tincture of Pas — Urth Net

Dan Parmenter03 Apr 2001, 15:42original as archived

tincture of Pas

↰ answers Adam Stephanides · by quotation

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From: Adam Stephanides <adamsteph at earthlink.net> Horn can't be literally saying that Pas is in him, because if he knew that Pas was in him, he'd know that Silk was in him, and he doesn't. Inclito's gloss is accurate as far as Horn's conscious meaning goes. Still, I agree that this passage is suggestive of Pas being present in Horn, more so than anything anyone else has put forward, though I remain unconvinced. If Pas was downloaded into Horn, it was presumably along with the Divine Silk, when Pig got his eye. So do you hold with mantis that Silk's spirit was completely absent from Horn until then (which I'm convinced is wrong)? Or do you think that after receiving the Divine Silk Horn had both the human Silk and the Divine Silk in him?

I don't know if it's so cut-and-dried as all that. I guess I'm on the side that takes note that in a sense, Horn has had something of Silk in him since LAKE OF THE LONG SUN, where he mimics Silk. Remember, those who imitate the gods may start to become them. It's very difficult for me to say when each spirit entered another body and when it became aware of it. One of these days I, or someone (probably Mantis!) will come up with a Short Sun timeline that make help make some sense of what happened when. Rostrum writes:

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The passage you quote makes me want to reconsider mantis's theory that the Narrator got a download of the god version of Silk at some point (At the West Pole? Via Pig? During the sacrifice at the manteion? Talking to the monitor on the lander going back to Blue?). But then we have to start thinking about the Narrator as an alloy of multiple versions of Silk (Free Live Free?), as well as Horn, Typhon, and who knows who else.

That seems par for the course, with the precedent of Severian, even if as you point out earlier, it's not quite the same. Shellac p.s. Can anyone find the place in the text (I'm pretty sure it's OBW) where a prophet (Gaonese I think) predicts that Horn will lead three cities to victory? Horn denounces him as a charalatan (!) I thought that this was very significant the second time I read the series as further proof of Horn's status as possibly the least reliable Wolfe narrator of all, but I can't seem to find the place in the text to triple check on it! D *This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun.

Michael Straight04 Apr 2001, 09:01original as archived

↳ follows Dan Parmenter · by subject

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On 3 Apr 2001, Dan Parmenter wrote: Rostrum writes:

The passage you quote makes me want to reconsider mantis's theory that the Narrator got a download of the god version of Silk at some point (At the West Pole? Via Pig? During the sacrifice at the manteion? Talking to the monitor on the lander going back to Blue?). But then we have to start thinking about the Narrator as an alloy of multiple versions of Silk (Free Live Free?), as well as Horn, Typhon, and who knows who else.

That seems par for the course, with the precedent of Severian, even if as you point out earlier, it's not quite the same.

Too late! I recant. I'm convinced that vizcacha's interpretation is correct: Incanto means that since "Pas" now refers to Pas+Silk that "Pas" is present because Silk is present (I guess this is sufficiently eliptical that Incanto can say "Pas is here, in a sense" without admiting to himself that he is Silk). So I go back to my original assertion there is no evidence that Pas or the Silkgod or Pigsilk have been downloaded into Silk's body. The narrator is just human Silk + Horn's spirit. -Rostrum *This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun.

Adam Stephanides04 Apr 2001, 21:15original as archived

↳ follows Michael Straight · by subject

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on 4/4/01 8:01 AM, Michael Straight at straight at email.unc.edu wrote: Too late! I recant. I'm convinced that vizcacha's interpretation is correct: Incanto means that since "Pas" now refers to Pas+Silk that "Pas" is present because Silk is present (I guess this is sufficiently eliptical that Incanto can say "Pas is here, in a sense" without admiting to himself that he is Silk).

I'd like to be able to agree with this, since I don't believe Silk-in-Pig has been downloaded into Silk's body either. But I can't. Just because the divine Silk is linked with Pas, it doesn't follow that Pas is present in the human Silk. And even if it did, I don't think Horn would say "Pas is here" based upon Pas's presence in the human Silk unless he consciously recognized that he was Silk. --Adam *This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun.

Michael Straight05 Apr 2001, 08:59original as archived

↳ follows Adam Stephanides · by subject

4 quoted lines · 1–2 deep

On Wed, 4 Apr 2001, Adam Stephanides wrote: on 4/4/01 8:01 AM, Michael Straight at straight at email.unc.edu wrote:

Too late! I recant. I'm convinced that vizcacha's interpretation is correct: Incanto means that since "Pas" now refers to Pas+Silk that "Pas" is present because Silk is present (I guess this is sufficiently eliptical that Incanto can say "Pas is here, in a sense" without admiting to himself that he is Silk).

I'd like to be able to agree with this, since I don't believe Silk-in-Pig has been downloaded into Silk's body either. But I can't. Just because the divine Silk is linked with Pas, it doesn't follow that Pas is present in the human Silk. And even if it did, I don't think Horn would say "Pas is here" based upon Pas's presence in the human Silk unless he consciously recognized that he was Silk.

You misunderstand. Vizcacha is not saying that Incanto has any of Typhon downloaded into him. Incanto is 0% Typhon. But "Pas," as he exists now on the Whorl, is at least partially and perhaps principally Silk. So if the human Silk is present, then Pas is present in a sense because Pas is now based on the human Silk. Thus the first part of the quoted passage, where Incanto says that Pas doesn't exist on the whorl anymore either. The original Pas who was equal to Typhon is gone. The new Pas is Passilk. -Rostrum *This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun.

tincture of PasWhorl