Shellac, having inhaled a little too much of himself in a closed room, writing:
<But more importantly, why do you and everyone else cling to this notion that Seawrack was given to Horn? I've mentioned this before and now I have the citation. This is during an early meeting with Krait, who comments upon Horn's "lovely woman":
"Not mine," I told him.
"Not now, and not ever."
Seawrack herself said "But he belongs to me." She joined me at
the foot of the mast and linked her arm in mine. "The Mother
gave him to me. What of it?"
(OWB, hb, pp. 175)>
Well, Horn doesn't seem to buy this. As he notes in OBW, p. 186:
"The real riddle concerning Seawrack is this: if the Mother took care of Seawrack in order that Seawrack might lure others, as fowlers use a captive bird, did the Mother send her back among her own kind--among us--so that she might lure more or lure them better? To put it simply, did the Mother suffer a change of heart, or is she pursuing some deep plan that will culminate in our destruction? It is very important that we know this."
Moreover, "boy-toy" implies a dominant female power structure that is simply not present. Horn sexually assaults Seawrack; he is hardly her pretty boy plaything, to be used for sexual gratification only. Plus he abandons her, not she him. And how do you explain, given this interpretation, the ending, where Seawrack goes off with PassilkHorn on the Whorl's second journey to the stars--that after PassilkHorn helps Cilinia/Scylla to achieve a final measure of eternal peace, the Mother, to show her gratitude, once again gives him (or whatever residue is left of Horn in PassilkHorn) to Seawrack, so she can command him to go along with her???
Sorry, but I still don't believe this is the answer as to why the Mother gave Seawrack to Horn (although I like your idea about the Krait parallel).
Robert Borski
*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun.