Wind god

Jeff Wilson · 07 Nov 2010, 03:26 · from 2010-November.txt.gz

This is the message as the crawl holds it, before anything here touched it. What the conversation shows has been through ingest: transfer encodings decoded, attachments dropped, quote markers repaired, and the archiver’s ? resolved into quotation marks and dashes. Those repairs are judgements and some of them are wrong, which is what this page is for. Email addresses are obscured here as they are everywhere else on the site, so it is before our repairs rather than byte for byte.

From: jwilson at io.com (Jeff Wilson)
Date: Sat, 06 Nov 2010 22:26:14 -0500
Subject: (urth) Wind god
In-Reply-To: <SNT123-W379F837B6D5BCF51F55EDFCF4C0 at phx.gbl>
References: <SNT123-W379F837B6D5BCF51F55EDFCF4C0 at phx.gbl>
Message-ID: <4CD61C56.20205 at io.com>

On 11/5/2010 3:37 PM, Lee Berman wrote:
>
>
>> James Wynn- Anybody who has posted to this list for any amount of time is guilty of
>> taking a phrase as expansive when it has a more narrow reading in context. So Pot Meet Kettle.
>
> Seems so to me also. I don't see how my mention of the possibly sarcastic "wonder-worker" is
> rendered an example of maliciously selective reading because I didn't include "..and since diseases
> and deformities seemed to flee from him". Quite a large pile of poo unleashed over two quite similar
> phrases. It does seem like the goal was personal attack rather than advancing understanding of
> the text. "Pathological hypoxia due to sleep apnea"? I admit that's a fresh new line of attack I
> haven't seen used before. But anyway, yep, surely all are guilty of selective reading at times.

It's not meant as a diagnosis but an example of cognitive faults that 
may cause behavior one does not choose and so should not be faulted for.

It's not wonder-worker that I take issue with, it's your reading of it 
as possibly sarcastic. "Wonder-worker" already has a sufficient 
connotation of mountebank or illusionist to cover the usual cynical 
doubt of an educated ruler. Indeed, if Severian had performed numerous 
miracles in Typhon's presence, perhaps *then* it would sarcastic in the 
other direction to ironically label a genuine agent of the divine with 
such a commonplace appellation.

The "poo" characterization of my criticism is also worthy of rebuke, but 
I doubt it would useful to do so.

>> Andrew Mason- According to Dorcas's account of the Conciliator, he used to disappear and reappear
>
>> Jeff Wilson- The disappearances mentioned my Dorcas would seem to indicate that his departure into
>> the Corridors was further attested by the soldiers who witnessed it.
>
> Andrew mentions disappearing *and* reappearing. It would be the reappearances that support the idea
> of out-of-text re-emergings of doppelganger Conciliators. Mustn't read one word and skip the other.

Disappearing suggests re-appearing, and the confirmation of the one and 
other miracles emboldens tale-tellers to affirm the other. Sev also has 
a BOTNS-long habit of appraising people from concealment or stealth 
before making his presence emphatically known, constructively appearing 
from nowhere. Without some pre-appearance hint to draw witnesses' 
attention to the spot where he is not, such a theatrical entrance is 
indistinguishable from momentary materialization.

And by theatrical entrance, I mean that literally given his time with Dr 
Talos' troupe and his training in the art of execution; Sev loves to put 
on a show, and the inclusion of even one genuine supernatural effect 
elevates the entire performance, as does the inclusion of mundane but 
unfaked carnage.

>> Jeff Wilson- But Typhon is making the "wonder-worker" speech in SWORD, when he knows
>> there's something special about the Conciliator because he senses that the older fellow
>> he met before his "drying" is connected to the younger but otherwise identical-looking fellow
>> he meets after, both from common sense and from his psychic gifts.
>
> The SWORD encounter itself does not provide enough information to make this conclusion. The scene implies
> that Typhon connects Severian to the Conciliator because of the pouch around his neck, containing the Claw
> of the Conciliator.  Only later do we learn Severian is the Conciliator,  which might allow us to infer
> that Typhon recognizes Severian personally. Still, we might wonder why Typhon treats Severian as a complete
> stranger when they first meet.  		 	   		

Typhon doubtless mastered clever subterfuge decades before his arrival 
on Urth.

-- 
Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com
Computational Intelligence Laboratory - Texas A&M Texarkana
< http://www.tamut.edu/CIL >

An unofficial mirror of a public mailing list · about & removal requests · download the archive · before the list · original archive at urth.net