{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/whorl/1196", "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": "whorl", "thread": { "id": 1196, "subject": "This little Piggie had none", "messages": 2, "voices": 2, "first": "2001-02-19T00:59:51+00:00", "last": "2001-02-19T12:47:53+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Robert Borski", "address": "rborski at charter.net" }, "date": "2001-02-19T00:59:51+00:00", "subject": "(whorl) This little Piggie had none", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Part IV of V-part Piggie Sequence; if you haven't read its predecessors you\nmay be confused.\n\nOne of the things I've always wondered about is the provenance of the ring\ngiven to Horn by Seawrack. Since the ring allows Horn to be identified as a\nfriend by the Neighbors, and indeed saves his life on Green (or more\nproperly, catalyzes his transfusion into dying Silk on the Whorl), it almost\ncertainly must originate with the Neighbors. Indeed, shortly before Seawrack\nreturns with it, fires are seen in the hills that are later identified by\nShe-pick-berry as Neighborly in origin (\"Many Neighbor here. Build many\nfire.\"), so it doesn't seem all that speculative to imagine the ring has\ncome from them; further support of the hills origin is given by\nHe-pen-sheep, who points to the ring and tells Horn it identifies him as a\n\"Neighbor-man.\" This alliance between the Mother (since it seems likely\nshe's passed on the ring to Seawrack) and the Neighbors also does not seem\nparticularly odd in OBW because at this stage we do not know who or what the\nMother is any more than Horn does--his best guess is that's she a sea\ngoddess of the Vanished People (a.k.a. the Neighbors). But by the end of\nIGJ, it's more than clear that the Mother is somehow related to Scylla--as I\nwas quick to point out in a series of posts in the previous volume--and this\ncompletely reconfigures the alliance between the Mother/Scylla and the\nNeighbors. It also seems to support my theory that the gods of Mainframe--or\nat the very least Typhon--may originally be from the Blue/Green system, and\nit's this shared heritage between the starcrossers and the indigenes that\nallows them to interact so quickly.\n\nFurther evidence of this link between the Mother, Seawrack and the Neighbors\ncomes in IGJ when Horn sings a song \"following Seawrack's own intonation and\npronunciation,\" and which is filled with \"the lapping of the waves...and the\neerie cries of seabirds, and the lonely whistling of the wind.\" Horn\nsubsequently tells the assembled group that the song \"is in the language of\nthe Neighbors, whom you call the Vanished People,\" and even translates the\nlyrics as, \"'In our small house with shining windows, I waited till the tide\nbrought your wreck through. Lie here beside me in the darkness. I'll wake to\nlife the corpse I say is you.'\" Horn immediately adds, \"That isn't exactly\nright, but it's as close as I can come in the Common Tongue.\" Poorly\ntranslated though they be, however, these lyrics, and the fact that Horn can\ntranslate them from Neighborese, will become more important later, so keep\nthem in mind.\n\nBack to the ring, however, which remains behind with Horn's body when he\ndies on Green; but while he's imprisoned in Dorp, Oreb-Scylla brings him\nanother one. It's unclear where the ring comes from, but since Babbie (who I\nmaintain is a Neighbor-like being) is in the vicinity, I'd like to suggest\nthat he is its provider; this might help explain its rather large size since\nthe Neighbors are bigger than humans (it may also have originally been sized\nfor Pig [see previous Piggie post]), although it later resizes itself to fit\nHorn (self-adjusting hi-tech Neighbor jewelry?). This second ring also\nallows Horn to contact the Neighbors; consequently, one even testifies at\nhis trial. And later we're given a glimpse through the ring, but as\ndescribed by Hoof, it's a little difficult to determine what he's\nseeing--there's a Neighbor, for sure, who looks like he's sitting in some\nsort of upright tree limb, but from the description of the latter, with its\nhuge size, and silver and green leaves, it might almost be the mast of a\nhuge ship--possibly interstellar, like that of the Hierodules. Is this the\nmothership of the Neighbors, plying its way to new galactic waters? (\"We\nfound a way to leave and we left, seeking a new and better home.\" This might\nalso explain why Pas relaunches the Whorl at the end of RTTW: he's seeking\nto join his fellow outward-bound Neighbors). If so, it makes Horn's\ncontacting the Neighbors a little more problematical, although it is\ninteresting to note that in IGJ, there are passages suggesting the Neighbors\nuse mirror technology to transcend space. I'm therefore a little more\ninclined to believe that the tree is one of those Horn describes as growing\non Green (\"The towers of the City of the Inhumi are not of twelve stories,\nor fifteen, or eighteen, like the towers of the city in which I was born,\nbut of stories beyond counting. As from the cliffs, trees sprout from their\nsheer walls and every ledge...\")\n\nThe first ring is given to Horn by Seawrack after she receives a ring from\nhim, and for all intents and purposes symbolizes a putative marriage between\nthe two (parallels here with Horn and Nettle, as well as Silk and Hyacinth).\nHorn soon responds by sexually assaulting her, although he may be unable to\nresist doing so since Seawrack's singing appears to compell the act.\n\nBut here again several questions beg asking. Why, for example, does the\nMother give Seawrack to Horn? If Seawrack is the source of the fish thrown\nup at the rock at Mucor's island, it seems likely that the Mother knows the\npurpose of Horn's journey (I've already conjectured that Mucor and Seawrack\nare both special talents of the über-sister variety). But why, knowing that\nHorn is seeking to bring back Silk to Blue, would she then adapt the\nstrategy of placing the siren with Horn? Possibly she knows that Silk is now\nPassilk, and envisioning Horn to be successful in his mission, she wants to\nkeep tabs of his whereabouts--especially since she, her mother Echidna,\nMolpe and Heirax have previously tried to eradicate father Pas from\nMainframe, and he's been seeking revenge. Seawrack might therefore be meant\nto provide reconaissance, and if she can get Horn to fall in love with her,\nit might further enhance Seawrack's prospects of being taken aboard the\nPajarocu lander. But doesn't it seem likely that the Mother/Scylla could\ncome up with a better special talent than Seawrack--a mere slip of a girl,\nwith gills, and who talks with fishes? Given the male-dominated worlds of\nboth Blue and the Whorl, it seems that she would be particularly vulnerable\nto predation, especially since her singing seems to amplify men's sexual\nfuries. So again why give her to Horn?\n\nPerhaps she hasn't. Perhaps the real person she's being given to is Babbie,\nwho's also along in the boat. Babbie, as I've attempted to show, is far from\na simple hus. He may indeed be Tartaros/Pig, or Tartaros riding the hus the\nsame way Scylla has been riding Oreb. Given that he and sister Scylla were\noriginally on opposite sides (Tartaros is described in the Proper names as\n\"Pas's loyal son, the god of thieves and commerce\"), this seems to argue for\nsome sort of reconciliation, or perhaps more likely talks between the two\nsides. \"I am one of you,\" Seawrack says at one point, and Horn automatically\nassumes she's talking to him, not Babbie. It's also interesting to note that\nthe Mother is still apparently alive and well on Blue; if she's meant to\neventually reunite the Scylla of Mainframe with the cloned (godling?) body\nof the original Scylla, why hasn't Pas attempted to eradicate her? One would\nthink that Scylla could take refuge in the Mother and not have to resort to\nOreb (if there no more Sacred Windows to accomplish this, couldn't she use\nthe reflecting surface of any large body of water on Blue? Scylla, after\nall, uses Lake Limna for such purposes in NEW SUN), but perhaps she fears\nthe Mother's great size would be hard to hide from Pas's technology.\n\nBut what if there were another reason that Pas couldn't directly attack\nScylla? What if Scylla holds the ultimate bargaining chip when it comes to\ndealing with her father? What if Scylla's captured Kypris, and is holding\nher hostage in special talent Seawrack? Look at the following snippets from\nthe Mother's farewell speech to Seawrack: \"You must go to your own people.\nYour time with me has ended. Do not return. For my sake I would have you\nstay. For yours I tell you to go.\" The phrase *for my sake* here, I believe,\nis very important (as is \"your own people\"); we know that Scylla is far from\nthe benign entity the Mother first appears to be, rising out of the sea like\nsomething in a fairy tale to give Horn a mermaid/siren companion. She is, in\nfact, hiding out from Pas, and though much of her evil nature may be\nconstrained by Oreb's limited cognitive functions (he is, after all, a bird\nbrain), it's still hard to view her overall motives as maternalistic.\n\nConsidering Scylla means \"She who rends,\" I also believe she is the source\nof Seawrack's armlessness--perhaps a severe warning to Kypris/Seawrack that\nshe had better stick to a prefabricated script about who she is or else\n(although Krait somehow seems to know that Seawrack is lying). Scylla\nturning Kypris into a siren whose singing invites sexual assault also seems\nin character with the vindictive goddess; as she laments in LAKE, \"I was\ngoing to say that we took new names that would fit. What none of us knew was\nthat [Daddy would] let [Kypris], too. So she picked love, what a surprise.\nAnd got sex and everything dirty with it.\" Everything dirty, indeed,\nincluding unbridled sexual savagery. (Wolfe, fortunately, spares us the\ndetails of Seawrack's rape, but even on a minimalistic level it sounds\ngrim.)\n\nUnfortunately, at least in my opinion, Seawrack and Babbie leave center\nstage at the end of OBW, but I do think it's important to note that they\nexit together: Horn cobbles up some ruse about berry-picking downriver from\nPajarocu; then has Sinew strand them. But it's with a curious lack of\nremorse that Horn describes what he envisions as their fate near the end of\nOBW: \"I felt sure that Seawrack made what repairs she could and that she and\nBabbie tried to sail the sloop back up the river. They must have arrived\nmuch too late, if indeed they arrived at all. She has returned to the sea\nnow, for which I would be the last to blame her.\" Nothing in Horn's detached\nmanner at this point seems to suggest he will miss his darling siren\novermuch, or how later, when asked in IGJ, where would he like to be if he\ncould be anywhere, he will answer: \"With Seawrack, in our little sloop.\" Are\nwe therefore to believe that Seawrack's desireabilty simply becomes amplifed\nover time--that the siren song she's sung has become more and more potent\nthe longer he's been away from her?\n\nPersonally, I don't believe that this is the answer. Rather, I believe that\nHorn's growing desire for the absentee Seawrack only *begins* after he's\nmerged with Silk--a fact that's difficult to realize given SHORT SUN's\ncomplex narrative skeins. Moreover, it's only upon merging that HornPassilk\nbegins to confuse the loves of the three women \"he\" has been involved with:\nNettle, Hyacinth and Seawrack. But because our tendency is to identify the\nnarrator as Horn-husband-of-Nettle, we tend to see \"him\" as swaying in\naffection between Nettle and Seawrack, whereas I contend the person who's\nactually expressing his desire for Seawrack is the Pas moiety of Passilk.\n(Not that the true Horn doesn't emerge in numerous loving asides to his\nwife; she's also the main person for whom he's writing tBotSS). Another clue\nin this regard is the song Horn translates; suddenly, we're given to\nunderstand he comprehends Neighborese? This is contradicted earlier,\nhowever, by several statements from ur-Horn: \"I broke off my foolish\nargument because something had begun to sing. It was not Seawrack's song,\nbut the Mother's, a song without words, or at any rate without words that I\ncould understand.\" \"[Seawrack] sang only a note or two, just a word or two\nin some language never spoken by human beings, and I was upon her.\"\n\nMythological parallel: Kypris is another name for Aphrodite, and she too,\nlike Seawrack, is a child of the sea.\n\nOther clues to Seawrack's true nature can be found in RETURN. Horn, at\nBlood's mansion, rhapsodizes about his old musicbox and \"the tune played by\nthe steel comb that sang to itself of a virgin braiding her hair by\ncandlelight...seated on her bed in a chemise, and she was the most beautiful\nwoman in the whorl, was Kypris and Hyacinth because she had yet to learn how\nbeautiful she was and the power of her smile.\" Note again the juxtaposition\nof singing, Kypris and Hyacinth.\n\nNot much later at Blood's abandoned mansion then, both Horn and Pig find\nthemselves together in Hyacinth's old bedroom, and this leads Horn to\nconclude that Pig carries not only Silk, but Pas. \"If it had only been that\nPig had wanted very much to be alone in this room, I don't believe I'd have\nguessed. I would have thought of Silk the god, of Silver Silk as the augurs\ncall you, with Kypris and dismissed the thought. You're not with her now, I\nrealize. As long as Pig is blind, you can't go back to her.\" To which Pig\nresponds, \"Correct.\" Thus we now have confirmed the notion that Kypris is\nstill alive (as opposed to Echidna and Hierax, who are not), coupled with\nthe parallel conceit that Pas will be able to rejoin her once Pig can see\nagain.\n\nBy the end of RETURN, of course, Pig, thanks to Horn, is able to see\nagain--although when you think about it, it's rather a strange process: Horn\n(who has a piece of Passilk in him) donates an eye to Pig (who also has a\npiece of Passilk in him), so that the Passilk in each of them can be\nreunited with Kypris. This may also explain the necessity of Pig killing\nSilk in the manse--to prepare him as host for Horn, who carries vital and\nimportant memories of Seawrack that Pas needs to recement the bond between\nthem. Ur-Horn, we must also remember, was symbolically wed to Seawrack--thus\nthere's a transfer of husbandship. And together Passilk and Seawrack/Kypris\ngo off on a honeymoon to the stars aboard the relaunched Whorl. This makes\nmuch more sense to me than accepting the notion that Seawrack was compelled\nto go by the Mother--a rather harsh sentence no matter how you cut it, and\nfar from the fairy-tale happily-ever-after ending Wolfe seems to want to\ngive us.\n\nBut it also allows us to make a little more sense of the exquisite\nforeshadowing in the song of Seawrack's that Horn sings and translates\nearlier: \"In our small house with shining windows [the manse], I waited till\nthe tide brought your wreck through [dying Horn, with his memories of\nSeawrack]. Lie here beside me in the darkness [Silk's death and/or Pig's\nblindness, with Pas trapped inside; alternately Kypris's subjugation to\nScylla, or possibly even the Whorl's darkday]. I'll wake to life the corpse\nI say is you.\" [Passilk returned to full glory.]\n\nAnd mediating all this? The Wolfean entity variously known as Babbie, Pig or\nTartaros, but who for all his hard work receives what choice reward in the\nend?\n\nRobert Borski\n\n\n*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Alex David Groce", "address": "alex_groce at gs246.sp.cs.cmu.edu" }, "date": "2001-02-19T12:47:53+00:00", "subject": "Re: (whorl) This little Piggie had none", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "The proposition: Typhon is originally from Blue/Green (is a Neighbor,\nI suppose).\n\nPros:\n\n(1) Gives a reason for his sending the Whorl to Blue/Green.\n\n(2) Explains Mother/Scylla relationship (maybe).\n\n(3) Fits the naming scheme: Typhon is a Greek monster thus must be an\noffworld visitor.\n\nCons:\n\n(1) The Typhon Severian meets seems to be a human tyrant with a head\ngrafted on his shoulder, rather than any kind of alien.\n\n(2) The naming scheme doesn't have to be super-consistent. Baldanders\ngets to be a \"monster\" (sort of) by modifying himself; surely Typhon\ncan do the same?\n\n(3) Scylla doesn't seem very alien when we see \"the real Scylla\"\neither. Note that she doesn't seem to actually be the sea-monster\nScylla, but to be her human ally (thus betraying her father, odd if he\nis a Neighbor and they are allied with \"Scylla\" who is also the\nMother, as Robert seems to imply).\n\n(4) The Whorl leaving at the end makes me think the Whorl may be more\nof a colony seedship than a one-shot. The place has non-frozen\nresidents not only for the reasons given in LS, but so they can\nreplenish themselves \"the natural way\" between stops, after losing\nmuch of their populace." }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "\"And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.\" John 8:32\n--\nAlex David Groce (agroce+ at cs.cmu.edu)\nPh.D. Student, Carnegie Mellon University - Computer Science Department\n8112 Wean Hall (412)-268-3066\nhttp://www.cs.cmu.edu/~agroce\n\n*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun." } ] } ] }