{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/whorl/936",
    "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": 936,
    "subject": "Typhon's Duality",
    "messages": 2,
    "voices": 2,
    "first": "2000-08-15T02:05:16+00:00",
    "last": "2000-08-21T15:23:28+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<whorl-v0011-0101@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Seth Lombardi",
        "address": "sethlombardi at hotmail.com"
      },
      "date": "2000-08-15T02:05:16+00:00",
      "subject": "(whorl) Typhon's Duality",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Okay - longtime lurker here. Must admit that I haven't read IGJ yet, but \nthere was so much in the last few posts that I just couldn't hold back.\n\nOkay, if Typhon was Neighbor-Spawned or related it _would_ help finally \nexplain the whole Why The Whorl Anyway question, but Typhon was such a \nseemingly sinister and human critter that I have a hard time buying it. His \nduality is parasitic and completely antithetical to both the Outsider and (I \nthink - I've only read OBW) the semi-enlightened noble savage-ness of the \nNeighbors. Then again, the Neighbors ain't exactly what I'd call easy to \nrelate to, so perhaps Typhon was some sort of proto-neighbor, from back when \nthey were a bit more barbaric. On the other hand, I've always liked the way \nWolfe makes most evil human created - even we seeded Erebus and such. \n(Uh...right?)\nAll this talk of duality makes me think this - The vast majority of animal \nlife on Blue has eight legs, instead of our four legged variety. It's no \nsurprise then that the dominant humanoid life form on Blue has four legs \ninstead of our two. It's like the place is bursting with duality. And I, \nuh...really don't know what to do with that. Anybody?\n\nOh, and on the subject of Silk's suicide - I really wouldn't be too \nsurprised. Silk contemplating tossing himself from the airship and the \nensuing conversation with Horn seemed to me to be the defining moment of the \nentire book of the long sun. Never trusted that Hyacinth woman or Silk for \nbeing so gaga for her. I mean - nice guy but sometimes not too bright, \ny'know? Then again, how many Wolfe protagonists really need to chill when it \ncomes to the ladies? Severian uses em like kleenex and Silk is a human \ndoormat. Poor dopes.\n\nSeth"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "message_id": "<whorl-v0011-0140@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Jim Jordan",
        "address": "jbjordan at gnt.net"
      },
      "date": "2000-08-21T15:23:28+00:00",
      "subject": "Re: (whorl) Typhon's Duality",
      "in_reply_to": "<whorl-v0011-0101@digest.urth.net>",
      "reply_link": "subject",
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "At 09:05 PM 8/14/2000 CDT, you wrote:\nOkay - longtime lurker here. Must admit that I haven't read IGJ yet, but \nthere was so much in the last few posts that I just couldn't hold back.\n\nOkay, if Typhon was Neighbor-Spawned or related it _would_ help finally \nexplain the whole Why The Whorl Anyway question, but Typhon was such a \nseemingly sinister and human critter that I have a hard time buying it. His \nduality is parasitic and completely antithetical to both the Outsider and (I \nthink - I've only read OBW) the semi-enlightened noble savage-ness of the \nNeighbors. Then again, the Neighbors ain't exactly what I'd call easy to \nrelate to, so perhaps Typhon was some sort of proto-neighbor, from back when \nthey were a bit more barbaric. On the other hand, I've always liked the way \nWolfe makes most evil human created - even we seeded Erebus and such. \n(Uh...right?)\nAll this talk of duality makes me think this - The vast majority of animal \nlife on Blue has eight legs, instead of our four legged variety. It's no \nsurprise then that the dominant humanoid life form on Blue has four legs \ninstead of our two. It's like the place is bursting with duality. And I, \nuh...really don't know what to do with that. Anybody?"
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "\tWelcome!\n\tDunno much about duality. Mebbe just a way of having a \"different world\"\nand no more. Problem with Wolfe is that since so MUCH is significant, it is\nvery easy to overread him!\n\tAs to the Neighbors, you'll find in IGJ that they have a darker past. They\naren't \"noble savages,\" but are now, perhaps, people who have finally\nmatured beyond enslaving others and over vicious behavior. They are like\nthe Green Man, perhaps. \n\tIf Old Pas were a Neighbor, then he came from that earlier, darker period\nNeighbor history. Yet, Pas's unnatural birth might simply mean he had been\ndecanted, like Silk, instead of born. All the same, the Borski hypothesis\nhas much to commend it: an army of chems and taluses to destroy the inhumi.\n\tNo one picked up on my suggestion that it was Neighbor ships that brought\nthe first inhumi to the Whorl. Did that meet with general agreement?"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "Oh, and on the subject of Silk's suicide - I really wouldn't be too \nsurprised. Silk contemplating tossing himself from the airship and the \nensuing conversation with Horn seemed to me to be the defining moment of the \nentire book of the long sun. Never trusted that Hyacinth woman or Silk for \nbeing so gaga for her. I mean - nice guy but sometimes not too bright, \ny'know? Then again, how many Wolfe protagonists really need to chill when it \ncomes to the ladies? Severian uses em like kleenex and Silk is a human \ndoormat. Poor dopes."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "\tLike many of Wolfe's harlots, Hyacinth is the Church (Mary Magdelene of\ntradition), a fallen but redeemed woman, but one who has a lot of baggage.\nA female Severian. Silk's love for her in spite of this is Silk at his most\nChrist-like, not as \"not too bright.\" Unlike Severian, who has his own\nproblems and baggage, Silk is faithful when Hyacinth is not.\n\tThe scene where Silk is tempted to throw himself off the airship\ncorrelates to the second of Satan's temptations to Jesus, to cast himself\ndown from the Temple, I believe. Silk manages to overcome the temptation,\nand then has a chat with one of his disciples. But it's all very subtle,\nsince Wolfe is not just retelling the gospel narrative as an allegory. Silk\nhas also just been tempted, or is about to be tempted (I forget which) to\njoin Pas, which we can link with the third temptation, to bow down and\nworship Satan. But, at this point, is Pas evil or good? I don't think Wolfe\nprovides the answer, yet, nor do we know whether Silk permitted himself to\nbe downloaded to sit at Pas's right hand (do we?). Moreover, of course,\nthese \"temptations\" don't come at the same place as they do in the gospel\nnarratives. \n\tBut you are right, that Silk has been tempted with suicide. Yet, the death\nscene in IGJ still does not look like a suicide scene to me, but the\naftermath of a battle.\n\nNutria\n\n\n*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun."
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}