Silk's origin

James Wynn · 13 Oct 2011, 17:10 · from 2011-October.txt.gz

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From: crushtv at gmail.com (James Wynn)
Date: Thu, 13 Oct 2011 12:10:03 -0500
Subject: (urth) Silk's origin
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On 10/12/2011 11:02 PM, Marc Aramini wrote:
> I'll respond to the rest later this week, I just wanted to say, baldness/hair pattern is one of those great genetic markers that cloning would, you know, match up if Silk/Tussah were genetically identical.

But this is not a problem if is Silk is a clone of the SON of Typhon. 
Even if Silk and Tussah were genetically identical--a possibility I 
leave open but unexplained--there are a lot of ways one can go bald 
beyond genetics.
But then I consider Horn height and ability to mimic Silk to be a hint 
either, although THEY don't look alike either. And Horn goes bald. So, 
I'm stuck at this point.

> Primarily, I see "the son not of my body" as straight up adoption: the heir he grows but has NO GENETIC connection to his body.  I think your reading of it entails the opposite of the words.  If I wanted a child, adopted him,, and had plans for him, but he wasn't related to me, I'd call him the son not of my body.

Absolutely it is not opposite.
Let me remind you of what Tussah said:
"ALTHOUGH he is not the son of my BODY, my SON shall be Calde after me."

Not of his body, but affirmatively his son. It's a mystery. It's not 
based on confusion on Tussah's part but full self-awareness. This would 
assume that Tussah is well-aware that Silk's and his own genetic 
ancestry which is entirely likely considering Lemur's knowledge of the 
Typhon family. And, as I said, Wolfe already dropped the dime on clones 
with the Pike/Rajan mix-up.

I think the adoption interpretation is remarkably non-Wolfean and if any 
other writer had a character make a prophesy like Tussah's and intended 
adoption, he would have felt the need to explain it--because it would 
need justification.

There's no evidence that Silk was adopted. It's possible they never met 
after his birth. And he didn't need an adopted heir. I assert Wolfe 
dodged when asked about Silk's ancestry. It's simply the only believable 
explanation I can think of.

J.

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