Short sun foreshadowing in Exodus

David Wells · 31 Mar 2000, 12:16 · from whorl-v0010.mbox · original

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From: David Wells <ADW at ovum.com>
Subject: (whorl) Short sun foreshadowing in Exodus
Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2000 13:16:16 +0100
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Have the foreshadowing phrases in the last few pages of Exodus been
discussed? During my (perhaps sketchy) flit through the archives I couldn't
find anywhere they had, so, in no particular order:

	1) [Horn writes, in the first person for almost the first time]
"Here I close my defense, having (as I hope) satisfied the demands of my
critics"

	??? Any ideas what this means ???

	2) [describing Silk] "a man well above average height, with a clear,
somewhat pale complexion, bright blue eyes, and straw-colored hair which
would never lie flat. A slender man, but not a slow or weak one. He will
have a scar upon his back where the needle left it, and may have faint scars
on his right arm, left by the beak of the vulture [...]"

	Hmmm. So why does Horn decide to describe Silk so carefully during
the last few words of his epic chronicle(*)? And what is this "not a slow or
weak one" business about?
Given that the Book of Horn is essentially a religious tract/gospel it may
be that he feels motivated to provide believers with a "messiah identikit"
to warn them against Silk-pretenders. (It would be ironic if this
backfires... It assumes that Silk's spirit doesn't switch bodies. You see
what I mean).
[Is there a precedent for this in religious/mystical writings, by the way?
I.e. "ye shall know him by this..."?]

	3) "[Horn speaking] 'He [Sinew] should be home by this time'. [a few
sentences later...] something dark flitted between Horn and the whorl that
had been his, and he shuddered"

	This seems to me to be a comparatively clear foreshadowing of a
Sinew/inhumu "meeting".

	4) Somewhere not long before the end of Exodus (sorry, couldn't find
it) Horn comments, I think, that the inhumi are "no more intelligent than
dogs". I found this very interesting at the time, because
	- it seemed to me to suggest that the colonists were in for a hard
time. Since we know that Quetzal had managed to reach a senior rank in the
Whorl's (curiously Catholic :-) ecclesiastical hierarchy, the
wildly-unrealistic prejudice (as I took it at the time) that they were
extremely unintelligent seemed to bode poorly for the colonists.
	- on the other hand it could have been a keen satire on organized
religion. Which would have been very amusing. But unlikely given the
context...

	But now this also seems like foreshadowing. (?)

Comments?

(old) newt

(*) I was tempted here to use the word "fable". Hmmm...

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