Hut in the Jungle

Gwern Branwen · 18 Mar 2009, 23:27 · from 2009-March.txt.gz

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From: gwern0 at gmail.com (Gwern Branwen)
Date: Wed, 18 Mar 2009 19:27:57 -0400
Subject: (urth) Hut in the Jungle
In-Reply-To: <W62781468770971237406913@webmail18>
References: <W62781468770971237406913@webmail18>
Message-ID: <cbf55b100903181627v6520d0b8j92b6827eb77a94c6 at mail.gmail.com>

On Wed, Mar 18, 2009 at 4:08 PM, Son of Witz <sonofwitz at butcherbaker.org> wrote:
...
> and they feel the Tokoloshe, spirits from the future.
> "Don't you see they are only the results of what we do? They are the spiritis of the future, and we make them ourselves?"
> Is this just saying that the fallen state of Urth is contemporary Earth's doing, somehow?
...
> /confused
> ~witz

I've always taken this as being the opposite of what is said in _Sword
of the Lictor_:

'Dr. Talos whispered, "Look about you?don't you recognize this? It
is just as he says!"
"What do you mean?" I whispered in return.
"The castle? The monster? The man of learning? I only just thought
of it. Surely you know that just as the momentous events of the past
cast their shadows down the ages, so now, when the sun is drawing
toward the dark, our own shadows race into the past to trouble
mankind's dreams."
"You're mad," I said. "Or joking."
"Mad?" Baldanders rumbled. "You are mad. You with your fantasies
of theurgy. How they must be laughing at us. They think all of us
barbarians... I, who have labored three lifetimes."'

I've always loved that line: "our own shadows race into the past to trouble
mankind's dreams."

The spirits of the future trouble the dreams of the present, and the
present make the results that lie in the future. Which was the
original? Neither, perhaps.

-- 
gwern

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