oreb died just before Silk could sacrifice it, and then was
inexplicably resurrected. Since *someone* was possessing that
bird I'd say Pas and Kypris were the most likely candidates. But
Silk mentions that night choughs are signitory birds of Pas.  Well? 

Granted at first glance it would make more mythological sense to have
Pas hide in a black ram. Since that is where Zeus hid when Typhon
drove the gods off Olympus.  But Pas is also thematically assigned to
Apollo (as is Hieros at times) so a raven is not really off script either.

~ Crush

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From: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <danldo at gmail.com>
Date: Fri, 24 Jun 2005 15:17:28 +0000

On 6/24/05, James Wynn <thewynns at earthlink.net> wrote:
> bird [...]

That's rather a large assumption. There is only one known-for-sure
example of a god of Mainframe possessing an animal (Scylla-in-
Oreb, forsooth and fershoor), and that was in extreme circumstances.
Pas at this time was _already_ shattered and scattered, and, while
Kypris was not, nothing in her early encounter with Silk suggests
that she was in particular fear at that time.

Is there any reason to suppose that Oreb was possessed, rather
than, say, playing dead?

--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

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From: James Wynn <thewynns at earthlink.net>
Date: Fri, 24 Jun 2005 15:48:05 +0000

>Is there any reason to suppose that Oreb was possessed, rather

Well, "playing dead" is no small clue. Silk is a trained and practiced
"butcher". He deals with dead animals all the time. He had every
reason to want Oreb NOT to be dead. It was a terrible
disheartening event for the bird to die mid-sacrifice.  If Silk was
convinced Oreb was dead, I think his assessment is trustworthy.
His death and resurrection can hardly be termed anything but a miracle.

Maybe I'm wrong about who was in there. I can't imagine who else it
might be because even though Kypris does tell Silk she's on the run,
I agree she does not seem to be as desperate as the the renegade
gods seem to have been when they fled into animals. Also, black birds
are signatories of Pas. Also, in a literary sense, the bird's death and
resurrection foreshadow Pas's same. 

But maybe I could be wrong. After all, we don't have any proof to the
degree we get regarding Scylla in RTTW. Or maybe even the Outsider
did it. But that was a significant event that was never
explained in the story. And I think my explanation is the most
probable.

~ Crush

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From: James Wynn <thewynns at earthlink.net>
Date: Fri, 24 Jun 2005 15:51:56 +0000

~ Crush

---

From: Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net>
Date: Fri, 24 Jun 2005 23:30:05 +0000

>intended to rule Blue in person.]

I'm not sure what the point of that last statement was, but that's not quite
what is said. I'm not going to quote it all; readers can read it for
themselves, pages 361-362. In short, Scylla is reported by Silkhorn to have
believed that "Pas would not have peopled Blue unless he had some way to go
there himself to rule them." Silkhorn thought she was wrong. Eventually,
Silkhorn says, "Pas has not yet come, perhaps. Or perhaps he has, and Oreb
simply failed to find the place that Pas found or created." And, later,
"Then I believe Pas knows that as the years pass we will come to realize how
much we need him, and bring him." [ . . .] "The same impulse [that sent Horn
to find Silk] will be applied to Pas in another generation, surely."

-Roy

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From: James Wynn <thewynns at earthlink.net>
Date: Sat, 25 Jun 2005 10:25:36 +0000

Roy answered:
>there himself to rule them." Silkhorn thought she was wrong. 

You are wrong; self-evidently so. That is exactly what the text said.
Why are you quibbling about it? The point of that statement was that the Rajan,
who arguably knows as much or more about Pas than anyone, flatly
denies that Pas felt it personally necessary or desirable to rule the colonies
in person. He implies that he has special insight into this matter that he
could have made available to Scylla if she had asked.
Thus the idea that Pas would not want clones or other hyped-up
embryos ruling in his stead is not true.  Being of a generous nature, I
will quote it for readers:

"She possessed Oreb, as I told you, because she knew he would soon be
brought [to Blue]. She felt sure--she told me this one night--that Pas would
would not have peopled Blue unless he had some way to go there himself
to rule them. 'Lord it' was the phrase she used. She was wrong, as I could
have told her." [361 RTTW]
 
See? Not that hard. That aside was not meant for you, Roy. Sorry
for the confusion. It was an *aside* regarding something Chris and I
had discussed.

>Eventually,

All of which says nothing about Pas's *intent*. 

However, once again I'm glad it was you and not me that cited the quote
"Pas has not yet come, perhaps. Or perhaps he has, and Oreb
simply failed to find the place that Pas found or created."

Heh heh heh, or perhaps he has come to Blue *indeed* (cough! Horn).

~ Crush

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From: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <danldo at gmail.com>
Date: Sat, 25 Jun 2005 12:44:40 +0000

On 6/25/05, James Wynn <thewynns at earthlink.net> wrote:
> Why are you quibbling about it? The point of that statement was that the 
> Rajan, who arguably knows as much or more about Pas than anyone,

More than _Scylla_, James?

_Really_?

Yeah. right...

--Dan'l

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From: James Wynn <thewynns at earthlink.net>
Date: Sat, 25 Jun 2005 13:33:11 +0000

>>The point of that statement was that the 

>More than _Scylla_, James?

The Rajan seems quite comfortable that he knows more about this issue
than Scylla. He doesn't elaborate why, but there is something about
his assuredness makes me believe him. And certainly, at this juncture
he *does* contain a good deal of Pas within him. Anyway, Scylla
was wrong in this case that Pas would only permit the colonists to come
to Blue if He could rule them directly and the Rajan says he knew
in advance that it wasn't so. Maybe the Rajan was lying or bragging,
but I don't think so.

~ Crush

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From: Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net>
Date: Sat, 25 Jun 2005 21:05:18 +0000

>You are wrong; self-evidently so. That is exactly what the text said.

Hardly. Silkhorn did not deny that "Pas intended to rule Blue in person", as
you claimed.

>Why are you quibbling about it? The point of that statement was that the
Rajan,
>in person.

That statement says no such thing, exactly or otherwise. The statement
purports to express a conditional belief of Scylla's. It says nothing about
what Silkhorn may have thought about Pas' intentions, one way or another, to
rule Blue. What Silkhorn disagreed with, it seems to me, is the condition
Scylla believed would have kept Blue (and Green) from being colonized at
all. That condition was that Pas had to be there, somehow. Silkhorn knew,
for a fact, that both Blue and Green _had_ been colonized. He also had no
reason (and therefor neither do we readers) to believe that Pas was present
on either planet, in any form. Thus Scylla was wrong, in his opinion.

>He implies that he has special insight into this matter that he
>embryos ruling in his stead is not true.

There you show where your bias lies. You _want_ your theories to be true.
Silkhorn's disagreement with Scylla's assessment says nothing about Pas'
proclivities for ruling the colonies via clones or bodies grown from
enhanced embryos. Implications are one thing, but they have to take a back
seat to what was actually written.

I didn't call you a liar. All I said was "that's not quite what is said". I
stand by that.

-Roy

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From: James Wynn <thewynns at earthlink.net>
Date: Sun, 26 Jun 2005 12:16:07 +0000

>INTENDED to rule Blue in person.]

>Roy answered:
>That's not quite what is said. 

>Crush replied:

Roy responded:
>Hardly. Silkhorn did not deny that "Pas intended to rule Blue in person",
>as you claimed.

Let me rest my forehead on this cool desk for a moment. There. That's
better.

I reiterate:
"[Cilinia] felt sure...that Pas would WOULD NOT have peopled Blue UNLESS
he had some way to go there himself to rule them....SHE WAS WRONG,
as I could have told her." [emphasis mine]

Are you splitting the hair between "Pas had NO plan to rule Blue in
person",  and "Pas MIGHT have preferred to rule them in person 
(although the text AFAIK never says that WAS his intention)
but he would not have insisted on it."?

Fine. Split away. But I don't need nearly as fine a microscope to split
this one:
>I didn't call you a liar. All I said was "that's not quite what is said".
>I stand by that.

I don't need to be a major league centerfielder to catch the gist of your
remark that I was subverting the text in some undeclared subtle or not
so subtle way. Take out "undeclared" and that's all fair game, but
when doing that you could have posted the full relevant text rather
than pull a sentence from it and then summarize what the Rajan's
take on it was -- and then"leave it to the readers" to look it up. It
wasn't a long reference and you had no problem quoting other
references. A nasty shot from the bushes IMO, and I'll stand by
that.

>Roy responded:

I don't think you have to cast around far to find out where my biases
lie. And I'm impressed to learn you are disinterested in whether your
opinions are true or not. But this being untrue would hardly undermine
any theory I have. I just happen to think it IS true, otherwise why
supply the hyped-embryos (plural) to the Whorl? That's my opinion.

~ Crush

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From: Chris <rasputin_ at hotmail.com>
Date: Sun, 26 Jun 2005 13:51:09 +0000

To take an opportunity to return to my own speculation from earlier, this 
whole exchange reinforces my original conviction that the Rajan at that 
point had access to, or had currently assimilated, some elements of Pas - 
this can be the only real source of his confidence in asserting he could 
have told her differently. And again this points to the possibility that he 
knew full well who Severian was.

As far the dispute that's going on here, while Dan'l is correct about the 
strict semantic content of the exchange, I think he's incorrect in assuming 
that Scylla would know her father better. She was a *child*, and 
realistically how long was it before you really understood your own parents? 
I have to admit for my own part that I am still discovering things I never 
understood about my father until I reached adulthood. And Scylla's exposure 
to her father was likely to be quite minimal due to his position, as well - 
not to mention her personal resentment is going to interfere.

In any event I thought we were generally agreed that Typhon did not 
associate personal identity with electrical impulses capable of uploading, 
so the presence of Pas on the Whorl, embodied or not, would never have 
served to satisfy any desire to personally lord it over the colony because 
Typhon would not have considered Pas to be Typhon. So the Rajan seems to be 
on fairly solid ground here.

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From: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <danldo at gmail.com>
Date: Sun, 26 Jun 2005 16:36:01 +0000

> realistically how long was it before you really understood your own parents?

She was a child when she was scanned. She has spent three hundred
years with him in Mainframe.

I don't claim that she has "grown up" in that time, for I don't know
whether that would be possible (either in the "real" world or in the
Lupine universe-of-discourse); but I'd be inclined to suspect that 
she's learned a lot about her Da in that time. She is not, after all,
stupid.

> And Scylla's exposure

Again, this would be true of Cilinia, but not, I think, of Scylla-in-
Mainframe: and that's who makes the statement we're dealing
with here.

--Dan'l

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From: James Wynn <thewynns at earthlink.net>
Date: Mon, 27 Jun 2005 15:25:41 +0000

Well, I will note that I said that the Rajan "ARGUABLY knows AS MUCH
*or* more about Pas than anyone". 

I don't deny there is an argument to be made that others know more.
But he DOES seem rather confident regarding his knowledge in this
case.

James Wynn

-----Original Message-----
From: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <danldo at gmail.com>
Sent: Jun 26, 2005 7:35 PM
To: The Urth Mailing List <urth-urth.net at lists.urth.net>
Subject: Re: (urth) Who's in Oreb

--Dan'l

---

From: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <danldo at gmail.com>
Date: Mon, 27 Jun 2005 15:40:09 +0000

Yes, I agree that the ... unreliable narrator, who is in complete
denial about his own identity ... does indeed seem very
confident about this.

--Dan'l

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From: James Wynn <thewynns at earthlink.net>
Date: Mon, 27 Jun 2005 16:28:15 +0000

>>I said:

>Dan'l said:

Well, all of Wolfe's narrators are unreliable to some extent and his identity
is rather ambiguous so his denial is not *complete* nor *entirely* wrong.

But leaving that aside, in this case, after a year of experimentation by
Scylla, he has had his beliefs about Pas exonerated. 

~ James

"My name is not Silk...It has never been Silk."

"Was this you, Incanto? Were you on Green?"

"I shook my head and told him it had been someone else, a man whose
name I have forgotten, a man who wore a ring with a white stone. 
My own name is Horn, no matter what Oreb may say." 
~ "In Green's Jungles"