(urth) Fava in the Whorl, and where the Neighbors went

[James Wynn]

>>>A snippet on where the Neighbors went: Silkhorn
>>> tells Inclito's family, "They have gone elsewhere -
>>>found a new home circling
>>>another short sun." (IGJ, p72) At least from that,
>>>it seems that
>>>the "Neighbor Whorl" is a "real", and the
>>>Neighbors' removal there
>>>a physical event.
>>
>>Why? They could have gone elsewhere via astral
>>travel leaving their bodies
>> behind.
>
>It seems to me that there are four possibilities for
>the neighbors travel.
>
> 1.  They physically left the planet in ships.  Maybe
> treeships, like the one in that SF poem Genesis.
>
> 2.  Astral travel.  If that's really what Silkhorn is
> doing, or as some have posited . . .
>
> 3.  Time travel.  Perhaps they have gone to the future
> (or the past).  That would explain their continued
> presence on Blue and account for the speculation that
> they'd found a new short sun whorl.  After all, a Blue
> of the future would be a new place.
>
> 4.  They haven't gone anywhere and are just spirits of
> trees tied to their world.
>
> I'm just trying to set parameters for this discussion
> so it makes sense to me.  Are there any I'm missing?

Sure. That seems to encompass the possibilities. But (inexplicably to me) a
lot readers are *hostile* to the idea that the Neighbors are *in any way*
the trees. It seemed so obvious to me that that was what they were when the
Rajan first clapped eyes on them in the forest. And the rest of the book
continued to confirm it for me.

Someone once remarked that there was a Huorn (Horn?) feel about the trees in
the SS. At one point the Rajan describes them as "sleepy". Which makes me
think it most likely that they are away astral traveling.

Incidentally, since I decided Horn = Typhon, *most* of the direct clues that
Urth=Green were answered in that alternate interpretation. For the Neighbors
to go to Urth does not imply ipso facto a unified star system theory.
Actually, the reference Andrew quoted above could just as well refer to the
Whorl itself. It is "a new home" and it circles a different sun (the Long
Sun).

J