(urth) TSH: Ted's identity

[Roy C. Lackey]

Craig Brewer wrote:
> A couple of points: are we sure that the man who appears to Bax by the
river before he talks to Lupine was actually Ambrosius? Why not Goldwurm?
I've been assuming, like others, that Ted and Ambrosius were probably the
same and that his appearing in the forest was somehow to protect Doris.<

I don't know if Ted was also Ambrosius, but Bax said that the big man looked
like the pictures he later saw of Ted (134). That middle initial "A" is
really all I have seen that *may* connect the two.

But, speaking of initials, George has a middle initial "J". If Bax has one,
it isn't given in the book, which means we are probably supposed to figure
it out. <G> If Martha gave her firstborn sons names, we don't know them. The
names Baxter and George are taken from the adoptive parents' families (177).
It makes no sense for one child to have been given a middle name but not the
other.

> But I suppose I could be mistaken. When the "big, heavyset man" stands
frowning in front of them (129), Doris has already turned back and Lupine
was holding Bax's hand. Maybe a small detail, but it already seems at that
point that Lupine is more interested in Bax than Doris, so does she need
protection?<

See my reply to James.

>
> I'm also just curious about Ted's ring. It's gold and has a basket-weave
design. All we know about Goldwurm, really, is his name and that he lives in
a tower. But a golden wurm just seems too close to a golden ring for me to
dismiss the possibility quite yet.<

I don't know what to think about Ted's ring. Bax said it was a little worn.
He also said Doris was between 30 and 35, so she couldn't have been married
to Ted all that long. The greater the gold content, the faster a ring will
show wear, but still . . . Normally, the bride provides the groom's wedding
ring, doesn't she? How does that complicate matters?

>
> Another question: with so many twins around, is it possible that Zwart
Black also has a twin? <

Possible, but I see no good reason to think so. Twins run in families, but
we are shown that it is Martha's side that has that proclivity.

>If so, Ted is out because, as Roy has pointed out, Wolfe specifically makes
them different sizes. But could it be Goldwurm since so much is made about
good and bad twins fighting? Or Ambrosius if he ISN'T Ted? <

Bax thought that Ambrosius had been a "friendly rival" of Zwart (270). If
so, that doesn't sound like the sort bitter feuding we see within Martha's
sets of twins.

>But who and why? (And if Black was really old Nick the whole time, is
Nicholas more than just a created vampire?)<

Black's role as old Nick clearly riffed on the Nicholas-the-Butler guy that
went back at least forty years but, in the story, he doesn't seem to me to
be much more than a bogeyman, just thrown in with all the other supernatural
characters that have nothing to do with traditional conceptions of Faerie.

-Roy