New Poster: Nettle theory

Michael Straight · 30 May 2003, 22:19 · from urth-v0305.mbox · original

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From: Michael Straight <straight at email.unc.edu>
Subject: Re: (urth) New Poster: Nettle theory
Date: Fri, 30 May 2003 18:19:17 -0400 (EDT)
Message-ID: <urth-v0305-3439 at digest.urth.net>
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On Tue, 13 May 2003, Alan Lewis wrote:

> "They are in it, I hope, he and his eerie young woman, Nettle, the old
> sybyl, and their bird. . . ."

Welcome, Alan.  I like your reading of that line -- very clever.  Made me
say, "Hey, waitaminute..."  But I don't think I'm convinced, for the
reasons others have mentioned.  Also, the simplest reason the narrator
would use Nettle's name is that she is the only one known to Daisy on a
first-name basis.

And I never had a problem with Nettle going back with Silk.  Her husband
is dead (perhaps the last of him finally exorcised from Silk during that
conversation with Remora, perhaps she, like many others, never really
believed Horn was ever in there), her children grown and married.  She
followed Silk in her youth, and everybody wants to be around Silk.  She
quite plausibly might want to return in her old age to her hometown of
Viron; Blue is no paradise, and once Passilk gets the Whorl fixed up, it
will presumably be a nicer place to live than it was when Nettle was
young.  And maybe she did see a little bit of Horn in Silk and wants to
cling to the only connection she has left.

I don't see her as part of an alleged Silk harem any more than Marble is.

The one I didn't understand was Seawrack -- why would she be interested in
Silk (other than that everyone wants to follow Silk)?  My reading is that
before Horn faded, he was the driving force in Silkhorn's desire to seek
her out, but that for Silk it's more a matter of rescuing her from being a
tool of the Mother (not that there would be anything wrong with him taking
up a romantic intersest in Seawrack -- with his ubergenes he might outlive
her.)  I'm guessing she knows she's been freed from whatever hold the
Mother had over her and knows Silk is responsible.

	-- Rostrum

--=20

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