time/space - whorl purpose, Pas heads

Roy stated that the time travelled by the Samru was accounted for by Silk before he returned. I say that the DISTANCE was accounted for - he needed to be in the same place to reach back to where the Samru encountered the Mother; Silk can overcome both distance and time in his travels. It is very difficult to separate distance and time, but keep in mind how the narrator goes on ad nauseum about the symbolic anchor - an item which keeps one in one place. My evidence for time travel is as follows: Silk appears in the story of Inclito's mother. It isn't her made up story - it's real, and Silk dreams it and makes it real by manifesting himself in her past. In a way, it's kind of Philip K. Dickish - Silk's dreams affect the past. Reality depends on his mind. Perhaps he is a bit more of the primary observer than we at first believe. Also, the real purpose of the whorl is quite simple - it is the second stage of (re)colonization from the stars that is heralded in with the play Eschatology and Genesis. Meschia and Meschiane have come - and they are the new people - the people from the beginning (or at least Typhonic times) come to repopulate the world and do it in a shocking fashion - by becoming the Green Man. Riddle me this - where do Meschia and Meschiane come from? They spring from a tree. Where do A man and Wo man go? Up a tree, and they don't come down. Typhon wants to re-establish his authority after he's gone - and the best reason for having two heads is because Gene Wolfe wants us to recognize Pas and associate him with the Typhon of Urth - Typhon's desires don't matter - it's an authorial tip of the hat to us, his careful readers, who would have recognized the double headed motiff far before Typhon's name was ever, ever mentioned in the text, way back when we first picked up Nightside the Long Sun. That's why Pas has two heads. Whatever your stance on Blue as Ushas, you have to admit that Horn, with the help of the trees, flees Silk's body at the end of On Blue's Water and leaves us with mostly Silk. And it is Silk's body which has these miraculous powers - Horn can only travel in conjunction with the vanished gods (trees) or the vanished people. (Of course, Silk carries an inhuma of his own with him at all times) Marc Aramini

Marc writes:

Well, with the exception of the parenthetical "with the help of the trees," that seems very likely at this point.

and makes it real by manifesting himself in her past. In a way, it's kind of Philip K. Dickish - Silk's dreams affect the past. Reality depends on his mind. Perhaps he is a bit more of the primary observer than we at first believe.<< If the strego and talking bird in Salica's story are Silk and Oreb (which seems probable), and if the story is true, then a supernatural event occurred (like Pike's ghost at the manse). It occurred before either Silk or Oreb were even born, to people he never knew, in a place he had never been. That is "contrary to everyday experience". Salica is a minor character, even in IGJ. She is of no great consequence to Silk in either the LS or SS books. Silk was not dreaming when she told her story, had never laid eyes on her before that day, and had no reason to travel in time, even if he had the ability, to appear to her old servant and spurned suitor. What would have been the point? I don't know why he was in her story, but the fact that he was doesn't constitute proof of time travel. If Silkhorn had the ability to travel in time, he could have done many more things with the ability that were of much more import to himself, his friends, his causes, than what amounts to a pointless parlor trick. Like keep Horn from falling in that pit. Avoiding all sorts of personal travails. Keep Krait from taking a bullet. Saving Seawrack's arm, etc., etc. IIRC, each time Silkhorn uses his dream-travel to go to the same place more than once, each subsequent trip follows, temporally, those that had come before, in the customary sequence of events. He never goes back to a time before an earlier trip to change anything. -Roy