From: "James Wynn" 
Subject: Re: (urth) Typhon and Quetzal
Date: Thu, 4 Sep 2003 20:59:04 -0500

> Yes, but Quetzal is the only inhumu who is a Sun archetype, Dionysus.

How can you say that? You are the one that argued (successfully IMO) that
Silk is a clone of Typhon!

If Silk parallels Apollo (one of the more indisputable parallels with him
prophecing at the Sun St. mantaeon and all) then Pas is a Sun archetype too.
Actually he's the ultimate Sun parallel because as a module/interface of
Mainframe he is the Long Sun itself.

Are you partial to Quetzal being Ladon because it fits so nicely with the
Tree in the Garden? Regardless of what the comparitive mythology references
say, Ladon and the Eden serpent are patently not the same characters (unless
one says that Atlas and or Heracles is Jesus, but that would undermine the
comparitive arguement).

 I think it would be obvious to Wolfe that this is so, as soon as he tried
(as surely occurred to him) to draw the connection between the two. Ladon
*guards* the fruit of the Hesperides, but the Eden serpent enticed humanity
to eat of it. Or to use Quetzal's story, the cobra *wanted* the man and
woman to climb his Tree.

I know, I know. There's an astromical connection.  But I'm talking about the
context of the stories.

Anyway, the inhumi are the fabled Pajaro Cu, which was created without
feathers (that is, without personality), and took the feathers from the
other creatures around him. You seem to be suggesting that they *do* come
with personalities. On top of this, is Wolfe's stated claim that Typhon did
not know about the inhumi (granted that I believe Wolfe lies, but not in so
blatently).

Finally, associating Quetzal via cloning is overly complex. Quetzal could
just as well become another Silk by feeding on him (which I'm convinced he
did). If you are convinced that Quetzal is to be thematically *identified*
with Typhon/Pas rather that "merely" associated with him (as Moses and
Alexander the Great are associated), I'd be curious to know what are your
other reasons for this. I think identifying Ladon with Pas is so much
cleaner.

BTW if you can explain how Severian and Typhon can be clones and yet look so
different -- ideally if you can name some textual suggestion that it is
possible --it would be helpful to your Typhon-Severian theory, and would
make me extremely receptive to it. But mythopoetically speaking, shouldn't
Severian and Typhon be brothers? Cloning would make them the same person, or
father and son,  as I understand Wolfe's POV on it. Unless Typhon is a
fellow clone.


-- Crush


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