Date: Tue, 16 Jul 2002 11:47:29 -0400 (EDT)
From: Michael Straight 
Subject: Re: (urth) Silk-23 skidooby

On Mon, 15 Jul 2002, Michael Andre-Driussi wrote:

> Well, since in this reading I take it as Horn alone who sees Hyacinth dead
> (Silk-43 being completely gone), it is Horn who sees her.  Silk-23 comes
> later, via the eye transfer; and Silk-23 would be even more shocked and
> distraught over the memory (I'm assuming that Horn and Silk-23 can access
> the memories of Horn) than Horn, who was the actual witness.

I don't think this works.  For one thing, the only way I can swallow Horn
steadfastly refusing to acknowledge the obvious during his return to the
Whorl (that he is a spirit posessing Silk's body - an almost commonplace
idea given Horn's experiences) is that Silk himself is preventing it in
order to avoid facing up to Hyacinth's death.

For another, it only works if Pas and the Neighbors are in league
together, because by your "sinister" reading, the Neighbors wipe Silk-43
and then later Pas completes the plan by engineering the reboot with
Silk-23.

Another:  This contradicts your "Silkhorn gets some Silk from Pig after
restoring his sight" theory.  Because Pig was posessed fairly recently,
and not by pure Silk, but Passilk-42, or maybe Passilk-43 minus a few
months (weeks?).  The only source of pure, unadulterated Silk-23 would be
from the tape backups on mainframe.

Another:  It really undermines the whole healing of Silk theme.  Silk-23
coming to terms with the fact that he's suddenly older and a widower seems
much less interesting than Silk-43 overcoming his grief.  

Another:  Silk-23, recorded when Silk was on the airship, feeling
depressed, suddenly finding himself older and Hyacinth dead -- we ought to
see a major shift in Silk's personality between when he says goodbye to
Pig and when at the end when he gets on Hari Mau's lander.  (Maybe the
kids didn't understand what had happened and didn't know to depict it?)

-Rostrum


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