do the Hierogrammates care about the megatherians?

Gerry Quinn · 23 May 2011, 18:21 · from 2011-May.txt.gz

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From: gerryq at indigo.ie (Gerry Quinn)
Date: Mon, 23 May 2011 19:21:48 +0100
Subject: (urth) do the Hierogrammates *care* about the megatherians?
References: <SNT123-W6115E6DFF0CD9351B2670ECF720 at phx.gbl>
Message-ID: <1EDAF8D5FB82473A928C93810C677102@jill>

From: "Lee Berman" <severiansola at hotmail.com>
>>Gerry Quinn:

>>I'm not familiar with details of the Jungle Book - are their parts of it 
>>in
>>the story?....I honestly don't understand how anyone can seriously assert 
>>that this story
>>is anything other than a version of Romulus and Remus!

The ellipses you place there disguise a jump of twenty or thirty lines, and 
a slight change of context.  I am *not* disputing (as you try to insinuate) 
the fact that parts of the story come from other sources.  What I actually 
said was:

>>I'm not familiar with details of the Jungle Book - are their parts of it 
>>in
>>the story?.  In any case, we don't need it to identify Frog and Fish,
>>because the story of Romulus and Remus is so very clearly identifiable 
>>that
>>there seems no reasonable alternative source (other than a different
>>retelling of the same story).

In other words, Romulus and Remus are the source for *Frog* and *Fish*, even 
if Jungle Book is the source for various tigers, woodcutters, bears etc. in 
parts of the story concerning other characters.  In particular, Ymar the 
Autarch is surplus to requirements.

> There are. In The Jungle Book, a human baby is adopted and raised by 
> wolves. He is called Mowgli,
> meaning Frog (in wolf speech) due to his lack of fur. There is a council 
> of wolves, a wise and
> sober black panther, an evil, rapacious tiger, a garrulous bear and fire 
> referred to as "the red
> flower". All these elements are also found in the Tale of the Boy Called 
> Frog.
>
> Nobody is asserting the story isn't a version of Romulus and Remus. But it 
> is clearly more than
> just that. Frog is Romulus and Mowgli and a bit of Moses and Cadmus (and 
> perhaps others?) to boot.
> The American Pilgrims are referenced also.
>
> For me each one of those allusions connects to the issues of exploration 
> and colonization and conquest
> which were introduced in 5HoC.  It helps illuminate the backstory of the 
> history of Urth and human
> exploration in space and previous empires, etc. urth illustrates that we 
> can expect human behavior
> in the future of spaceship exploration of the galaxy to duplicate our 
> behavior during the past sailing
> ship exploration of the world's oceans.

History in general, I would say, involving war, colonisation, and other 
matters.  Yes, Wolfe is indicating that human nature has remained much the 
same, so that our most ancient stories, updated with futuristic trappings, 
will seem no less psychologically realistic to our distant descendants; or 
the distant descendants of our counterparts in Urth's cycle, anyway.

- Gerry Quinn

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