First Exodus

Lee Berman · 10 Feb 2011, 00:48 · from 2011-February.txt.gz

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From: severiansola at hotmail.com (Lee Berman)
Date: Wed, 9 Feb 2011 19:48:18 -0500
Subject: (urth) First Exodus
Message-ID: <SNT123-W57C83A24CB2E292CE97F41CFEC0 at phx.gbl>

>Gerry Quinn: The main difficulty, as I would see it, is that nobody remembers such a first exodus.

I don't see that as a problem. Why would people remember an isolated lander leaving the Whorl? Each
city seems pretty wrapped up in its own business. 

Now if you are talking about *storytelling* that's different. I would expect Wolfe to make some mention 
of a first exodus if it happened. To reverse Chekhov's Law, if a gun goes off in Act III it must appear 
on the wall in Act 1.

My problem is that Quetzal seems to have been in the Whorl for a really long time. Longer than the
normal lifespan of a human being I think.  But mostly, having Inhumi just sort of show up at the end of 
the journey of the Whorl belies the mythological/religious underpinnings of the whole Sun Series.

Evil/demons don't just show up at the end of the world. They have always been around, since the 
beginning, most often in disguise. I know some see nothing more than a big space drama here and they 
could be right- perhaps that's all Wolfe ever intended. But I and some others see deeper religious/
mythic allegory around each and every turn.

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