(urth) Dionysus

[James Wynn]

>> James Wynn wrote
>> I
>> still think, based the meeting and other things [snip] that Horn broke
>> his neck in that pit and died. Then the greenbuck, a young Neighbor,
>> feeling guilt over his death reanimated him
>> (along with all his memories) and devoted himself to completing Horn's
>> mission.
> Roy Lackey wrote:
> How curious. A Neighbor lured Horn to his death, then took
> pity on him,mended his broken neck and brought his body back to
> life.

Apparently, the Neighbor did not "lure" him to his death. That implies 
intent. At the end of RttW, the Rajan says:

"We will sail tonight. Would you be willing to make my farewells to Hoof 
and Hide? Nettle is making her own, and cannot be bothered with mine. 
I've been dreading it. In a sense, I have killed their father, though 
the Outsider sure knows I that I never meant him the least _harm_. I 
don't want to have to face his sons..." [emphasis mine]

I'm afraid I consider my interpretation of this statement to be worlds 
better than the common alternate one that the Rajan feels guilty for 
accepting that Horn died. 1)There is no sense of "harm" in that sort of 
killing, 2) I cannot relate to that sort of moral sensitivity, and 3)I 
know no precedence for it in the stories.

The Rajan (and by implication, the Neighbors as well) have a very 
legalistic view on taking the lives of others. When telling Horn's son 
about killing a bandit he says,
“I spoke of killing a man with this. I hadn’t intended to kill him, but 
I was afraid he was going to kill us. I thought he might kill you or 
Jahlee, and kept hitting him as hard as I could; when the fighting had 
ended, I looked at him, and he was dead.”
“It wasn’t your fault, Father.”
“Of course it was, and his as well. It was—it is—my fault that I killed 
him. It is his fault that I bear the guilt of killing him, because he 
gave me good reason to fear him."

> Yet when wounded
> Horn was in fact dying in that lander on Green, and very much did not want
> to die, he called upon the Neighbors to help him in his agony and a Neighbor
> came to him and said: "I cannot make you well again [. . .]" (IGJ, p-127)
> But the Neighbor could and did send Horn's spirit into Silk's body. I
> suppose the Neighbor could have lied about not being able to mend Horn's
> body, but I very much doubt it.

?Really? That the Neighbor lied is the only explanation? It can't be 
that the process cannot be done twice? ("I cannot make you well AGAIN") 
Anyway, I think the slashes on the Silk's wrists and the Neighbor's 
statement that she was sending Not Horn into a person "whose own spirit 
is dying" make it clear that Silk killed himself in front of Hyacinth's 
casket. He was either dead or almost dead when the Neighbor's sent dying 
Not Horn to reanimate him.

Also, Seawrack and Babbie took a good look at Horn and were not the 
least in doubt that he had died. They were still certain when he 
returned to them alive. [I guess they could have lied about that, but I 
very much doubt it.]

So it is obvious that they DO have the ability to heal and reanimate 
that you find so incredulous. Now you might argue that this STILL does 
not prove that the Neighbor is possessing Horn, but the new powers of 
Not Horn and the Rajan, and that He-Pen-Sheep calls him "Neighbor-man" 
(ala Jesus Christ is often called the "God-man" in that he is 100% both) 
imply that resurrected Horn is something quite different from the fellow 
that fell into the pit.

> Not even mighty Tzadkiel, the Hierogrammate with dominion over the whole
> damn galaxy, could bring a human body back to life. Of course, I suppose
> Barbatus could have been lying about that, too. (URTH, 359-60)
>

But of course the Heirogrammates are omnipotent right? There is no power 
unavailable to them that others could do. Which makes me wonder why they 
needed Severian. How about you?

u+16b9