Date: Mon, 18 Mar 2002 22:19:09 -0700
From: maa32 
Subject: (urth) Marble's prophecy

Has a prophecy ever failed to have two meanings in Wolfe?  Someone pointed out 
that the beast with three horns is instantly discredited by the narrator.  I 
have two words for you:

UNRELIABLE NARRATOR

The dude doesn't even know who he is for sure, nor the name of his kids with 
any consistency. Just because he thinks the prophecy has already been 
fulfilled means nothing - you still have to account for the special treatment 
that Hoof receives from Babbie at the astral scene in Chapter 17/19 or Return 
to the whorl.  First Babbie is mad at everyone, then when he hears the name 
Hoof he gets all happy and hugs him and picks him up and comforts him after he 
gets wounded.  Hoof is another UNRELIABLE NARRATOR because he doesn't question 
why Babbie would treat him that way.  And the narrator does seem to be Babbie 
for a second at the end of On Blue's Waters.  You should try to account for 
this rather than stating that the narrator's discredit to the prophecy is 
enough.

I have determined that Wolfe never writes with Occam in mind - let's face it, 
he likes to complicate things. ... and isn't that picture of the frog from my 
previous post pretty cool? Now that I look at it again, I see the one one the 
left is 2N, the one on the right is 4N.  Note that the front limbs of the frog 
also have three little digits that should be one (like three psuedo-hands or 
something)  If you click on the arrows at the bottom of that page of the 
presentation, you can see the whole 31 slides.  There are other hybrid species 
produced through polyploidy, including lizards and flies.  The flies also have 
a doubling of the hind legs that is pretty interesting if you advance a few 
slides.

Marc Aramini



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