{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/whorl/71", "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": 71, "subject": "Deus Ex Machina", "messages": 1, "voices": 1, "first": "1997-02-05T06:55:00+00:00", "last": "1997-02-05T06:55:00+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "m.driussi", "address": "m.driussi at genie.com" }, "date": "1997-02-05T06:55:00+00:00", "subject": "(whorl) Deus Ex Machina", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Reply: Item #9024562 from WHORL at LISTS.BEST.COM@INET01#\n\n<>\n\nTalon,\n\nGood tracking re: Horn's horning in, tooting his own horn, etc. I\nalso get the feeling he's trying to give Scleroderma \"equal time\" as\nauthor of her own (\"shorter\") account. That's one thing about Nettle\nand Horn--they're both sharp as tacks.\n\nHenry Rathvon,\n\nI'm afraid you have the ghostpike sequence a little jumbled--it isn't\nfirst Pike then flitting thing, but the other way around, and there is\nother stuff before and between. Here, let me chart it out for you (II, 28):\n\n(1) Silk is having an erotic dream featuring Kypris, who morphs into\n\"Hyacinth (though Kypris still).\"\n\n(2) Silk awakens and sees something fly out the window, then he sees\nnaked Mucor. She fades to mist and is gone.\n\n(3) Silk goes downstairs to interrogate Oreb, further waking himself\nup (or dreaming more deeply?).\n\n(4) Silk hears the creak of Pike's bed upstairs (II, 30). He\nconfuses his \"real\" life as being a dream, splashes his face with\ncold water. Remembers that Pike died. The bed creaks again.\n\n(5) Silk goes up the stairs and sees Pike (II, 33), who then\nsmiles (compare with Quetzal's toothless smile [III, c. 102]), waves\nand dissolves in silvery aquastor-esque motes, except for his\nbeanie (\"calotte\") that flutters to the floor.\n\n(Points 4 & 5 are somewhat similar to Auk's experience with Bustard.\nMucor seems to herald Mainframe activity with all her mucking\naround--maybe Mainframe is just following her around, like a rentacop\ntrailing a girlganger at the shopping mall? Or she's just activating\neverything in her passage.)\n\nAlgae,\n\nRe: manteion in Limna, oh, okay--right. I remember that spot\nnow. Sorry! I guess I took it as being she thought she was in a\nmanteion but it was (dreamlike dissolve) actually a tavern. But no,\nthere is a manteion there. (And you already know: I think Kypris made\nher duck in there in order to get out of Chenille before being spotted\nby enemy Scylla's giant screen, the Lake. Like how Echidna spots\nMint-carrying-Kypris in the big crowd, etc.)\n\nRe: Kypris (actually, the young woman who was originally scanned into\nMainframe as the Virtual Reality Artificial Intelligence identity known\nas the goddess Kypris) as the biological mother of Silk. I don't want\nto impose a reading on anybody. Just remember, you read it here\nfirst. \n\nAbout that near-death vision of the four parents; how does the\nnon-aquaster crowd (i.e., ghostpike is a returning Quetzal rather\nthan a physical ghost) interpret this brush with eidolons? Don't let\nme put words in your mouth! But I think the aquastor/eidolon rules\nallow that, if there is an external agency involved, it is reading\nthe target's mind and supplying the appropriate puppets to convey the\nmessage. So a fairy godfather like Malrubius or Pike; or a glimpse\nof a parent or two.\n\nEven if you are going to take Dr. Crane's point of view, I think both\nsides must agree (as if there is ever any agreement!) that the images\noriginate in Silk's mind. So either this is real reality,\n\"metaphysical certitude\" provided by the Outsider (\"yes, your father\nis a small statue\"), or this is some form of dream, originating in Silk\nhimself or being concocted by some other agency for his edification.\nWhich is why Tussah looks like a bust rather than a flesh and blood\n(ooh, did I say \"Blood\"?) man--this is dream logic using easily\nrecognized props. And of course Silk imagines his blonde mom and his\nblond dad (even though, genetically speaking, one or both could be\nbrunette and still produce an Aryan love god such as Silk--and this\n=without= genetic tinkering), because blonds are semi-rare in Viron\n(3/100, wasn't it?), and Silk was teased about his hair/eyes as a boy\n(we remember that discussion re: \"how I deduced Crane is a foreign spy\"\nin the manteion arbor, right? Where Kypris did all of the talking for\nChenille?), and Silk's surrogate-mother is small and dark. So at this\nlate date (1) Silk thinks his biomom and dad are blond, and (2) Silk\nis putting in faces and props in dreamland as they come to hand.\n\nNow then, how many blonds has Silk met in the course of the four books?\nWho might be being used as a \"stand in\"?\n\nWell, there's big blonde Kypris, with her dark blue eyes. And she\nalso happens to be the first best candidate for Short Sun egg donors\nfor the ubermensch class of (frozen embryo) cold ones. (But the neat\nthing is, she doesn't even have to really be the biomom--it might be\nenough that Silk thinks she is, or might be, or hopes that she is.)\nSince fellow cold one Mucor is the daughter of Molpe (I, 128) and\nHierax (III, 73), it seems fitting that Silk also have such a\nlofty and dignified parentage. (You can guess who the blond stud\nis.)\n\nRe: Hyacinth, well sure she's a Triv spy. That is established in the\narbor briefing. Thing is, she is certainly not just a dupe courier like\nChenille--she's at the very least a real \"agent\" agent, maybe even\nCrane's boss. This doesn't affect the argument that she is being ridden\nby Kypris non-stop (Sphigx is a loyalist, Scylla is a rebel, Kypris\nis an outsider/loyalist). As for Tartaros dealing with Kypris, if\nyou like just take all the dirty double- and triple-dealing going on among\nthe mortals (especially the demigods of the Prosimian Conspiracy:\nLemur, Loris, et ali.) and multiply it by a god factor--that's my impression.\n\nCompare Kypris/Chenille's dagger skill (II, 83) and Scylla/Chenille's\n\"thumbs-into-eyes\" combat and acrobatic stunts (II, 274) (II, 275) with\nthose of Hyacinth (IV, 323) (III, 311). Note similarities and dream up a\nninja training camp for her to attend during her free time. \n\nWhaddaya think, algae, is Dr. Crane lying (II, 339) about the gemstone\n(and by extension, who the pricy gift was really for) on the azoth or not?\n\nHere's a new one--I know I'm chucking a lot of stuff at you all, but\noh well. When Remora lets Gulo name Chenille as the ubermensch they\nare looking for, we might think that he is making a mistake. We\nmight be falling for the notion that there is only one heir. If\nCASTLEVIEW teaches us anything, I think it would be that there are\nmany (perhaps even too many) Arthurs running around. Waiting to be\nactivated. I know it seems like these possessions happen to ordinary\npeople, but it may well be that they only happen to the chosen few.\nThe ubermenschen. (algae might like this one, since she likes talking\nabout the Severian \"spares\" littering the landscape like a clone arranger's\ndream).\n\nFor those puzzling over how Quetzal \"lied\" to Silk about his\ncondition or what was said about same after the floater crash in\nCALDE (circa p. 322), note how a similar death and resurrection\nhappened for Auk (circa p. 59). Same last rites, same out of body\nexperience (Auk remembers Bustard later, similar to the way Silk\nremembers more of the enlightenment as time goes by), same return to\nlife from death. But no Quetzal for Auk, nor any Outsider;\nand the spirit guide is his dead elder brother instead of a parent\n(then again, this is another character with mystery . . . he looks\nlike a wolf or a bear [I, 78] . . . speaking of how \"eyes spoke truth,\"\nLily [name of Auk's mom {III, lists}] in cant means \"truth\" . . . called\nMint his mother . . . well, you get the picture). \n\n=mantis=\n\nQuestions or problems to whorl-owner at lists.best.com" } ] } ] }