TWK - Why Able?

James Wynn · 09 Jun 2005, 09:43 · from 2005-June.txt.gz

This is the message as the crawl holds it, before anything here touched it. What the conversation shows has been through ingest: transfer encodings decoded, attachments dropped, quote markers repaired, and the archiver’s ? resolved into quotation marks and dashes. Those repairs are judgements and some of them are wrong, which is what this page is for. Email addresses are obscured here as they are everywhere else on the site, so it is before our repairs rather than byte for byte.

From: thewynns at earthlink.net (James Wynn)
Date: Thu Jun  9 09:43:19 2005
Subject: (urth) TWK - Why Able?
References: <20050609144713.29099.qmail at web52705.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <003701c56d12$551781d0$f7555b45@wynnhouse>

Welcome, Thapaguru!
>>1) Since the good guys are outnumbered and possibly
>>outgunned, I recognize the need for reserves from
>>lower dimensions. But why does Michael want Able?
>>Wouldn't he be better satisfied with a presumably
>>wiser and strong Overcyn?

Well, Able is an Overcyn, right? Are you saying "why not Valfather?" Well, I
gathered that Michael reckons things 4th dimensionally differently from
people of the other levels. After his first meeting with Able, he tells him
that he is going to search for "that great and famous knight, Sir Able of
the High Heart".  The meaning is: The Able at that point in the book was not
the Able Michael sought.

Able himself seems to see things in this way. He recognizes that he became a
knight by wanting to be one, taking the title, bearing the responsibilities.
Only later did he receive the accolade from Disiri and do knightly deeds.

I'd say that the fact that Michael sought Able out meant that at the end of
the story he was already a greater Overcyn than Valfather.

>
>>2) I came out with the impression that Baki did indeed
>>stab Gilling the first time (like Uri said) and that
>>Garvaon finished the job the second time. Am I wrong?

>I'm sure that Baki did stab Gilling; I'm not as sure about
>Garvaon.

IIRC The text explicitly denies that Baki stabbed Gilling. But then again,
frequently I also accept Wolfe's textual denials as confirmations,
 so I'm not gainsaying it. I am definite that Garvaon did the deed the
second time (I presume the first) since Able is unwilling name the assailant
to protect the honor of his name. I don't think he would worry about that
for Baki.

>>3) I'm not of a Christian background (Hindu rather)
>>and I was wondering if I was correct in assuming that
>>Able falling down twice after giving blood to Disiri
>>refers to the pre-crucifixion trip Christ made.

Hmmm I didn't even think of this. According to Catholic tradition, Christ
fell THREE times on the Via Dolorosa. Maybe you missed one? (I don't have
access to my books)

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15569a.htm

An unofficial mirror of a public mailing list · about & removal requests · download the archive · before the list · original archive at urth.net