Silk's origin

Andrew Mason · 12 Oct 2011, 21:29 · from 2011-October.txt.gz

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From: andrew.mason53 at googlemail.com (Andrew Mason)
Date: Wed, 12 Oct 2011 22:29:38 +0100
Subject: (urth) Silk's origin
Message-ID: <CAM3O41LgJMeHgD7d_S9=EYpAkAW0UNAbFD8zU+Uqc7HFd=hMTQ at mail.gmail.com>

James Wynn wrote:
>
> Additionally, the references tying Silk to Typhon strike me as very
> personal. Including Horn's speech in OBW about how if Pas is a god on
> the Whorl then he can come and be a god on Blue. I think that is an
> autorial reference to Silk.

When Kypris invites Silk to merge with Pas, she says 'you would be
him, and he would be you'. This could be seen as a tautology - if Silk
(in Mainframe) is Pas, of course Pas (in Mainframe) is Silk. But it
could also be read as referring to an exchange - Pas, in Mainframe, is
partly Silk, and Silk, in Silk's body, is partly Pas. Something like
this happens on a small scale, if I remember rightly, in every case of
possession - a bit of Kypris is left in Chenille, and a bit of
Chenille goes back to Mainframe with Kypris. This could be the same
thing on a larger scale,

To support this, at the beginning of OBW Sinew says that if Horn
brings Silk to Blue he will also be bringing Pas, referring to
Kypris's proposal. Horn says that we don't know if Silk accepted the
proposal, but he doesn't say 'and if he had it wouldn't matter anyway,
because the Silk in Silk's body is still just Silk'. So I think there
is a way here for Silk to be, in a sense, Pas, without any genetic
identity.

 And I
> still want him to be a son of Typhon somehow to have a hope of
> explaining the two parents Silk meets on the Aureate Path.

Well, yes. I agree that his father should be someone significant, or
at least someone identifiable, which would give us the satisfaction of
seeing how things fit together. But I'm worried that if the only
reason for thinking it's Typhon is 'who else could it be?', that still
isn't a satisfactory answer.

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