Typhon's nature

David Stockhoff · 16 Oct 2011, 19:32 · from 2011-October.txt.gz

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From: dstockhoff at verizon.net (David Stockhoff)
Date: Sun, 16 Oct 2011 15:32:59 -0400
Subject: (urth) Typhon's nature
In-Reply-To: <4E9B2F22.4020406 at verizon.net>
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	<4E9B2F22.4020406 at verizon.net>
Message-ID: <4E9B316B.80406 at verizon.net>

Apologies to Marc and all for the formatting disaster in my last post. 
Here's a fix.

I also should clarify that the mystery of Sillk's genetic heritage and 
Typhon's relationship with Echidna may OR may not be separate problems. 
If the explicit Silk problem can be traced back to Typhon/Echidna, then 
the source of the sperm Echidna used to create her family becomes much 
more relevant and the incest question more acute.

Until then, I regard Typhonic incest as implied but unproven.

On 10/16/2011 3:23 PM, David Stockhoff wrote:
> On 10/16/2011 11:25 AM, Marc Aramini wrote:
>
> ...
> I don't think he just goes straight from one myth to his writing, it's 
> too limiting.  He has his own agenda, this is why I can't lend any 
> real credence in authorial intent in Typhon and Echidna as siblings 
> are to mapping myths onto the stories unless they are just EXPLICIT in 
> the text.
> However, WOLFE DOES NOT SPELL OUT EVERYTHING or we wouldn't all 
> disagree, and sometimes these inferences require outside knowledge, 
> the "roman a clef" principal and play intertextually.  That's just the 
> way it is.  Having said that, no, I don't think he maps mythology in 
> terms of familial relationships this way since he created his own 
> relationship scheme on the whorl through features and names (yeah, it 
> makes sense that SOMEHOW [i posit "adoption"] Tussah and Silk are 
> related because of their names)
>
I said:
> These are two opposite principals. On the one hand, we need some 
> degree of concreteness before we fall for "extraordinary claims." On 
> the other, we know that some explicitness is indirect. "Explicit" does 
> not mean "shouted."
>
> In the case of Typhon's theoretical incest with Echidna, it's not a 
> plot point, because it's deep backstory. It's as much thematic as 
> background, a little less concrete and well-defined. Standards are 
> lower: there's no reason to hash it out as though it has a direct 
> impact on the characters. It's just implied. I can hold it suspended 
> in my mind as something that fits (the names, the monstrous offspring, 
> Typhon as Satan, as Alexander, as Pharaoh, as Oz, etc.) without 
> regarding it as a bedrock positive. However, we already have incest 
> occurring at least twice in TBotNS, and that almost cries out for a 
> third instance.
>
> Unfortunately for the antigenetic contingent, Silk himself is more 
> than a character. He's a BODY. The origin of his body is itself a 
> backstory. An event 30 years ago physically affects Silk today. So we 
> can't just dismiss a potentially tangled and warped tale of genetic 
> inheritance (of possibly very interesting traits) as unimportant just 
> because we'd rather see Typhon as a one-dimensional cardboard plot 
> point of no deep significance and a randomly chosen name.


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