{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/whorl/41", "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": 41, "subject": "Typhon & Pas", "messages": 4, "voices": 3, "first": "1997-01-22T13:42:33+00:00", "last": "1997-01-25T19:06:19+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Ranjit Bhatnagar", "address": "ranjit at gradient.cis.upenn.edu" }, "date": "1997-01-22T13:42:33+00:00", "subject": "(whorl) Typhon & Pas", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Inconsistent or not, I don't think there's any doubt that\nPas is Typhon. I don't remember exactly when it occurs, but\nwhen Pas appears in a monitor or Window, he's shown with one\nhead speaking and the other gasping, trying to catch its\nbreath. In _The Sword of the Lictor,_ Typhon explains to\nSeverian that he extended his life by having his head\ngrafted onto the body of a healthy slave, Piaton, but that\nPiaton's head couldn't be removed because it still\ncontrolled the heart. Severian: \"You told me about Piaton.\nWhy can't he speak?\"\n \"He can't get his breath, poor fellow,\" Typhon said. [...]\n\"As I told you, I control all the voluntary functions--I\nwill control the involuntary ones too, soon.\"\n\nHow many tyrants do YOU know who are in this particular fix?\nThere can't be a lot of them.\n\nI agree that the time scales don't seem to match up, though.\nPas's time is close enough to our own time that French is\nstill in use. Heck, I can't even figure out how they could\nbe consistent within the Book of the New Sun alone.\n\nBut I really write to alert you to the movie \"THE INCREDIBLE\nTWO-HEADED TRANSPLANT.\" I just stumbled across it in Video\nMovie Guide 1997: \"A sadistic killer's head is grafted to\nthe body of a dim-witted giant. Rated PG. DIR: Anthony\nM. Lanza. CAST: Bruce Dern, Pat Priest, Casey Kasem.\n1971.\" Typhon must have rented this movie; that's where he\ngot the idea.\n\n\n\n\n[Exodus spoilers below]\n\n\n\nAlso, near the end of Exodus, on the airship monitor, Kypris\nshows Silk a vision of himself as Pas. I wonder if she has\nalready scanned him into Mainframe without his permission?\nOr was she just using a monitor's demonstrated ability to\nshow people cosmetic improvements?\n\nSpeaking of which, what's this business about people\nspeaking to their dead ancestors at Mainframe? If Mainframe\nreally is a kind of digital heaven, what's the point? It\nmight be useful to have a repository of personalities and\nknowledge, but not if few people are ever allowed to consult\nit. Perhaps if the stored personalities could be brought to\nthe new colony planets, they'd be useful in establishing a\nnew civilization, but there's no indication that Mainframe\nis portable. And how did all these ancestors get scanned,\nanyway? Most people die far from a monitor or Window.\n\n\t- r\n\n\n\nQuestions or problems to whorl-owner at lists.best.com" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Derek Bell", "address": "dbell at maths.tcd.ie" }, "date": "1997-01-23T18:04:23+00:00", "subject": "Re: (whorl) Typhon & Pas", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "In message <199701221842.KAA12107 at lists1.best.com>, Ranjit Bhatnagar writes:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I agree that the time scales don't seem to match up, though.\nPas's time is close enough to our own time that French is\nstill in use. Heck, I can't even figure out how they could\nbe consistent within the Book of the New Sun alone." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "\tIIRC, Wolfe used languages such as Latin and Old French in the\nBook of the New Sun to represent languages that bear the same\nrelationship to Severian's language as the ones used in the text do to\nEnglish. Perhaps French is used to represent a contemporary (to Silk)\nlanguage.\n\n\tLatin is once mentioned by Silk as an example of a\nlanguage that might survive in another city as the native tongue;\nagain this is probably used in place of what, to Silk, would be a dead\nlanguage that is still known of.\n\n\tI see that Pas didn't just divide cities by physical barriers\n- it looks like he deliberately created linguistic, if not cultural,\nbarriers too. (Damn clever, these two-headed dictators! :-)) The\nTrivigauntis are shown as speaking something that sounds like Arabic,\nwhich is a totally different family of language to English.)\n\n\tDerek\n\nQuestions or problems to whorl-owner at lists.best.com" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Jim Jordan", "address": "jbjordan at gnt.net" }, "date": "1997-01-23T16:25:12+00:00", "subject": "Re: (whorl) Typhon & Pas", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "At 06:04 PM 1/23/97 +0000, you wrote:\n\nI see that Pas didn't just divide cities by physical barriers\n- it looks like he deliberately created linguistic, if not cultural,\nbarriers too. (Damn clever, these two-headed dictators! :-)) The\nTrivigauntis are shown as speaking something that sounds like Arabic,\nwhich is a totally different family of language to English.)\n\nDerek" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "\tThis goes back to the Tower of Babel, where God did the same thing for the\nsame basic reason. Pas is a counterfeit of God.\n\nJBJordan\n\n\nQuestions or problems to whorl-owner at lists.best.com" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Derek Bell", "address": "dbell at maths.tcd.ie" }, "date": "1997-01-25T19:06:19+00:00", "subject": "Re: (whorl) Typhon & Pas", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "In message <199701232225.OAA02246 at lists1.best.com>, Jim Jordan writes:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "[My comment on the cultural and physical separation of cities by Pas]" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "This goes back to the Tower of Babel, where God did the same thing for \nthe same basic reason. Pas is a counterfeit of God." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "\tThe whorl could be interpreted as a metaphor for life, with Green &\nBlue as a metaphor for the afterlife. (Don't the colonists in Exodus enter the\ntunnels through a crater in the graveyard?) In this interpretation,\nPas is a demiurge - this is contrary to Catholic teaching, no? (Then\nagain, Silk comes to interpretations that are wrong, so perhaps\nWolfe is making a subtle warning about interpretations.)\n\n\tDerek\n\nQuestions or problems to whorl-owner at lists.best.com" } ] } ] }