Short Sun notes: Remora.

Lee Berman · 08 Oct 2013, 13:02 · from 2013-October.txt.gz

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From: severiansola at hotmail.com (Lee Berman)
Date: Tue, 8 Oct 2013 09:02:48 -0400
Subject: (urth) Short Sun notes: Remora.
Message-ID: <BLU175-W365788560E7A33DC93BC7CF1C0 at phx.gbl>

Andrew Mason: (I believe Marc thinks Quetzal's tree is a Neighbour: 
this may be right, but a tree isn't well-placed to make the acquaintance 
of many humans, so it's likely there are some in human form as well.) 

Oh yes, that was an idea I liked very much. Aside from giving some reality
to the Tree/Liana relationship on Green, it gives a real, literary purpose to 
making the natives of Blue to be multi-limbed (like trees).

And now I like it even better. The purpose of Windcloud being in The Whorl
was to become acquainted with humans but probably not to allow humans to 
become acquainted with him. Being a tree might be the perfect vehicle for
accomplishing that goal.

>Marc Aramini: The tree of quetzal is not a neighbor but probably a vanished god, 
>as are the cannibal trees on green and the giant "herbs" that make up the islands 
>on blue. The trees can make new vanished people or neighbors but are not "really" 
>them.

Argh. So Marc himself shoots down the idea. Or maybe not.

Anyway, on the subject of Vanished Gods, I don't remember Marc's opinion regarding
the multi-limbed, crusted sea thing that apppears on Horn's boat. It is far
stronger than Babbie but responds to a command from Seawrack....

>Of course there is a pretty big correlation between windcloud and typhoons, or at 
>least a conceivable one.

I agree. In BotNS, Wolfe left it to people like James Wynn to figure out a connection
between Spring Wind and Typhon. But in RttW, Wolfe is explicit in connecting Pas and
Typhon to wind and storms.

I don't think we are given enough information to really know what the connection 
between a Neighbor named Windcloud and Typhon means; only that there is a tantalizing
connection, just out of reach of understanding.

I find the same tantalizingly unexplained connection to be made for Scylla, the 
Mainframe god, the girl and the giant sea monster on Urth. Same for The Mother and
Seawrack and their connection to Echidna and her two siren-named daughters.

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