# Ted = Goldwurm? *The Urth list — 15 messages, 7 voices, 29 Apr 2010* > 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. --- ### Mr Thalassocrat *29 Apr 2010, 22:56* Griffins were supposed to guard gold. Not exactly dragons, but as Jake Jacobson says (p214), "Sort of like a dragon". Not wedded to the idea, but I like it more than Ted = Ambrosius. It might explain why Ieulan run's away from Ted's ghost, if that's what it was (Emlyn at any rate seems to be afraid of Goldwurm, and wouldn't necessarily know that he's been dead for a couple of years). Ted's ring might be Goldwurm's weapon of power. Doris gives it to Bax just after commenting on Bax's/Ambrosius' ring. Her explanation of why she does this makes zero sense to me. Perhaps she did it because she's planning on inducing Bax to give her the other one - as a wedding ring? Maybe Ted's spirit is guiding her in this, somehow - he sees Bax's ring & recognises it as Ambrosius' weapon of power. Maybe that's why Ted's ghost wants her to be with Bax, and why it tries to protect Bax (it doesn't want anybody else to get the ring). Ted's ghost is actually pretty ineffectual - but maybe that could be expected of the ghost of a presumably relatively junior warlock who never found his master's ring. (He's not good with werewolfs - Lupine dismisses him with a word, and he doesn't turn up to help out during the werewolf attack on Bax and Doris, despite Doris wishing he was there.) --- ### Roy C. Lackey *30 Apr 2010, 06:53 · in reply to Mr Thalassocrat* > Andrew wrote: > Griffins were supposed to guard gold. Not exactly dragons, but as Jake > Jacobson says (p214), "Sort of like a dragon". > > Not wedded to the idea, but I like it more than Ted = Ambrosius. > > It might explain why Ieulan run's away from Ted's ghost, if that's what it > was (Emlyn at any rate seems to be afraid of Goldwurm, and wouldn't > necessarily know that he's been dead for a couple of years). > > Ted's ring might be Goldwurm's weapon of power. Doris gives it to Bax just > after commenting on Bax's/Ambrosius' ring. Her explanation of why she does > this makes zero sense to me. It makes no sense at all. First she tells Bax that she wants him to wear Ted's ring so that she can see it now and then. When she next speaks it is to say that the sight of it breaks her heart. Then why did she have it in her purse? She came prepared to give it to him. That lunch was only the second time she had even laid eyes on him, and the first time she had seen the opal ring. Something changed from her perspective after their brief first meeting at the real estate office. She trumped up an excuse to see him again, so she may have learned something in the meantime that caused her to start acting like a gold digger. I can't imagine why any woman would hand over her dead husband's ring to a virtual stranger. It's just not done. But maybe I'm being too hard on her. That is, maybe she was subject to forces beyond her control and we have been making too much of the import of Ted's ring. It may have been nothing more than a gold ring, and Bax acquired it for the same reason he got the opal ring and the gold coins and the stash of cash -- his ignorant use of the triannulus. Between Doris's lunch note and her arrival to pick him up, Bax got out the triannulus. Its three rings were still aligned to fish but "the pointer had wandered away." (33) More importantly, he first noticed at that time that "When the rings were aligned to fish, several other things fell into line as well." Recall that among the glyphs were some that "may be indecent." (26) We aren't told which other glyphs also lined up or where the pointer had wandered away to, but it would be a good bet that one of those glyph alignments was "indecent", and its magic is what put Doris and Winker in the sack with Bax. -Roy --- ### Mr Thalassocrat *30 Apr 2010, 07:19 · in reply to Roy C. Lackey* > On Fri, Apr 30, 2010 at 4:23 PM, Roy C. Lackey wrote: > > Between Doris's lunch note and her arrival to pick him up, Bax got out the > triannulus. Its three rings were still aligned to fish but "the pointer had > wandered away." (33) More importantly, he first noticed at that time that > "When the rings were aligned to fish, several other things fell into line > as > well." Recall that among the glyphs were some that "may be indecent." (26) > We aren't told which other glyphs also lined up or where the pointer had > wandered away to, but it would be a good bet that one of those glyph > alignments was "indecent", and its magic is what put Doris and Winker in > the > sack with Bax. Absolutely - I was going to say something along the same lines but work intervened. I was thinking that perhaps the "other things" might just have been "women". Bax does of course get 3 women: Doris, Winkle and Millie (assuming Winkle counts). --- ### Craig Brewer *30 Apr 2010, 13:40 · in reply to Mr Thalassocrat* Just on Doris' motivation: she does admit in her letter that money was a big reason she was interested in him. I took that to mean that, initially, she was using him (she needed to take a potential client out, knew he at least had a house, soon learned he was inheriting profitable land, etc.), but, over time, her feelings might have changed. But one of the reasons that I was initially attracted to the "all a scam" possibility was how it seemed like so many people in this book at one point or another are trying to scam someone else. --- ### Roy C. Lackey *30 Apr 2010, 18:01 · in reply to Mr Thalassocrat* > Andrew wrote: > Absolutely - I was going to say something along the same lines but work > intervened. I was thinking that perhaps the "other things" might just > have > been "women". Bax does of course get 3 women: Doris, Winkle and Millie > (assuming Winkle counts). That reminds me. It has to do with the issue of who compiled the list of characters, which lists Winker as: "Baxter Dunn's name for a friendly Japanese girl." That's not right. Winkle is the name Bax came up with for the talking vixen. He later mentioned several times that he didn't even know the name of the young woman who came to his bed. He first learned her name when she introduced herself to Orizia: "This lowly person is called Winker Inari." (147) Orizia was miles away in a "trance", her psychic visit. Is this significant, or just a mistake by Wolfe? Or is it an obscure clue? Or does it say something about the fictional Compiler? Keep in mind that Bax heard that name while in what Orizia insisted was a dream state, despite Bax's claim that he had actually climbed out a window and gotten lost in the woods. It was while still in the woods that he got the "faint" phone call from Hardaway about the meeting that night with the lawyer, Trelawny. The phone call came while he was still engaged with Orizia. So I suppose that it could be argued that the name Winker Inari came out of Bax's head and that he did come up with that name. -Roy --- ### Craig Brewer *30 Apr 2010, 22:11 · in reply to Roy C. Lackey* That's an odd point, but interesting. My gut reaction is just error when Wolfe was putting together the list, but that's not as interesting as speculation. heh. Calling her "a friendly Japanese girl" seems to me like something "outside the fiction," perhaps, and making her out to be a facefox a kind of fabrication. And on that note, I found it odd that the Asian waitress mentioned that Winker was Chinese, even though she was supposed to be Japanese. (219) So is she just generally fluent in all Asian languages? Foxes sure have a lot of cultural leeway, apparently. And I found the "dream" explanation odd as well. Since Orizia was still far away, perhaps it was a dream state (or something else psychic) for her even though Bax could physically move to faerie because of the house? But I'm not sure if that actually explains anything substantially, especially not about Winker's name. Perhaps because she's his familiar, anything she does is actually his doing? ----- Original Message ---- From: Roy C. Lackey To: The Urth Mailing List Sent: Fri, April 30, 2010 1:01:43 PM Subject: Re: (urth) Ted = Goldwurm? > Andrew wrote: > Absolutely - I was going to say something along the same lines but work > intervened. I was thinking that perhaps the "other things" might just > have > been "women". Bax does of course get 3 women: Doris, Winkle and Millie > (assuming Winkle counts). That reminds me. It has to do with the issue of who compiled the list of characters, which lists Winker as: "Baxter Dunn's name for a friendly Japanese girl." That's not right. Winkle is the name Bax came up with for the talking vixen. He later mentioned several times that he didn't even know the name of the young woman who came to his bed. He first learned her name when she introduced herself to Orizia: "This lowly person is called Winker Inari." (147) Orizia was miles away in a "trance", her psychic visit. Is this significant, or just a mistake by Wolfe? Or is it an obscure clue? Or does it say something about the fictional Compiler? Keep in mind that Bax heard that name while in what Orizia insisted was a dream state, despite Bax's claim that he had actually climbed out a window and gotten lost in the woods. It was while still in the woods that he got the "faint" phone call from Hardaway about the meeting that night with the lawyer, Trelawny. The phone call came while he was still engaged with Orizia. So I suppose that it could be argued that the name Winker Inari came out of Bax's head and that he did come up with that name. -Roy --- ### Craig Brewer *30 Apr 2010, 22:19 · in reply to Craig Brewer* Another small point that may not be significant at all, but after the final showdown, Martha tells Bax: "You have seen the Riverman. ... Not many can say that." But he saw *three* hairy giants, and they emerged from the forest, not the river. And since we have so many other things called River- in this book (the motel, the suburban development that the Skotos Strip becomes), is this whole Riverman thing bigger than just another example of general "faerie" weirdness that Bax encounters? --- ### Eugene Zaretskiy *30 Apr 2010, 22:37 · in reply to Craig Brewer* > On Fri, Apr 30, 2010 at 6:11 PM, Craig Brewer wrote: > That's an odd point, but interesting. My gut reaction is just error when Wolfe was putting together the list, but that's not as interesting as speculation. heh. As someone who picked up his first Wolfe book a few years ago, I have a question: have there been any _confirmed_ errors in Wolfe books? I know that there was a typographical error or three in TBotNS with regards to spelling of some unusual words. Have new editions of any of Wolfe's books ever fixed errors that were significant to the understanding of a certain sitation? Has Wolfe ever commented about anything like that? > Calling her "a friendly Japanese girl" seems to me like something "outside the fiction," perhaps, and making her out to be a facefox a kind of fabrication. And on that note, I found it odd that the Asian waitress mentioned that Winker was Chinese, even though she was supposed to be Japanese. (219) So is she just generally fluent in all Asian languages? Foxes sure have a lot of cultural leeway, apparently. > > > And I found the "dream" explanation odd as well. Since Orizia was still far away, perhaps it was a dream state (or something else psychic) for her even though Bax could physically move to faerie because of the house? But I'm not sure if that actually explains anything substantially, especially not about Winker's name. Perhaps because she's his familiar, anything she does is actually his doing? > > > ----- Original Message ---- > From: Roy C. Lackey > To: The Urth Mailing List > Sent: Fri, April 30, 2010 1:01:43 PM > Subject: Re: (urth) Ted = Goldwurm? > > Andrew wrote: >> Absolutely - I was going to say something along the same lines but work >> intervened. I was thinking that perhaps the ?"other things" might just >> have >> been "women". Bax does of course get 3 women: Doris, Winkle and Millie >> (assuming Winkle counts). > That reminds me. It has to do with the issue of who compiled the list of > characters, which lists Winker as: "Baxter Dunn's name for a friendly > Japanese girl." That's not right. Winkle is the name Bax came up with for > the talking vixen. He later mentioned several times that he didn't even know > the name of the young woman who came to his bed. He first learned her name > when she introduced herself to Orizia: "This lowly person is called Winker > Inari." (147) Orizia was miles away in a "trance", her psychic visit. > > Is this significant, or just a mistake by Wolfe? Or is it an obscure clue? > Or does it say something about the fictional Compiler? > > Keep in mind that Bax heard that name while in what Orizia insisted was a > dream state, despite Bax's claim that he had actually climbed out a window > and gotten lost in the woods. It was while still in the woods that he got > the "faint" phone call from Hardaway about the meeting that night with the > lawyer, Trelawny. The phone call came while he was still engaged with > Orizia. So I suppose that it could be argued that the name Winker Inari came > out of Bax's head and that he did come up with that name. > > -Roy > > _______________________________________________ --- ### Mr Thalassocrat *01 May 2010, 15:18 · in reply to Roy C. Lackey* On Fri, Apr 30, 2010 at 4:23 PM, Roy C. Lackey wrote: > ... that caused [Doris] to start acting like a gold digger. "Griffin" is an excellent name for a gold digger - because that's just what griffins did, at least in some old fables. See the wikipedia article on griffins for a quote from one of them. --- ### Roy C. Lackey *02 May 2010, 04:43 · in reply to Craig Brewer* > Craig Brewer wrote: > > And I found the "dream" explanation odd as well. Since Orizia was still > far away, perhaps it was a dream state (or something else psychic) for her > even though Bax could physically move to faerie because of the house? < That whole scene is weird. Physical description seems to weigh in Orizia's favor. Bax climbed out the window, got lost in the woods, met Orizia, took the phone call from Hardaway, met Winker, then they made their way back to the house. They couldn't get fat Orizia through his bedroom window, so Bax and Orizia started walking around the house, looking for a door. They came to another window where old Nick was tapping. Nick climbed out the window and Bax climbed in it, as his cell phone was ringing. That much *seems* okay, but it's not. In the very next sentence (149), Bax got out of bed and answered the phone call from Doris. In the first place, the window he climbed through to get back in the house was not the same window he climbed out of. The window he entered the house by was probably not even in his bedroom. But even if it had been the same window in the same bedroom, he should not have been in the bed. It had been established earlier that the master bedroom was very large and his big bed was in the center of the room (138), not under a window. That makes it all seem like a dream, but . . . -Roy --- ### Stuart Hamm *02 May 2010, 05:06 · in reply to Roy C. Lackey* Speaking of which... I woke from a jet lagged dream with the thought that it was Ted who killed Bax to replace HIM and get the house so he could get? to fairie.....hmm....don't have the book with me or anything, just a thought that I woke up with...hmm.. ???????? ? ? ?Mobile — (415) 786-3624 STUHAMM.COM FACEBOOK/STUARTHAMM myspace.com/stuhamm Skype? stuart.hamm ? ?? --- On Sat, 5/1/10, Roy C. Lackey wrote: From: Roy C. Lackey Subject: Re: (urth) Ted = Goldwurm? To: "The Urth Mailing List" Date: Saturday, May 1, 2010, 9:43 PM > Craig Brewer wrote: > > And I found the "dream" explanation odd as well. Since Orizia was still > far away, perhaps it was a dream state (or something else psychic) for her > even though Bax could physically move to faerie because of the house? < That whole scene is weird. Physical description seems to weigh in Orizia's favor. Bax climbed out the window, got lost in the woods, met Orizia, took the phone call from Hardaway, met Winker, then they made their way back to the house. They couldn't get fat Orizia through his bedroom window, so Bax and Orizia started walking around the house, looking for a door. They came to another window where old Nick was tapping. Nick climbed out the window and Bax climbed in it, as his cell phone was ringing. That much *seems* okay, but it's not. In the very next sentence (149), Bax got out of bed and answered the phone call from Doris. In the first place, the window he climbed through to get back in the house was not the same window he climbed out of. The window he entered the house by was probably not even in his bedroom. But even if it had been the same window in the same bedroom, he should not have been in the bed. It had been established earlier that the master bedroom was very large and his big bed was in the center of the room (138), not under a window. That makes it all seem like a dream, but . . . -Roy --- ### stoneox17 at aol.com *02 May 2010, 15:26 · in reply to Roy C. Lackey* Roy wrote > Andrew wrote: >> Absolutely - I was going to say something along the same lines but >> work >> intervened. I was thinking that perhaps the "other things" might >> just >> have >> been "women". Bax does of course get 3 women: Doris, Winkle and >> Millie >> (assuming Winkle counts). > That reminds me. It has to do with the issue of who compiled the list > of > characters, which lists Winker as: "Baxter Dunn's name for a friendly > Japanese girl." That's not right. Winkle is the name Bax came up with > for > the talking vixen. He later mentioned several times that he didn't > even know > the name of the young woman who came to his bed. He first learned her > name > when she introduced herself to Orizia: "This lowly person is called > Winker > Inari." (147) Orizia was miles away in a "trance", her psychic visit. > Is this significant, or just a mistake by Wolfe? Or is it an obscure > clue? > Or does it say something about the fictional Compiler? It is not a mistake; Winker is Baxter's name for her. Actually, when she introduced herself to Orizia, she said her name was Winkle Inari, but she was speaking with a Japanese accent ... Peter --- ### Roy C. Lackey *02 May 2010, 19:50 · in reply to Craig Brewer* > Craig Brewer wrote: > Another small point that may not be significant at all, but after the > final showdown, Martha tells Bax: "You have seen the Riverman. ... Not many > can say that." But he saw *three* hairy giants, and they emerged from the > forest, not the river. And since we have so many other things called River- > in this book (the motel, the suburban development that the Skotos Strip > becomes), is this whole Riverman thing bigger than just another example of > general "faerie" weirdness that Bax encounters?< I tend to think that the Riverman (or Rivermen) is just another example of Wolfe's catch-all notion of faerie. He did this before, in CASTLEVIEW, where there was a Big Foot-like creature (or creatures) who really had little to do with the Arthurian story. Also werewolves and phantom hitchhikers. -Roy --- ### brunians at brunians.org *02 May 2010, 20:02 · in reply to Roy C. Lackey* It's not Wolfe's catch-all notion of faerie. It's the picture of faerie common to people who believe in such things. . > Craig Brewer wrote: >> Another small point that may not be significant at all, but after the >> final showdown, Martha tells Bax: "You have seen the Riverman. ... Not >> many >> can say that." But he saw *three* hairy giants, and they emerged from the >> forest, not the river. And since we have so many other things called >> River- >> in this book (the motel, the suburban development that the Skotos Strip >> becomes), is this whole Riverman thing bigger than just another example of >> general "faerie" weirdness that Bax encounters?< > I tend to think that the Riverman (or Rivermen) is just another example of > Wolfe's catch-all notion of faerie. He did this before, in CASTLEVIEW, > where > there was a Big Foot-like creature (or creatures) who really had little to > do with the Arthurian story. Also werewolves and phantom hitchhikers. > > -Roy > > _______________________________________________ --- ### Roy C. Lackey *03 May 2010, 05:20 · in reply to stoneox17 at aol.com* >> Peter quoted and wrote: >> when she introduced herself to Orizia: "This lowly person is called >> Winker >> Inari." (147) Orizia was miles away in a "trance", her psychic visit. >> Is this significant, or just a mistake by Wolfe? Or is it an obscure >> clue? >> Or does it say something about the fictional Compiler? > It is not a mistake; Winker is Baxter's name for her. Actually, when she > introduced herself to Orizia, she said her name was Winkle Inari, but > she > was speaking with a Japanese accent ... Could be. But if so, she can and does turn it on and off. And where did the Inari come from? Was it really Inali? She had no accent when she phoned Bax when he was having lunch with Doris and Jake (219), and she spoke words with a number of "r"s and "l"s. It was only when Bax asked her if she spoke Chinese that she said, "Riddle bit speak." That was obviously affected. I will note than during that phone conversation he twice called her Winker. But when he wrote the above quoted line he attributed it to Winkle. In the scene I outlined earlier (dream/psychic visit), Orizia seems to have experienced Winkle/Winker only as a fox, yet Orizia offered her hand when they introduced themselves. Bax was clearly seeing her as, "the girl who called herself Winker Inari" (147). In the scene she also spoke the words "sorry" and "love" without any difficulty. I can't imagine what Orizia saw when Winker was trying to help pull her through Bax's bedroom window (148). Was she using teeth or hands? It's a puzzler. -Roy ---