Sea Monsters

James Wynn · 30 May 2011, 20:11 · from 2011-May.txt.gz

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From: crushtv at gmail.com (James Wynn)
Date: Mon, 30 May 2011 15:11:24 -0500
Subject: (urth) Sea Monsters
In-Reply-To: <SNT123-w2349FE8950ABE73699F86FCF780 at phx.gbl>
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Message-ID: <4DE3F9EC.8080108 at gmail.com>

> Andrew Mason:
> Several things here: .
> a. There are two big monsters and an indeterminate number of little
> monsters - perhaps as many as fifteen, though we can't know that.
> b. It explains what Erebus is doing so far north, though his base was
> in the south.
> c. It explains how they came to dominate the Ascians - by originally
> offering themselves as servants.
> d. It shows that the monsters were already established on Urth in
> Typhon';s time - which fits _Short Sun_, but does not seem to fit, on
> a natural reading, Typhon;s words in SOTL. Come to think of it, this
> might be relevant to the question of a changing chronology.

Thanks Andrew. Certainly a) and c) are in line with my understanding til 
now.
I disagree that it contradicts what Typhon says. It only provides more 
information.

> Lee Berman:
> That's why I recently asked James about his
> contention that Erebus is long dead. Personally, I suspect WOlfe intends these
> creatures, like their mythological analogs, to be essentially immortal. Like all
> (false?) gods, their power and survival depend the number (and fervency) of their
> followers.

 From Calde of the Long Sun:

[Silk says,] "The gods are immortal, ageless. It's their immortality 
that makes them gods, really, more than anything else."
[...]
[Quetzal replies, ]
"Echidna told you Pas is dead, and you can't help believing her. I've 
known it for thirty years, since shortly after his death, in fact. How 
did he die? How could he? [...] When I was made Prolocutor, Patera 
Calde, we had a vase at the Palace that had been thrown on the Short Sun 
Whorl, a beautiful thing. They told me
it was five hundred years old. Almost inconceivable. Do you agree? And 
priceless, I would say, Your Cognizance.
Lemur wanted to frighten me, to show me how ruthless he could be. I 
already knew, but he didn't know I did. I think he thought that if I did 
I'd never dare oppose him. He took that vase from its stand and smashed 
it at my feet. [...] Look, now. That vase was immortal. It didn't age. 
It was proof against disease. But it could be destroyed, as it was. So 
could Pas. He couldn't age, or even fall sick. But he could be 
destroyed, and he was."

And for a being like Pas, death was not necessarily the end.

> Lee:
> But most especially in Short Sun, I find that trilogy bookended by a depictions of The
> Mother (partly via Seawrack) in in OBW and Great Scylla in RttW which are much more
> graphic views than anything we get in BotNS (except for giant Tzadkiel's pinching off a
> small version of herself). I think The Mother and Great Scylla highly qualify as
> Lovecraftian leviathan monstrosities and I find their presence to have a behind-the-scenes
> impact on the story at least as great as Abaia and Erebus in BotNS. 		 	   		

The Rajan calls Scylla and Mother "sisters", but I suspect they are in 
someway the same. If Wolfe thinks he was provided enough clues to know 
one way or the other, then I missed it. Yet, her ability to absorb 
Cilinia implies to me that Scylla is not merely a biological creature. 
Or if she is, then she of some biology that is similar but greater than 
the Neighbors.

J.

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