DOORS: perhaps the last note thereon, this round

LEUCOTHEA One of Lara's names is "Leucothea Fitzhugh Hurst" (276). "The most warlike of the remaining Pelasgians were the Centaurs of Magnesia, whose clan totems included the wryneck and mountain lion. They also worshipped the horse . . . The Centaurs' mother goddess was called, in Greek, Leucothea, 'the White Goddess' . . . she had also become the 'mother' of Melicertes, or Hercules Melkarth, the god of earlier semi-Semitic invaders" (THE WHITE GODDESS, pb., p. 52). TINA While "Tina" sounds like a pure diminutive (fitting her tiny size), it also sounds to me like it could be a fragment of something like "(Acca) Larentia," the foster mother of two twins (with a wolf connection in there, too). Thus "Lare-ntia" becomes Lara and Tina. OTOH, the real Tina of myth is something else entirely: an Etruscan thunder god (p. 187). THE MYTHIC PATTERN Chapter 22 outlines religious stages, paraphrased here: Stage 1: no "father," only rival "twins" for the love of the goddess. One is Star and the other is Serpent. Stage 1.5: with the invention of fatherhood, men begin to take many of the roles previously denied them due to gender. Stage 2: enter Thunder-child, who kills the twins (or castrates/slumbers the Star, usually kills the Serpent). With this in mind, if North really is the Thunder-child I've been thinking he is, then yep, he wants to kill Klamm and Green, remake the world in the Olympian mode. New thought: Are any Visitors accidental? Upon reflection, it seems like all of them are "invitation only" (with the addition that some of Lara's lovers might not have been given the invite at all, e.g., Attis and the Knight); but if this is true, then North was loved and invited, too, back in 1972. Which certainly puts his situation in a straightforward context. To me it would somewhat soften his "Hitler in Oz" feel. =mantis=

"Leucothea" was also the name of one of the Sirens. I've always thought that it would have been a good name for Seawrack.

In an earlier post you thought North wanted to kill Lara. (He had his chance, btw, in the locker room before the big boxing match. He was armed.) Rivals in such mythological struggles usually battle one another for the affection/possession of the goddess. I don't get the impression that North was interested in Lara, one way or the other. Liddy, and by extension North, may be off-center ideologically, but he is intelligent and practical. Reaching the summit of political power would not alter biological fact. Men may have the cojones in Otherworld, but if they use them they die. This is the emasculation ritual of the priests of Attis writ large.

Green's first passage seemed accidental to me; he didn't know he had done it, and Lara certainly didn't invite him. His second, brief, crossover (in the arcade) was accidental. I don't think Lara invited any of her lovers to Otherworld, for the reasons she gave Green at lunch. The secret government policy of institutionalizing Visitors seems to indicate they were undesirable aliens. North is a problem either way. If he had been Lara's lover, I find no hint of it from either of them. If he had loved the Goddess, why would he have been tempted by an ice queen as he claimed? Why would he have feared sex with an Otherworld woman if he had survived sex with Lara? If North was an accidental visitor, how did it happen? Did he just happen to pass through the same 'door' as another man who had been close to Lara (as almost happened to Fanny at Mama's)? If Klamm is somehow Kissinger, and North is Liddy, was there more hanky-panky going on at the Watergate than political shenanigans, and North just went through the wrong door at the right time? -Roy

Roy says, about North,

I think North was lying. The police dossier says that he was the chief of Iron Boot when he was arrested, and I suspect his arrest was in connection with this. Probably he doesn't want to mention this, and since many of the other prisoners are in for breach of promise, that's the easiest way to fit in.

Does anybody else think the nuse let him out of the hospital in exchange for sex? It doesn't matter whether she thought he could survive afterwards or whether she just thought he was nuts; there's adequate motivation either way. And this adds extra significance to North's comment "Not a word about her, you notice? They're afraid they'll make them quit using nurses on the men's floor."

The conversation at the beginning of chapter 34 may indicate that North knows Lara. My opinion is that he was her lover as well (although it appears that he doesn't know she's the Goddess, unless he's lying about that as well). -- Stone Ox

I forgot to make the obvious point that a Siren's name is appropriate for the lover of Billy the sea captain. FWIW, "Lara. A Naiad daughter of the River God Almo. Lara could not hold her tongue and reported to Hera that Zeus loved Juturna. For this Zeus wrenched from her the indiscreet tongue, and told Hermes to take her to Hades as she was to become an infernal Nymph. In this way she became Tacita, The Silent Goddess (Dea Muta). Lara consorted with Hermes and gave birth to the LARES, twin brothers, who guard the crossroads and ever keep watch in the city." I do like the way we get a link to Juturna and guardians of the crossroads, but doubtul that it really means anything.

I hadn't really thought about why the nurse would help him. She risked her job, her car, and possible criminal charges. Motherhood seems a compelling reason; I just hope she wasn't the same greedy nurse who nailed poor Bailey! Then again, maybe she was. Maybe the story was true about North catching her in the act; he blackmailed Gloria into helping him.

It's hard for me to think of the Goddess choosing North. His personality is so different from Green or Klamm. The only thing I see in favor of his having been her lover is his name; but if that's enough to establish a link, then I'll bet that W.F. was her lover as well, somewhere along the line, and I get no hint that he was a Visitor. I took that conversation as indicating that North was surprised to learn that Green knew Walsh's lawyer, and thought Green had been conspiring behind his back during those four months he had been missing. -Roy