# What meaning does the family tree lend to the story itself? *The Urth list — 3 messages, 3 voices, 25 Aug 2006* > 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. --- ### Jonathon McKitrick *25 Aug 2006, 20:57* I'm still at the point of figuring out the time traveling, the multiple Sev's and so on, but once you understand that Sev becomes the "New Sun" and saves Urth, what additional meaning is there to be extracted by understanding his entire family tree? And since that really cannot be done, apparently, without confirmation from Mr. Wolfe himself, how can the true meaning of an inscrutable family tree ever be known? Jonathon McKitrick ``` My other computer is your Windows box. ``` --- ### Jeff Wilson *26 Aug 2006, 20:49 · in reply to Jonathon McKitrick* > Jonathon McKitrick wrote: > I'm still at the point of figuring out the time traveling, the multiple Sev's > and so on, but once you understand that Sev becomes the "New Sun" and saves > Urth, what additional meaning is there to be extracted by understanding his > entire family tree? And since that really cannot be done, apparently, without > confirmation from Mr. Wolfe himself, how can the true meaning of an > inscrutable family tree ever be known? It may not be inscrutable; hopefully, some new meaning emerges that is obvious in retrospect if X and Y are related by Z, but wouldn't otherwise. --- ### Bob Miller *27 Aug 2006, 10:39 · in reply to Jonathon McKitrick* While we all have fun niggling at the detailsand trying to read the mind of someone we, frequently, have not met, it often appears that part of the meaning IS in its being inscrutable, in the fact that this "fogginess"?, lack of clarity in and of themselves give us points of reference on the "map" of the author's meaningful design. Possibly, because similar issues--the exact date of death, exact spelling of grandfather's name, which county born in--have embroiled many academics for thousands of pages and their readers for thousands of doses of dramamine. I'm still at the point of figuring out the time traveling, the multiple Sev's and so on, but once you understand that Sev becomes the "New Sun" and saves Urth, what additional meaning is there to be extracted by understanding his entire family tree? And since that really cannot be done, apparently, without confirmation from Mr. Wolfe himself, how can the true meaning of an inscrutable family tree ever be known? Jonathon McKitrick ``` My other computer is your Windows box. ``` ---