Subject: (whorl) old post revisited

From: Alex David Groce <alex_groce at gs246.sp.cs.cmu.edu>
Date: Mon, 19 Feb 2001 12:58:43 +0000

Long ago, I said:
>Here we go:

> Galatians 4:13-15:
> --
> 13 As you know, it was because of an illness that I first preached
> the gospel to you. 14 Even though my illness was a trial to you, you
> did not treat me with contempt or scorn. Instead, you welcomed me as
> if I were an angel of God, as if I were Christ Jesus himself. 15
> What has happened to all your joy? I can testify that, if you could
> have done so, you would have torn out your eyes and given them to
> me.
> --

> Now, it seems likely that with the set-up of Maytera Marble's
> blindness and Horn's quest for her, and the fact that "Horn" in his
> new body is missing an eye, we will probably have an example of
> someone tearing out their eyes and giving them to someone else
> coming up in the future of SHORT SUN.

Yup.  Twice.

> It seems like this is a reversal of the passage above, where 15 is
> what has given rise to the suggestion that Paul's illness was some
> kind of vision problem.  Horn is the St. Paul figure here, and is
> probably going to give up his own eye for Marble's eye at some
> point.  On the other hand, if it is Silk's body that Horn is in,
> perhaps this happened before Horn came to inhabit Silk's body, and
> so we have a literal case of the Paul figure taking on the
> sufferings of the Christ figure.  And then there's the Odin
> conflation floating around all of this...

Maybe.  

> vizcacha brings up the Moses analogy also, which suggests that Silk
> himself may not ever set foot on Blue.  Moses, of course, died
> before he reached the Promised Land, but came back later at the
> transfiguration in the Gospels.  Is Horn the means by which Silk is
> setting foot on Blue only after death?

Rather, Silk is the means by which the ghost of Horn returns to Blue
to say goodbye.

mantis raised the issue of why at some point Silk is done with Horn,
rather than incorporating him in the manner of Severian.  I'll take a
shot at this.  

(1) Silk is not Severian: the chief purpose of Severian as "Legion" is
so that he may incorporate the past rulers of Urth.  Severian as ruler
(and as stand-in for humanity on Ushas) must take on a literal
rendering of Chesterton's democracy of the dead.  Severian represents
the necessity of government to be a function of the traditions and
thoughts of the past (with a twin in the diabolical use of same by
Vodalus).  Silk, however, isn't a stand-in for humanity, nor is his
real virtue as a political leader (though he isn't too shabby at
this).

(2) RTTW is full of ghosts.  Horn is not so much an alzabo-like echo
to be added-on to Silk as a ghost.  He may be the only ghost in RTTW
who does finally get to rest.  There is a similarity to PEACE here, I
think.

--
"And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." John 8:32
--
Alex David Groce (agroce+ at cs.cmu.edu)
Ph.D. Student, Carnegie Mellon University - Computer Science Department
8112 Wean Hall (412)-268-3066
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~agroce

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