(urth) A second dream team: Mucor, Oreb, and Pike

Dave Tallman davetallman at msn.com
Thu Sep 18 09:06:23 PDT 2008


*Pedro* *Periera wrote:
*

> 1) I remember Horn mentioning the beast with three horns in IGJ. When did Horn get into Babbie?
>
>
 Toward the end of OBW, the Rajan was surrounded by inhumi and feared for
his life. Soon after this, he met someone in the woods (a Neighbor or the
Outsider?) and placed his head in his lap as Babbie would. I think that this
is the point at which part of Horn went into Babbie. It wasn't all of Horn,
just as the part of Scylla that went into Oreb was not all of her. But it
was a piece of himself, intended to preserve his life even if his human body
was killed, just as Scylla preserved a part of herself when under attack by
Pas.

In the next book, the Narrator has become much more Silk-like. After part of
Horn went into Babbie there was more room for the original personality to
express himself.


> 2) I always thought that the Red Sun Scylla was the daughter of Typhon having become one of the sea monsters, maybe transforming itself like Baldanders is supposed to become and as is suggested for other creatures in BotNS. But in RttW we are shown that she died young (killed by Typhon for her revolt when still very young?) If that is the case, how did the Red Sun sea monster Scylla came about? It seems then that Typhon's daughter, as part of the plot against him, had as her main contact the sea monster Scylla instead and not that she became that same Scylla. When she was uploaded she could have chosen the name Scylla as a kind of nod to her "master". This seams to be more correct than. After all there seems to be some kind of connection between the sea monster Scylla from Red Sun and the "Mother" from Short Sun.
>
>
I never imagined that interpretation.  I thought Scylla was one of the
extraterrestrial Megatherian monsters that came to Urth along with Abaia and
others. Princess Cilinia, daughter of Typhon, allied herself with this
monster (probably in a plot to overthrow her father). She took the god-name
of Scylla for her uploaded personality probably to honor her "master" as you
suggest. Baldanders is a very special case -- I don't know if we have
evidence of any other human becoming an immortal water-dwelling giant.
Baldanders had to invent the technology for this himself. It wouldn't have
been available to Cilinia.

Back on the main subject, there's one more clue about Pike's ghost that I
just noticed. Silk selected the calotte for his burglary mission because it
would "supply a certain concealment" even if his straw hat blew off. Unlike
the typical clerical skullcaps of our world, the calotte must have projected
out above his forehead and cast the upper part of his face into shadow
(under certain lighting conditions, such as being seen from below at the top
of the stairs).

The "ghost" didn't speak; it only waved and vanished. The motive for wearing
the calotte might have been disguise, in order to create the impression of
Patera Pike that Silk remembered. If the only reason for going was that
memory, then we have a pure causality paradox. But there were probably other
reasons, such as intimidating Mucor before she did some mischief.  It's
interesting that she never tried to possess Silk himself.  It may be the
astral projection of the future Silk and Oreb scared her away from trying
this.
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