(urth) Short Sun blog

[Jeff Wilson]

On 9/23/2010 10:52 AM, Dan'l Danehy-Oakes wrote:
> On Thu, Sep 23, 2010 at 5:41 AM, Lee Berman<severiansola at hotmail.com>  wrote:
>
>> Are you are suggesting that, in BotNS, a human can acquire a monster name, joining the ranks
>> of aliens like Abaia and Erebus, simply through monstrous behavior, hence Typhon and
>> Baldanders? Or are you thinking that all these characters with monster names have human
>> origins?
>
> I don't know what Jeff had in mind, but to me Typhon's and
> Baldanders's names suggest that they have left the human race and
> become monsters.

I think that is the right subtext, but in-character it makes sense for 
"Typhon" to be an adopted name that is kept by virtu and itself becomes 
a source of more virtu as the owner ascends in a way that a common name 
like the equivalent of "Bob" just can't.

The milder "Baldanders" suits, as it dissociates him from his former 
life and dissuades Commonwealthers newly met from being too friendly. 
His size alone is more than enough virtu to sell the name as 
appropriate, and he has the witty and charming Dr Talos for anything 
that requires congenial relations, and the play company "legitmizes" the 
creature appellations as stage names.

-- 
Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com
Computational Intelligence Laboratory - Texas A&M Texarkana
< http://www.tamut.edu/CIL >