(urth) Sorcerer's House--First Read--Some Thoughts/Questions

[Gwern Branwen]

On Fri, Apr 9, 2010 at 10:01 PM, Dave Tallman <davetallman at msn.com> wrote:
> James Wynn wrote:
>>
>> Still, thinking about this. The house and property are not George's
>>
>> "blessing". Millie is, which George is unable to appreciate. And Bax
>> impersonates George to get it.
>
> Jacob cheated Esau out of both an inheritance (birthright) and a blessing. The house ends up belonging to Bax too, and it's interesting that it was held by A&I Properties, with a Mr. Issacs for the "I", so it could well be "Abraham and Issac's Properties."  George as werewolf = hairy Esau is a clever idea.
>
> To get killing that first werewolf to equal killing George we need to transpose some letters (or say that later George letters were fake). It's a reasonable idea, and it maybe goes along with the woman George found who was his guide to the things of Faerie (in this case being Lupine, who possibly made George into a werewolf). Maybe the battle with the werewolves and the River Man toward the end is where George died.

I like that transposition idea. We've been looking for a place where
there's some transposition since Wolfe clearly tells us to look for
one, and such a transposition wouldn't be a trivial boring one, but
quite meaningful.

It troubles me a little because of George's duel note. If the drive to
dinner and killing the werewolf in self-defense happen before the duel
note, then that raises the question: why would Bax forge such a
dangerous and suspicious note, only to lamely dismiss it in the final
letter? Also, I'm not sure that the description of the body works for
George/Bax.

Killing George at the final battle makes more sense - then the note is
genuine and Bax's lame waving-away more understandable.
But one would expect the killing of George to be significant: the left
behind body would be striking ('oh no, Bax is dead!' 'wait, but Bax is
over there with the fox sword!' 'eh?'), and the killing ought to be
major and marked out some way. I don't have the text handy, but I
don't remember any werewolf (except Lupin) standing out.

-- 
gwern