Date: Sat, 09 Nov 2002 09:25:30 -0500
From: Joe Cilluffo 
Subject: RE: (urth) Typhon's vanity and Pas's Two Heads

Roy wrote:

<>

That is an interesting take on it, Roy.  I can't say I disagree with
you, but I'll offer my take on it fwiw (and without any promises that it
is worth much : ) ).  As we know from the descriptions of what Typon and
his children actually looked like vs. what they portrayed themselves as
to the populace of the Whorl, they more or less could portray themselves
however they wanted. Tartaros moderates this a bit by telling Auk that
he is invisible because each of them deified appears incarnate to
citizens of the Whorl in a form matching his or her conception of what
they should look like.  Kypris is preternaturally beautiful (although
I'm sure she was attractive if Typhon scanned her into Mainframe)
because she conceives of herself as such.  Tartaros, being born blind,
takes on no physical form whatsoever because he has no mental conception
of what he should look like. 

Coming to Typon/Pas, so, why the two heads?  I guess on a metaphysical
level we could say that Typhon conceives of himself as the Typhon/Piaton
hybrid, perhaps because he has had Piaton hanging around for so long
ungraciously refusing to die that he can't conceive of his own
appearance sans Piaton.  However, I don't quite buy this, because of
course the Pas that Whorlizens know doesn't have a species of idiot for
a second head but a more robust and strong Piaton.  Psychologically
perhaps Typhon has a split in his personality, two strongly competing
streaks within himself.  Or perhaps during the scanning-in phase a
little of Piaton sneaked in (as someone, Alga I think, speculated).

Ultimately, though, and this may sound like an easy answer (Occam's
Razor again!), I think that Typhon probably simply thought the
two-headed monster looked cool and appropriately "father of the
gods"-like.  : )  I look to Scylla for support here, and for the
purposes of the gods in Mainframe really is.  Scylla is portrayed as
having many arms -- Why, when obviously she didn't on Urth.  So, why?
There is the Hindu symbolism of it, but I doubt she would know enough
about Hinduism to choose this appearance for such reasons (although of
course GW knows enough to choose it for her, but GW's purposes vs. the
gods' purposes is a different story).  IMHO, we know from the
description of her personality that she is a ruthless and power seeking
person, and she looked at the whole god-thing as an opportunity to
dominate her worshippers.  She choose an appropriately "more than human"
impressive appearance for herself to cow her worshippers.  If I'm not
mistaken, too, she was described as being equally ruthless as her pop,
who, similarly, choose the awe-inspiring dual-headed bodybuilder look
for himself.  

Although on Urth "the face" is all-important, on the Whorl (or Blue,
etc.) that looses its significance because Pas is stuck in Mainframe.
Pas may be his "scanned-on" digital self, but this digital version is
just a copy of Typhon, it's not Typhon himself even if it has all the
mental characteristics of him.  We are told they can copy their
Mainframe selves again and again and even put the pieces of themselves
back together (as the resurrected Pas is to do).  If Pas or any other
god ever is to leave Mainframe, to take physical form he has to possess
someone, like Scylla and Chenille.  So it doesn't matter what they make
their godself look like to Whorlizens, because the Whorlizens will never
see "the face" in the flesh again.  If they get to Blue and Pas wants to
leave Mainframe, he has to possess someone to do it, so it doesn't
matter if Typhon at that point would have one head or two, because the
person Pas possess won't look like either version anyway.  I think this
gets us to who exactly Pas and Family are and why they are there --
IMHO, they are not Typhon and family fleeing Urth.  Typhon and family
live on on Urth -- he tells Sev he didn't have time to board one of the
ships leaving Urth.  Pas and family are just digital selves of Thyphon
and family put there to keep the Whorlizens from killing themselves
until they reach Blue -- that was Typhon's plan (the Plan of Pas) in
setting up the physical settings of the cities and how many soldiers
each got, etc., and the gods are there (in Typhon/Pas' mind, at least)
merely to oversee and make sure nothing goes awry, much like the Fliers.
Because of this, it doesn't matter to Typhon whether Pas will look like
him when he manages to kill off Piaton, especially because they will
have to look different if they're going to leave Mainframe and take on
physical form anyway.  Typhon simply chooses a form for Pas most
suitable in his opinion to his plan, the supra-human two-headed
bodybuilder. 

That's my two cents on it anyway.

- Joe    


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