some mysterious stuff in Long Sun

James Wynn · 18 Jan 2011, 14:08 · from 2011-January.txt.gz

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From: crushtv at gmail.com (James Wynn)
Date: Tue, 18 Jan 2011 08:08:31 -0600
Subject: (urth) some mysterious stuff in Long Sun
In-Reply-To: <AANLkTi=JMxDqJ5GH6vUaFoyCunHPip4X-9fLEnMEU_9v at mail.gmail.com>
References: <AANLkTi=JMxDqJ5GH6vUaFoyCunHPip4X-9fLEnMEU_9v at mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <4D359EDF.5050304 at gmail.com>

>> James Wynn-
>> When Silk meets his parents in Mainframe, Horn writes:
>>
>>     "You must, my lad." A man's voice, the voice of which Lemur had been
>>     a species of mockery. Looking up he saw the carved brown face from
>>     his mother's closet.
>>     "We're your parents." He was tall and blue-eyed. "Your fathers and
>>     your mothers."
> Andrew Mason-
> Ah, OK - that (the first line) seems definitely to be Tussah speaking;
> can it not be explained simply by saying that Lemur was imitating
> Tussah?

I don't consider it clear at all that it is Tussah speaking. In fact, I 
don't think there is _any_ definitive reason to assume "You must, my 
lad." and "We're your parents." to be spoken by different people. Quite 
the opposite. "He" is a pronoun that would assume the person had already 
been referred to. The man with the wit the carved brown face from his 
mother's closet is the man with the blue eyes (and the only reason the 
face was brown was that it was carved--it says nothing about the face 
Silk was looking at.

The thing is that people assume Tussah speaks first and then Silk ONLY 
because they assume Tussah's is the 'carved brown face' and Typhon has 
the 'blue eyes'. But the flat reading of the text argues that only one 
father speaks.  I think the reason the fathers' faces aren't separately 
described is because they were the same.

As for Lemur, it is his VOICE that was a 'mockery'. This leads me to 
believe that the man with the 'carved brown face from his mother's 
closet' was Typhon.

For the record, I am becoming increasingly convinced that Silk is not 
the only reprentative of Typhon in this story:

Silk, Tussah, Lemur, Pike (because Silk mistakes the Rajan for Pike's 
ghost),
and Quetzal (whose mother would have fed on Tussah).

There is a fly in this ointment that Marc has pointed out: Chenille 
looks like Tussah and Horn says she doesn't look like Silk. This tells 
me that explanation is either a little bit off or there is a big piece I 
don't understand. That "Tussah is just a guy" will not do.  Still, if 
someone is looking to make all the rest of it "go away", here is his out.

> It would help to know something about the real afterlife in the _Sun_
> universe. Are Typhon and Lemur in the kind of place from which the
> Outsider might send them?

That's a very good question. This near death experience is odd. If they 
are in Mainframe, this isn't an Outsider event. This is a meeting staged 
by Pas and Typhon to further the Plan of Pas (which we are told in RTTW 
is not necessarily contrary to the Will of the Outsider). If this is the 
case, then Quetzal is probably in on it too, since he is standing over 
Silk when he revives.

u+16b9

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