Pas's gammadion and the voided cross
The Urth list — 14 messages, 8 voices, 22 Jan 2007
https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/4784
Matthew Groves22 Jan 2007, 00:09
This is my first post to the list. Having discovered The Book of the New Sun and developed an almost fanatical devotion to Wolfe, I quickly gobbled up The Urth of the New Sun and then The book of the Long Sun. I read too quickly, paying too little attention to detail, and so I am left with many questions about all these books, with which I won't inundate the list all at once. But until Powell's ships me my Short Sun trilogy, I hope to be able to pick the list's brain on a couple points. First:
The pateras carry the "voided cross" and make the "sign of addition." They also carry a "gammadion" (whose gammas detach to become tools for the sacred windows). Each of these symbols is highly suggestive for the Whorl and its culture in ways that I'm sure have occurred to you. Are "cross" and the "gammadion" supposed to be the same thing, or are they separate symbols?
In my too-fast reading of the series, the impression I got is that the "voided cross" and the "gammadion" were one and the same. But this simply can't be right -- a cross is not a gammadion. (I can make a rather clumsy voided cross out of two voided gammas by rotating one 180 degrees and then aligning their stems vertically, but this would not be truly "voided," and it is certainly not what anyone would really call a "gammadion.") If someone can reassure me that there are two separate symbols carried by the pateras, then I'll be most grateful.
Transentient22 Jan 2007, 02:26
↳ in reply to Matthew Groves
4 quoted lines
On Jan 21, 2007, at 7:09 PM, Matthew Groves wrote:
The pateras carry the "voided cross" and make the "sign of addition." They also carry a "gammadion" (whose gammas detach to become tools for the sacred windows). Each of these symbols is highly suggestive for the Whorl and its culture in ways that I'm sure have occurred to you. Are "cross" and the "gammadion" supposed to be the same thing, or are they separate symbols?
In my too-fast reading of the series, the impression I got is that the "voided cross" and the "gammadion" were one and the same. But this simply can't be right -- a cross is not a gammadion. (I can make a rather clumsy voided cross out of two voided gammas by rotating one 180 degrees and then aligning their stems vertically, but this would not be truly "voided," and it is certainly not what anyone would really call a "gammadion.") If someone can reassure me that there are two separate symbols carried by the pateras, then I'll be most grateful.
Seems to me that you can make something of a voided cross out of four gammas, if you don't mind the arms of the cross being open at the ends.
Now unfold each gamma, one northward, pivoting around its northernmost point, one eastward, one southward, one westward. You've got something that looks like a manji or a swastika. That's a gammadion, right? Now suppose it's a little four-in-one pocket tool where each "gamma" is one of the tools, and it folds out if you want to use it.
Give your IT staff these tools wear around their neck, then have them set up as clergy for interacting with the simulacrums of you and your family. Erase their memory of the lives they had before the ship embarked on its voyage and voila.
Matthew Groves22 Jan 2007, 02:27
↳ follows, by subject match Transentient
Well, it turns out the answer was right in front of me if I'd had a little more imagination or more knowledge of heraldic crosses. I just started leafing through the Long Sun novels in search of the first mention of the gammadion. The "voided cross" and the "gammadion" are indeed the same thing, as proved in this passage (on p. 172 in the omnibus edition "Litany of the Long Sun") when Silk is warding Teasel's window from the return of the creature that had preyed upon her in the night. Silk leans out the window to reach outside wall above it, and...
"With the pointed corner of the one of the four gammadions that made up the cross, he scratched the sign of addition on the bricks."
When I first read this, I struggled to imagine a voided cross each of whose four arms was itself a swastika, and I was more confused than ever. But it's much simpler than this, as I learned after a little poking around on the internet:
If you take a Greek cross (whose arms are of equal length) and you void it
all the way through the ends, then you end up with four gammas in four different orientations. (I wish I could draw this for you, but no doubt you all know this already and are wondering why it ever puzzled me in the first place; but I was imagining an outline drawing of a cross (i.e., with
closed ends), and so I couldn't pick out any satisfactory gammas.) Apparently, any such symbol, being made up of gammas, may be called a "gammadion," not just those that are pinwheel-like (although I'm guessing it has to be symmetrical).
Matthew Groves22 Jan 2007, 02:41
↳ follows, by subject match Matthew Groves
transentient wrote:
"Seems to me that you can make something of a voided cross out of four gammas, if you don't mind the arms of the cross being open at the ends."
Yeah, this is the conclusion I came to belatedly.
"Now unfold each gamma, one northward, pivoting around its northernmost point, one eastward, one southward, one westward. You've got something that looks like a manji or a swastika."
Ah, now I get it! Talk about an epiphany! Thanks bunches!
Chris Mulder22 Jan 2007, 04:31
↳ in reply to Matthew Groves
Well, the more I read, the less of a firm idea I have of what it looks like. I guess the sign of addition is a plus-type cross, but a voided cross? what does it mean to void a cross? Like a null sign through a cross? or like the four 90 degree angles of a maltese cross? A photo would be most illuminating.
Welcome, Groves, I'm a reader and lurker who rarely posts too. Though I have read about 40% of the entire archive, in order.
And it was very informative. Keep after it.
cm
Matthew Groves <matthewalangroves at gmail.com> wrote:
Well, it turns out the answer was right in front of me if I'd had a little more imagination or more knowledge of heraldic crosses. I just started leafing through the Long Sun novels in search of the first mention of the gammadion. The "voided cross" and the "gammadion" are indeed the same thing, as proved in this passage (on p. 172 in the omnibus edition "Litany of the Long Sun") when Silk is warding Teasel's window from the return of the creature that had preyed upon her in the night. Silk leans out the window to reach outside wall above it, and...
"With the pointed corner of the one of the four gammadions that made up the cross, he scratched the sign of addition on the bricks."
When I first read this, I struggled to imagine a voided cross each of whose four arms was itself a swastika, and I was more confused than ever. But it's much simpler than this, as I learned after a little poking around on the internet:
If you take a Greek cross (whose arms are of equal length) and you void it all the way through the ends, then you end up with four gammas in four different orientations. (I wish I could draw this for you, but no doubt you all know this already and are wondering why it ever puzzled me in the first place; but I was imagining an outline drawing of a cross ( i.e., with closed ends), and so I couldn't pick out any satisfactory gammas.) Apparently, any such symbol, being made up of gammas, may be called a "gammadion," not just those that are pinwheel-like (although I'm guessing it has to be symmetrical).
Matthew King22 Jan 2007, 05:03
↳ in reply to Chris Mulder
2 quoted lines
On Jan 21, 2007, at 9:31 PM, Chris Mulder wrote:
Well, the more I read, the less of a firm idea I have of what it looks like. I guess the sign of addition is a plus-type cross, but a voided cross? what does it mean to void a cross? Like a null sign through a cross? or like the four 90 degree angles of a maltese cross? A photo would be most illuminating.
↳ in reply to Matthew King
I guess that's sort of what I pictured - but I smile to think that Wolfe had in mind an arrangement of Allen Wrenches. Though they would be most handy to work on computers.
cm
Matthew King <automatthew at gmail.com> wrote:
2 quoted lines
On Jan 21, 2007, at 9:31 PM, Chris Mulder wrote:
Well, the more I read, the less of a firm idea I have of what it looks like. I guess the sign of addition is a plus-type cross, but a voided cross? what does it mean to void a cross? Like a null sign through a cross? or like the four 90 degree angles of a maltese cross? A photo would be most illuminating.
↳ in reply to Chris Mulder
Oops. Here's a link I forgot.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allen_wrench
cm
Chris Mulder <chris_mulder at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
I guess that's sort of what I pictured - but I smile to think that Wolfe had in mind an arrangement of Allen Wrenches. Though they would be most handy to work on computers.
cm
Matthew King <automatthew at gmail.com> wrote:
2 quoted lines
On Jan 21, 2007, at 9:31 PM, Chris Mulder wrote:
Well, the more I read, the less of a firm idea I have of what it looks like. I guess the sign of addition is a plus-type cross, but a voided cross? what does it mean to void a cross? Like a null sign through a cross? or like the four 90 degree angles of a maltese cross? A photo would be most illuminating.
↳ follows, by subject match Chris Mulder
I do agree with the old idea that the voided cross has been voided by taking away the crucifixion imagery and the body of christ from it and assimilating it into Typhon's family totem, representationally. However, the gammadions could very well bisect a point that would resemble a slash through the cross. Uggh.
Marc Aramini
20 quoted lines · 1–2 deep
---- Matthew King <automatthew at gmail.com> wrote:
On Jan 21, 2007, at 9:31 PM, Chris Mulder wrote:
Well, the more I read, the less of a firm idea I have of what it looks like. I guess the sign of addition is a plus-type cross, but a voided cross? what does it mean to void a cross? Like a null sign through a cross? or like the four 90 degree angles of a maltese cross? A photo would be most illuminating.
↳ in reply to aramini1 at cox.net
brunians at brunians.org22 Jan 2007, 09:19
↳ in reply to brunians at brunians.org
3 quoted lines
I should add: top row, second from the left.
.
Matthew King22 Jan 2007, 16:23
↳ in reply to brunians at brunians.org
5 quoted lines · 1–2 deep
I should add: top row, second from the left.
That does seem to be what Wolfe described in the Q&A. If a gamma can
be considered to have a point, then I take that to be the right angle.
Matthew
Jon Capps22 Jan 2007, 21:45
↳ in reply to aramini1 at cox.net
2 quoted lines
aramini1 at cox.net wrote:
However, the gammadions could very well bisect a point that would resemble a slash through the cross. Uggh.
I seriously doubt Wolfe intended the voided cross to be interpreted as one with a slash through it. See:
http://www.seiyaku.com/customs/crosses/voided.html
which says: [The Voided Cross] is simply a heraldic term for when only the edge of the cross is traced. It can be any shape or form of cross.
So, a voided cross is just the outline of a cross, which can be approximated quite closely with four gammas.
jon
↳ follows, by subject match Jon Capps
I'm coming to this late but I'm fairly certain this is the cross Wolfe described in his Q&A:
http://www.urth.org/whorlmap/voided_cross.htmExported 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.