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From: "Joshua A. Solomon" <J.A.Solomon@city.ac.uk> Subject: (whorl) Silk v. Hyacinth (celebrity deathmatch?) and Passilk Date: Wed, 14 Feb 2001 11:01:00 +0000 When Horn's soul was transferred to Silk's body, "(his) hands and arms and face and neck were all bleeding, and an old, worn knife covered with blood was by (his) hand. There was no one else in the poor little house in which (he) knelt, and almost nothing in it that was not torn or broken" (p 127). What was it the Neighbor said about Silk's soul? It was broken or something, right? My theory is that Silk and Hyacinth had a big row. Jealousy? Who knows. They spend a few hours throwing plates at each other and then Silk finally snaps. He kills his lover with the sacrificial knife. That oughta be enough to break his soul... I haven't read Exile since it came out, but let me see if I remember correctly: Silk was genetically-engineered to contain a piece of Pas. Echidna et al. erased Pas from Mainframe. At the end of Exile, Silk got himself scanned into Mainframe. Now that Pas is back, he isn't quite the same. For one thing, he is now referred to as Passilk. Silk only contained a piece of Pas. In some sense, he also contained a piece of the Outsider. Maybe the godlings' about-face (first they say "go," now they say "stay") indicates Pas's losing dominance of the two-headed beast known as Passilk to Silk. Finally, and someone mentioned this already, the soul of Mainframe's silk never broke. Thus when he possesses his old body he is still a pretty good guy, even if he slays an inhumu or three. js -- Joshua A. Solomon Department of Optometry and Visual Science City University London EC1V 0HB Voice: (44) 20 7477 0192 Secretary/Fax: (44) 20 7477 0182 J.A.Solomon@city.ac.uk http://vision.arc.nasa.gov/personnel/jsolomon *This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun. *More Wolfe info & archive of this list at http://www.moonmilk.com/whorl/ *To leave the list, send "unsubscribe" to whorl-request@lists.best.com *If it's Wolfe but not Long Sun, please use the URTH list: urth@lists.best.com