{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/whorl/173", "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": 173, "subject": "Pike/Quetzal, and other ?s", "messages": 3, "voices": 3, "first": "1997-04-08T21:27:00+00:00", "last": "1997-04-09T14:55:04+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Reusch", "address": "newsun at freeway.net" }, "date": "1997-04-08T21:27:00+00:00", "subject": "(whorl) Pike/Quetzal, and other ?s", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Hi everyone.\nI've been lurking awhile, sifting through the archives. You people take \nyour Wolfe seriously! I've had a lot of fun reading your thoughts, ideas, \nspeculations, arguments, jabs. \nOne point that I've been having trouble swallowing, though, is the old \nPike's ghost scenario. I don't buy either argument that's been posted \nhere; that it was either Quetzal or a computer image. What would be the \npoint of either? I think that there's more to this scene, some tie \nbetween Quetzal and Pike. I think that it was Quetzal flying out the \nwindow, and then Silk sees Pike. Wolfe is linking the one with the other. \nWhy, I haven't figured out yet.\nMantis, great job witht the Moses link. It's been a while since I've read \nJoseph Campbell, and longer still since I've read the story of Moses, but \nis there any similar event in Moses' story? Was Moses visited by his \nfather, mentor, or the devil?\nI hate to stir this issue up once again, especially without some better \nanswers, but I'm rereading the books with an eye on Pike and Quetzal.\nA couple of questions have come up during my reread:\n\nDoes Rose have a daughter? We know that she has a son, but what about \n1:69hc?\n\"At times Maytera Rose, kneeling before her daughter's image,...\"\n\nHow did Silk kill the white headed one? He was knocked unconscious, \npossibly with a concussion, and then wakes up to find the bird dead.\n\nAnd what's up with that scene with Urus and the Trivigaunti officer, \nwhere they rendezvous for a clandestine meeting? And how would Horn have \nknown of it to write about it, and why?\n\nMay every god favor you.\nVance" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Doug Eigsti", "address": "douge at nti.com" }, "date": "1997-04-09T12:51:58+00:00", "subject": "Re: (whorl) Pike/Quetzal, and other ?s", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Vance, \n\n\tWelcome. I have a couple of thoughts on your questions:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Does Rose have a daughter? We know that she has a son, but what about \n1:69hc?\n\"At times Maytera Rose, kneeling before her daughter's image,...\"" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "\tThis is part of the Rose/Marble/Moly mystery. I have come to the\nconclusion that Rose and Marble (et.al.) never were the \"same person\" but\nhave a lot of shared memories. For this reason Rose/Marble often considers\nherself to have lived through the experiences she remembers. We know that\nwhen a god possesses a person they leave some of their personality behind\nafter they \"leave\", (II, p118 hc). We also know that marble remembers more\nafter getting new parts from Rose, (IV, p118.-7 hc). Rose and Marble must\nhave been possessed by the same god. Perhaps, for Marble, even on the\nShort Sun Whorl by the entity that gave birth to Echidna. Thus she, Rose,\nis found kneeling before her daughter's image. \n\tFor more on this shared memory dilemma see Philip K. Dick's story \n\"We can remember it for you wholesale\" or Larry Niven's novel WORLD OF \nPTAVVS. The latter has a character that thinks he is an alien after \nsharing it's memories, with hilarious results." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "And what's up with that scene with Urus and the Trivigaunti officer, \nwhere they rendezvous for a clandestine meeting? And how would Horn have \nknown of it to write about it, and why?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "\tBack to Horn's artistic license. Could this be another example of \na scene he made up just to fill in the gaps in his story?\n\n=Talon=" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Kieran Cleary", "address": "kcleary at tinet.ie" }, "date": "1997-04-09T14:55:04+00:00", "subject": "Re: (whorl) Pike/Quetzal, and other ?s", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Hi Vance:\n\nI have to say I agree with you re Pike/Quetzal: I don't find the \nprevious explanations satisfactory, while not having a better one \nmyself! Many people have referred to Quetzal as a shape-shifter, \nthough the only shapes we see him assume are that of the serpent and \nold man. Sometimes it reads as if the serpent has donned the shell of \na human body (in fact, I don't see any other way since I don't \nconsider Q a Shape-shifter) which he can discard and resume at will. \nIt's also in bad shape: Q has to continually touch it up with powder \nto make it appear alive.\nOn my first reading, I wildly thought that this body was originally \nPike's and that somehow, a la Marble/Rose, some sort of Q/Pike \nconvergence was happening. The timeline doesn't really bear this out: \nQ was Prolocutor for many years while Pike was alive. I presume, \nthough, that 33 years before Silk arrived at Sun Street, that Q \nlooked 33 years younger. Perhaps he needed to acquire an older body \nto avoid questions about his continued youthfulness (i.e. the kinds \nof questions that Loris, Lemur et al had to answer). Just a thought, \nthough. Be ruthless!\n\nAs for your questions, roughly as far as I recollect:\n\n1. I think that Rose sometimes imagined herself as Echidna, and the \ndaughter referred to in that passage was actually Scylla.\n2. The White Headed One was given to Blood by Musk. Blood clipped its \nwings and put it on the roof, where it \"forgot that it couldn't fly\" \nin the fight with Silk and fell to its death.\n3. Not really sure: I think that Urus was once part of Spider's knot and \ntold Saba where to find Auk & co. when they were abducted and taken \nto the airship.\n\nalga:\n\nFWIW I also agree completely that, at least at some level, the \nOutsider passages refer to Severian, who at this time is also the New \nSun zooming towards Urth, who can manipulate Severian's Urthly body \nlike a puppet from great distances. If we're seeking some kind of \nconsistent explanation of how Severian is affecting affairs on the \nLong Sun, then I think that's probably it. The Increate in tBotNS \nisn't a personal god: there is a complicated hierarchy of beings who \nserve the Increate in the temporal universe. In no case does the \nIncreate explicitly intervene in human affairs, relying instead on \nthe holy slaves to interact with humans. \n\nLasrach\n\nLasrach\n____________________________________________________________\nKieran Cleary\nSenior Research Engineer\nNorth West Labs\nFinisklin Industrial Estate\nSligo\nRepublic of Ireland\n\nTel. +353 71 69441\nFax. +353 71 69451\nemail kcleary at nwlabs.com\n___________________________________________________________" } ] } ] }