(urth) Random Semi-Literary Thoughts on AEG

[Dave Tallman]

Eric Ortlund wrote:
> 1) In "The Tree is My Hat," Hanga is evil; in AEG, he appears at least friendly, and in Cassie's dream, he's protecting her from Squiddie god.  But then he eats the tourist from Perth.  Is some reconciliation needed concerning his character between these two works?
>
>   
I think Hanga is amoral and hungry, like a shark. He pledged friendship 
to Baden, but couldn't be made to understand that he shouldn't eat 
Baden's family. As King Kanoa says, he's just a "bit peckish at times."

Florence McNair thought Cassie was crazy, and in Hanga's mind seemed to 
be annoying her. When Cassie overhears "She keeps talking and talking," 
Hanga asks Cassie "Would you wish the hotel guests gone, Cassie Casey? 
All save you?" (p. 230). In other words. "Are these people bothering 
you?" Hanga must have concluded that McNair was, and so he took care of 
her for Cassie.

> 3) I can't get Gideon's statement that it is much harder to go up than down out of my head - it deepens and complicates the novel.  Without it, one might assume Gideon stays immoral throughout the novel; his characterization is flat-out creepy in the first chapter, and he says things about good/evil which I'm sure Wolfe passionately disagrees with.  Reis, for all his similarities to Gideon, seems morally opposite: before he dies, he tells Cassie he really tried to do as much good as he could, something Gideon could never really say (Gideon also keeps working for three or four groups, playing them off each other for his own advantage).
>   
In the context of p. 100, Gideon's statement about it being easy for 
someone who has been transformed up to slip back down is a warning to 
Casey -- she was transformed up to something like  an angel, and she 
could lose that (she does). It could also refer to Gid, but he says he 
is unable to go either down or up. There is certainly a shift in moral 
perception of the characters; by the end we think much better of Reis 
and somewhat worse of Chase.

As for the "immoral" statement Gid makes, consider Cassie's 
interpretation on p. 179. "Gid says there's no good or evil, and it took 
me a long time to understand what he meant by it... Mariah believes in 
God, but we don't. Add nothing to God and you get good." In the absence 
of religious belief, statements about good and evil are often used 
loosely, for mere matters of personal convenience and preference, like 
the "bad dog" example Gid mentions. I'm not so sure Wolfe would reject 
Gid's philosophy, as far as it goes.

> 5) What's up with Cassie screaming about the devil's son being born during the storm?
>   
It almost seems like a prophecy -- Cassie is sometimes called Cassandra. 
after all. There was a child with a "prophecy" about his birth -- Gideon 
Chase. He is a wizard like Merlin, and Merlin has been called the child 
of the devil. The "tonight" part is strange, but remember time is 
different in Woldercan.