On Oreb

James Wynn · 17 Apr 2009, 00:52 · from 2009-April.txt.gz

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From: crushtv at gmail.com (James Wynn)
Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2009 19:52:58 -0500
Subject: (urth) On Oreb
In-Reply-To: <273409710904161557j4c975f83oec02fbc987bdb3f8 at mail.gmail.com>
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>Jordan Flato:
>Maybe Wolfe didn't do as good of a job in thinking about
>the inability to distinguish between alive and dead birds as you,

Ehh....<shrug>

>Jordan Flato:
>but to me, it seems ridiculous to posit a resurrected Oreb.  Is Silk 
>Severian now, and Oreb Triskele?

Ha ha! Don't be silly. Quite the opposite since Oreb *died* when Silk 
touched him with his Claw.
;-)

>Jordan Flato:
>By whom? Was Oreb Scylla the entire time?

Could be, I guess, but I don't think so. I believe it was Pas who had fled 
to Oreb among other places when he was purged by Echidna and Co.
Hierax, Tartaros or even the Outsider himself are reasonable candidates as 
well, I suppose.

>Matthew Groves:
>Do we know when Oreb(?) became Scylla?
>He was no ordinary talking night chough in Long Sun.
>Is there any reason to think he wasn't possessed by
>Scylla from the beginning?

Well, the Rajan postulates that he was possessed by Scylla during the 
sacrifice just before they returned to Blue, but that doesn't mean anything 
really. The reason I doubt it is because she would have no reason to possess 
a night chough during the whole of the LS story rather than re-integrate and 
punish Silk for trying to kill her. Also, Oreb is a great aid to Silk and 
Awk in resurrecting Pas. I would have expected some interference in their 
mission if it were Scylla in there. That's how I would have written it.

>Jordan Flato:
>Can Mainframe gods resurrect dead animals?

The Mainframe gods can dramatically extend the lives of people they possess 
as Pas did with Jerboa. They can summon every snake in the area at a whim as 
Echidna did. They can heighten the senses of their vessels to perform feats 
otherwise impossible as Kypris did allowing Chenille to throw a knife and 
have it hit the same hole twice. Whenever anyone dies, bio or chem, their 
identities are instantly recorded in Mainframe.

All bets are off on what the Mainframe gods are incapable of. In fact, all 
this is probably only conceivable if one presumes that the entire Cargo was 
genetically modified to allow the gods to use them as puppets. So, yeah, I 
think a Mainframe god could probably kill and resurrect a vessel at will, at 
least temporarily. It is also possible that the god made Oreb *all but* 
dead...slowing his heart-rate undetectably.

I suppose there are limits, though. A possessed person probably can't flap 
his arms and fly to Mainframe. Oreb is capable of speaking only two words at 
a time no matter who possesses him.

>Jordan Flato:
>What point would resurrecting a character have when
>that character was just introduced.

Umm...to bring him back to life? Anyway, if you were Pas hiding out or any 
other god for that matter, this is a reasonable method to prevent your 
vessel from being destroyed before you could return to Mainframe.  And 
having Silk buy Oreb to sacrifice him is a good way to get them introduced.

There is one other thing, but I doubt anyone would be converted by it but 
me. Pas is New Testament Greek for "all". Another Greek word for "all" is 
"pan", and Pan is the only god to have died in historical time (Plutarch's 
lives) just before the birth of Christ. Finally, Pas is the demonic 
equivalent of Zeus who is also famously said to have died (his tomb was 
honored by the Cretans). Oreb dying is supposed to be a flag that Pas is in 
him, because (although we don't know it yet) Pas is "dead" at this point in 
the book.

I can't imagine that Wolfe really thought that Oreb inexplicably dying and 
reanimating would not raise an eye-brow among his readers to whom he has 
taught Textual Paranoia. For me, the fact that *Silk* supposed Oreb had just 
fainted and not died is evidence enough that that supposition is wrong. In 
Wolfe stories, the initial rationalization of a weird event is never the 
right one.

J.

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