{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/whorl/33", "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": 33, "subject": "Quetzal, Typhon, and cross-links", "messages": 2, "voices": 2, "first": "1997-01-20T09:47:44+00:00", "last": "1997-01-20T10:43:43+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "David_Lebling", "address": "david_lebling at avid.com" }, "date": "1997-01-20T09:47:44+00:00", "subject": "(whorl) Quetzal, Typhon, and cross-links", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "From: Jeff Meyers \nSecond, Quetzal does seem to be battling with his own nature. At\nleast \nthat's how Horne seems to see it.\n... The narrative \ncontinues with Quetzal's reply: \"'I want you to sleep, my son.' He \nseemed to suck his gums and reconsidered. 'No, to keep watch. Can\nyou \nstay awake.'\" (p. 374)." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I think this is exactly correct. Quetzal has been among humans for so\nlong that he has begun to care for them. Many of his actions would be\nthe same whether he saw himself as a shepherd in the animal husbandry\nsense or the religious one." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Maybe I'm \nmissing something here, but this is not a large group of people that \nescape. What? At the most maybe a hundred (including the Sleepers)?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Why " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "would Quetzal have an interest in taking such a small number of people\nto \nhis own planet?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Keep in mind that Pas's plan is that the whole population of the Whorl\nwill ultimately debark at the destination, and he won't take no for an\nanswer. Auk's group and Horn's are only the first (enough to mollify\nPas) of many. In fact, what _is_ the population of the Whorl? A\nmillion? Ten million? Viron seems to be a fair-sized city; it can\nsupport an army of tens of thousands. So can Trivigaunte; their horde\nis seventy(?) thousand. That would argue for each city being minimally\none or two hundred thousand, and there are lots of cities. If Quetzal's\ngoal is fresh blood (debatable, for certain) there's plenty aboard the\nWhorl." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Third, are we ever really told that Quetzal attacked anyone? ... \nDoes \nanyone else in the story qualify as an evil inhumi? Everything that \nQuetzal does and says suggests benevolent purposes." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "It's certainly plausible, but check Mattak's reaction to Quetzal at the\nCalde's dinner party. He reacts as you would expect a victim to react.\nI've seen no evidence of other inhumi aboard the Whorl." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I have a question: how is it that the departing landers displayed only" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "two options to the crew: Blue and Green? Did Pas program the landers?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "My guess is that it's the usual SF trope where you scan the destination\nfor habitable planets. Blue and Green are both habitable. Also, one\nwould assume that Typhon/Pas picked that star because it had habitable\nplanets. Perhaps a probe checked it out. I don't disagree that there\nis a mystery here in regard to the choices. Certainly we are told very\nlittle about even Blue by Horn. The inhumi attack when the planets are\nclose, there are inhumi on Blue (his fear for his son is clearly of\nattack by an inhumi), etc. It _seems_ that Blue was the correct choice,\nbut with Wolfe, who can tell?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "From: revjack at radix.net (revjack at radix.net)\nDid I read this correctly? Pas is none other that that two-headed\nbody-stealing\nworld-conquring pan-egotist Typhon from the Books of the New Sun? The\nstarcrosser \"Whorl\" was launched in Severian's era? I'm amazed that I\ndidn't see\n\nthat before." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I think we first learn this in Nightside. There is a reference to\n\"two-headed Pas,\" and then later when we get a description of the\n\"blasphemous\" backdrop in the disused manteion in Orchid's, we get a\ndescription of Pas that is exactly that of Typhon. Finally, in the\nDramatis Personae in Exodus, Pas's entry says \"the stored personality of\na tyrant.\" There are, of course, many other clues between. Kypris's\ntheophany in (I think) Exodus is particularly revealing." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "From: CoxRathvon at aol.com\nLike RevJack, I had taken note of the name \"Typhon,\" the tyrant who\ncalled\nhimself Pas. For what it's worth--and I anticipate a divergence of\nopinion\non this point--I think it's a bad idea, generally, for authors to\ncreate\nlinks between their own novels when those books could exist wholly\nindependently." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I have to say that I agree with you. A much as I respect both works and\nWolfe as an author, it tends to bring you up short. There are even some\ninconsistencies, or at least annoyances when you compare the New Sun\nTyphon to the Long Sun Typhon. For example, in New Sun, Typhon states\nthat he rules many worlds, Urth being only one, and that he'd be happy\nto see Severian as his viceroy on Urth. The implication is that there\nis a many-planet Empire going here, and that Typhon doesn't even spend\nmost of his time on Urth. A further implication is that there is some\nform of fast travel between worlds, possibly different from the one\ndescribed in The Urth of the New Sun; how else does one rule a galactic\nempire?\n\nWe can fudge this if we wish; perhaps the Whorl was the first colony\nship launched, and so on. (Or perhaps Typhon is lying! No surprise\nthere.) The time scales don't even work out too well. According to the\nLexicon Urthus (which I highly recommend), there really isn't that much\ntime between Typhon's original reign and Severian's; perhaps a thousand\nyears or so. I wanted twenty thousand at least! There aren't enough\nautarchs in a thousand years to carve the Andes, and yet Typhon is the\nfirst to do so.\n\nBut enough about the New Sun, back to the Long one...\n\n Dave Lebling\n (david_lebling at avid.com)\n\nQuestions or problems to whorl-owner at lists.best.com" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Doug Eigsti", "address": "douge at nti.com" }, "date": "1997-01-20T10:43:43+00:00", "subject": "Re: (whorl) Quetzal, Typhon, and cross-links", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "From: revjack at radix.net (revjack at radix.net)\nDid I read this correctly? Pas is none other that that two-headed\nbody-stealing\nworld-conquring pan-egotist Typhon from the Books of the New Sun? The\nstarcrosser \"Whorl\" was launched in Severian's era? I'm amazed that I\ndidn't see\n\nthat before." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I think we first learn this in Nightside. There is a reference to\n\"two-headed Pas,\" and then later when we get a description of the\n\"blasphemous\" backdrop in the disused manteion in Orchid's, we get a\ndescription of Pas that is exactly that of Typhon. Finally, in the\nDramatis Personae in Exodus, Pas's entry says \"the stored personality of\na tyrant.\" There are, of course, many other clues between. Kypris's\ntheophany in (I think) Exodus is particularly revealing." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Dave Lebling and RevJack;\n\n\tI would like to add that Scyla, in possession of Chenile, spills \nit in LAKE, page 275.3. In the passage she is updating Silk on the \norigins on the gods, mentioning that Daddy was Typhon.\n\n=Doug Eigsti=\ndouge at nti.com\n\n\n\n\nQuestions or problems to whorl-owner at lists.best.com" } ] } ] }