{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/whorl/188", "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": 188, "subject": "Pike? Auk?", "messages": 2, "voices": 2, "first": "1997-04-11T11:07:55+00:00", "last": "1997-04-11T20:29:00+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Ranjit Bhatnagar", "address": "ranjit at gradient.cis.upenn.edu" }, "date": "1997-04-11T11:07:55+00:00", "subject": "(whorl) Pike? Auk?", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Mantis, congrats on the good review of Q&D from the one\ncritic who really counts..." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Personally, I think the explanation for the appearance of ghostpike" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I really like this explanation (by the way, to whomever\nasked, I think the way we know that Pike has fended off a\ndemon is that Silk did it by copying Pike). But I think\nthat another pretty good explanation is that It Was All A\nDream. That entire passage is written in the same run-on\nsentence style that Wolfe uses elsewhere only for dreams and\nfor dazes induced by fatigue, getting whomped on the head,\nor overheating of one's central processor." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Mucor (in the buff) in Silk's room and flies back out; then [thank you for\nyour patience] ENTER PIKE, just like how Bustard wanders back from the land\nof the dead following Auk back, or like how Silk meets his four parents in the\nsame way." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I figured Auk was just a bit delirious. Or perhaps Tartaros\nimplanted Bustard's ghost there -- no, Bustard appeared\n*before* Tartaros, yes? Anyway, whether or not Auk was out\nof his head, Bustard was in it, not manifested as an\naquastor. And Silk had a vision of his parents, but they\nweren't projected into the whorl for him. Maybe not the\nsame sort of thing as Pike's appearance.\n\nStill don't see the connection between Mucor and sleeping\ngods. She woke sleeping humans by possessing them. Wonder\nif she could possess/wake a sleeping soldier? But I don't\nremember any hints of her having a rapport with chems or\nMainframe." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Re: how did Silk kill Hierax the bird. Well, as I understand it, the\nbird's wings were clipped so it couldn't fly away. As Silk was\nlosing conciousness he managed to push the bird off the roof and it\nfell to its death." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Silk insisted that he wasn't directly responsible for its\ndeath, even inadvertently -- maybe in its excitement the\nwhite-headed one leaped up to fly at him, accidentally\nflinging itself off the roof. This was probably Silk's\nfirst time killing anything outside of a sacrifice, and he\nmust've felt guilty about it, but later in his prayers to\nHeirax the god he boasted of killing the sacreligious\nbird...\n\n-r." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "m.driussi", "address": "m.driussi at genie.com" }, "date": "1997-04-11T20:29:00+00:00", "subject": "(whorl) Pike? Auk?", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Reply: Item #1489788 from WHORL at LISTS.BEST.COM@INET00#\n\nRanjit,\n\nRe: \"It Was All A Dream.\" I agree with you entirely. And likewise\nwith the way you link the dream sequences to the fatigue and\npost-concussion sequences. Now what I'm asking you to do, and\nthis is a very small step, is to see these semi-conscious states (dream,\nfatigue, etc.) as a single state of mind (a form of trance) that is\nsuper-conscious, rather than disparate forms of muddled, delusional,\nless-than-fully-consciousness.\n\nIn Severian's narrative, the corridors of time are pretty much Dreamland.\nSure, the place is also the (closest) other dimension, too; but the logic\nand the reality of the corridors is about as dreamy as anything Little\nNemo deals with. And things look different in the corridors, showing\neither their true natures, or, if the corridor is purely subjective\nto Severian's point of view (as I believe Peter Wright argues--and\nmaybe somebody around here has said the same), then this dream form\nis only a \"true\" form in the sense that it represents what Severian's\nunconscious mind thinks. So Dorcas looks like Dorcas, but the\nCumaean looks like a reptile coiled around a rod, Hildegrin looks\nlike a monster (I think), and the Old Autarch looks like a Bull or a\nMinotaur. At the sorceror's duel, Severian tried to make light of it\nall until, what do you know, the magic works!\n\n(In the Soldier series, ghosts remain invisible, i.e., essentially\neidolons, until Latro touches them, at which point they become\nvisible, i.e. aquastors. But since those books are sword and sandal\nfantasies we don't apply the same rules to them.)\n\nLikewise, I'm saying, on the Whorl. When Auk or Mint get fatigued,\nthey really =do= manage to telepath with each other. And so on. Mucor\nis ghostgirl, Quetzal is inhumu, Silk is something special, aquastors\nand eidolons caper and cavort around for the Deus Ex Machina\npuppetmasters that create them, BUT Auk and Mint are two normal human\nbeings for all we can tell. (Oh shoot--did Auk only start\ntelepathing =after= meeting Bustard and Tartaros? And Mint, only\nafter being possessed? Argh.)\n\nRe: Bustard not an aquastor, right--I should have written he was an\neidolon. Same difference, though, in that both are computer\ngenrated--just that one requires 1.5 and the other 9 volts. \n\nRe: possessing sleeping soldiers. There is that curious observation\nby Horn that Hy was strongly flirting with the chem soldiers whenever\nSilk wasn't around. Spooky thought, huh--Kypris (or whichever goddess\nis riding Hy) possessing a war machine! Maybe she was thwarted by\nhardwiring that makes them open only to Pas? Well, IMHO, she was\nstill trying it out!\n\n=mantis=" } ] } ] }