(urth) Grand Unified Theory
James Wynn
crushtv at gmail.com
Sat Aug 28 18:50:25 PDT 2010
> Dave Tallman - Does this mean we won't see your Hyacinth/Fava theory
> this weekend after all?
Tell you what. Now I'm feeling a little guilty. I don't want to play
peek-a-boo. I'll give the synopsis without the textual proofs and give
the rest later. Actually, others will probably post most them to argue
the theory down.
I believe Pike's Ghost is the Rajan. I think the Rajan's presence in the
grandmother's in "In Green's Jungles", the screwy time-line from Horn
leaving Lizard Island until his return, and the ages of Sinew's sons on
Green, is sufficient proof that dream-travel can involve Time-travel.
Also, the presence of the flying Oreb when Silk's Oreb had an injured
wing down stairs and asserted anyway that he had not been upstairs.
Unless one credits that Pike got his own night chough in Mainframe or
Heaven, it was the Rajan. I suspect he's probably also Silver Silk _and_
, maybe, he was Patera Pike. Maybe. Otherwise, we get into clone theories.
I think that after the end of "Return To the Whorl", the Rajan went back
to get Fava in dreamland where he left her when her body died. Then he
takes her back in Time to Viron so everything can happen as he remembers
it from Silk's memory. There, Fava --who, in dream-travel looks like a
teenage girl-- has some breast augmentation (as Chenille implies) and
becomes Hyacinth. As you have already pointed out, favas and hyacinths
are both beans. The Romans believed beans contained the souls of the dead.
Anyway, I think the Long Sun/Short Sun should properly be read as a
single 7 volume novel. Asking what happened to the Rajan went they went
to the Whorl is not understanding that Wolfe already told us what
happened to him.
I further believe that Hyacinth's exceptional light weight -- to which
the text refers TWICE-- is evidence that she is a being in dream-travel
(the Rajan reported this as a symptom when he was climbing the mesa).
Also, Hyacinth's promiscuity is pretty much the way inhuma behave when
they get their human bodies. It's in "their reptilian nature".
I think the "taint" that Silk spoke of occurring from sex with Hyacinth
refers to her actually being an inhuma -- which he learned during his
wedding night enlightenment. And I think that is why Silk was so
despondent on the floater. In RttW, when Jahlee comes on to Horn's son
while in dream-travel, the Rajan tells him that although she is a true
human woman, relations between the two of them would be wrong. I also
think Hy being an inhuma is the what Silk meant when he said that little
Hy defeating the guard on the floater was "one more lie".
I think Hyacinth's "father" at the Juzgada was the Rajan, fulfilling the
dream of Silk's mother that Silk go to work there (Fava was the first
inhumi to called him her father).
I think the belief that Hyacinth had siblings is based on a misreading
of what Chenille says (it was the family she went to work for that had
"a lot of sprats".
I think the mother Hy met in mainframe was the mother of the girl that
FAVA's mother fed on. She was her spiritual mother. I believe the green
umbrella and two gowns that Hy says her mother (this time her inhuma
mother) gave her is a red herring. The green umbrella (the one she can't
remember what happened to it) was the planet Green in Blue's sky. And
the two gowns were her inhumi body and her dream-travel soul. I don't
know if Fava has forgotten her origin (until faced with the prospect of
returning to Green) or if she is covering up.
I believe the used cameo ring she bought with the picture of the older
woman --because the seller said the image looked like her-- was the
woman who gave her her soul (as a teenage girl). I strongly suspect that
woman was Silk's birth-mother. But Orpine is on the table too.
Only quotation I'll offer here:
"The Outsider was the dancing man on a toy, and the water the
polished toy-top on which he danced with Kypris, who was Hyacinth
and Mother, too. _First romance_, sang the Outsider with the music
box. _First romance_."
~ Calde of the Long Sun, Ch VII.
Of course, "Mother" could be another red herring. It could imply the
Mother on Blue. I don't know. It gets messy there.
I believe there are at least two thematic purposes that Wolfe is riffing
on with Hyacinth and Silk.
For the first, I offer this:
http://www.urth.org/whorlmap/worm.htm "The Wolfe and the Laidley Worm".
-- which is something I wrote years ago when I was at the time I was
debating the "Hy is a male chem" theory.
The second is that Silk/Rajan & Hyacinth/Fava is a retelling of the
gnostic story of Simon Magus and Helena.
The story goes like this. Ennoia was a female half of the Cosmos. She
was the first thought of Nous, whom she named "The Father". She became
separated from The Father and descended through the Aeons to the Third
World, eventually becoming trapped in a human body. It was she who
brought the "Spirit" of the Father into the world so he could rule it.
Now Simon Magus was revered The Father in the incarnation of The Son.
One day, in Tyre, Simon saw a prostitute, Helena, on the roof of a
brothel. He recognized her as the incarnation of Ennoia, and their
marriage began the redemption of the world. The story of Helena is
related in some way to the myths of Sophia.
A nice overview of Simon Magus here:
http://hermetic.com/sabazius/simon.htm
Here you will also see other little bits of the Long Sun/Short Sun story
poking out like the tops of the heads of friends seen in a milling crowd.
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