Severian's skin color

Chris · 22 Jun 2005, 13:51 · from 2005-June.txt.gz

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From: rasputin_ at hotmail.com (Chris)
Date: Wed Jun 22 13:51:38 2005
Subject: (urth) Severian's skin color
In-Reply-To: <24547557.1119456429149.JavaMail.root at wamui-wigeon.atl.sa.earthlink.net>
Message-ID: <BAY102-F68F6F15E0E6C23837B47186EB0 at phx.gbl>

Crush replied:
>Hmm...Well, I doubt the Rajan contains 'Silver Silk' (have there been any
>proposed etymologies to this title?), and I don't know of any compelling
>reason to think SS has any of Pas in him/it.
>
>However, interestingly, I think you are definitely on to something because
>I believe Horn is a clone of Typhon. There, I said it.
>
>~ Crush

I was thinking of Silver Silk as the combination of uploaded Silk with the 
remaining fragments of Pas, but browsing through the archives seems to 
indicate my memory is mistaken on that point - still, the situation seems 
very confused with Silver Silk, Silent Silk, and "Pas-silk" involved. 
General speculation seems to be that the version that was in Pig was 
Pas-silk, and that was the one I was thinking of.

The question of whether Silk gets into Silk/Horn via Pig, or from Pig to a 
monitor into Silk/Horn, or was there all along, is contentious and I'm not 
going to try to argue it here. The relevant question for me here is whether 
whatever version of Silk is in Silk/Horn had ever had access to fragments of 
Pas. And I think there's a good chance, or at least a live possibility, that 
he did - though I won't claim it's not arguable.

What becomes even more intriguing is the question of where, in the 
chronology of the New Sun, Typhon scanned himself as Pas. Was it before he 
ever encountered the Conciliator, or between the first and second times (of 
course the first visit chronologically was the second from Severian's 
subjective point of view). If it took place after, you get the possibility 
that Silk/Horn might actually *remember* Severian. But it has been argued 
(fairly well) by Roy Lackey that the Whorl had to have been launched before 
Typhon's first encounter with the Conciliator (ref: 
http://www.urth.net/urth/archives/v0303/3073.txt.shtml) so if that holds 
then this is a dead end. Regardless, it is still poignant to have fragments 
of a transformed, "kinder, gentler" Typhon encounter Severian near the 
beginning of his journey.

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