Babbie

David Stockhoff · 18 Mar 2009, 19:48 · from 2009-March.txt.gz

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From: dstockhoff at verizon.net (David Stockhoff)
Date: Wed, 18 Mar 2009 15:48:09 -0400
Subject: (urth) Babbie
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Thematically, do you think Wolfe is pondering the extent and manner in which we make our own gods? Certainly the matter of "false" gods serving the true god is present in BotNS, and seems to continue in LS/SS.

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Message: 5
Date: Wed, 18 Mar 2009 15:29:01 -0400
From: John Watkins <john.watkins04 at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: (urth) Babbie
To: The Urth Mailing List <urth at lists.urth.net>
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	<93d4039f0903181229k6afc50fdxa614cd0bc0c4251a at mail.gmail.com>
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I'm actually rereading it right now...read chapter one of On Blue's Waters
last night.  I'll keep an eye out for signs that Horn is Typhon's clone.

My theory is that it all comes down to two passages in Long Sun--Incus
explaining that demons can't pretend to be gods without being absorbed into
the god, and the Outsider telling Silk that he's absorbing Kypris, and that,
even if Kypris is killed, he'll simply absorb Thelx as instead.  Typhons
family *are *demons, in a very real sense, and the Outsider is engaged in
the process of aborbing them into his godhood.  Kypris is first and easiest,
because, like the Outsider, she's a love god.

So Kypris is the one who suggests to Silk, and also (in my theory) to the
technicians (via Tartaros?  whatever) that Silk must be taken to Mainframe
for Pas.  The addition of the basically-good Silk-soul into the
basically-evil Typhon soul that constitutes Pas is the first step of
redeeming Pas into a god fit for worship on Blue.

Anyway, that's my reading.  I'd argue that Silk/Horn's role in bringing
peace to the soul of Scylla is additional evidence that this is what's going
on, thematically, in the books.

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