DOORS: The hero's name

StoneOx17 · 12 Jan 2003, 17:02 · from urth-v0301.mbox · original

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From: StoneOx17 at aol.com
Subject: (urth) DOORS: The hero's name
Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2003 12:02:46 EST
Message-ID: <urth-v0301-2651 at digest.urth.net>
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This question Spectacled Bear asked earlier about the hero's name (Wolfe=20
always refers to him as "he") is making me wonder whether something=20
strange is going on.  It later becomes clear in TAD that the protagonist's=20
last name really is Green (e.g., the crate he gets is addressed to Mr.=20
Green). =20
The first time it's mentioned, however, the context is as follows.  He has=20
gone to the downtown mental health center to look for Lara, and he mentions=20
to the therapist that Lara's eyes are viridian.

   "Viridan, Mr. . . ?"
   "Green -- viridian's a bluish green."

Later in the conversation, the therapist calls him Mr. Green, and he wonder=
s=20
how she knew his name.  But we eventually discover that she should have=20
known his name anyway, because she was a therapist that he had already=20
been seeing regularly.  However, from the snippet extracted above, it seems=20
that the therapist did not know his name when she first sees him.

I'm wondering whether it is possible that it really was his first time at t=
he=20
Mental Health Center, and if his name was not originally Green, but that
somehow the goddess altered reality so that he would ex post facto be a=20
mental patient and thus not be believed (and maybe so that his name would=20
be Green, which fits in well with the winter-spring-renewal-Attis theme)?  =20

This seems like a lot to be reading into those three dots above, but=20
something similar happens with his first name.  During the "Lunch with
Lara" chapter, when he learns that the sea captain's first name was=20
William, it seems to be implied, although not explicitly stated, that the=20
hero's
first name is also William.  But later, at the fight, Lara introduces him a=
s=20
Adam K. Green.  Adam is a name that our hero comes up with when North
checks him in at the Grand Hotel pseudonymously as A. C. Pine, and=20
Herr K. is what Klamm has been calling him throughout the book.  Also,=20
as maybe a little more evidence that he never actually went to the therapis=
t=20
before the first session in the book, he never seems to recover his memory=20
of this, although he does recover his memory of most of the things about=20
Lara that he forgets after the electroshock treatments.=20

The changing of his name fits in quite well with the theme of a man=20
jettisoning his old life and rededicating it to the goddess, which I believ=
e=20
is
the central thrust of the book.  What do people think?  Am I yet another
fan who has gone off the deep end in overinterpreting?

-- Stone Ox
=20

--=20

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