Silk-23 skidooby — Urth Net

Michael Andre-Driussi15 Jul 2002, 19:26original as archived

Silk-23 skidooby

↰ answers Michael Straight · by quotation

7 quoted lines · 1–2 deep

Rostrum quoted me and wrote: Anyway. My position has been that Silk-43 brain-data was erased from the 43-year-old Silk body; Horn brain-data was downloaded via the Neighbors (by-passing the whole monitor mechanism); later on, Silk-23 brain-data was transferred from Pig to Horn-in-Silk via the eye and the monitor.

Interesting theory - and kind of sinister - instead of Silk conquering Pas in Mainframe, Pas is secretly still around pulling all the strings. But the Narrator can't be a complete reboot back to the Silk-23 back-up data, because he still knows and is trying to avoid facing the fact that Hyacinth is dead. "I could not look upon Hyacinth, dead." - isn't that a line from a famous poem (with someone else's name in for Hyacinth)?

Well, since in this reading I take it as Horn alone who sees Hyacinth dead (Silk-43 being completely gone), it is Horn who sees her. Silk-23 comes later, via the eye transfer; and Silk-23 would be even more shocked and distraught over the memory (I'm assuming that Horn and Silk-23 can access the memories of Horn) than Horn, who was the actual witness. Adding to the confusion is the question of who the Narrator is when he is actually writing the words of a given book. (Percentage-wise, for example.) But back to the idea of erasing the 20 years of failure. FWIW, it is a messier "nuts & bolts" version of (a reading of) Severian's "I am not the first Severian" deal, where Severian is clearly the optimized product and we don't see the un-edited Severian. It is also similar, in the literary world, to that Borges story where young Borges goes into the hotel where old Borges is committing suicide. In the comic world, it has some similarity to how in the "Adam Warlock" series, the depressed Adam Warlock of the future (all friends died; betrayal and ruin) commits suicide by folding himself back into his younger self in an attempt to avert that fork in the life-path that led to such a dead end. =mantis=

Michael Straight16 Jul 2002, 15:47original as archived

↳ follows Michael Andre-Driussi · by subject

2 quoted lines

On Mon, 15 Jul 2002, Michael Andre-Driussi wrote: Well, since in this reading I take it as Horn alone who sees Hyacinth dead (Silk-43 being completely gone), it is Horn who sees her. Silk-23 comes later, via the eye transfer; and Silk-23 would be even more shocked and distraught over the memory (I'm assuming that Horn and Silk-23 can access the memories of Horn) than Horn, who was the actual witness.

I don't think this works. For one thing, the only way I can swallow Horn steadfastly refusing to acknowledge the obvious during his return to the Whorl (that he is a spirit posessing Silk's body - an almost commonplace idea given Horn's experiences) is that Silk himself is preventing it in order to avoid facing up to Hyacinth's death. For another, it only works if Pas and the Neighbors are in league together, because by your "sinister" reading, the Neighbors wipe Silk-43 and then later Pas completes the plan by engineering the reboot with Silk-23. Another: This contradicts your "Silkhorn gets some Silk from Pig after restoring his sight" theory. Because Pig was posessed fairly recently, and not by pure Silk, but Passilk-42, or maybe Passilk-43 minus a few months (weeks?). The only source of pure, unadulterated Silk-23 would be from the tape backups on mainframe. Another: It really undermines the whole healing of Silk theme. Silk-23 coming to terms with the fact that he's suddenly older and a widower seems much less interesting than Silk-43 overcoming his grief. Another: Silk-23, recorded when Silk was on the airship, feeling depressed, suddenly finding himself older and Hyacinth dead -- we ought to see a major shift in Silk's personality between when he says goodbye to Pig and when at the end when he gets on Hari Mau's lander. (Maybe the kids didn't understand what had happened and didn't know to depict it?) -Rostrum

James Jordan16 Jul 2002, 16:35original as archived

↳ follows Michael Straight · by subject

I tend to agree with you. The Neighbor said Silk's spirit was dying, not that it was dead. I've assumed Silk-43 continued on, but rather dormant and wounded, while Horn ran the body. A new infusion via Pig would most likely be Passilk-42, as you noted, and if Wolfe is playing with this, it might factor in to the greater political wisdom Silkhorn shows after his return to Blue. Silk-43 had not been a successful leader on the Whorl. Silkhorn on Blue is quite successful, perhaps as a result of combining wisdom both from his failures as Ur-Silk and what he had experienced as part of Good-Pas. Something to consider. Nutria

16 quoted lines · 1–2 deep

At 11:47 AM 7/16/2002 -0400, Rostrum wrote: On Mon, 15 Jul 2002, Michael Andre-Driussi wrote:

Well, since in this reading I take it as Horn alone who sees Hyacinth dead (Silk-43 being completely gone), it is Horn who sees her. Silk-23 comes later, via the eye transfer; and Silk-23 would be even more shocked and distraught over the memory (I'm assuming that Horn and Silk-23 can access the memories of Horn) than Horn, who was the actual witness.

I don't think this works. For one thing, the only way I can swallow Horn steadfastly refusing to acknowledge the obvious during his return to the Whorl (that he is a spirit posessing Silk's body - an almost commonplace idea given Horn's experiences) is that Silk himself is preventing it in order to avoid facing up to Hyacinth's death. For another, it only works if Pas and the Neighbors are in league together, because by your "sinister" reading, the Neighbors wipe Silk-43 and then later Pas completes the plan by engineering the reboot with Silk-23. Another: This contradicts your "Silkhorn gets some Silk from Pig after restoring his sight" theory. Because Pig was posessed fairly recently, and not by pure Silk, but Passilk-42, or maybe Passilk-43 minus a few months (weeks?). The only source of pure, unadulterated Silk-23 would be from the tape backups on mainframe. Another: It really undermines the whole healing of Silk theme. Silk-23 coming to terms with the fact that he's suddenly older and a widower seems much less interesting than Silk-43 overcoming his grief. Another: Silk-23, recorded when Silk was on the airship, feeling depressed, suddenly finding himself older and Hyacinth dead -- we ought to see a major shift in Silk's personality between when he says goodbye to Pig and when at the end when he gets on Hari Mau's lander. (Maybe the kids didn't understand what had happened and didn't know to depict it?) -Rostrum --