Shapeshifting Evidence and Principles

thalassocrat at nym.hush.com · 29 May 2006, 13:36 · from 2006-May.txt.gz

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From: thalassocrat at nym.hush.com (thalassocrat at nym.hush.com)
Date: Mon, 29 May 2006 23:36:04 +1000
Subject: (urth) Shapeshifting Evidence and Principles
Message-ID: <20060529133605.4DB9CDA826 at mailserver8.hushmail.com>

On Mon, 29 May 2006 18:22:43 +1000 Tristan Davenport 
<tristan_davenport at hotmail.com> wrote:
>Now I'm curious about this business of cycles.  How closely does 
>Wolfe's 
>universe repeat itself cycle after cycle?  I'm asking because this 

>puts me 
>in mind of one of Silk's enlightenments in BotLS.  He's given a 
>vision of 
>Jesus very close to what's described in the Bible -- riding in on 
>the ass, 
>people waving green branches, etc.  This suggests to me that the 
>Sun series 
>takes place in *our* future.  An equally compelling bit of 
>evidence occurs 
>when Silk is talking to someone (Horn?) about life in other cities 

>in the 
>whorl.  He mentions that foreigners often speak other languages, 
>including 
>(and he names it specifically) French.  In BotNS, an ancient 
>language is 
>represented by Latin, but it's never called "Latin" in the text.  
>Is this 
>mentioning of French a goof-up on Wolfe's part, or a clear 
>reference to our 
>own epoch?  Excuse the lack of page/volume references.
>
>One more question: Does the wedding ring given by Silk to Hyacinth 

>(in 
>Exodus, I think) depict the face of an avern?

Hmmm, what's the basis for that?

Let me throw in another one: are the juvenile form of the 
Hierogrammates in any way related to the huge moth SilkHorn sees on 
one of his astral journeys to Green? The one with wings marked with 
a cross and a circle? I doubt it, but I think you could spin a fun 
theory from it.

Thinking of Alpheta and her kin wafts me towards cosmological 
thoughts which touch on your point. I really don't believe Wolfe 
expects us to be very happy about the BOTNS universe. Angelic 
beings whose idea of justice is slow genocide in retribution for 
the sins of distant ancestors? Redemption via accelerated genocide? 
Mutant bureaucratic moth-creatures supevising the affairs of the 
worlds? 

Nah. It's all wrong. The BOTNS powers & dominions are separated 
from the Increate, like Gabriel in Melito's story: "The Pancreator 
is infinitely far from me." In LS/SS, the Outsider comes inside, 
and, IMO, things are fundamentally, cosmologically diffrent. 

I don't know whether it's just a change in Wolfe's storytelling 
context, or whether there's actually supposed to be some kind of 
progression leading from one to the other. 

But if it's the first, linking the two series looks unnecessary and 
awkward (if not downright inept). I prefer to believe the second, 
that the Outsider coming inside has changed things fundamentally, 
all through history, and through the cycles of history. Jesus in 
the deep past; Silk's enlightenment, and all the flows from it, in 
the present. 

Which is a long & tendentious way of saying, yup, I agree: the 
SS/LS universe is ours, and the BOTS universe isn't.

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