Date: Wed, 13 Aug 2003 22:11:51 -0700
Subject: Re: (urth) Two Ships
From: Lisa Schaffer-Doggett 


On Wednesday, August 13, 2003, at 08:42 AM, James Jordan wrote:

>         I don't think your Whorl = OneShip hypothesis can stand close 
> inspection, as Crush has pointed out. Thematically, however, there may 
> be something Wolfe intended. The One Ship is related symbolically to 
> the Church: seven sided, existing throughout all of time, moving 
> between the heavens and the Briah-world. The Church-as-Ship is just 
> WAY too common historically for us not to consider it, and Wolfe 
> certainly positions the One Ship in such a way as to point to 
> Church-symbolism.
>         But that brings up Typhon's ship as a counterfeit, of course, 
> housing false pastiche religions that he established as a way to 
> control the people inside of it. Given that this is indeed the case, 
> Wolfe may have loaded Whorl with "counterfeit equivalents" to the 
> features of the One Ship, for thematic reasons. This might be worth 
> exploring, building on the parallels you have mooted.
>

Don agrees.  He finds this a most likely scenario, the Whorl as a 
corruption of Tzadkiel's ship.  Or perhaps a lesser imitation since he 
is suspicious of the "holiness" of the Hiero's.


On Wednesday, August 13, 2003, at 08:04 AM, James Wynn wrote:

>
> The only way I can think to salvage this theory is to say that 
> Severian's
> ship was *first* the Whorl, retrofitted over time to eventually become
> Severian's ship. In that case, the time-line problems disappear and 
> all the
> problems in technology can be explained by the passage of time. This 
> is a
> less elegant solution than you were looking for since it doesn't 
> explain
> "the cargo". But IMO it resolves some nasty snarls.
>

Don doesn't think this is likely.  However, Silk did leave for the 
Whorl at the end of RttW and it went on it's merry way to who knows 
where.  Maybe it went to Yesod.  If Silk is Typhon redeemed then this 
makes an interesting circle.  Hmmm.


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