{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/4618", "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it. Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.", "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'" }, "archive": "urth", "thread": { "id": 4618, "subject": "Hierodules and time", "messages": 12, "voices": 5, "first": "2006-05-25T14:29:04+00:00", "last": "2006-05-27T20:17:52+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "b sharp", "address": "bsharporflat at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2006-05-25T14:29:04+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierodules and time", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Macronaut is right. It was Vodalus." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Mental note to self- stop posting from work when your books are home.\nself note to mental- fat chance." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "-bdull" } ] }, { "message_id": "<20060525185644.81014.qmail@web51101.mail.yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "Macronaut", "address": "macronaut at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2006-05-25T18:56:43+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierodules and time", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Not trying to be a doubting Thomas, just curious\nwhether Typhon also had made a chess metaphor -- that\nwould increase its importance as a theme.\n\nI know little about chess, but isn't it true that\nblack is considered to have a slight disadvantage in\nchess because white moves first? Wonder if that has\nsignificance?\n\nMacronag" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "--- b sharp wrote:\nMacronaut is right. It was Vodalus." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Mental note to self- stop posting from work when\nyour books are home.\nself note to mental- fat chance." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "-bdull\n\n\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "<20060526111825.6D4B8DA821@mailserver8.hushmail.com>", "from": { "name": "thalassocrat at nym.hush.com", "address": "thalassocrat at nym.hush.com" }, "date": "2006-05-26T11:18:25+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierodules and time", "in_reply_to": "<20060525185644.81014.qmail@web51101.mail.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "So just trying to find a consistent solution to the Hierodules/time \nproblem (foolish though the attempt may be).\n\n1. There is evidence that they do, by nature, experience time \nbackwards. \n\n- When parting from Sev on the ship, F asks: \"Tell me if you will \nsee us more?\" Sev says: \"Many times\". She says: \"You know our \nnature, that is plain. We greet you then, and say farewell\". (UOTNS \nCh26)\n\n- Earlier, Sev ruminates on the recent attempt on his life outside \nhis cabin: \"Doubtless the Hierodules, whose time ran counter to the \ntime we know, had foreseen \". (UOTNS Ch6)\n\n2. On the other hand, there is evidence for Don's sensible solution \n(ie that they occasionally travel into the past, but do not \nactually live backwards).\n\n- These same two encounters on the Ship. For them, their first \nmeeting with Sev is the first occasion they meet on the Ship, at \nthe time of the attempt on his life; and they already know him when \nthey \"greet and farewell\" him as he leaves the Ship. They are \nmoving in the same temporal direction as Sev.\n\n- In the encounter at Baldanders' tower, they know of the (earlier) \nscene in the gardens of the House Absolute in where they (or their \ncolleagues) fired on Baldanders; and they seem to be aware of past \ninteractions with B involving themselves. (Sword Ch34). \n\n- The overall absurdity of trying to imagine any kind of coherent \ninteactions between two entities moving in opposite directions \nthrough time.\n\nThe easiest solution seems to be to dismiss (1), and go with Don. \nBut then you have some other complications. Sev's first \ninteractions from his POV go like this:\n\n(a) First meet at Balanders' tower.\n(b) Have numerous meetings during the period after the conclusion \nof BOTNS, while he is Autarch.\n\nThe problem is that at point (a), the Hieordules remember (b). So \ntheir movements would have to be something like this, at the \nsimplest: \n\n- Arrive at Urth some time when Sev is Autarch, and have multiple \ninteractions with him in forward-time until he leaves for his \n\"trial\".\n- Then go back in time to start doing stuff with Baldanders, up \nuntil the time Sev arrives at his tower.\n\nOf course, their movements could be more complicated than that, but \nif so, it would only highlights the natural question: Why go to all \nthbother?\n\nHmmm. Now I guess I'll go obsess about something else for a while \n." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "b sharp", "address": "bsharporflat at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2006-05-26T12:50:58+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierodules and time", "in_reply_to": "<20060526111825.6D4B8DA821@mailserver8.hushmail.com>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Thalassocrat I think it is simpler than all that. F, B and O move only \nbackward in time, virtually without exception (which marks them as pawns, in \nTzadkiel's chess analogy).\n\nTheir first meeting with Severian is on Tzadkiel's ship. They go back in \ntime to meet him as Autarch a number of times, they go back to meet him in \nBaldander's castle, then go back to watch him in Eschatology and Genesis, \nthen go back to find him as Apu Punchau. They (F and B anyway) know the \nleast on Tzadkiel's ship and they know the most in Apu Punchau's time.\n\nSeverian knows the least about them during Eschatology and Genesis and a lot \non Ship Tzadkiel. They all know the most in Apu Punchau's time because \nSeverian, also a pawn, has reached the end of his time/chessboard and has \nbeen plunked back to the beginning as a more powerful player with more \nflexible moves (as the rules of chess allow).\n\nNow it is true that when they meet Severian for short periods of time they \nare moving forward in time. Roy (and Gene?) explains that allowing for that \nis Ossipago's function. If this is hard to swallow, I'll refer you to a \nquote from Gene Wolfe about the movie Who Framed Roger Rabbit? Gene is \nexplaining why the universes of the New Sun and the Short Sun had a \nconnection:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Because the books would have been lame if they had not. There's a \nwonderful bit in the Roger >Rabbit movie nobody seems to get. Roger goes \naround with handcuffs on his wrists for half an >hour. Then he pulls one \nhand out of the cuffs and does something with it, and sticks it back in. " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Bob (Hoskins, the hard boiled private detective) says, \"You mean to tell \nme you could get out of >those whenever you wanted to?\" And Roger says, \n\"No, only when it's funny.\" That is a profound >expression of the law that \ngoverns all writers and performers. The audience doesn't have to think \nabout that, but writers are bound by it. If there's a gun on the wall in \nAct I, it must be fired >before the end of the play. Etc." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I take this to mean, in our current context, that if Wolfe didn't use a \n\"deus ex machina\" storyteller's trick (Ossipago's role) then he would have \nhad to leave out the \"backwards in time\" nature of Hierodules. And the \nstory would have been worse. And he is, first and foremost, a storyteller.\n\nThere is a reference to using \"deus ex machina\" (he only alludes to this \nphrase) tricks in the text of BotNS. Something like: \"only the worst \nplaywrights use them, but it is better to use them than have the play end \nbadly\". I've been looking for it but for the life of me I can't find it \nagain. Help somebody! Roy? Anybody!!!!\n\n-bsharp" } ] }, { "message_id": "<20060526131426.9B5FADA821@mailserver8.hushmail.com>", "from": { "name": "thalassocrat at nym.hush.com", "address": "thalassocrat at nym.hush.com" }, "date": "2006-05-26T13:14:26+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierodules and time", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Fri, 26 May 2006 22:50:58 +1000 b sharp \n wrote:\nThalassocrat I think it is simpler than all that. F, B and O move " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "only \nbackward in time, virtually without exception (which marks them as " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "pawns, in \nTzadkiel's chess analogy).\n\nTheir first meeting with Severian is on Tzadkiel's ship. They go \nback in \ntime to meet him as Autarch a number of times, they go back to \nmeet him in \nBaldander's castle, then go back to watch him in Eschatology and \nGenesis, \nthen go back to find him as Apu Punchau. They (F and B anyway) \nknow the \nleast on Tzadkiel's ship and they know the most in Apu Punchau's \ntime." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "No, it doesn't work like that. As I pointed out, they know about \nthe E&G incident at the time they meet Sev at Baldanders' castle. \nSword Ch33, Barbatus to Dr Talos: \"We could have killed your \ncreator easily enough that night, as you know. We burned him only \nenough to turn aside his charges.\" And as I also pointed out, at \nthis stage they know *both* the past (this incident) and the future \n(dealings with Sev when he is Autarch). Any solution to the \nconundrum isn't going to be simple." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I take this to mean, in our current context, that if Wolfe didn't " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "use a \n\"deus ex machina\" storyteller's trick (Ossipago's role) then he \nwould have \nhad to leave out the \"backwards in time\" nature of Hierodules. \nAnd the \nstory would have been worse. And he is, first and foremost, a \nstoryteller." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I really don't see the relevance of the well-known Roger Rabbit \nquote to the Hierodule/time issue, sorry, and I can't really see \nthe putative role of Ossipago as a \"deus ex machina\" device, as the \nterm is usually understood. " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "There is a reference to using \"deus ex machina\" (he only alludes \nto this \nphrase) tricks in the text of BotNS. Something like: \"only the \nworst \nplaywrights use them, but it is better to use them than have the \nplay end \nbadly\". I've been looking for it but for the life of me I can't \nfind it \nagain. Help somebody! Roy? Anybody!!!!" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "It's aquastor-Malrubius to Sev, at the end of botNS." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "b sharp", "address": "bsharporflat at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2006-05-26T13:43:40+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierodules and time", "in_reply_to": "<20060526131426.9B5FADA821@mailserver8.hushmail.com>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Thalassocrat, sorry I should have been more clear! If the knowledge of the \nplay at Baldanders' castle is not a Wolfe mistake then seems to be using \nOssipago in that capacity (\"he has a memory like yours\"). Q. How do they \nknow? A. Ossipago told them.\n\nHence the deus ex machina reference (and thanks for finding it!). Gosh, who \ncould be more of a God and a Machine than hierodule/robot Ossipago? He fits \nthe phrase (defined below) almost perfectly and I suspect Wolfe had this in \nmind as he wrote.\n\nOn deus ex machina, Wikipedia says:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Deus ex machina is a Latin phrase that refers to an unexpected, artificial, \nor improbable character, >device, or event introduced suddenly in a work of \nfiction or drama to resolve a situation or >untangle a plot. The phrase has \nbeen extended to refer to any resolution to a story which does >not pay due \nregard to the story's internal logic and is so unlikely it challenges \nsuspension of >disbelief; allowing the author to conclude the story with an \nunlikely, but more palatable ending. In >modern terms the Deus ex machina \nhas also come to describe a person or thing that suddenly >arrives and \nsolves a seemingly insoluble difficulty. While in storytelling this might \nseem unfulfilling, in >real life this type of figure might be welcome and \nheroic." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "-bsharp" } ] }, { "message_id": "<20060526140517.97BEADA82E@mailserver8.hushmail.com>", "from": { "name": "thalassocrat at nym.hush.com", "address": "thalassocrat at nym.hush.com" }, "date": "2006-05-26T14:05:17+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierodules and time", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Fri, 26 May 2006 23:43:40 +1000 b sharp \n wrote:\nThalassocrat, sorry I should have been more clear! If the \nknowledge of the \nplay at Baldanders' castle is not a Wolfe mistake then seems to be " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "using \nOssipago in that capacity (\"he has a memory like yours\"). Q. How \ndo they \nknow? A. Ossipago told them." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "But when F says \"Only O here has memory like yrs\", I think it's \nclear she means like Sev's, who had just said, \"I remember \neverything vey well, as you had better know at once\". O's a \nmachine, so he remembers stuff well; there's nothing in the \npassage, or elsewhere AFAIK, to suggest he has a special time-\nfixing role." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Hence the deus ex machina reference (and thanks for finding it!). " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Gosh, who \ncould be more of a God and a Machine than hierodule/robot \nOssipago? He fits \nthe phrase (defined below) almost perfectly and I suspect Wolfe \nhad this in \nmind as he wrote." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "But O doesn't get introduced \"suddenly\". I'm sure the term really \nrefers to the equivalent of suddenly dropping a god into the play \nto put the brakes on the otherwise-inevitable denouement. It's \"god \nfrom a machine (ie, a crane)\" not \"god and machine\", of course, and \nanyway O isn't a god or at all god-like. \n\nNot that it matters; it's a tiny issue, I confess, but time travel \nalways annoys me. And I can't help feeling that Wolfe has something \ndevious going on here, and that I'm missing it completely, which is \nirritating ." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "b sharp", "address": "bsharporflat at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2006-05-26T15:35:58+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierodules and time", "in_reply_to": "<20060526140517.97BEADA82E@mailserver8.hushmail.com>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Thalassocrat says:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Not that it matters; it's a tiny issue, I confess, but time travel always \nannoys me. And I can't help feeling that Wolfe has something devious going \non here, and that I'm missing it completely, which is irritating ." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I disagree! I think this is a very interesting and pertinent topic. And I \nagree! Wolfe is being devious. Pondering this one is relevant to other \nWolfe puzzles.\n\nbtw, my two years of Latin class, mostly forgotten, do at least allow me to \nknow that \"ex\" means \"out from\". I think you are taking the literal \ntranslation of the phrase too strictly \n(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deus_ex_machina) and missing the point of the \nRoger Rabbit quote.\n\nA \"deus ex machina\" has broadly come to mean the literary device defined \nabove. I am saying Ossipago is a metaphor (and apology) for all the \"dei ex \nmachinae\" (is that the plural? lol) Wolfe uses. He wants to make good \nstories and will bend credulity a bit to do so.\n\nI think Wolfe is having devious fun with Ossipago. Just as Baldanders is a \nreverse Frankenstein (monster who creates his doctor), Ossipago is a reverse \ndeus ex machina. He is a machine from the gods, a device, sent to carry a \nweak thread in the plot. The exact weak thread which is bothering you so \nmuch.\n\nI am bookless for now, so I'll have to get back later on the issue of \nOssipago's memory. I'm not saying I have all the answers, quite the \ncontrary! I'm just trying my best to help both/all our understandings. In \nfact I hadn't really given this issue the thought it deserved until you \nbrought it up, for which I am very thankful and appreciative!\n\n-bsharp" } ] }, { "message_id": "<3E402ACB-C5E5-4D5B-9434-C9E1A908FCA3@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "Matthew King", "address": "automatthew at gmail.com" }, "date": "2006-05-26T18:31:44+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierodules and time", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On May 26, 2006, at 8:35 AM, b sharp wrote:\nI am saying Ossipago is a metaphor (and apology) for all the \"dei ex\nmachinae\" (is that the plural? lol) Wolfe uses." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Someone did a GoogleFight on this:\nhttp://www.geegaw.com/archives/0210.shtml#000922\n\nIn b sharp's context, I think I would go with \"gods from machines\", \nwhich would be _dei ex machinis_ or _di ex machinis_. If you like \n\"gods from the machine\", parallel to \"brothers in law\", that would be \n_di ex machina_\n\nThis could raise the question of whether Wolfe has one machine or many." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Chris", "address": "rasputin_ at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2006-05-26T21:28:58+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierodules and time", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Forgive me for bringing up something that is old hat, but it's new to me and \nI don't see it in the archives. I am reading \"The Once and Future King\", \nwithin the first couple of chapters I find this:\n\n[Merlyn has placed a paper in front of a mirror and asked Wart to connect \nthe dots to make a \"W\", using only the mirror to see.]\n\n\"Ah yes. How did I know to set breakfast for two? That was why I showed you \nthe looking glass. Now ordinary people are born forwards in time, if you \nknow what I mean, and nearly everything in the world goes forward too. This \nmakes it quite easy for ordinary people to live, just as it would be easy to \njoin those five dots into a W if you were allowed to look at them forwards, \ninstead of backwards and inside out. But I unfortunately was born at the \nwrong end of time, and I have to live backwards from in front, while \nsurrounded by a lot of people living forwards from behind. Some people call \nit having second sight.\"\n\nHe stopped talking and looked at the Wart in an anxious way.\n\n\"Have I told you this before?\"\n\n\"No, we only met about half an hour ago.\"\n\n\"So little time to pass?\" said Merlyn, and a big wet tear ran down to the \nend of his nose. He wiped it off with his pyjamas and added anxiously, \"Am I \ngoing to tell it you again?\"\n\n\"I do not know,\" said the Wart, \"unless you have not finished telling me \nyet.\"\n\n\"You see, one gets confused with Time, when it is like that. All one's \ntenses get muddled, for one thing. If you know what is going to happen to \npeople, and not what *has* happened to them, it makes it difficult to \nprevent it happening, if you don't want it to have happened, if you see what \nI mean? Like drawing in a mirror.\"" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Thalassocrat, sorry I should have been more clear! If the knowledge of the\nplay at Baldanders' castle is not a Wolfe mistake then seems to be using\nOssipago in that capacity (\"he has a memory like yours\"). Q. How do they\nknow? A. Ossipago told them.\n\nHence the deus ex machina reference (and thanks for finding it!). Gosh, \nwho\ncould be more of a God and a Machine than hierodule/robot Ossipago? He fits\nthe phrase (defined below) almost perfectly and I suspect Wolfe had this in\nmind as he wrote.\n\nOn deus ex machina, Wikipedia says:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Deus ex machina is a Latin phrase that refers to an unexpected, \nartificial,\nor improbable character, >device, or event introduced suddenly in a work \nof\nfiction or drama to resolve a situation or >untangle a plot. The phrase \nhas\nbeen extended to refer to any resolution to a story which does >not pay \ndue\nregard to the story's internal logic and is so unlikely it challenges\nsuspension of >disbelief; allowing the author to conclude the story with \nan\nunlikely, but more palatable ending. In >modern terms the Deus ex machina\nhas also come to describe a person or thing that suddenly >arrives and\nsolves a seemingly insoluble difficulty. While in storytelling this might\nseem unfulfilling, in >real life this type of figure might be welcome and\nheroic." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "-bsharp\n\n\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "b sharp", "address": "bsharporflat at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2006-05-27T19:36:22+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierodules and Time", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Chris that was good to remind us, in that thread, of the first? legendary \ncharacter to live backwards in time. At least one of the first, I'd guess." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Chris", "address": "rasputin_ at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2006-05-27T20:17:52+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hierodules and Time", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I found the reference to mirrors to be interesting, particularly the idea of \nthe Hierodules's attempts to mold our history as a sort of drawing in a \nmirror. When Wart tries to do this he gets it upside down - an \"M\" instead \nof a \"W\". So if the Hierodules get everything upside down, what is the \n*real* result they were trying to achieve?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Chris that was good to remind us, in that thread, of the first? legendary\ncharacter to live backwards in time. At least one of the first, I'd guess.\n\n\n_______________________________________________" } ] } ] }