{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/whorl/1265", "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": 1265, "subject": "Pas[sing] as Urthling", "messages": 3, "voices": 3, "first": "2001-03-12T16:06:58+00:00", "last": "2001-03-13T03:05:32+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Robert Borski", "address": "rborski at charter.net" }, "date": "2001-03-12T17:00:59+00:00", "subject": "(whorl) Pas[sing] as Urthling", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "First Alex Groce wrote:\n\n\n\nThen batting second Kevin Maroney added:\n\n\n\nGentlemen, you both need to reread SWORD or increase your dosage of gingko\nbiloba because your memory apparatus is slightly skewed.\n\nObserve what Typhon tells Severian near the end of Chapter XXV:\n\n\"No, I was not born as I am, or born at all, as you meant it. Nor was Piaton\ngrafted to me. _I was grafted to him._\"\n\nSo no, of course, Piaton-Typhon doesn't resemble a Neighbor in any way, form\nor fashion because Piaton is a human and Typhon's head is grafted to him,\nnot Piaton's head to Typhon's body.\n\nFor all we know Typhon's body--the part we never see (although I hear the\nautopsy photos may soon appear on FOX)--could have any number of limbs, or\neven one hundred heads, like the Typhon of Classical Mythology.\n\nFactoring in the \"I was not born as I am, or born at all\" leaves even more\nwriggle room, no?\n\nRobert Borski\n\n\n*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes", "address": "ddanehy at siebel.com" }, "date": "2001-03-12T16:06:58+00:00", "subject": "RE: (whorl) Pas[sing] as Urthling", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "For all we know Typhon's body--the part we never see (although I\nhear the autopsy photos may soon appear on FOX)--could have any\nnumber of limbs, or even one hundred heads, like the Typhon of\nClassical Mythology." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Some of us, as it happens, _have_ reread SWORD recently. My copy\nisn't here at work with me, but... Do you recall _why_ he did a\nhead transplant instead of just putting his brain into Piaton's\nbody? \"The face.\" One. People were accustomed to obeying this one\nface. Reasonable conclusion: Typhon-pre-surgery had one face and\nthus, most likely, one head. \n\nSupporting evidence: A race with two or more heads (in, at least,\nthe usual meaning of this phrase) and only one personality would \n_not_ have the personality \"stored\" in a single head. Either it\nwould be distributed among heads, or it would be somewhere else\n(cf. Pierson's Puppeteers). But Typhon is a single, apparently\nnormal human, head, grafted onto Piaton's body." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Factoring in the \"I was not born as I am, or born at all\"\nleaves even more wriggle room, no?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Yes, but not for the \"Typhon is a Neighbor\" theory. (When \na theory starts needing wiggle room, it's probably time to \nabandon it.) Much more plausible (particularly given the \nlevel of biotech that produced Silk and Mucor) is the idea \nthat he was a gengineered in-vitro \"birth.\" \n\nActually, I picture him as looking like Ricardo Montalban...\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": "2001-03-13T03:05:32+00:00", "subject": "Re: (whorl) Pas[sing] as Urthling", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Robert said:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Gentlemen, you both need to reread SWORD or increase your dosage of\ngingko biloba because your memory apparatus is slightly skewed." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Observe what Typhon tells Severian near the end of Chapter XXV:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "\"No, I was not born as I am, or born at all, as you meant it. Nor\nwas Piaton grafted to me. _I was grafted to him._\"" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "OK, you (sort of) have us here. Kevin & I were thinking of Piaton's\nhead being the graft-on, but of course it's the other way around\n(otherwise Typhon doesn't get a studly young body out of the deal, and\nthe nervous system isn't in Piaton's control so Severian can kill\nTyphon). BUT, this doesn't really change things much. Is your claim\nthat Neighbor's faces look human enough that Severian notices nothing\nodd? That \"The _man_ had two heads, like an ogre...\" is notable, but\nthat one of these heads is alien is not? Severian mentions both heads\nwhen he discusses the corpse in chapter XXIV, and the distinugishing\nfeature is hair color.\n\nBlattid gives a pretty strong rebuttal of the idea that old Typhon had\ntwo heads (if Neighbors have two heads) and the explanation of the\n\"born as I am\" he gives seems dead-on to me." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Sorry, but I still don't understand how the Mother, Silk or Seawrack\ncomprehends the language of the Vanished People." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Well, again, there is a question of what is meant when Urth Scylla\ntells Silkhorn how to contact the Mother, but that's a question about\nScylla's knowledge of the language(*). It would be pretty strange if\nthe Mother, who is a goddess of the Neighbors and has been on the\nplanet before the arrival of the Whorl, I assume, did NOT know their\nlanguage. From that to Seawrack's knowledge is obvious. Now, why\nHorn has to ask Urth Scylla, if Seawrack has taught him something of\nthis language (which the translation in IGJ indicates) is a bit\npuzzling, but I'm not sure that \"how to communicate\" necessarily means\n\"how to speak her language.\" If I give you someone's email or phone\nnumber, it could be said I'm telling you how to communicate with them,\neven you already share a common tongue with them.\n\n(*) Well, she's her \"sister.\" I take it that Abaia, Erebus, Scylla,\netc. are all definitely space-travelers. So if it is a common\nlanguage that's the issue here, they might have both learned Neighbor\nfrom their \"Fodor's Blue/Green System for Great Old Ones\" or Neighbor\nmay be linguistically derived from the tongue of the Space Monsters." }, { "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." } ] } ] }