Date: Tue, 12 Nov 2002 11:53:27 -0700
From: maa32 
Subject: (urth) time/space - whorl purpose, Pas heads

Roy stated that the time travelled by the Samru was accounted for by Silk 
before he returned.  I say that the DISTANCE was accounted for - he needed to 
be in the same place to reach back to where the Samru encountered the Mother; 
Silk can overcome both distance and time in his travels.  It is very difficult 
to separate distance and time, but keep in mind how the narrator goes on ad 
nauseum about the symbolic anchor - an item which keeps one in one place.

My evidence for time travel is as follows: Silk appears in the story of 
Inclito's mother.  It isn't her made up story - it's real, and Silk dreams it 
and makes it real by manifesting himself in her past.  In a way, it's kind of 
Philip K. Dickish - Silk's dreams affect the past.  Reality depends on his 
mind.  Perhaps he is a bit more of the primary observer than we at first 
believe.

Also, the real purpose of the whorl is quite simple - it is the second stage 
of (re)colonization from the stars that is heralded in with the play 
Eschatology and Genesis.  Meschia and Meschiane have come - and they are the 
new people - the people from the beginning (or at least Typhonic times) come 
to repopulate the world and do it in a shocking fashion - by becoming the 
Green Man.  Riddle me this - where do Meschia and Meschiane come from?  They 
spring from a tree.  Where do A man and Wo man go?  Up a tree, and they don't 
come down.

Typhon wants to re-establish his authority after he's gone - and the best 
reason for having two heads is because Gene Wolfe wants us to recognize Pas 
and associate him with the Typhon of Urth - Typhon's desires don't matter - 
it's an authorial tip of the hat to us, his careful readers, who would have 
recognized the double headed motiff far before Typhon's name was ever, ever 
mentioned in the text, way back when we first picked up Nightside the Long 
Sun.  That's why Pas has two heads.

Whatever your stance on Blue as Ushas, you have to admit that Horn, with the 
help of the trees, flees Silk's body at the end of On Blue's Water and leaves 
us with mostly Silk.  And it is Silk's body which has these miraculous powers 
- Horn can only travel in conjunction with the vanished gods (trees) or the 
vanished people.  (Of course, Silk carries an inhuma of his own with him at 
all times)

Marc Aramini



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