Pike's ghost

Gerry Quinn · 28 Nov 2011, 04:19 · from 2011-November.txt.gz

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From: gerry at bindweed.com (Gerry Quinn)
Date: Mon, 28 Nov 2011 04:19:16 -0000
Subject: (urth) Pike's ghost
In-Reply-To: <SNT123-W32DE1E1E63A572375FA831CFB20 at phx.gbl>
References: <SNT123-W32DE1E1E63A572375FA831CFB20 at phx.gbl>
Message-ID: <DFAD0664D3BF419F8505F7A2D3F9A3AF@Rover>

From: Lee Berman 

> > larry miller: Didnt all the sleepers have thier minds wiped before boarding the
>> Whorl?  That would seem to solve the problem of recognition of Silk.

> Yes. There is an additional bit of evidence. In the back of a manteion, during a
> search for a working window, iirc, Silk discovers a painting of "Pas" depicting 
> him presiding over an orgy scene of sexual debauchery. The nursing of erection(s)
> presents us with a clear clue that Pas is the Typhon that Severian meets and that
> the depiction  of his tyrannical perversions is accurate.

Their minds weren?t wiped ? we know that quite clearly from Mamelta and Rigoglio, who remember much of their time on Urth.

As for the painting, it might well have been an realistic psychological portrait, but presumably Piaton had but one penis.  (Unless, of course, Typhon had more than one head grafted ? but Severian does not mention a second penis.)  Most likely, it is just blasphemous porn.

> There is no glimmer of recognition in Silk. No jog of memory of some hint in the 
> Chrasmologic Writings or anything. Silk just considers it utter blasphemy, destroys
> it on the spot and never mentions it again (iirc). There is clearly something working
> on the Whorl to erase accurate memories of Typhon. (and that something may be a part
> of Silk).

It?s 300 years ago.  Silk was born ten or fifteen generations after the Whorl was launched, and he has never heard of Typhon anyway, only Pas.  There?s no need to speculate on unnatural modes of memory erasure.  

- Gerry Quinn
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