{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/5966", "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": 5966, "subject": "Scanning Typhon", "messages": 4, "voices": 4, "first": "2011-02-11T07:53:29+00:00", "last": "2011-02-11T17:12:45+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "<743295.86575.qm@web32106.mail.mud.yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "Nicholas Gevers", "address": "vermoulian at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2011-02-11T07:53:29+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Scanning Typhon", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "It occurs to me that when Typhon's personality was scanned to create Pas, there \ncould have been an accidental--or even deliberate--incorporation of elements of \nPiaton's mind too. Thus, perhaps, the unexpected (relative) benevolence of Pas \nand his Plan. \n\n\n--Nick Gevers.\n\n\n " } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee Berman", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2011-02-11T12:56:23+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Scanning Typhon", "in_reply_to": "<743295.86575.qm@web32106.mail.mud.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Nick Gevers: It occurs to me that when Typhon's personality was scanned to create Pas, there \ncould have been an accidental--or even deliberate--incorporation of elements of \nPiaton's mind too. Thus, perhaps, the unexpected (relative) benevolence of Pas \nand his Plan." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " \nThis is an interesting alternate explanation. I think most have been content with the idea that\nthe benevolence is a result of the principle that we tend to become the role we play. I wonder if\nit will appeal to those readers who prefer nuts and bolts explanations over literary ones.\n \nI was trying to think of text evidence of Pas having elements of being a slave. For some reason\nthe phrase \"god of gods, slave of slaves\" popped into my head. But I don't even know if this \nphrase is in the Sun series. Is it bibilical? Google and Urth Archives searches were no help. \nAnyone? \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "<548ABF9BC41C4403B9A641C4B31C6A18@jill>", "from": { "name": "Gerry Quinn", "address": "gerryq at indigo.ie" }, "date": "2011-02-11T14:21:18+00:00", "subject": "(urth) uinnRe: Scanning Typhon", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "From: \"Lee Berman\" " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Nick Gevers: It occurs to me that when Typhon's personality was scanned to \ncreate Pas, there\ncould have been an accidental--or even deliberate--incorporation of \nelements of\nPiaton's mind too. Thus, perhaps, the unexpected (relative) benevolence of \nPas\nand his Plan." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I tend to doubt it, mainly because while surgical accidents do occur in \nwhich the wrong leg is amputated, such a scenario lacks plausibility when it \ncomes to scanning the head of the Monarch." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "This is an interesting alternate explanation. I think most have been \ncontent with the idea that\nthe benevolence is a result of the principle that we tend to become the \nrole we play. I wonder if\nit will appeal to those readers who prefer nuts and bolts explanations \nover literary ones." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Why? Of course there should be valid explanations for everything, but Pas's \nmotives are perfectly explicable without invoking any scanning errors. \nTyphon himself would plausibly have acted the same way. Indeed, although \nthe exact nature of the brain operations is murky, Typhon appears to have \ndeliberately tried to release the Whorl's inhabitants from his thrall right \nat the start of the journey, so no personality change is even required.\n\nThe mistake some people make is to believe that some mythological resonance \nthey find in elements of the story can serve as an alternative to 'nuts and \nbolts' explanations." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I was trying to think of text evidence of Pas having elements of being a \nslave. For some reason\nthe phrase \"god of gods, slave of slaves\" popped into my head. But I don't \neven know if this\nphrase is in the Sun series. Is it bibilical? Google and Urth Archives \nsearches were no help.\nAnyone?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Doesn't ring a bell.\n\n- Gerry Quinn " } ] }, { "message_id": "<4D556E0D.3090907@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "crushtv at gmail.com" }, "date": "2011-02-11T17:12:45+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Scanning Typhon", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Nick Gevers: It occurs to me that when Typhon's personality was scanned\nto create Pas, there could have been an accidental--or even deliberate--\nincorporation of elements of Piaton's mind too. Thus, perhaps, the\nunexpected (relative) benevolence of Pas and his Plan." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Lee-\nThis is an interesting alternate explanation. I think most have been content with\nthe idea that the benevolence is a result of the principle that we tend to become\nthe role we play. I wonder if it will appeal to those readers who prefer nuts and\nbolts explanations over literary ones." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I think it is a little more complex or simpler than either either of these.\nThe Whorl and it's purpose were on the whole wholesome because no one is \nEvil Person in the sense that he desires the opposite of Good. Typhon \ndidn't eat feces and defecate six course meals. Neither did he build the \nWhorl to be a place of torment. He wanted the place to work and \ntherefore became an agent of Good in the process of creation.\n\nIn \"An Evil Guest\", Gideon Chase tries to explain to this \nmisapprehension when we usually call some PERSON evil:\n\" 'Would you say that evil is synonymous with cruelty? With greed?'\nThe president nodded. 'I sure would.'\n'Then you cannot be correct. Cruelty and greed are very different \nthings. Cruelty is delight in the pain of others. Greed is an insatiable \ndesire to possess. You do not like the result of either one--unless the \ngreed and cruelty are your own. You avenge yourself upon them by calling \nthem evil. There is no difference in kind between your position and that \nof a woman who shouts 'bad dog' when the puppy soils the carpet. The \ndifference is in degree. Only.' \"\n\nTyphon's goals ran contrary to those of the Conciliator and the New Sun. \nIn that sense he was a villain. He was a tyrant and therefore an \nadversary to any who desired true Liberty.\n\nHowever, just because Typhon was a tyrant and believed it was necessary \nthat of humanity were under his thumb, doesn't mean that his empire was \nnot better than all the governments it overwhelmed. It doesn't mean that \nhis purposes in founding the empire were not laudable in either its \nparticulars or in its broad sense. The same is true in his construction \nof the Whorl. On multiple occasions I have heard Wolfe say that \"the \nbest villain is one who falls just short of being a hero.\"\n\nI think this is what the Rajan was getting at when he was explaining \nwhy Typhon made the choices he did in planning the Whorl:\n\n\"It explains many things, once you understand that Pas himself was \nbrought into being by the Outsider. [...] To colonize Blue and Green, \nPas had to make certain that some human beings reached them alive.\"\n~ RttW 131" } ] } ] }