(urth) Dionysus

Gerry Quinn gerryq at indigo.ie
Tue Dec 7 08:38:02 PST 2010


Gerry Quinn-
    Not for humans.  My assumption here was that the Neighbours have different customs related to             such agreements; perhaps they are more communally-minded than humans.

James Wynn:
    So...the deal-making was farce? The Rajan (who really just Silk after all) will go on to the Whorl and Neighbors will soon discover that their bargain is not worth the paper it wasn't written on?

Who knows?  Gene Wolfe didn't write that far.  In human legal terms the bargain certainly seems meaningless.  It might be interpreted as something humans would find fair though - at least it might be if one of the parties involved is human. If it turned out that Horn was actually some kind of hybrid, I don't think the humans would give his bargain any respect at all.



    Gerry Quinn-
    If your theory is true, he seems to me more like the Manchurian Candidate in this regard!

    James Wynn:
    I seem to be having a problem clarifying homoneius. Still, I'll try to get the rest of my response out tonight, and hopefully it will be clearer. Although, I'm sensing that you're reading them only to come up with quick objections and reponses chosen for their supposed wit rather than than insightful understanding. 

Not at all.  My purpose is to challenge your theory with logical analysis, not satire. And what exactly is your problem with the reference?  People are citing with a straight face everything from Erich von Daniken to Gilligan's Island, and building huge castles of conjecture about Greek gods not referenced in the text, and nobody bats an eye!  


    Gerry Quinn-
    He's some kind of mystical figure all right, although I don't recall any incidents from the Gospels in which Jesus lured troops onto minefields, or raised vampires as terror weapons.  (Seems more like a bit of old Pas coming out to me.)

    James Wynn:
    You read the part where I said "Not equivalent to Christ as Aslan is" right? 
I don't see much Pas-like in saving a town from tyranny. 
Still, not everything in the New Testament is "gentle Jesus meek and mild".

No, but it certainly contains no references to actions comparable to those described!  As for Gaon, it was NOT saved from tyranny.  Its predeccessor city was a tyranny on the Whorl.  Gaon became some kind on anarchy on Blue, and Horn left it in the process of converting back to a tyranny.  (As for the oher town involved on the war, no doubt they would have their own interpretation of the rights and wrongs.)

Also, doesn't Duke Rigoglio talk about how Typhon conquered Urth?  He says, if I recall correctly, that he took the part of the underdog in a number of battles, and won them.  That was the means by which his unbelievably rapid rise to dominion over Urth was achieved.  That's *exactly* what Horn does back on Urth.  So, I find it quite plausible that there's a piece of Pas in there, coming in by way of Silk's recovering spirit. 


Your answer to Horn praying to the Outsider is good enough, I agree that that doesn't pose any problems to your theory.

However, I thought of another big problem:
When people spirit travel, the entity appearing at the destination is the spirit not the body.  Inhumi appear as human, for example.  But when Horn travels, he does not have four arms and four legs, or at least if he does everyone is too polite to mention it.  Sure, you can talk about homoousios, but surely his spirit should look *somewhat* different from that of a normal human?

- Gerry Quinn
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.urth.net/pipermail/urth-urth.net/attachments/20101207/5e121ece/attachment-0003.htm>


More information about the Urth mailing list