{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/whorl/1521", "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": 1521, "subject": "Soul swapping and time bending thesis", "messages": 2, "voices": 2, "first": "2002-01-05T19:11:52+00:00", "last": "2002-01-05T19:56:38+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "maa32", "address": "maa32 at dana.ucc.nau.edu" }, "date": "2002-01-05T19:11:52+00:00", "subject": "Soul swapping and time bending thesis", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "In response to my crazed and unorganized theories involving Horn in Babbie and \nNeighbors as some kind of tree or something, Nutria kindly (and thoroughly, in \na much more organized fashion than I have formulated it so far) replied:" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Good point. The 3-horn business comes after the rule. Now, am I understanding \nyou right? Are you saying that Horn's spirit first goes into Silk's body, and \nthen when Silk is revived by Severian, Horn enters Babbie's body? That's an \nintriguing thesis. I'd like to hear from some of the others on this list, who \nhave devoted more attention to the problem of who the Narrator is at various \npoints.\n Now, rather than repost all of your interesting missive, let me ask \nthis: Are you suggesting that the Green Man who meets Severian might be a \nNeighbor from Ushas? From what you wrote, I gather you are suggesting \nsomething like this:\n\n 1. Urth becomes Ushas.\n 2. Intelligent plants, perhaps \"descended\" from humans, take over \nUshas as Neighbors/Green Men.\n 3. Neighbors create inhumi on Green/Lune.\n 4. Much later, they transcend Ushas and \"move on.\"\n 5. The Whorl arrives back at Ushas/Lune (Blue/Green), perhaps a \nmillion years later (because I don't see how all the above could have happened \nin 1000 years).\n\n I'm not trying to be funny, just trying to figure out what your thesis \nis. Perhaps you can unpack it." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "This is great Nutria, I think it is a wonderful way of organizing all of my \nincoherent gaps. Instead of saying that Severian ressurects Silk in Horn, I \nam suggesting that a part of Horn leaves Silk's body at the very end of On \nBlue's Waters, at which point he loses some sense of himself as Horn, and \ntherefore re-reads the manuscript he has to piece together what is going on \nand notes all the things he left out. Note that On Blue's Waters is mostly in \nthe past and only details the present situation of the narrator in small gaps, \nwhereas In Green's Jungles is primarily in the present but recounts Horn's \njourneys through small snipets and through third person stories (such as his \nstories at the dinner table in Inclito's (Windcloud's) house where he calls \nhimself \"he\" instead of \"I\"). In Return to the Whorl, Babbie returns to him \nand he looks him in the eye (also, neighbors are all over the place in that \nbook, and supposedly he has \"Seawrack's\" ring again) and can complete \ntransmitting Horn into Babbie (I'm not sure if this goes on, or whether Horn \ntakes his leave at the end of Book 1: just remember how much meaner the Horn \nof On Blue's Waters seems than the narrator of In Green's Jungles and Return \nto the Whorl).\n\nI am not sure why he meets Severian, but I am pretty sure that Silk needed to \nleave Pig in order to re-possess his own body, and that this happened at the \nsickbay where the screen was silvery-gray, (note the warnings of the doctor: \npay attention to your monitor. Don't piss in the wind.) but I have no idea \nexactly where Silk came back into possession of his body in toto. I think Silk \nand Horn are both in fragments in Silk's body (but again, I am not entirely \nconfident that it is Silk's original body. Fava calls him Dervis, Horn's \nfather thinks he is Parietal, and he seems mighty light [a slug gun knocks him \noff his horse] and reluctant to eat, at one point (maybe in astral travel) he \ndoesn't have the scars on his arms from fighting Hierax). Fragments of Horn \nleave, but leave a little behind (just like godly possession), with the \nlargest portion fleeing into Babbie at the end of On Blue's Waters, leaving \nSilk to kill the rest to take over full possession.\nI really think that the trees are related to the neighbors, but I am just not \nsure if they are the green man, and I just can't account for the doubling of \nlimbs (for all creatures, big and small!). That's the biggest problem for me, \nunless it is yet another alternate branch like Master Ash/ Green Man: they \ncan't both exist. I don't like that, because there doesn't seem to be ANY \ntextual evidence for alternate realities in the Book of the Short Sun. I am \nsaying that the trip to the past is important because it allows Scylla \n(Cillinia) to communicate with Greater Scylla and gives Silk a chance to learn \nhow to get Seawrack from the future Greater Scylla (or her sister, or \nwhatever). He does a favor for them both by returning Cillinia to her resting \nplace, which would have been destroyed in the flood, so this is the last time \n(or an approximation of that time) at which Silk can arrive and perform this \nservice for Scylla. Severian is important because he allows this service to \nScylla to be completed since he is material and can lay her to rest, whereas \nif Silk opened the tomb it might become undone: remember how the neighbor \nasked Horn to clear out the sewer in Green with all the corpses? He said he \ncould do it, but it would become undone if he did it and be clogged again. I \nthink that the Neighbor was present to Horn in the same way that Silk is \npresent in Urth. He needed Severian to lay Scylla to rest forever.\nThis allows Silk to get a hold on Seawrack (and if you are at all interested \nin an unbiased presentation of Seawrack, read the afterward and see how she is \ndescribed as a bestial creature ready to stick a knife in anything except \nFather), who is very important. Also, remember who commissions Hari Mau to \nbring back Silk: all his men keep having dreams about Echidna, the mother \ngoddess. On Blue, I'm pretty sure these dreams are being sent by The \nMother/Greater Scylla unless Echidna is hiding in a cow down there. That \nMother is important, and I think the conclusion deals more with foiling the \nMother's plot by placating her in the past (with the Savior Severian's help) \nthan with ressurecting Silk.\nYes, I would say that the whorl has been gone for a very long time. \nThere are still some things I really think don't fit with all this, but you \nhave encapsulated where I think one reading of the text can take us in a very \nnice fashion, Nutria. Thanks for taking the time to figure out what I'm \ntrying to say: as I said, I had many different ideas about the text that I can \nnot quite unify. I am not sure where the Vanished People are in the time of \nBook of the Short Sun: at times, it seems that they are everywhere, especially \nwhen Hoof randomly looks through the ring and sees one just hanging out in the \nocean on a big tree. Are they really from the past?\nAnd, interestingly enough, there is that skeleton in the huge tower that \nJahlee has made her home on Green, which she calls Silk's \"friend\" which she \nthrows out, then at the top of the cliff he meets that man coming towards them \nin the colorless cloak. do you remember that scene in Return to the Whorl? \nWho wears a colorless cloak? Maybe Andy was right and Severian's spirit is on \nLune. Does colorless mean clear/ white or fulligin? I don't know. That part \ncreeps me out. Have we talked about that apparition? And why does Silk \nresemble Malrubius so much? Where they grown from the same embryo - why would \nthey do that? Did Urth have sufficient technology to preserve an embryo for a \nthousand years and randomly grow it? Maybe that is why Silk can go back to \nthat time period - his soul is essentially the same as Malrubius', and once \nMalrubius is dead he has an opening. I don't know. Let's not incorporate this \ninto my thesis - it's more random speculation. Thanks for you attention, \nNutria. I appreciate it.\nMarc Aramini" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Michael Andre-Driussi", "address": "mantis at siriusfiction.com" }, "date": "2002-01-05T19:56:38+00:00", "subject": "Re: (whorl) Soul swapping and time bending thesis", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "There is talk about time travel in the Short Sun series." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Marc Aramini wrote:\nI am\nsaying that the trip to the past is important because it allows Scylla\n(Cillinia) to communicate with Greater Scylla and gives Silk a chance to\nlearn\nhow to get Seawrack from the future Greater Scylla (or her sister, or\nwhatever). He does a favor for them both by returning Cillinia to her\nresting\nplace, which would have been destroyed in the flood, so this is the last time\n(or an approximation of that time) at which Silk can arrive and perform this\nservice for Scylla." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "But this isn't time travel: it is instantaneous travel across hundreds of\nlight years of space. It is \"real time\" on Urth, just as it is on Blue.\n\nThe Claw bends time in THE BOOK OF THE NEW SUN, and Severian travels\nthrough time in URTH OF THE NEW SUN, yes. But Silkhorn's trip to Urth is\nnot a form of time travel (except in the completely different sense that\ntime has been negated from the time/space matrix, and the party astrally\ncrosses vast space in zero time)." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Yes, I would say that the whorl has been gone for a very long time." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "In THE BOOK OF THE LONG SUN the whorl has been gone for about 1000 years\nUrth time, about 335 years ship-time: the time compression ratio is\nconsistant with that of a ship which has been traveling at nearly the speed\nof light.\n\nThese facts do not demolish your emerging theory, but incorporating them\nwill help sharpen things a great deal.\n\n=mantis=" } ] } ] }