Urth Net
Digest whorl.v005.n023
↰ answers Ron Crown, St. Louis University
· by quotation
5 quoted lines
Aren't priests the only ones who carry the gammadion? For
that matter, is anyone besides Silk mentioned as having one?
Furthermore, the gammadion does function as a tool for working on the 'Windows', the sources of 'revelation' whether you regard that revelation
as true or false or (better I think) truth which conceals another truth?
And I don't think that Wolfe uses language in a sort of simple equivalence such as gammadion = screwdriver and nothing more; after all, he could have invented some science fictinal gobbledygook for futuristic tools like they do on Star Trek (induced phase decoupler or some such nonsense).
All priests carry them and have been taught to use them to fix Windows. They get fancier with rank---Quetzal's is jeweled. Incus fixes Hammerstone with one, and his non-priestly black mechanic pals doubtless wield them too, possibly illegally or at least heretically.
I don't think any of us thinks of a simple equivalent (gammadion = screwdriver), but it doesn't hurt to use an analogy. Mantis once came up with gammadion = Swiss Army knife, and I rather like that.
-alga-