Seawrack and the Mother

David Stockhoff · 19 Sep 2012, 03:42 · from 2012-September.txt.gz

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From: dstockhoff at verizon.net (David Stockhoff)
Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2012 23:42:07 -0400
Subject: (urth) Seawrack and the Mother
In-Reply-To: <SNT123-W431C82044D0B67E26AEDBECF9B0 at phx.gbl>
References: <SNT123-W431C82044D0B67E26AEDBECF9B0 at phx.gbl>
Message-ID: <50593F0F.6070008 at verizon.net>


On 9/18/2012 10:43 PM, Lee Berman wrote:
>
>> Mark Millman: alternate hypothesis- The pirate ship is just that:
>> a pirate ship....Horn's shot kills or knocks overboard the girl pirate,
>> who (or whose body) is then used by the Mother to create Seawrack, her
>> agent.
> At first glance I can see why this hypothesis seems more parsimonious.
> But I don't think it accounts for much that is in the text. Seawrack
> does seem to feed Horn two storylines. One jibes with Mark's hypothesis-
> that she was born a regular human and adopted by the Mother. But so much
> else of what Seawrack says suggests she has spent most/all of her life with
> the Mother, eating fish and drowned sailors, being cloistered and comforted
> within her massive body.

Not a problem if the pirate woman's body is now inhabited by another 
being. Which would not be surprising. This is Wolfe, and it best 
explains how the girl could become Seawrack so quickly.

>
> If Mark's hypothesis was correct, all that backstory, maternal connection
> and sense of child development would have had to take place in the space of
> the few days between when the pirate girl was shot and Seawrack joins Horn.
> Not to mention that in the same short time, the Mother would have had to revamp
> the girl's body to possess working gills and imbue her with mystic singing
> abilities and superhuman swimming abilities. If she could do all that in a
> few days, why not also grow back Seawrack's arm?

Yes, except that when gods inhabit human bodies in Wolfe, they give 
those bodies their godlike abilities. I don't see this as a problem: not 
gills, singing, swimming, or facial features. They are all minor. But if 
regrowing a limb is not the in possessor's power, it won't happen. On 
the other hand, most human women would die in hours after getting a limb 
torn or shot off. (Yes, a limb can get shot off if the gun is big 
enough. I don't think Horn's gun is.)

>
> Horn pointedly notes how foreign and exotic Seawrack's face looks. I don't
> think she is from Whorl stock. Moreover, Horn speculates on how the Vanished
> People must have worshipped this Mother/sea goddess. He says:
>
>> She shaped herself, I believe, a woman of the Vanished People so that they
>> would love her. We are here now, and so she shaped for me a woman of my own
>> race....
> I think all the above supports the hypothesis that the Mother grew Seawrack
> from the start rather than quickly reforming an existing human body. I feel
> Mark's hypothesis serves mostly to undercut the idea that the pirate ship might
> be akin to the Naviscaput. But why would you want to do that?
>
> The Naviscaput is associated with Abaia who seems to bud off undines who, like
> Seawrack, have siren and mermaid connotations. Why would you want to make an
> effort to ignore such a connection as that? I don't find the reality of the
> pirate ship important enough to preserve in the face of that evidence.

I agree that this is a difficult question. A separate pirate ship does 
little but provide a dead woman. The ship was mostly full of 
women---which the Naviscaput theory explains but nothing else does. But 
Horn told us there were pirates.

>
> As far as Seawrack's real name, I think it is a great mystery. My best guess is
> that it is English/Latin wordplay on the part of Wolfe. I think the similar-
> sounding name Wolfe is hinting at is "Siren" or "Sirenia" (the genus name of
> manatees). It makes sense that Vironese Horn would find either incomprehensible
> and give her a seaweed plant name which sounds similar.

I think it's a small problem that Seawrack is clearly labeled a siren. 
Sirens don't fall in love with one man---they lure and kill in series. 
Another small issue is that sirens are not technically goddesses. But 
this is semantics, and it seems Seawrack changed her ways with Horn. I'd 
guess she was in another body before the pirate woman's body came along.

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