(urth) Latro for Larry (spoilers)

[Larry Miller]

Thanks Marc.  Very interesting.  Im still reading Soldier of the Mist
but when Im done Ill let you know what I think.

On 12/16/11, Marc Aramini <marcaramini at yahoo.com> wrote:
> I will start with some general facts before going to the specifics of the
> "identity issue" I think is in some way lurking in Latro.  this is kind of
> complicated in terms of text but you should pay attention to a few thiings
> about Latros nature.  Some of this is cribbed together from old posts, so
> this may seem a little jumbled.
>
> " Do you not know that I canot be harmed by a common mortal?"
> Latro: "No, I don't know that.  Nor that I'm a common mortal.  perhaps I
> am.  Perhaps not."
>
>
> First, some particulars about Latro: he wins combat like the olympic
> competition at the end of Arete, unless instructed to "throw the match"
> (though he did lose at least one other wrestling match). He pushes the
> boulder of Sisyphus up the hill when Sisyphus can't do it, though Sisyphus
> is a demigod.  Nike or some victory follows him around, though always at his
> back.  He is a vortex for the gods: they are unreal to others until he
> touches them.  Latro falls for the amazon girl who are "daughters of Ares"
> and becomes extremely depressed when one dies.  The traditional enemy of
> Ares is the boar, and Latro flushes him out.  Latro makes love to Aphrodite,
> in some stories the wife of Ares.  Latro become despressed in the
> manumission ceremony when he sees the slaves promised their freedom slain by
> the spartans instead of freed, though he can't remember what has so upset
> him.
>
> Let's look at the concluding poem of Soldier of Arete at the olympics: "you
> quench the bolt, the lighning's fearful fire, the eagle rests his wings,
> that never tire; to hear you shaken by your song, Fell Ares quits the spear
> proud throng."  Ares is tired of war and leaves it behind, or at least this
> particular conflict: he has quit the war mongering crowd.
>
>  Thamyris starts addressing Latro
> as Pleistorus in Chapter 24 of Soldier of Arete, and Pleistorus is their
> version of the war god Ares.  Also, Pleistorus has been missing from his
> temple for a very very long time, and is equated with Ahura Mazda as well in
> the book, who is for all intents and purposes the "great" good god most
> similar to the Christian God.
>
> One more thing, and this is new.  Xalmoxes, the boar shape changer, gave his
> followers the promise of immortality and heaven with a resurrection of the
> body. (a historical figure) He disappeared into the ground for three years
> and then emerged.  As the enemy here of Ares, he predates Christian
> "resurection"/heaven philosophy because it is a false version of what, I
> think, Ahura Mazda will bring when he assimilates the turning away from war
> for war's sake: the peace of the world that will allow Jesus to be born.
>
> Latro offends Hera or Gaea by fighting in her temple (in the books, Gaea
> and Hera are blended together and oppose the triple goddess, who is
> Echidna(enodia)+Moon (Selene) + Huntress) The sphinx is identified by Latro
> as
> Gaea (!) in chapter 29 of Soldier of Arete.  this would make her Hera, who
> would be Ares mother (the sphinx says, I am your mother, and your mother's
> mother in Latro's memory palace).
>
> If latro is the avatar of Ares/Pleistorus, trapped in human form [remember,
> pleistorus has been missing for a long time] then some of latro's abilities
> make sense.  His disillusionment with war leads to the conclusion: Ares has
> given up on war and death as cruelty, and as ahura mazda this is the ethos
> change that will culminate in the death of Pan and the birth of Christ,
> prompted by the character change in Ahura Mazda from his experiences either
> riding or "as" Latro.
>
> However, I believe that there is an undercurrent here in the soldier series:
> the Achaens have been replaced by the Dorians (Spartans), who have taken
> over
> the old ways.  If I'm not mistaken, this would make the ghost of Achilles
> mad, and he wants the Spartans to be vanquished.  The remains of the achaens
> are symbolically put to rest with Lykaon in the boar hunting segment late in
> Soldier of Arete, where Latro picks up the shepherd Aglaus, who he then
> takes
> into Sparta with him.  He keeps Aglaus around because Aglaus reminds him
>  of things, and helps him remember.  I don't know if anyone else has said
> anything, but Aglaus is the goat man who identifies Polos as a centaur (or
> bull-killer) in chapter 33.  He later makes a pipe for io and begins
> dancing,
> where Latro says that he is reminded of Elata by Aglaus.  Aglaus is a satyr,
> who chases nymphs, and the same carnal force flows through him.  So, Latro
> is
> surrounded by a nymph, a satyr, a centaur, and a man named Seven Lions, and
> he is probably chasing the shape shifting Zalmoxis as well.
>
> Why would a satyr, or a being who resembles Pan, remind Latro so strongly of
> his past?  Notice that after Aglaus shows up, Latro starts to remember.  The
> memory house of Simonides helps, but Latro claims that he bought Aglaus'
> services after Themistocles no longer required a guide to Sparta because of
> Aglaus' effect on his memory.
>
> In the boar hunting scene at the middle of part three of Soldier of Arete,
> we
> see several things: the Achaens are old and wiped out, replaced by the
> Spartans, and dying out obscurely in the mountains.  Aglaus and Lykaon seems
> to represent the older forces, while Latro represents the burgeoning triumph
> of Rome that looms over all Greece (he is the seed of Rome, as has been
> said).
>  I'm pretty sure that
> Achilles is mad at the Spartans and is working from beyond the grave to
> insure
> that they are going to have some big problems in the near future, and that
> Latro is somehow involved in that effort to thwart them.
>
>
>
> Now, a few interesting statements" "I know ares is the war god here ... like
> Pleistorus.  But this isn't war.  How can anybody say that the man who runs
> fastest shows his arete?"
>
> Is latro an avatar of Ares?  He has all the qualities of Ares
> (thus Soldier of "Are"te.)  There is that big discussion at the beginning of
> Soldier of the Mist where they talk about greeting a tradesman who has a
> family in a war by certain titles depending on where he is, and I thought
> this
> would apply nicely to Latro - he would seem to be a soldier, so everyone
> treats him as a soldier.  Yet the gods don't treat Latro like just another
> soldier.
>
> There is also a scene in Soldier of Arete in which someone states that Ares
> may be Ahura Mazda, the all good God, in disguise.  There are other
> statements
> made that indicate Pleistorus is angry at the Thracian King
>  Kotys for his
> treatment of the amazons and Latro - and note that Latro is especially
> troubled by the death of amazon women - they are the daughters of
> Ares.  Also,
> in at least one place the claim is made that Pleistorus (or Ares) is
> "inside"
> Latro in some sense.  Also, the ironic statement of Hypereides right before
> Part Three of Soldier of Arete (p 498 in the omnibus "'Pleistorus didn't
> come
> around to help us.  I wish he had - we could have used him'"  But I think he
> did.
>
> The evidence against Ares being Latro must certainly include Latro's early
> memories of his childhood and his farmland.  On the other hand, Nike always
> follows Latro invisibly, and I'm pretty sure Ares is at least living inside
> Latro or possessing him (if he is not entirely homoousious with
> Latro).  Could
> it be that the Great Mother is mad at her son?  And could Latro's
> disillusionment with war be teaching ahura Mazda in such a way that will
> prompt the shift of the zeitgeist to Christianity?
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Urth Mailing List
> To post, write urth at urth.net
> Subscription/information: http://www.urth.net
>