{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/6027", "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": 6027, "subject": "Bloodsport", "messages": 8, "voices": 3, "first": "2011-05-26T21:23:29+00:00", "last": "2011-05-27T20:35:47+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "<69872.764cf964.3b101ed1@aol.com>", "from": { "name": "JBarach at aol.com", "address": "jbarach at aol.com" }, "date": "2011-05-26T21:23:29+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Bloodsport", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Urthers --\n \nLast night, I read Wolfe's recent short story \"Bloodsport\" in Swords & \nDark Magic, ed. Jonathan Strahan and Lou Anders (Eos, 2010) and noticed that it \n hasn't received any discussion on this list, as far as I can tell. (If \nI'm wrong, please point me in the right direction!)\n \nAs is typical for Wolfe, it seems to be a straightforward story at first, \nsuch that you even think you're catching the unreliable narrator stuff and \nnoticing some of the tricky moves being made (\"Aha,\" you say to yourself), \nonly to find yourself noting more and more things that you want to think \nabout later (\"Not sure what THAT means\") and end up wondering what exactly \nyou've read.\n \nSo ... I welcome your comments. What's going on in this story? There's a \nlengthy discussion here \n(_http://everythingisnice.wordpress.com/2010/06/24/bloodsport-by-gene-wolfe/_ \n(http://everythingisnice.wordpress.com/2010/06/24/bloodsport-by-gene-wolfe/) ), which is quite helpful. Some of my \nquestions and comments follow....\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \nSPOILERS\n \n \n \n \n \n \n* Is there significance to the names of the main characters, Valorius the \nKnight (surely connected to \"valor\") and Lurn the pawn (surely an allusion \nto Lune, the moon)? She reminds V, at one point, of \"the maid no man has \nbussed,\" which is probably Diana, right?\n \n* What is the game they're playing early in the story? It sounds like \nchess with human pieces, but the names of the pieces aren't all the same as in \nour game of chess. We don't have bowmen or slingers, etc. Is that \ndifference significant? In the larger game that they're playing, Lurn makes it \nto the far side of the board, as it were, and becomes a queen, which is what \nhappens in chess. At the same time, however, Valorius makes it to the far \nside of the board, as it were, and he becomes able to defeat Lurn, which \nsuggests that he has become a king, which is what happens in checkers.\n \n* Valorius's father's head has been cleft with an ax (p. 83). By whom? \nPresumably by the Hunas, though that's not explicit. Later in the story, V \nsays that his father \"had entered my mind\" (p. 94), and V rubs his head \nbecause \"It is where the ax went in. I rub it because the place is healed and \nmy father at rest\" (p. 95). Somehow V's attaining his goal leads to rest \nfor his father ... but I'm not sure what this is about.\n \n* What does the father's dream writing mean: \"I blessed and I cursed you, \nValorius, and my blessing and my curse are the same. You will inherit\" (p. \n83). Here's what I suspect: The blessing and the curse, which are the \nsame, is that V's father sent him to the Game. The Game involved curse in \nthat V has to suffer and even has to slay Lurn, whom he has come to love. But \nthe Game involved blessing because it led to his ultimate triumph and \ninheritance ... though I'm not clear what the inheritance is. Nor, it seems, \nis V: \"Whether they be so or no, who is to say? Perhaps I have inherited \nalready, and know not of it\" (p. 83). How typically Wolfe!\n \n* When V meets Lurn again, immediately after this dream, he is initially \nafraid that she will want to engage in combat (p. 84). Doing so, he says, \n\"would be but folly *as the world stands today*\" (p. 84). At first read, \nthat could be taken this way: \"We're both trying to escape from the Hunas, so \nit would be foolish for us to fight each other.\" \n \nBut Lurn immediately makes it clear that \"as the world stands today\" has \nmore than one meaning. The world doesn't stand, she says. Rather, it \n\"circles the moon as both swim among stars\" (p. 84). Later, we're told again \nthat the earth circles moon (p. 95). If the moon is dominant, then the sun \nhasn't yet risen ... which will change when V is kinged at the end of the \nstory and defeats Lurn. So this is night-time, and Lurn wants to keep it \nthat way by reestablishing the kingdom (though it would really be a \n\"queendom,\" with her in power), with the game back in place, and so forth. (Shades \nof pagan Rome and the colliseum!) And that's precisely what can't happen, \nso that V has to defeat her and does with the help of \"Our Lord the Sun\" (p. \n96). From henceforth, I guess, the earth circles the sun, not the moon.\n \nSo \"as the world stands today\" has to do with eschatology: In the present \nage (\"as the world stands today\"), it would be folly -- for who? Valorius? \nLurn? both? -- to fight, but there's coming an time (as the world will one \nday stand) in which they will need to engage in combat and it won't be \nfolly to do so ... and V will win.\n \nAs Lurn says, as the world stands right now, sometimes the sun and moon do \nfight and when they do, the moon wins (eclipse), defeats the sun, and then \n\"having bested him she bids him rise\" (p. 85). That's what happened when V \n and L fought in the Game. But, she adds, \"Someday he will best her and, \nbesting her, take her life. So is it written. When the evil day comes, \nyou men will walk in blind dark from twilight to dawn and much harm come of \nit.... Women will have no warning, so that they bleed in the market\" (p. \n85). In other words, the sun will kill the moon so that it will be black at \nnight and women will not be able to predict their monthly cycle any longer. \n \n \nIs that what has happened at the end of the story? Or is Lurn mistaken \n(or deliberately trying to keep V from killing her)?\n \n* What does V mean when he says that eventually he \"beheld something in \nLurn's eyes that I had never seen in the eyes of any woman\" (p. 85). My \nguess is that it is love. \n \n* Is there some deeper significance to the battle against the Hunas (pp. \n86-89)?\n \n* It seems clear to me that V is NOT a Christ-figure, though he may be, as \nWolfe has said of Severian and others, a Christian figure. He won't say \nthat he has never been cruel, though he has tried to be such a man (p. 89).\n \n* What does V mean when he says \"Deserts call to demons and not to ghosts. \n (Yet not to demons only.)\" (p. 90)?\n \n* Why are there *40* palaces (p. 91)? That's neither the number of chess \npieces in a game (32) or checkers pieces (24). An online search indicates \nthat there are 40 pieces on the board at the start of a FRENCH game of \ncheckers \n(_http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_checkers_on_a_board_at_the_beginning_of_a_game_ \n(http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_checkers_on_a_board_at_the_beginning_of_a_game) ). And sets of checkers usually involve 40 pieces \n(including two extra checkers and six \"kings\" for each player). Significant?\n \n* There is a wolf in the story: \"I was able to dash among them like a wolf\" \n (p. 91).\n \n* They're looking for a palace which includes a garden on a mountain, a \nmountain meadow (p. 91) ... and that's an echo of Eden, isn't it?\n \n* What's the significance of V seeing ghosts (pp. 89-90, 92ff.)? Who is \nthe ghost V sees, leading him into the vaults (p. 92)? Why is it that, when \nthe ghost speaks (\"Where you wished to go, O pawn\"), it's V speaking, so \nthat Lurn says, \"Why are you talking to me like that, Valorius?\" (p. 93)?\n \n* There are winged figures in the garden who don't move or breathe but \naren't statues either (p. 93). Angelic, it seems, but what's the significance \nhere? If I may theologize after the fashion of James Jordan (AKA Patera \nNutria), during the time from creation to Christ, man was \"a little while \nlower than the angels\" (Ps. 8; Heb 2). The Law was given to Israel by the \nmediation of angels. And Israel's calendar was regulated by the moon, which \nwas created in the beginning for \"seasons\" (Gen 1: the term doesn't refer \nto summer, winter, spring, fall but rather to festival times). But the \nlunar/angelic period lasts only until the coming of Christ, who is the \"Sun of \nrighteousness, who rises with healing in his wings\" (Malachi 4). When the \nSun comes, the lunar period is over. Is it possible that Wolfe has any of \nthis stuff in mind?\n \n* What is the significance of the tomb, with the door opening (p. 94)? \nThis is something of a resurrection image, isn't it? It is, in fact, his \nfather who is resurrected in a sense, who comes to enter V's mind, and who \nrobes him with his own mantle -- an echo, perhaps, of Elisha with Elijah's \nmantle, which designated him as his successor? In some way, this is V's \nbecoming king ... which would suggest that his father was the king (and hence \nwhat V inherits, through his father's blessing/curse, is in fact the \nkingdom). Right?\n \n* Why in the world does V (or Wolfe) echo Mercutio's words from Romeo and \nJuliet: \"The steel that went in was not so long as my hand and less wide \nthan two fingers together, yet it was enough. It sufficed\" (p. 96)? The \nline from R&J is: \"'tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church-door; \nbut 'tis enough,'J is: \"'tis n Was this an accident on Wolfe's part? That \nhardly seems likely. Coincidence? Maybe. But it was noticeable and a bit \njarring to me. Deliberate? Maybe, but then ... to what end?\n \n* Okay, the last paragraph, with its Christ-like allusions, I'm not sure \nabout. V has inherited the kingdom, presumably, but at this point, there's \nstill a lot of darkness, there are tyrants, etc. But not forever. That \nmuch I understand. But what do the various elements of this paragraph mean?\n \n- \"Should our folk require a sword, I am the sword that springs to their \nhands\"\n \n- \"Asked to heal, I cure their sick -- when I can\": He isn't Christ, but he \n is a Christian figure.\n \n- \"If they bring food, I eat it. If they do not, I fast or find my own\": \nAn allusion to Jesus' instruction to his disciples when he sent them out to \nmake their living from preaching the gospel?\n \n- \"East lies the past, west the future\": in Genesis, the Garden has a door \non the east side, so that to leave the Garden is to head east (and then \nCain is banished further east, and then people move even further east to the \nland of Babel) and to return to the Garden is to head west. Similarly, the \nTabernacle and Temple are in such a way that you enter them from the east, \nheading west.\n \n- \"Go north to find the gods, south to find the blessed\": I'm not sure \nabout this. North is associated with the gods in pagan mythology, but in the \nBible, too, the Garden is located symbolically in the north. Eden is a \nmountain from which four rivers flow (Gen 2), and they all flow south, so that \nGod's mountain is associated with north. That's the best I can do with \nthat, but \"south to find the blessed\"? No clue.\n \n- \"Above stands the All High, and below lies Pandemonium\": Well, the \"All \nHigh\" appears to be the one true God over all the gods, and Pandemonium is \nMilton's term for hell, the place from which the demons come to earth to \nattack man.\n \n* The story is framed by references to you, the reader, as a traveler whom \nV has encountered (\"from time to time I entertain a lost traveler, such as \nyourself\": p. 96). Note the word \"lost.\" To this traveler, V gives his \norienting speech about east and west, north and south, above and below and \nthen urges the traveler (us): \"Choose your road and keep to it, for if you \nstray from it, you may encounter such as I\" (p. 96). Huh? That makes it \nsound as if encountering such as V wouldn't be good ... but then who is \"such \nas I\"? And why, then, after giving that warning, does V add \"We shall not \nmeet again\"?\n \nMany puzzles. Thanks for your help.\n \nJohn\n \n \n \n \n \n " } ] }, { "message_id": "<4DDECBD2.8090601@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "crushtv at gmail.com" }, "date": "2011-05-26T21:53:22+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Bloodsport", "in_reply_to": "<69872.764cf964.3b101ed1@aol.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "See mine and Marc Aramini's conversation here:\nhttp://lists.urth.net/pipermail/urth-urth.net/2011-February/021710.html\nhttp://lists.urth.net/pipermail/urth-urth.net/2011-February/021712.html\nhttp://lists.urth.net/pipermail/urth-urth.net/2011-February/021713.html\nhttp://lists.urth.net/pipermail/urth-urth.net/2011-February/021715.html\nhttp://lists.urth.net/pipermail/urth-urth.net/2011-February/021716.html\nhttp://lists.urth.net/pipermail/urth-urth.net/2011-February/021718.html" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 5/26/2011 4:23 PM, JBarach at aol.com wrote:\nUrthers --\nLast night, I read Wolfe's recent short story \"Bloodsport\" in Swords & \nDark Magic, ed. Jonathan Strahan and Lou Anders (Eos, 2010) and \nnoticed that it hasn't received any discussion on this list, as far as \nI can tell. (If I'm wrong, please point me in the right direction!)" } ] }, { "message_id": "<6b506.68daa420.3b10290c@aol.com>", "from": { "name": "JBarach at aol.com", "address": "jbarach at aol.com" }, "date": "2011-05-26T22:07:08+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Bloodsport", "in_reply_to": "<4DDECBD2.8090601@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " \nIn a message dated 5/26/2011 4:53:38 P.M. Central Daylight Time, \ncrushtv at gmail.com writes:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "See mine and Marc Aramini's conversation here:" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " \nHuh. I searched the archives online for \"Bloodsport\" and nothing came up. \n Thanks for the links!\n \nJohn" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4DDED784.9090304@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "crushtv at gmail.com" }, "date": "2011-05-26T22:43:16+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Bloodsport", "in_reply_to": "<69872.764cf964.3b101ed1@aol.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "SPOILERS\n\n* Is there significance to the names of the main characters, Valorius \nthe Knight (surely connected to \"valor\") and Lurn the pawn (surely an \nallusion to Lune, the moon)?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Valorius is fine name for a knight. I can't find any likely reference to \n\"lurn\" in any language. It bothers me." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "She reminds V, at one point, of \"the maid no man has bussed,\" which is \nprobably Diana, right?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I think we're talking about Persephone (the Maiden). But it is possible \nthat he is talking about Caissa the dryad who is the muse of Chess." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "* What is the game they're playing early in the story? It sounds like \nchess with human pieces, but the names of the pieces aren't all the \nsame as in our game of chess. We don't have bowmen or slingers, etc. \nIs that difference significant?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "The game, I think, is _like_ chess, but not exactly like chess. It has \ncertain variations such that an attacker does not always win. In some \ncountries, the bishop was an archer." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "In the larger game that they're playing, Lurn makes it to the far side \nof the board, as it were, and becomes a queen, which is what happens \nin chess. At the same time, however, Valorius makes it to the far side \nof the board, as it were, and he becomes able to defeat Lurn, which \nsuggests that he has become a king, which is what happens in checkers." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "No. Any queen can be taken by a knight or anything else." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "* When V meets Lurn again, immediately after this dream, he is \ninitially afraid that she will want to engage in combat (p. 84). \nDoing so, he says, \"would be but folly *as the world stands today*\" \n(p. 84). At first read, that could be taken this way: \"We're both \ntrying to escape from the Hunas, so it would be foolish for us to \nfight each other.\"" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I take it to mean, \"The is no game. So there is no benefit in us fighting.\"\nIt is possible that you are over-thinking the phrase \"as the world \nstands today\".\n\nBut I think you are right. Valorius and Lurn live on the moon of another \nplanet. For them, the planet is their 'moon'." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Is that what has happened at the end of the story? Or is Lurn \nmistaken (or deliberately trying to keep V from killing her)?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "See my comment to Marc regarding this." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "* Okay, the last paragraph, with its Christ-like allusions, I'm not \nsure about. V has inherited the kingdom, presumably, but at this \npoint, there's still a lot of darkness, there are tyrants, etc. But \nnot forever." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Again, I think he endeavors to put an end to tyrants." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "That much I understand. But what do the various elements of this \nparagraph mean?\n- \"Should our folk require a sword, I am the sword that springs to \ntheir hands\"\n- \"Asked to heal, I cure their sick -- when I can\": He isn't Christ, \nbut he is a Christian figure.\n- \"If they bring food, I eat it. If they do not, I fast or find my \nown\": An allusion to Jesus' instruction to his disciples when he sent \nthem out to make their living from preaching the gospel?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "As I see it, he is the ideal of the knight errant. He serves but does \nnot demand service.\n\nI'll think about the rest of your questions.\n\nJ." } ] }, { "message_id": "<6d753.6d75e640.3b103717@aol.com>", "from": { "name": "JBarach at aol.com", "address": "jbarach at aol.com" }, "date": "2011-05-26T23:07:03+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Bloodsport", "in_reply_to": "<4DDED784.9090304@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Thanks for the response, James.\n \nI understand that a knight can take a queen in chess. But I'm not \npersuaded that that's what happens at the end of \"Bloodsport.\" \n \nFirst, Valorius undergoes a transformation at the end, marked by the \nopening tomb, the presence of his father, now at rest, and the passing on of a \nmantle. \n \nSecond, Valorius is linked up with the sun at the end, and it is by the sun \n that he is enabled to kill the moon-queen, Lurn. This is associated with \ntheir previous conversation about sun and moon combatting. Sun and moon \ncorrespond to man and woman or, more specifically, to king and queen. So it \nseems to me that Valorius is now a king, which could happen only in \ncheckers (though, I'd add, he's also clearly under Our Lord the Sun, which is an \nappropriate view for a Christian king). \n \nAnd then there is a common expression \"X was playing chess when Y was \nplaying checkers\" (or vice versa): _http://tinyurl.com/444c5pw_ \n(http://tinyurl.com/444c5pw) .\n \nJohn" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4DDFB505.4090301@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "crushtv at gmail.com" }, "date": "2011-05-27T14:28:21+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Bloodsport", "in_reply_to": "<6d753.6d75e640.3b103717@aol.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 5/26/2011 6:07 PM, JBarach at aol.com wrote:\nSecond, Valorius is linked up with the sun at the end, and it is by \nthe sun that he is enabled to kill the moon-queen, Lurn. This is \nassociated with their previous conversation about sun and moon \ncombatting. Sun and moon correspond to man and woman or, more \nspecifically, to king and queen. So it seems to me that Valorius is \nnow a king, which could happen only in checkers (though, I'd add, he's \nalso clearly under Our Lord the Sun, which is an appropriate view for \na Christian king)." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Yeah, but the following is not the description of a king:\n\n\"Should our folk require a sword, I am the sword that springs to their \nhands. Asked to heal, I cure their sick -- when I can\": He isn't Christ, \nbut he is a Christian figure. If they bring food, I eat it. If they do \nnot, I fast or find my own\".\n\nThat's the Knights Templar (The Hospitalers), who protected pilgrims \n(lost travelers)." } ] }, { "message_id": "<1364003b4d655e5ec235701773b00873.squirrel@webmail.prismnet.com>", "from": { "name": "Jeff Wilson", "address": "jwilson at io.com" }, "date": "2011-05-27T19:46:11+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Bloodsport", "in_reply_to": "<4DDFB505.4090301@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 5/26/2011 6:07 PM, JBarach at aol.com wrote:\n\nThat's the Knights Templar (The Hospitalers), who protected pilgrims\n(lost travelers)." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "It might be one or the other but not both; the Templars and the\nHospitallers were rival orders." } ] }, { "message_id": "<4d1f0.660dc2e6.3b116523@aol.com>", "from": { "name": "JBarach at aol.com", "address": "jbarach at aol.com" }, "date": "2011-05-27T20:35:47+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Bloodsport", "in_reply_to": "<1364003b4d655e5ec235701773b00873.squirrel@webmail.prismnet.com>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " \nJames writes:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "That's the Knights Templar (The Hospitalers), who protected\npilgrims (lost travelers)." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " \nThat sounds good ... but Valorius makes it sound as if the traveler \ndoesn't WANT to meet someone like him. He says something like \"Choose your path \nand stick to it, for if you don't, you'll meet such as I.\" That seems to \nmean, \"Stay on the path or else you'll meet someone like me.\" And that \nsounds like a warning, doesn't it?\n \nJohn" } ] } ] }