the prime calcula/his citadel and other quotes

Gerry Quinn · 18 Jan 2011, 21:51 · from 2011-January.txt.gz

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From: gerryq at indigo.ie (Gerry Quinn)
Date: Tue, 18 Jan 2011 21:51:08 -0000
Subject: (urth) the prime calcula/his citadel and other quotes
References: <609292.90378.qm at web161801.mail.bf1.yahoo.com><00c201cbb68c$7229a680$b5cf4a0c@rclackey>	<4D34B7A5.3060607 at gmail.com><004901cbb6f6$cc7327a0$7bd04a0c@rclackey>
	<4D358382.8020301 at gmail.com>
Message-ID: <BC6150592C554CC9AB4637B073047F5D@jill>

From: "James Wynn" <crushtv at gmail.com>
>> Roy C. Lackey-

>> If you mean only that Silk's head took the _place_ of Piaton's head in 
>> the
>> image he was shown, then you are back to the other possibility that Silk 
>> saw
>> his own head beside the head of Pas/Typhon and failed to notice any
>> resemblance.

Roy's exegesis of why Silk can't be a clone of Pas is solid, IMO.

> I realize it is easy to forget, but these books weren't written by Silk. 
> They were written by Horn. While we can assume Horn is honestly writing 
> about what he was told and saw, we cannot make assumptions about things 
> being so based on NEGATIVE evidence...that is, we don't have any record of 
> Silk saying, "Pas looks like me. So he must have not looked like Pas. Mint 
> doesn't say 'You look like Pas' so therefore she never saw the 
> resemblance."

It's not quite so simple to discount Horn's words IMO.  Sure, he is a 
character who is standing in for the author - but as such he takes on an 
implicit auctorial mantle insofar as we rightly consider his descriptions of 
people and events much more authoritative than we would that of a person who 
in reality lived through such events.  And while narrators can be 
unreliable, you'd expect a hint or two with regard to the direction of this. 
I suppose, however, that some incidents towards the end do indicate that 
Horn is less than au fait with Silk's state of mind, so we can't rule it 
out.

There's also no obvious reason for Mint not to say anything.  But that being 
said, it's not just Horn and Mint. There are others who know Silk, and might 
reasonably be expected to know what Pas looked like:

Kypris certainly knows, and doesn't mention it either, but of course she 
could be lying.

Nobody in Mainframe mentions it, but I guess Pas's face could have been 
forgotten there too.

Nobody notices a resemblance of Silk to portraits and statues of Pas, but 
maybe the artists took liberties with these.

But here's the killer: when Silk releases Mamelta from her tube, she doesn't 
give the slightest indication that he looks like Typhon, the ruler of her 
world.

In short, there seems to be very ample evidence that Silk does not look like 
Pas.  And a clone who looks nothing like his original is not much of a 
clone.

- Gerry Quinn

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