changing the immutable gods

Jeff made the extremely valid point that a change in the character of a Greek God would be exceedingly out of character. That was part of my original point: he needed to be clothed in human flesh to experience change and learn. As a god, he was incapable of understanding humans completely. If you look at Wolfe's interview with a fellow list member (James Jordan, I believe?) he states he wanted to take Latro eventually into the world of the Hebrews. Very interesting, considering Pleistorus is "ahura mazda incognito" (ie - the great god of good). If there is any importance to this statement, I think it is that this God of Good is so changed by his human experiences that he changes the very ethos of the world and eventually checks the pagan nature of the other gods, gods which were previously given free reign, triggering the Christian era. And he does so by incarnating himself among the Jewish population under Rome. If Wolfe had written Soldier of Sidon immediately after Soldier of Arete, there are a few things I bet would happen. They still might, if he stayed to his original plan. I would bet major money on any or all of these conjectures. 1. Latro will probably die and rise again in some way 2. Latro will probably receive a foot wound, like just about every other important, spiritual Wolfe hero. 3. Latro will visit a city of the dead and escape(unless that particular prophecy has already occurred in the Sisyphus sections of Arete). 4. It will be revealed that Latro has, somehow, more than one personality, whether it be through possession or psychosis. Note that I don't think Wolfe is predictable at all, but he does have certain tropes that emerge in just about every one of his major spiritual paragons, of which I consider Latro a prime example. Marc Aramini

5. The world in which Latro lives will prove to have a twin world with shape-changing or personality-stealing denizens. (Or has this already happened?) 6. Latro will meet a limping man in black with a scarred face. 7. Latro will unwillingly become the ruler of some citystate or other. Well, these are neither more nor less probable than Marc's, I think... --Dan'l

OK, I'm missing the referent here...

Sorry to single you out, Marc, but you are making a move here that's all too common on this list. You have made an unnoticed shift from speculation that Pleistorus might be "Ahuramazda incognito" to simply assuming that he is such. This is particularly dangerous with Wolfe because he will often have characters drop suggestive ideas (or even seem to know things) that are based on their own misunderstanding of what's going on. Marc said:

Was it Wolfe that wrote that story about the (flamboyant) Fairies returning to Ireland, or was it Bradbury? -----Original Message----- From: urth-bounces at lists.urth.net [mailto:urth-bounces at lists.urth.net] On Behalf Of Matthew King Sent: Tuesday, April 04, 2006 2:13 PM To: The Urth Mailing List Subject: Re: (urth) changing the immutable gods

Primary referent would be Castleview, but I recall there being several short stories where fairies are identified with aliens. Enough so that on the last one of these I read, I was waiting for the association to pop up. Wouldn't it be nice if I could cite which stories? I will have to skim the tables of contents of the collections this evening. Regarding the equation of gods with extraterrestrials (and thus faeries), I may be conflating Wolfe with somebody else. Bad form.

8. The gods will turn out to be fairies, a.k.a. extraterrestrials

Primary referent would be Castleview, but I recall there being several short stories where fairies are identified with aliens. Enough so that on the last one of these I read, I was waiting for the association to pop up. Wouldn't it be nice if I could cite which stories? I will have to skim the tables of contents of the collections this evening. Regarding the equation of gods with extraterrestrials (and thus faeries), I may be conflating Wolfe with somebody else. Bad form.

That may be, but the problem arises, where does the change go when the mortal passes, or the god separates form the mortal? Again, you have the problem of changing the world or human nature. I suppose a change of the outward aspect of human nature over an age would be believable, with Ares quitting the spear as an age of peace spreads over the earth to presage the birth of Christ, but that would take many mortal lifetimes and presumably many mortals. This would remove much of Latro's specialness and make the coincidence of his wounding and cursing either unnecessary or ludicrously repeatable. Then again, the age of peace began to break down again as soon as Herrod heard the prophecy, so perhaps the answer is, Ares just took a holiday, then went back to the old killing business once more.