Babbiehorn?: Was: a sincere question mostly for roy

David Stockhoff · 15 Nov 2011, 22:40 · from 2011-November.txt.gz

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From: dstockhoff at verizon.net (David Stockhoff)
Date: Tue, 15 Nov 2011 17:40:23 -0500
Subject: (urth) Babbiehorn?: Was: a sincere question mostly for roy
In-Reply-To: <006a01cba98c$08dce140$76d04a0c@rclackey>
References: <163817.55332.qm at web58206.mail.re3.yahoo.com>
	<006a01cba98c$08dce140$76d04a0c@rclackey>
Message-ID: <4EC2EA57.6050603 at verizon.net>

On 1/1/2011 3:15 AM, Roy C. Lackey wrote:
> Marc Aramini wrote:
>
>> Do you or do you not agree that it is likely that Horn winds up in Babbie
> through the mechanism of the Big Tree at the end of OBW?<
>
> I'd swear I've been through all this before. I'm sure I have, and you
> obviously remember what I said then about dream-travel Babbie, because you
> repeated some of it a few days ago and called it asinine, so there is no
> point in repeating it.
>
> That said, there is something weird going on at the end of OBW that seems
> somehow to involve Babbie, though Babbie wasn't anywhere near Gaon, then or
> ever. That Babbie wasn't even there does not constitute an obstacle to your
> theory however, given the example of dying Horn's spirit on Green being sent
> into Silk's body on the distant LSW. But to answer your question, I can't
> say that the Horn in Silkhorn somehow was removed to Babbie.
>
> I'll reconstruct the scene, as I read it. Silkhorn was threatened by a score
> of inhumi. He prayed on the boat, I assume to the Outsider, and tried to
> sleep. He came to himself, as if from a dream, and thought he was calling
> Babbie by name, and knew instantly that the inhumi were gone. Then someone
> on the shore called *again* for Babbie, yet he somehow understood (or
> thought he did) that the someone who called intended himself, Silkhorn, when
> he called for Babbie. There is no mention of the voice on shore having
> called before, so maybe the first calling had not issued from himself. The
> voice from shore is masculine and urgent. He packed up his stuff, waded
> ashore and ran of into the forest.
>
> Daylight must have come, because he had light to write by and the leisure.
> He drew the three-whorls symbol. He wrote again as darkness approached the
> next night (because two days since he last ate, with Evensong) and spent the
> night in a hollow place among the roots of a huge tree, after writing about
> the previous night when he encountered a masculine being sitting in the
> darkness under the trees. He couldn't see that being but laid his head on
> its knee and was comforted. Many days later he wrote about the two children
> he found and stayed with for a while. They told him of being helped by
> Vanished People. He asked them about Vanished Gods. They said there was one
> in the forest and he told them about "him", evidently meaning the being upon
> whose knee he had laid his head.
>
> So, no, I don't think the big tree he slept under had anything to do with
> it. Trees don't talk and the voice from shore was apparently the voice of a
> god, a god that Silkhorn took to be a Vanished God. Later revelations in the
> series (the end of IGJ) suggest that the Outsider (by whatever name the
> Neighbors used) had supplanted their old gods. When Silkhorn asked the
> Neighbors if  the Mother on Blue was one of their gods, he was told, "Once,
> she was." (383) He had already asked what god they had worshipped at the
> altar that Oreb found near Blanko and was told "An unknown god". Then he
> mentioned the altar to an unknown god Sinew had once found near Lizard, but
> they refused to answer questions except to indicate that the Mother was no
> longer worshipped by them. "An unknown god", twice in two pages. The full
> context of that chat with the Neighbors suggests that the unknown god in
> question was the god Silkhorn knew as the Outsider.
>
> Whether or not the Outsider was also the Vanished God who comforted Silkhorn
> under the trees in the forest near the Nadi can be debated. Silkhorn
> couldn't see that Vanished God in the darkness under the trees, just as he
> had known that he was not permitted to turn around to look at the Outsider,
> the god he knew (or thought he knew) was standing behind him after he
> sacrificed at that altar near Blanko.
>
> -Roy

Has it yet been considered and rejected that it was not the Outsider or 
a Vanished God who came upon Silkhorn and was comforted by him, but 
Babbie, who then became part of him?

The evidence is as follows:

---Babbie liked to put his head in Horn's lap
---The being comforts him, not the reverse. That's something Silk would 
do---comfort someone while he himself is dying or hopeless
---Babbie clearly was becoming more than a hus when he was abandoned and 
was on his way up some evolutionary ladder
---Silkhorn was plainly dying or hopeless when he wrote the passage just 
before (I think under the tree)

Silkhorn then writes what Babbie experienced, having survived, as though 
there had been a shared moment. Babbie is of course gone since he was 
never physically there. He doesn't seem to recall his own experience of 
meeting Babbie.

I don't argue that the tree, the Outsider, or a God was NOT 
involved---in fact I'd have to guess that by this time Babbie had become 
a Vanished God himself and somehow traveled to Gaon. That, or he was 
possessed by another god who passed into Silkhorn. Either way---just 
that the passage Roy describes reads to me more like Babbie discovering 
Silkhorn than like Silkhorn discovering a god under a tree. I can't be 
the first to say this.

I can't explain Silkhorn's dreamlike confusion of himself with Babbie 
except to suggest (a) Horn's resurrection in the pit made him somehow 
part Babbie, (b) Babbie is calling him by projecting his own name, or 
(c) someone else is telling him that Babbie is near. That is, someone is 
calling someone but the confusion is merely situational/linguistic. 
Whichever it is, Wolfe is being very careful here and it's an important 
moment.

As a caveat, I admit that I've just read OBW for only the third time and 
don't recall whether Babbie appears in IGJ or RTTW at all. Also, I note 
that the narrative seems to follow this pattern:

OBWHORN----------IGJHORN----------RTTWHORN?----------OBWSILKHORN----------IGJSILKHORN----------RTTWSILKHORN

Short Sun is literally a novel meant to be read twice, since Silkhorn is 
narrating Horn's tale as well as his own. Maybe it would be useful to 
abbreviate these as OBWS, IGJH, and so on.

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