# Pigs have no wings, but might be gods *The Whorl list — 1 messages, 1 voices, 27 Feb 2001* > 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. --- ### David Lebling *27 Feb 2001, 02:13* < Pig as Godling: Yes, the reference to "ears" and "claws" is probably the best evidence I've seen. Good fishing! Yet, for me, it still doesn't ring true. I guess I'd believe it if I saw Pig fulfilling the function of a godling--for aren't they just clarions for the gods of mainframe? "Leave the Whorl!" or "Stay on The whorl!" It's not a question of size. >> Pig's mercenary troop was being used to drive people from the Whorl. He says so explicitly. (Don't have the book handy here at work, so no page ref). This qualifies as "Leave the Whorl!" Also, remember that the Pig we see is Pig/Silk, and his behavior is rather different than the inaugmented Pig's. Having met only one for-certain godling, how do we know what the rest are like? Some of them are clearly aggressive: witness the statement the farmer (or his wife?) makes about Horn's wounds, that they might have been made by a (small) godling. The godling we meet later is more-or-less friendly, not all are such. In fact, spinning this into more of an idea, what if Horn/Silk's wounds were made by a godling? I brought this idea up before but didn't have any idea for a motive. It occurs to me that if a godling commanded Silk to preach the end of the exodus, he might well have refused, even to the point of violence. A thin reed to build a theory on, I know... Dave Lebling aka vizcacha *This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun. ---