Subject: (urth) Fava in the Whorl, and where the Neighbors went

From: thalassocrat at nym.hush.com <thalassocrat at nym.hush.com>
Date: Sun, 21 Aug 2005 05:54:11 +0000

On p146 of IGJ, Fava talks about her supposed past in Grandecitta, 
the city in the Whorl where Inclito was born. "Back in Grandecitta, 
where I lived as a girl ..." 

Although it's barely possible she came to the Whorl after humans 
came to Blue, I think she was on the Whorl pre-Exodus, and that she 
probably came to Blue on one of Grandecitta's landers. (She may 
even be the "strega" in Inclito's mother's second tale, but that's 
pure speculation.) 

Maddeningly, Silkhorn never enquires how she came to the Whorl. 
Fava "dies" not long after this, but enough of her is present at 
various times to answer the question, if it had been put to her.

Her second story - the one which starts with an infant sentient 
inhuma hatching from an egg, and which Silkhorn "gets inside" - 
suggests to me that she was born on Green. Horn's appearance in the 
story was made up, so Silkhorn assures Mora, but Fava's description 
of infant inhuma life is probably from experience, given that Green 
is the only we place we know of where inhumi can be born. 

Almost certainly, Fava was put on the Whorl by Neighbors as a young 
inhuma (if "where I lived as a girl" is true & has its natural 
meaning), in pre-Exodus times. Since she was born sentient, that 
means at least one of her parents must have fed on the Whorl 
(assuming no pre-Exodus humans on Green etc). Which in turn tends 
to support the idea of Neighbors shuttling inhumi to & fro between 
Green & Whorl.

Now this of course indicates another possibility for Jahlee - the 
same kind of beginnings & placement on the Whorl as Fava; descent 
to Blue, perhaps in Horn's own lander; and a subsequent Crossing to 
Green, to give birth to Krait. I note that Krait has the appearance 
of a boy several years younger than Sinew in OBW, which would fit 
with Jahlee Crossing to Green at the first conjunction after her 
attack on Sinew, in Blue year 4.

A snippet on where the Neighbors went: Silkhorn tells Inclito's 
family, "They have gone elsewhere - found a new home circling 
another short sun." (IGJ, p72) At least from that, it seems that 
the "Neighbor Whorl" is a "real", and the Neighbors' removal there 
a physical event.

---

From: James Wynn <thewynns at earthlink.net>
Date: Sun, 21 Aug 2005 12:07:12 +0000

----- Original Message ----- 
From: <thalassocrat at nym.hush.com>
To: <urth-urth.net at lists.urth.net>
Sent: Sunday, August 21, 2005 8:54 AM
Subject: (urth) Fava in the Whorl, and where the Neighbors went

> _______________________________________________
> Urth Mailing List
> To post, write urth at urth.net
> Subscription/information: http://www.urth.net
>

---

From: James Wynn <thewynns at earthlink.net>
Date: Sun, 21 Aug 2005 12:10:45 +0000

>the "Neighbor Whorl" is a "real", and the Neighbors' removal there

Why? They could have gone elsewhere via astral travel leaving their bodies
behind.

In fact, if astral travel requires that someone in the party has been to the
destination before, it opens the possibility that the Whorl they've gone to
is Urth....leaving their woody bodies growing comfortably on Blue and Green.

J

---

From: Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net>
Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2005 09:09:21 +0000

Andrew wrote:
[snip]
>attack on Sinew, in Blue year 4.

It occurs to me that, *if* Jahlee was imprinted with Chenille's spirit (due
to her mother having fed on Chenille on Green), and if Jahlee went to Blue
to feed on Sinew when she was too young to fly unaided and then returned to
Green to give birth to Krait, then the difference in age between
generations, at least in the case of Jahlee and Krait, can be only a few
years. At the beginning of OBW, Blue year 20, Jahlee could be no older than
Sinew, who would be 19 years old. I doubt that there is much of a
correlation between human and inhumi ages, but Krait would have to be
about 16 or 17 in Blue year 20.

If, per your theory above, Fava had been born before the Exodus, she would
probably have to have been older than Jahlee and was *certainly* older than
Krait, no matter what she said or how she looked in her chosen disguise of a
human girl about the age of puberty.

Jahlee disguised herself as both a young woman and an old woman at that
farmhouse. She habitually went among humans disguised as a loose woman in
order to entice men and get them alone to feed on them. Those were conscious
decisions. My point is that inhumi appearance cannot be a reliable guide to
actual age. And they lie.

>the "Neighbor Whorl" is a "real", and the Neighbors' removal there

I'm glad I waited as long as I did to respond; now it's *your* problem
dealing with certain knotty theories. <G>

-Roy

---

From: thalassocrat at nym.hush.com <thalassocrat at nym.hush.com>
Date: Tue, 23 Aug 2005 05:49:17 +0000

On Mon, 22 Aug 2005 09:09:10 -0700 "Roy C. Lackey" 
<rclackey at stic.net> wrote:
>My point is that inhumi appearance cannot be a reliable 
>guide to

That's certainly true. But I think that Krait took the form of a 
youth of the "right" age because he wanted very much to be Horn's 
son. 

Actually, appearance != age seems to be true for inhumi even in 
their astral aspects. Astral Fava on Green is an old woman the 
first time, but sweet-little-Fava the second. In reality, I think 
that both she and Fava are probably as old as Quetzal.

>dealing with certain knotty theories. <G>

Not going there :) I like parts of the Grand Unified Tree Theory as 
stories, but I don't think they're Wolfe's stories.

I found where Neighborish spacecraft are mentioned: Silkhorn 
talking with Hide in IGJ, p353. "Eventually the Vanished People 
found some means of crossing the abyss to Green. Perhaps they built 
landers of their own - I believe they must have." But I suppose I 
can't hang very much on Silkhorn's guess at something that happened 
1000+ years ago.

---

From: don doggett <kingwukong at yahoo.com>
Date: Tue, 23 Aug 2005 18:54:34 +0000

> travel leaving their bodies

It seems to me that there are four possibilities for
the neighbors travel.

1.  They physically left the planet in ships.  Maybe
treeships, like the one in that SF poem Genesis.

2.  Astral travel.  If that's really what Silkhorn is
doing, or as some have posited . . .

3.  Time travel.  Perhaps they have gone to the future
(or the past).  That would explain their continued
presence on Blue and account for the speculation that
they'd found a new short sun whorl.  After all, a Blue
of the future would be a new place.

4.  They haven't gone anywhere and are just spirits of
trees tied to their world.

I'm just trying to set parameters for this discussion
so it makes sense to me.  Are there any I'm missing?

Don

____________________________________________________
Start your day with Yahoo! - make it your home page 
http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs

---

From: James Wynn <thewynns at earthlink.net>
Date: Tue, 23 Aug 2005 20:56:46 +0000

>>>A snippet on where the Neighbors went: Silkhorn
>>> tells Inclito's family, "They have gone elsewhere -
>>>found a new home circling

Sure. That seems to encompass the possibilities. But (inexplicably to me) a
lot readers are *hostile* to the idea that the Neighbors are *in any way*
the trees. It seemed so obvious to me that that was what they were when the
Rajan first clapped eyes on them in the forest. And the rest of the book
continued to confirm it for me.

Someone once remarked that there was a Huorn (Horn?) feel about the trees in
the SS. At one point the Rajan describes them as "sleepy". Which makes me
think it most likely that they are away astral traveling.

Incidentally, since I decided Horn = Typhon, *most* of the direct clues that
Urth=Green were answered in that alternate interpretation. For the Neighbors
to go to Urth does not imply ipso facto a unified star system theory.
Actually, the reference Andrew quoted above could just as well refer to the
Whorl itself. It is "a new home" and it circles a different sun (the Long
Sun).

J

---

From: thalassocrat at nym.hush.com <thalassocrat at nym.hush.com>
Date: Tue, 23 Aug 2005 21:12:52 +0000

On Tue, 23 Aug 2005 18:54:32 -0700 don doggett 
>so it makes sense to me.  Are there any I'm missing?

I'd include:

5. Travel by BOTNS-style mirrors. One little thing you could use to 
support this: Silkhorn says that neighbors on at least one occasion 
reminded him of images multiplied between facing mirrors, left 
behind when the actual source of the image had gone. (Somewhere 
near start of IGJ, as part of the sewer story.) I don't believe it, 
but it's possible.

My personal views: 

[1] is most consistent with everything else we are told. Neighbors 
went to "a [real] new whorl circling another short sun" [in ships, 
possibly FTL,] and return to visit ancestral places on Blue via 
astral travelling. [2] leaves open the question of where the 
Neighbor bodies are & what they're doing when they're not astral 
travelling. If you explain that using [4], you've moved into Grand 
Unified Tree Theory territory which I don't believe in, but YMMV. 
You also have to explain away the Neighbors' lying when they claim 
that they have, in fact, gone away. [3] is like the GUTT; I don't 
find a shred of support for it in the text, though it could make a 
good story.

[5]is kind of attractive. It would also provide a mechanism for 
Neighbors getting real, physical inhumi onto the Whorl (as they did 
- this is as solid as anything ever is in Wolfe). But I don't know 
of any evidence for it, apart from the IGJ passage mentioned above, 
which doesn't have to imply it.

Whatever theory you pick has to deal with inhumi-related things:

- How did the Neighbors get inhumi onto the Whorl? If they don't 
have their own ships, they must either have used undocumented pre-
Exodus human landers, or something like [5].

- How do Neighbors breed new inhumi to sue as mirrors for 
themselves? Either they have undocumented abilities to breed inhumi 
on their new whorl, or they have to be able to ferry inhumi to & 
from Green. In the latter case, [1] and [5] again seem to be the 
possibilities.

---

From: James Wynn <thewynns at earthlink.net>
Date: Wed, 24 Aug 2005 17:36:11 +0000

>astral travelling.

Well, actually, the only ships that we are told the Neighbors ever built
were *landers* not starcrossers.

 [2] leaves open the question of where the
> Unified Tree Theory territory which I don't believe in,

Perhaps, then,  I don't really understand then what the GUTT is. I thought
you were referring to a belief that the trees on Urth were the trees in
Bleen. If that's all it is then I don't know why [4] insists on that.

>that they have, in fact, gone away.

Why would that be a lie? "Horn" left his body on Green. Would it be lying to
say he left for Whorl? When the Rajan went to Green and Urth, did he go
away?

>[3] is like the GUTT; I don't

(shrug) Okay. If someone tells me there is "not a shred of support in the
text" for time-travel, all the readily availabe proof-texting won't change
anything.

> which doesn't have to imply it.

I would find it very attractive except that the Rajan was *convinced* they
required landers to get to Green.

> from Green. In the latter case, [1] and [5] again seem to be the

Or their bodies are on Blue and Green with vines growing on them. That would
have the advantage of being documented over and over again.
;-)

J