{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/whorl/1199",
    "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": 1199,
    "subject": "old post revisited",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "2001-02-19T12:58:43+00:00",
    "last": "2001-02-19T12:58:43+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<whorl-v0012-0299@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Alex David Groce",
        "address": "alex_groce at gs246.sp.cs.cmu.edu"
      },
      "date": "2001-02-19T12:58:43+00:00",
      "subject": "(whorl) old post revisited",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Long ago, I said:"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "Here we go:"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "Galatians 4:13-15:\n--\n13 As you know, it was because of an illness that I first preached\nthe gospel to you. 14 Even though my illness was a trial to you, you\ndid not treat me with contempt or scorn. Instead, you welcomed me as\nif I were an angel of God, as if I were Christ Jesus himself. 15\nWhat has happened to all your joy? I can testify that, if you could\nhave done so, you would have torn out your eyes and given them to\nme.\n--"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "Now, it seems likely that with the set-up of Maytera Marble's\nblindness and Horn's quest for her, and the fact that \"Horn\" in his\nnew body is missing an eye, we will probably have an example of\nsomeone tearing out their eyes and giving them to someone else\ncoming up in the future of SHORT SUN."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Yup.  Twice."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "It seems like this is a reversal of the passage above, where 15 is\nwhat has given rise to the suggestion that Paul's illness was some\nkind of vision problem.  Horn is the St. Paul figure here, and is\nprobably going to give up his own eye for Marble's eye at some\npoint.  On the other hand, if it is Silk's body that Horn is in,\nperhaps this happened before Horn came to inhabit Silk's body, and\nso we have a literal case of the Paul figure taking on the\nsufferings of the Christ figure.  And then there's the Odin\nconflation floating around all of this..."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Maybe.  "
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "vizcacha brings up the Moses analogy also, which suggests that Silk\nhimself may not ever set foot on Blue.  Moses, of course, died\nbefore he reached the Promised Land, but came back later at the\ntransfiguration in the Gospels.  Is Horn the means by which Silk is\nsetting foot on Blue only after death?"
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Rather, Silk is the means by which the ghost of Horn returns to Blue\nto say goodbye.\n\nmantis raised the issue of why at some point Silk is done with Horn,\nrather than incorporating him in the manner of Severian.  I'll take a\nshot at this.  \n\n(1) Silk is not Severian: the chief purpose of Severian as \"Legion\" is\nso that he may incorporate the past rulers of Urth.  Severian as ruler\n(and as stand-in for humanity on Ushas) must take on a literal\nrendering of Chesterton's democracy of the dead.  Severian represents\nthe necessity of government to be a function of the traditions and\nthoughts of the past (with a twin in the diabolical use of same by\nVodalus).  Silk, however, isn't a stand-in for humanity, nor is his\nreal virtue as a political leader (though he isn't too shabby at\nthis).\n\n(2) RTTW is full of ghosts.  Horn is not so much an alzabo-like echo\nto be added-on to Silk as a ghost.  He may be the only ghost in RTTW\nwho does finally get to rest.  There is a similarity to PEACE here, I\nthink."
        },
        {
          "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."
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}