Horn as anithero?

Alice Turner · 03 Apr 2000, 20:43 · from whorl-v0010.mbox · original

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From: "Alice Turner" <pei047 at attglobal.net>
Subject: (whorl) Horn as anithero?
Date: Mon, 3 Apr 2000 20:43:04
Message-ID: <whorl-v0010-0293 at digest.urth.net>
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Adam Stephanides wrote:

> When I started the book, Horn seemed a decent guy trying to do the right
> thing (despite his prejudice against Sinew)--not as saintly as Silk, but
> not nearly as twisted as Severian.  But then I got to the part where
> Horn, in essence, sells his family to Krait to get out of the pit.=20
> Shortly afterwards, he brutally rapes Seawrack.  And later, as Rajan, he
> digs up and revives inhumi to use against the Hannese troops, which
> could be seen as the Blue equivalent of biological warfare.  At this
> point I was ready to say that Horn was worse than Severian.
>=20
> When I read the book again, I realized that one could put forward
> mitigating circumstances in each case.  Horn in the pit was
> psychologically weakened by his extreme thirst and fear, and vulnerable
> to Krait's manipulations.  Besides, Krait had threatened to attack
> Horn's family if Horn didn't convince him to rescue him, so it could be
> argued that Horn was actually protecting his family (though Horn never
> makes this argument).  Similarly, one could argue, as has been done on
> this list, that Horn was not responsible for his rape because of
> Seawrack's song, although Horn explicitly rejects this excuse (and that
> line of argument is unlikely to win Wolfe friends among feminists).  And
> as for reviving the inhumi, Horn was fighting a war which he regarded as
> justified, and there would have been some inhumi around anyway.
>=20
> So is Horn an antihero or a flawed but fundamentally decent man?  My
> sense is that Wolfe is generally sympathetic to his flawed protagonists,
> but few if any of them have transgressed as seriously as Horn.  The
> question isn't made easier by my doubts as to how trustworthy Horn's
> narrative is; at one point (the start of Ch. 12), Horn accuses himself
> of writing a "tissue of half-truths," without being very specific.

Adam, the points you raise are serious ones. My opinion, fwiw, is that he i=
s a flawed but fundamentally decent man (and I too was horrified by the rap=
e, as you can see in the archives). The psychological complexity set up in =
this book is far beyond that of anything Wolfe has ever written before, whi=
ch bodes awfully well for the series. Maybe a couple of reminders: 1) it is=
 shaping up as based closely on the Odyssey, whose hero was also complex an=
d not always heroic; 2) the time shifts in the narrative allow us to see Ho=
rn eventually in Silk's body; he is not Silk, as he tells us again and agai=
n, but there are remnants of the old personality (just the way you can't er=
ase programs completely from your computer), and Silk is a depressive; 3) t=
his is a first book in a series; it is possible that Wolfe will allow Horn =
to develop as time goes on. I also think the Krait thing is rather complex,=
 although perhaps that is hindsight, given how the relationship with Krait =
develops. But Ho!
!
rn refers to the episode in the pit, always, as the worst event of his life=
. I don't think he was altogether rational at the time.

-alga

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