(urth) time-travel, clones, and changlings
James Wynn
crushtv at gmail.com
Thu Oct 1 11:12:07 PDT 2009
> I would like for [the idea of a Woldercon imposters] to work, too.
> But the text doesn't give me enough to
> prove it, or even make a good case. I don't like to have to resort to
> messy
> time travel to unravel the plot of AEG, but we may be stuck with it.
Well, I want there to be an element of time-travel, because I want the time
differential between Earth and Woldercan to factor in. But, realistically,
there is *barely* more discussion of that than there is of cloning.
On the other hand, there is the hard and fast presence of Fairyland in AEG
(banshees, gray neighbors, little voices in Chase's car) and associations of
Woldercon with it. Fairyland also operates on a shifted clock from the
mortal world. Time moves more slowly there (as with Aelfrice) and sometimes
faster, which again could wreak havoc with time-lines.
For those steeped in fairy lore (and Wolfe seems to be), the concept of
fairies switching places with mortals is practically fundamental (eg the
Mabinogion and stories of "changlings"). David Lebling declared as early as
September of last year that Chase was surely a Woldercanese. He didn't seem
to consider it debatable, and let's face it, the text refers to him as "a
guest" in the first page. Ries is said to have been corrupted by his search
for power. But Chase seems willing to be employed by **anyone to do
anything** for money (gold). Like Phaedra, Sherry Gold, and Hyacinth, he's
the consummate prostitute. He's surely the evil guest of the title (or one
of them...it's hard to get around Wolfe's identification of Ries as a
villain). Also, the text declares that Chase is known by other identities on
the first page as well.
Secondly, I'm coming across analogies to "mirrors" and copies. Chase makes
copies of photographs of Ries and then tears up the originals. Chase enters
Cassie's apartment through an adjacent apartment that "mirrors" her own.
And, then of course in the movie version of "Dr. Lao", the residents are
duplicated in Woldercon. Granted, this could be explained by clones, but it
is hard to wedge Chase in as a clone. He's a figure of fairyland...a wizard
(IIRC in the old story of the child Merlin confronting Vortigern, Merlin is
half demon).
Even Pavlatos's coincidental appearance at the island could be explained by
1) her association with Chase who would know where the Bat People would take
Cassie if things went to hell
2) her being a Cassie-changeling and thus knowing where the Bat People took
Cassie.
In fact, Chase might be the sole reason they are stalking her. After all,
he's in the employ of both the government and Ries, so what are the chances
he is not hand-in-glove with these weird alien-fairies?)
What I'm saying is, that there is IMO at least as much textual opening to
changelings as there is to time-travel or clones. And (I admit I'm looking
in the street instead of the alley since there's more light there) it does
not open the narrative to infinite speculative theories (merely an
uncomfortably large number) of unmentioned trips back-and-forth to get to
the "right" number of iterations (three) despite the US government being
mysteriously unaware of the potential.
I'm increasingly troubled by the degree to which AEG/The Tree Is My Hat are
novels set within an extensive lightly-referenced and expurgated super-plot.
This is was a significant problem regarding Typhon and Blue's Neighbors, but
it is exponentially frustrating in this new world.
J.
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