Pike/Oreb

David Stockhoff · 04 Nov 2011, 14:27 · from 2011-November.txt.gz

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From: dstockhoff at verizon.net (David Stockhoff)
Date: Fri, 04 Nov 2011 10:27:23 -0400
Subject: (urth) Pike/Oreb
In-Reply-To: <SNT123-W589B1803C2BA9FD9BC686CCFDA0 at phx.gbl>
References: <SNT123-W589B1803C2BA9FD9BC686CCFDA0 at phx.gbl>
Message-ID: <4EB3F64B.20404 at verizon.net>

On 11/4/2011 8:24 AM, Lee Berman wrote:
>> David Stockhoff: Wolfe is. The clue (if it is) remains readable: Blood = Silk's
>> son. In what sense? In a purely genetic sense (if Silk = Pike), as well as the
>> other sense Silk ponders.Naturally this alone is not enough to build a case on,
>> just a pointer if one is already looking, i.e., if one is looking for confirmation
>> of an already-observed pattern.
> Is the already-observed pattern the Zeus-Dionysus, Pas-Outsider, father-son-father
> ambiguity (which may also appear in BotNS)? If not, apologies for intruding my
> theory into the discussion. But earlier on, I was wondering if it would appear.

No, the Silk-Pike clone brother theory.
>
>> I think however that the tree will always remain as obscure as the
>> family tree of any god/gods.
>
> Including Severian's?

Absolutely.
>
>
>> Gods seem to have multiple fathers/mothers/offspring and these change depending on the
>> story or the teller. And after all, once you discover everything there is to know about
>> a god, he/she's not really a god anymore. Just another species/monster/genetic freak!
>
> I REALLY think this gets to the heart of a point Wolfe is trying to make. We learn about
> invertebrate biology in high school and college so when a sexual/asexual budding creature
> like Tzadkiel compares him/herself to a sponge, we sorta get the science of it.
>
> When ancient Greeks or someone like Severian or Horn is presented with such a being their
> interpretation and description will reflect their own education and life's experience. So
> we get stories of angels, gods, monster, etc. The story-tellers are not less intelligent
> than we, just operating from a different frame of reference.
>
> We, ourselves, are not sufficiently advanced to succintly grasp the reproductive structure
> and family tree of electronic beings who can also possess human bodies/brains. We are left
> struggling to find the proper way to express our limited understanding of such things but
> we do our best, much as the Greek mythologists did in their stories. I think this was
> Wolfe's intention.

Yes, exactly. And so we interpret our science-based world much as the 
Greeks did---as human beings will and must.

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