From: James Jordan <jbjordan4@home.com>
Subject: Re: (whorl) Third-person sections in RttW
Date: Mon, 09 Apr 2001 20:32:47 


>
>But there are  ways of indicating that the protagonist is both Horn and Silk
>without using amalgams like "Silkhorn."  And while the editors' suppression
>of any name but "he" leaves the protagonist's identity ambiguous in
>retrospect, it doesn't read that way at the time.  Since "Horn" protests
>that he is Horn throughout, and since the third-person sections give us (we
>think) access to "Horn's" mind which seemingly bears out his claim, we
>accept his claim at face value (at least I did).  So the failure to identify
>the protagonist is deceptive in effect.  And I have a hard time believing
>the editors wouldn't have recognized that and taken steps to correct it.
>
>--Adam

         though this has been discussed to death, you do bring another 
slant to it. Wolfe is more than capable of tricking us and reversing our 
expectations at the end of this trilogy. But are the editors of the 3d 
person sections? Why would they do this? As you note, such tricking makes 
little sense. I persist in suspecting that the Narrator is really mainly 
Horn, though in Silk's body, and that this is who he continues to be. But 
at this point, I'm reduced to little more than a suspicion, because of the 
effective way everyone here has beaten me up over this.
         And I'll bring this up again, since nobody commented on in when I 
brought it up the first time. I cannot find the place, but at one point the 
Narrator, having been accused of being Silk for the nth time, looks for a 
scar he expects to find on Silk's body, and claims not to find it, thereby 
reassuring himself that he is not Silk. Of course, it is pretty clear that 
he is in Silk's body, and is partly Silk; but he himself thinks he has 
reasons to dismiss the views of everyone around him.

Nutria the Nut


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