Baldanders' dream

Lee · 24 Aug 2014, 14:09 · from 2014-August.txt.gz

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From: severiansola at hotmail.com (Lee)
Date: Sun, 24 Aug 2014 10:09:09 -0400
Subject: (urth) Baldanders' dream
Message-ID: <BLU175-W459A0F9E4C4B983BAE6466CFDE0 at phx.gbl>

>Gerry Quinn: In mythology, snakes and caves also did not uniquely identify a 
>character.

You are looking for simplistic one to one correspondence. Mythology (and Wolfe

being highly influenced by mythology) do not work in such an orderly and

direct manner.

Pagan gods were exported and imported from other cultures and separated and

conflated in ways which make it impossible to identify most of them as simply

one god by name or "personality". Hence the need for multiple epithets for the

various gods, as Wolfe emphasized in Short Sun.

>And the Cumaean is not indicated to share the characteristic of multiplicity 

>with Tzadkiel

Given that they are both aliens who have more than one, sometimes animalistic, 

shape, I find the deduction to be heuristic. If one is familiar with the Judeo-

Christian principle that some angels fell to earth to become demons and that

these demons usually have counterparts in pagan gods, (e.g. Lucifer, the "light

bringer"and Prometheus), the connection becomes more clear.

Aliens such as Tzadkiel and B, F and O represent angels of the Urth story

so one may deduce that the aliens residing on Urth represent fallen angels or demons

such as Abaia,Typhon, The Cumaean and Father Inire. I, personally, find the analogy 

useful to understanding the BotNS story. 

>No, and for all we know they could both be champion footballers too.  
>But we can only identify positive aspects of characters in books given 
>by the author, and no common personality characteristics seem to be 
>>given to Echidna and the Cumaean.

I am unclear as to why football is pertinent to this discussion. But I find cave

dwelling, marriage to Typhon, snake association, witchcraft and human sacrifice

to be a sufficient constellation of traits to link these two Wolfean literary

characters via their mythological connections.

>Their speech patterns are also completely different - and these are 
>something that Wolfe worked extremely hard on in Long Sun.  Had he 
>wanted to identify Echidna with the Cumaean, he would have made her 
>speak like the Cumaean.

Likewise Pas and Typhon possess strikingly different "speech patterns", "personalities"

and other traits. Are you suggesting that Pas and Typhon are unrelated characters? 

Spring Wind also differed from Typhon, just as young Alexander differed from middle-aged 

Alexander. We must expect personality changes when a character finds him/herself in 

different circumstances.

I think the transformation from Urthly demon to electronic Whorl god is the likely 

source of such differences and, as such, fully intended by Wolfe.

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