From: "Alice Turner" <akt@attglobal.net>
Subject: (whorl) Re: Digest whorl.v010.n101
Date: Sun, 9 Apr 2000 21:11:58 

Ratty remarked:

> >Adam asked:
> >
> >.> Is there textual evidence from TBOTLS that Silk may be in a two-headed
> >> Pas body? (It's been a while since I reread it.)
> >
> >Near the end of the last book Kypris appears in a Window and says
> seductively, "Silk, wouldn't you like to be like Pas? We'd be together
> then....They can scan you in at Mainframe. As I was scanned, Silk, with
> him. He held my hand....You'll go on with your life, Silk. Just as it is.
> You'd be Pas too. And he would be you. Look."
> >
> >And she shows him the image of a "bronze-limbed man with rippling muscles
> and two heads." One is Silk's.
> >
> >But there isn't the least textual evidence that he took her up on it.
> 
> There's no evidence that he didn't either, of course, which is also most
> lupine. I suppose we'll eventually find out. 
> Given the "theology" of the narrative, which is never far from the
> surface, I've wondered about this. Silk's ascension to "heaven" (past the
> "border mountains," to quote an old hymn), following his death and
> resurrection and preceding his return in the final conflagration of (his
> part of) the Whorl, closely follows the New Testament narrative. In the
> cited passage, Wolfe at least alludes to Silk's ascension to "the right
> hand of the Father," with Kypris as a surrogate for the Holy Spirit. 

Not so closely as all that. Twenty-two years, IIRC, intervene. We have to assume, from the logic of fiction, that Silk has been alive and active, either on the Whorl or on Green (or on Blue, possibly) during that  entire time. My vote puts him on the Whorl.

>  The question raised in my mind is this: Is the Pas of the Whorl the "evil
> Typhon" of earth? Clearly he originated there, but he actually seems to be
> the "good god" of the Whorl. If this be the case, then for Silk to allow a
> transcript of himself to be entered into Mainframe would not be out of
> accord with his character. On the other hand, this might be something like
> "The Last Temptation of Silk," which he should reject. I've never sorted
> this question out. I suspect that time will tell, and we'll find out
> eventually.

I think we probably will find out. But, as I said earlier, I think Pas is mostly dead. Nor is there much evidence that he was good. Kypris liked him, but he was her ticket to the movies, wasn't he? None of the others seemed to like him, and I doubt that you and I would have, either.

> "Bronze limbed" is right out of the Bible, I suspect. The ascended Christ
> appears as a man of bronze in Revelation chapter 1:15, and compare Daniel
> 10:6.

Well, hell, you can apply it to Brad Pitt too. Didja see how he appeared in "Fight Club?"

And, btw, Tim, long before a little hedgehog was named an echidna, the name was applied to a frightful monster, half woman, half serpent, who ate men raw and bore a brood of monsters to Typhon. The name means "she-viper." Check it out in any Greek mythology compendium, or go to the source, Hesiod.

-alga


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