What's So Great About Ushas?

John Watkins · 18 Jul 2008, 02:51 · from 2008-July.txt.gz

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From: john.watkins04 at gmail.com (John Watkins)
Date: Thu, 17 Jul 2008 22:51:07 -0400
Subject: (urth) What's So Great About Ushas?
In-Reply-To: <9566.67.142.130.20.1216341344.squirrel at brunians.org>
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	<3e1fa2e90807170940j63bb165an7d9db9579197d292 at mail.gmail.com>
	<487FC74F.2050407 at io.com>
	<93d4039f0807171655n4c4fd78by42d9f99365f31b65 at mail.gmail.com>
	<9566.67.142.130.20.1216341344.squirrel at brunians.org>
Message-ID: <93d4039f0807171951n4e86e6fan3796bd242c39ae8f at mail.gmail.com>

I'm aware of that, though the identity of the panther is problematic.
Wolfe simply calls him the "All-Beast" in the chapter title. Qanju,
the speaker in the passage I quoted may be somewhat confused. He
identifies the panther with Angra Manyu, but immediately thereafter,
Thotmaktef identifies Angra Manyu with Set.

Later on, Sahuset, the magician, suggests that the panther is not Set,
but his servant. The panther seems to confirm this--he calls himself a
god on p. 152 but refers to a "master" on p. 153. Later bits on Set
seem to make it clear that he is not the Devil.

>From this I take it that the panther is not literally Satan but is
some kind of evil principle temporarily serving Set--but the kind of
evil principle that eats stars.  When Wolfe tells us about an evil
spirit explicitly associated with blackness that eats stars, it's on
purpose.



On 7/17/08, brunians at brunians.org <brunians at brunians.org> wrote:
> Angra Manyu, or Ahriman, is the Zoroastrian (the Persian) Devil.
>
>
> .
>
>
>> My wild theory as to the origin of the black hole in the sun is the
>> panther
>> from *Soldier of Sidon*.  Of course, it's far from established that the
>> Latro books take place in the same universe as the Urth books, but this is
>> tantalizing:
>>
>> "We call him Angra Manyu.  He has but one name among us, but many others
>> among other peoples.  *He is the thing that eats the stars.*"  (Sidon 155,
>> emphasis mine.)
>>
>>
>> On 7/17/08, Jeff Wilson <jwilson at io.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> Paul B wrote:
>>>
>>>> You seem to conveniently forget that Hierogrammates do possess
>>>> foresight,
>>>> in addition to tech that allows creation of black holes.
>>>>
>>>
>>> Where is it written that they make black holes?
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com
>>> < http://www.io.com/~jwilson >
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