{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/whorl/1517", "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": 1517, "subject": "Beast with Three Horns / Pike as Father of Blood", "messages": 3, "voices": 3, "first": "2002-01-03T16:21:41+00:00", "last": "2002-01-09T14:13:07+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "maa32", "address": "maa32 at dana.ucc.nau.edu" }, "date": "2002-01-03T16:21:41+00:00", "subject": "Beast with Three Horns / Pike as Father of Blood", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "First, I'd like to say I think I found something pretty cool, but I'm not sure \nif its been discussed before. It's weird, but there is a ton of evidence for \nit (or at least a little bit that is hard to ignore).\n\nFirst, off the main topic for just a second: Wolfe said Patera Pike was \nBlood's Father. Besides the common sense interpretation, \"Who else could get \nRose pregnant?\", there is only one or two direct pieces of evidence. She \nwatches Marble and Silk as they talk in Nightside the long sun, but I think \nthe following passage from page 27 of my paperback edition shows the weird \nleaps in logic Silk can make:\n\"He had at first called Blood sir (italics), and afterward, my son (italics), \nhimself scarcely conscious of the change. But why? Sir because Blood had \nbeen riding in a floater of course; only the richest of men could afford to \nown floaters. My son (italics) afterward. \"The old cull's dead, then? ... It \ndoesn't make a bad bit's difference to us, does it, Patera? ... Nice of him.\"\n\nThinking of Blood as my son conjures the remembrance of Blood's treatment of \nPatera Pike. We must admit that that is a very insubstantial clue. Thinking \nof the words \"my son\" in conjunction with Pike's memory is about all the \ntextual support we can find for identifying his father as Pike.\n\nWhat I am about to explore involves a lot more textual evidence, but its very \nweird. Have we talked about it before here?\n\nThe prophecy Maytera Marble gives Horn in Chapter Three of On blue's Waters \nsays \n\"'I see long journeys, fear, hunger and cold, and feverish heat Then \ndarkness. Then more darkness and a great wind. Wealth and command. I see \nyou, Horn, riding upon a beast with three horns.' (She actually said this)\" \n(pg 52 of SFBC Book of the Short Sun, pages different from Tor editions)\n\nIncidentally, this is where Horn picks up Babbie for the first time.\n\nOk, then we get that weird scene at the very end of On blue's Waters where\n\"someone on shore called again, for Babbie, and I understood that he mant me; \nit never so much as occurred to me then that I had sometimes been called \n\"Silk\" or \"Horn.\" He who called me seemed quite near, and he called me with \nmore urgency than Sewrack ever has.\" (221 of SFBC BOTSS) ...\"Goodbye again \nNettle. I have always loved you. Good-bye, Sinew, my son. [more good-byes \nto everybody]...I found him in the forest, sitting in the dark under the \ntrees. I could not see him. It was too dark to see anything. But I knelt \nbeside him and laid my head upon his knee, and he comforted me.\" (222)\n\nOk, so someone calling for Babbie was really calling for Horn. We have often \nnoted that there is a big change between the narrator in On Blue's Waters when \nhe is very depressed and at the beginning of In Green's Jungles. I believe \nthat this is the point that some of Horn's spirit flees into Babbie (across a \ngreat distance, just as it fled into Silk from a great distance).\n\nHere is further evidence, from chapter 17 of Return to the Whorl, when Babbie \nundertakes Astral travel with Silk and Hoof (Hoof is the narrator):\n\"Our boat was water, and Babbie was a hairy man with thick arms and real big \nshoulders, and glasses, and a couple of Babbie's eyes.\" (707)\n\"\"It's me Babbie. It's Hoof' ...Something hapened then that surprised me as \nmuch as just about anything I saw on the Red Sun Whorl, except for the part \nright at the last. Becuase Babbie threw his arms around me and gave me a \ngreat big hug, saying \"huh! huh! huh!\" and lifted me off my feet. Babbie's \narms were shorter than mine, but thicker than my legs, and he was the \nstrongest person I ever met.\" (712). \nThe Huh Huh Huh could be either an attempt to say Hoof or Horn, and later:\n\"Babbie was pointing to his mouth. \"Huh-huh-huh.\" ...Father knew right away \nwhat he wanted. He gave Babbie a big curved knigfe with a double-edged blade, \nand then another one just like it, telling him he had to be careful how he \nused them.\"\nBabbie points at where his horns (and I looked up Horn in the dictionary to be \nsure it could be used for Tusks)used to be and says huh huh huh just as before \nhe tried to say Horn but could only get out huh huh huh.\n\nHorn rides a Beast with Three Horns! Two are tusks, and one is Horn himself! \nHave we discussed this before? At the end of On blue's Waters when Horn says \ngoodbye, part of his spirit goes into Babbie, and that is the change in him \nfrom one book to the next. I'm so sure of this right now. Babbie recognized \nhis son and joyfully hugged him. Pretty cool, huh?" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "James Jordan", "address": "jbjordan4 at home.com" }, "date": "2002-01-03T22:44:14+00:00", "subject": "Re: (whorl) Beast with Three Horns / Pike as Father of Blood", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "At 09:21 AM 1/3/2002 -0700, you wrote:\nOk, then we get that weird scene at the very end of On blue's Waters where\n\"someone on shore called again, for Babbie, and I understood that he mant me;\nit never so much as occurred to me then that I had sometimes been called\n\"Silk\" or \"Horn.\" He who called me seemed quite near, and he called me with\nmore urgency than Sewrack ever has.\" (221 of SFBC BOTSS) ...\"Goodbye again\nNettle. I have always loved you. Good-bye, Sinew, my son. [more good-byes\nto everybody]...I found him in the forest, sitting in the dark under the\ntrees. I could not see him. It was too dark to see anything. But I knelt\nbeside him and laid my head upon his knee, and he comforted me.\" (222)" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " The rest of your post is interesting, and you may be right, but at \npresent I'm more inclined to think this was a Neighbor calling to Horn as a \n\"baby.\" I don't see evidence that Horn can \"transmigrate his soul\" in any \nway apart from Neighborly help. Maybe I'm forgetting something. Doesn't he \nonly have such astral visitations and transportations when in contact with \na Neighbor or a Neighborly artifact (such as an inhumu)?\n I thought of Horn as like a Babbie to the Neighbors, just as \nastrally Babbie is a kind of subhuman man (a baby) to Horn/Silk.\n But I don't have any thoughts on the 3-horned beast. Your \nhypothesis is interesting, to say the least. The Harlot in Revelation rules \nover the earth on a 10-horned beast, often taken to mean 10 nations (i.e., \n10 parts of the Roman Empire -- though I don't think this is the right \ninterpretation). Doesn't Horn(/Silk) rule, one way or another, successively \nover three nations of Blue?\n\nNutria" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Michael Straight", "address": "straight at email.unc.edu" }, "date": "2002-01-09T14:13:07+00:00", "subject": "Re: (whorl) Beast with Three Horns / Pike as Father of Blood", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Thu, 3 Jan 2002, maa32 wrote:\nOk, so someone calling for Babbie was really calling for Horn. We have often \nnoted that there is a big change between the narrator in On Blue's Waters when \nhe is very depressed and at the beginning of In Green's Jungles. I believe \nthat this is the point that some of Horn's spirit flees into Babbie (across a \ngreat distance, just as it fled into Silk from a great distance)." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Problems with this theory:\n\n1. Horn is able to leave his body for Silk's because the Neighbors\nspecifically offer him that opportunity (and maybe because he's wearing a\nmagic ring). And not just because the Neighbor thinks it would be fun for\nHorn's spirit to be able to flit around, but for the purpose of healing\nSilk. Why should Horn's spirit be moved to Babbie? Why would Horn\nconsent?\n\n2. If Horn's spirit has moved to Babbie, why does the Narrator experience\nand write about being called? That would be the experience of the spirit\nthat is no long in the Narrator. I think something else is going on\nthere. The Narrator is having an encounter with someone who is to the\nNarrator as the Narrator is to Babbie (the Outsider?). This encounter\nheals the Narrator somewhat, bringing Silk's spirit further forward.\n\n3. Babbie doesn't have a human-looking spirit because of Horn. As\nSeawrack notes, Babbie is already a person when Horn and Seawrack are\ntraveling with him. It's one of those things Horn refuses to see, as he\nrefuses to see how much Sinew really loves him. Babbie has a\nhuman-looking spirit for the same reason that Oreb and the inhumi have\nhuman-looking spirits. (Note also that Babbie becomes more of a person as\nhe spends time with people and Seawrack predicts he will revert to being a\nmere beast if Horn leaves him in the jungle -- note parallels with\ninhumi).\n\n-Rostrum" } ] } ] }