And Now For Something Completely

Lee Berman · 16 Nov 2011, 21:34 · from 2011-November.txt.gz

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From: severiansola at hotmail.com (Lee Berman)
Date: Wed, 16 Nov 2011 16:34:57 -0500
Subject: (urth) And Now For Something Completely
Message-ID: <SNT123-W607375FE7028C64F80F1ACFC60 at phx.gbl>

>J Jankiewicz: Something I've always wanted to know & ask; what are the "Godlings"? 
>I remember reading in wonder about such huge beings wandering around the Whorl. I 
>never saw an explanation or background for them other than WTF.

They are not explain (clearly) so we can't "know" what they are. But we can make
some guesses.

First, names are very important in all the Sun Series so we can be pretty sure
that godlings are small versions of gods. Gods of the Mainframe I mean, in some
way downloaded into large (and growing) human bodies.

We aren't shown too much of the really big godling but his purpose seems to be to
get people off The Whorl and onto the planet(s). In an interview, Wolfe was asked 
if Pig was a godling and he snapped an answer to  the effect of, "of course, it should 
be obvious" It isn't obvious, of course. But Wolfe thinks we should not hestate to jump 
to such conclusions. A clue on how to read him.

So we have to garner a lot of what we know about godlings from Pig. Pig's name and
blindness would seem to reflect a combination (reshuffling of cards?) of two 
Mainframe gods, Phaea and Tartarus.

We aren't given much to understand the origin or "birth" of godlings. But Baldanders
from BotNS might be a good prototype to study.  Gigantic, seabound, leviathan 
monsters like Abaia, The Mother and Great Scylla might be showing us what godlings
will become. 

(there is a giant fish in Scylla's lake but generlly, The Whorl would not seem to have
enough water to allow these gods to grow to their full size. The Scylla fish eating
Mamelta might reflect some internal problems inherent in the family of Typhon/Pas.)

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