# RttW discrepancy?

*The Urth list — 5 messages, 4 voices, 25 Oct 2008*

<https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/5199>

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### Matthew Groves
*25 Oct 2008, 18:06*

 There is a possible discrepancy between HornSilk's description of his
arrival in the Whorl in In Green's Jungles, and that by Hoof, Daisy, Hide,
and Vadsig at the beginning of Return to the Whorl. In HornSilk's version,
as he leaves the house, "It was a little after midday then, as well as I
could judge from the narrowing line of the Long Sun." (*IGJ* 127) In Hoof et
al., "He backed away from the knife and stumbled through the open door into
the darkest night ever known." (*RttW* 13-14)  Is this merely a compression
of events by Hoof et al.

Matt

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### Roy C. Lackey
*27 Oct 2008, 05:35 · in reply to Matthew Groves*

> Matthew Groves wrote:
> There is a possible discrepancy between HornSilk's description of his
> arrival in the Whorl in In Green's Jungles, and that by Hoof, Daisy, Hide,
> and Vadsig at the beginning of Return to the Whorl. In HornSilk's version,
> as he leaves the house, "It was a little after midday then, as well as I
> could judge from the narrowing line of the Long Sun." (*IGJ* 127) In Hoof
> et
> al., "He backed away from the knife and stumbled through the open door
> into
> the darkest night ever known." (*RttW* 13-14)  Is this merely a
> compression
> of events by Hoof et al.

The "darkest night ever known" had nothing to do with the Long Sun. It was
the dark night of Silk's soul.

-Roy

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### Dave Tallman
*27 Oct 2008, 11:22 · in reply to Roy C. Lackey*

> Roy C. Lackey wrote:
> The "darkest night ever known" had nothing to do with the Long Sun. It was
> the dark night of Silk's soul.
>   

That's plausible, but Silk does run into a genuine Long-Sun blackout in 
the next section of their narrative, so Matthew's narrative compression 
idea may be right. It could also be that Silk forget about the lighted 
interlude when he told Hoof, Hide, and Daisy about this later.

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### Roy C. Lackey
*28 Oct 2008, 06:06 · in reply to Dave Tallman*

>> Dave Tallman quoted and wrote:
>> The "darkest night ever known" had nothing to do with the Long Sun. It
>> was
>> the dark night of Silk's soul.

> That's plausible, but Silk does run into a genuine Long-Sun blackout in
> the next section of their narrative, so Matthew's narrative compression
> idea may be right. It could also be that Silk forget about the lighted
> interlude when he told Hoof, Hide, and Daisy about this later.

The "darkest night ever known" bit is a metaphor. Two page inches above the
quote mentions "the hot sunshine streaming through the open door into the
poor little room." It was by that light that he saw the knife that he
recoiled and backed away from and "stumbled through the open door into the
darkest night ever known."

-Roy

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### Mr Thalassocrat
*28 Oct 2008, 10:03 · in reply to Roy C. Lackey*

> On Tue, Oct 28, 2008 at 4:36 PM, Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net> wrote:
> Dave Tallman quoted and wrote:

>>> The "darkest night ever known" had nothing to do with the Long Sun. It
>>> was
>>> the dark night of Silk's soul.

>> That's plausible, but Silk does run into a genuine Long-Sun blackout in
>> the next section of their narrative, so Matthew's narrative compression
>> idea may be right. It could also be that Silk forget about the lighted
>> interlude when he told Hoof, Hide, and Daisy about this later.

> The "darkest night ever known" bit is a metaphor. Two page inches above the
> quote mentions "the hot sunshine streaming through the open door into the
> poor little room." It was by that light that he saw the knife that he
> recoiled and backed away from and "stumbled through the open door into the
> darkest night ever known."

But if you looked only to RTTW surely you'd assume that the sun went out
just as he was leaving the manse.  Bright sunlight when he found himself in
Silk, switching to dark as he left, groping blindly amongst trees in the
next scene. Taking into account the IGJ passage, I like the compression
explanation best. But maybe it's not that important.

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