Horns abilities

Dan'l Danehy-Oakes · 26 Oct 2011, 16:28 · from 2011-October.txt.gz

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From: danldo at gmail.com (Dan'l Danehy-Oakes)
Date: Wed, 26 Oct 2011 09:28:57 -0700
Subject: (urth) Horns abilities
In-Reply-To: <4EA833D3.9040201 at gmail.com>
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	<4EA833D3.9040201 at gmail.com>
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Ant?nio Pedro Marques wrote:

> Should Incanto
> 'dream travel' into the original setting of stories at some point (either
> before, during, or after they're being told) (a thing for which there isn't
> any evidence at all), the storytellers wouldn't be able to tell he had done
> so.

Ummmmm.

It seems to me that Wolfe is deliberately posing a dilemma about
memory (and time-travel) with Incanto's dream-travel. When he changes
something in someone's past, they remember it both the "new" way and
the "old" way. Now, if he "really" changed the past, they should
remember it "only" the "new" way -- the "old" way now always never
happened. But if he doesn't, then what is he changing? "Only" the
memories of the person telling the story? Yet, the changes seem to
have "real" consequences; and, again, if he really _changed_ their
memories, they should not remember the pre-change version. Or should
they?

I believe that the point here is that this is something that can
_only_ happen in a text...and a text of a particular kind (Postmodern
SF) at that.

-- 
Dan'l Danehy-Oakes

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