Babbiehorn?: Was: a sincere question mostly for roy

James Wynn · 21 Nov 2011, 00:11 · from 2011-November.txt.gz

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From: crushtv at gmail.com (James Wynn)
Date: Sun, 20 Nov 2011 18:11:48 -0600
Subject: (urth) Fwd: Babbiehorn?: Was: a sincere question mostly for roy
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>> It depends on what you mean by "spirit". For many people a person's 
>> "spirit" or "soul" are mere systemic arrangements and typically that 
>> is the way Wolfe presents them as well. Thus Typhon is truly ON the 
>> Whorl in the form of Pas; Severian can be copied, the original 
>> destroyed, and *he* continues. The Short Sun is different. On the 
>> Whorl, the Rajan speaks to Hound about the soul in purely classical 
>> terms...as a man living in a house.
>
> David Stockhoff wrote:
> I'm skeptical that LS and SS can work together with two different 
> theories of the soul. Are you sure this is not simply an attempt to 
> warn the reader that multiple possessions are the bread and butter of SS?

Well, Silk's afterlife experience might be an alternate model of the 
soul. Additionally, "Soldier of Sidon" reveals that Wolfe is aware that 
the Egyptians maintained simultaneous multiple definitions of "soul". As 
is noted there, the Egyptians recognized that each man had five souls.

There is no example of multiple simultaneous possession on the Whorl, 
but we do have that pattern in the Bible so it should be considered 
conceivable. But then I need a method for the Neighbors to resurrect 
Horn and (without any narrative establishment) transport his human soul 
to Silk. Additionally, although Marc has a mechanism for the Neighbors 
to resurrect Horn, he can't explain why Horn was resurrected and no one 
else.

>> One could imagine the Neighbor /possessing/  Horn...both of them in 
>> Horn's body at once. But then, when Horn's body is destroyed, the 
>> whole thing becomes very cumbersome when the Neighbors send him to 
>> Silk. Why would they send both of them to Silk? It is far simpler to 
>> imagine one simple mechanism. Horn dies. The Neighbor enters. Silk 
>> dies. The Neighbor enters.
>
> To me that seems more complicated than a new Horn being created that 
> is all Horn and all Neighbor. Once the new Horn is created, it's a 
> single entity. Where's the complexity? 

There isn't any except that I have to first buy in 100% to Marc's theory 
that humanity of Urth was devoured by trees to create the Neighbors. 1) 
I don't find the evidence for that compelling. 2) I can't find any 
thematic support for it to buttress it (the eucharist analogy doesn't 
get me there). 3) Even if I *did* accept the theory, I would still not 
be able to explain how Urth became Green (which is the primary value of 
Marc's theory). In fact, it would still imply that Urth is *Blue* which 
was the conclusion Marc originally came to when he developed the theory. 
When Wolfe told him "No! No! No! Urth is Green" Marc changed planets, 
but *he didn't alter the theory that put Urth on Blue*. Wolfe's comment 
should have made him re-evaluate that.
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