{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/whorl/272",
    "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": 272,
    "subject": "Pas-Typhon redux",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "1997-05-07T13:15:40+00:00",
    "last": "1997-05-07T13:15:40+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<whorl-v0005-0249@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Joel Priddy",
        "address": "jpriddy at saturn.vcu.edu"
      },
      "date": "1997-05-07T13:15:40+00:00",
      "subject": "(whorl) Pas-Typhon redux",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "This is my first posting here, and boy, do I hope I don't say\nanything stupid. I've been a Gene Wolfe fan for a few years, more\nor less in a vacuum. Now I find other people who not only have\nheard of him, but are familiar with his work on a level I find\nboggling. Reading this list has been tremendous fun, and has\nenriched Wolfe's work for me. Thanks.\n\nNow, to dive right into the mix:\nFirst question: other than the cover blurbs, do we have any\nreason to connect the New Sun and Long Sun books? Does it ever\nactually say that Pas is Typhon? Is Pas-Typhon the only link so\nfar? \n   Since discovering the archives of this mailing list, I've been\nrereading my Wolfe, but I've been starting with the individual\nnovels. The detail of the 2 series' are a little rusty for me.\nBasically, New Sun strikes me a being full of super-advanced\n\"magic black box\" style technology in a culture of such decay\nthat no one cares anymore. It brims with FTL... even the Undine\nseems to be capable of it just by swimming. The Whorl seems to be\nthe result of more limited (STL) technology from a still vibrant\nculture. Could Typhon have built an interstellar empire when\ngeneration-ships were required to make the trip between stars? \n   A couple of two-headed tyrants does seem like a coincidence,\nbut there is a lot of repeated imagery throughout Wolfe's books.\nMaybe Pas represents the two kings of Sparta from the Latro\nbooks? I say that jokingly, of course, but the point is that\nthere could be a lot of reasons like that in Pas' mental make-up\nthat made him think representing himself as having two heads\nwould be a good idea. Didn't Adam originally have two heads\nbefore God got around to experimenting with making helpmates?\nHaving two heads makes for an imposing figure, and I would be\nlikely to accept the authority of such a person when he started\nordering me around.\n   Could Urth be in the Whorl's future, not it's past? Maybe the\neventual legend of Pas is what inspires Typhon to follow his\n(IMHO) ill-considered route to immortality. Sorta' casting\nhimself as a second coming of Pas.  If the Typhon had access to\nthe sort of technology that even the Councilors had , it seems\nhe'd have been able to find a much more graceful way to preserve\nhimself, if the continued survival of his head were really his\nonly concern. Blue and Green strike me as a more likely being the\nconnection between the series. I have no reason to put this forth\nother than the planets seem to open a lot of possibilities, and\nI'm looking for something to fill in a Pas-Typhon gap. \nHmmm... was the winged wormy thing that Severien spotted in\nFather Inire's workshop an Inhumi flying across the air bridge? I\ndon't remember it's description too well.\n\nSecond Question: Did anyone else crack up at the description of\nthe collapsed shiprock wall in Exodus? Here I'd been thinking all\nthis time that shiprock was some sort of super-light,\nsuper-strong miracle material like what Niven built Ringworld out\nof... and it turns out to be steel-reinforced concrete.\n\nThird Question: dredging up the Quetzal identity/motivation\ntopic... I don't have any copies of the second book (I'm a\nlibrary reader), but does Remora say or think something about how\n\"these days\" Quetzal only seems to drink beef-broth tea? If this\nis a recently-developed preference and is the result of being a\nblood-sucker (instead of a sign of age as Remora reasonably\nassumes), does this open up the possibility that the vampire is a\nrecent arrival in the Whorl, having replaced an original (human)\nQuetzal? This explains his seeming working at cross-purposes,\nnamely, he ran into _Fifth_Head_of_Cerberus-style identity\nproblems after assuming a humans identity. Up until this thought\nhit me, I was with the camp that said Q was there from the\nbeginning of the Whorl, because if the inhumi have to wait for\nthe air bridge to fly between planets, then they obviously can't\ncross vacuum under their own power, and don't have the technology\nto do it. But if they do have a way, and Quetzal's preference for\na meal of beef tea is a sign of being replaced by an inhumu, this\ncould be a marker of exactly when the Whorl arrived in the\nsystem.\n\nAnd as a parting aside... is the Alice Turner on this list really\nthe Alice K. Turner of _A_History_of_Hell_? It's a favorite, and\nI've forced my copy of it on friends more often than I have my\ncopy of _Peace_.\n\nApologies if I'm covering old territory.\nJOEL\n(hmmm... the Vironese name might be... ah, gizzard?)"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}