(urth) Babbiehorn?: Was: a sincere question mostly for roy

[David Stockhoff]

On 11/16/2011 8:31 AM, Gerry Quinn wrote:
> *From:* James Wynn <mailto:crushtv at gmail.com>
>
> > Now, I want remind you that I now firmly believe that the Mucor
> > that stood over Silk in "Lake of the Long Sun"--the Mucor he sees
> > the night he sees both an astral Oreb and "Pike's Ghost" is actually
> > the Mucor that Horn visited in OBW and asked to psychically go to
> > the Whorl and find out where Silk is. This Mucor stood over Silk
> > that night because she had met the Rajan in Time-traveling in the
> > dream-travel and he took her with him to Silk's room at that very
> > night. It is the Rajan who tells her to tell Horn not try to come to
> > "where he is".
> This may seem a minor nit, but the Mucor who stands over Silk is 
> described as “skeletally thin”. On Blue Horn notes that she is still 
> thin, but not as thin as she was. Of course maybe she always appears 
> skeletal in asomatous travel, but one might expect that her image 
> would reflect her psychic state, as with dream travellers, and her 
> state clearly improves somewhat.
> A bigger issue is that even if you believe the Rajan can travel in 
> time, it’s surely a stretch that he can grab people who are 
> psychically travelling in some other mode, and bring them back in 
> time. Furthermore, how would Mucor get back to her own time? The Rajan 
> doesn’t seem to be around, unless he is Pike.
> Mucor does nothing when she appears anyway. Surely the most economical 
> explanation is that she is just hovering around Silk as usual? Wolfe 
> might have put her there to set up the fact that she is watching him 
> later on in Lake when he is lost in the tunnels.
> You could even argue that Silk might have dreamed her presence, but I 
> think it’s more likely that she was there.
> *Again, an argument of a kind you dislike: but if Wolfe wanted to 
> write in these super-hidden explanations and leave subtle clues, he 
> had a great opportunity to indicate that the Mucor Silk sees here is 
> not so thin as usual. He didn’t take it. It’s not a complete killer 
> like the gravity issue (if the difference in gravity between Blue, 
> Green and the Whorl was great, Wolfe would have *had* to mention it), 
> but still you have to ask why, if Wolfe intended this to be a future 
> Mucor, he didn’t take up the perfect clue option staring him in the 
> face. Sometimes absence of evidence really is evidence of absence, IMO.

That's actually a good point, because 20 years pass and the emaciated 
girl becomes a slightly more fleshed-out woman.

But whichever time it is, Mucor is still thin. Horn only sees her as 
"not as thin as before" because he had seen her 20 years earlier. Makes 
more sense to me that when Horn sees a few extra pounds on physical 
Mucor, he's simply observing what he sees, and that's all it means.

Silk sees her for only the second time on the night of Pike's Ghost (her 
appearances in between are possessions) as a projection, and she doesn't 
stick around long enough to speak. We're not even sure it's not part of 
a dream. Mucor is only described as "naked in the darkness and 
skeletally thin" before she vanishes. That's not enough to prove or 
disprove anything, especially since she's not physically present. We're 
looking at a "skeletally thin" person either way. Why would Silk notice 
if she's gained a few pounds? How could such a clue possibly be worked 
in, in a way that would make any sense at all in Lake LS?

"She seemed slightly more attractive in my weird dream," Silk thought to 
himself, and shuddered.

What about clothes? Is she always naked when she projects herself? Or is 
that only when she herself is naked and locked in her bedroom?

Further arguments:

---Mucor's eating only becomes a topic in Calde LS when she tells him 
that she is thin because she doesn't like to eat. Perhaps Silk notices 
that Mucor is skinnier when he physically sees her next. But then she 
would be. Later in Calde LS, Silk meets her physically for only the 
second time, where she is an "emaciated young woman with a seared 
cheek." How odd it would be for Silk to note or even notice that Mucor 
is if anything slightly skinnier than when he last saw her body. Her 
condition is later discussed with Blood, who explains that he has to 
force feed her and that she tears her clothes off. We wouldn't be able 
to process a weight clue until after these discussions, unless Mucor 
were actually quite fat.

---There must be other ways to show a full-grown witch versus an abused 
girl in dire need of social services. For example, when they first meet 
she says "I'm saving myself for the man I'll marry." That's not adult 
Mucor. Another telling clue is that when Silk exorcises Mucor from 
Mamelta, he threatens her with closing her window, and then she goes. 
Older Mucor on Blue would not be subject to such a threat, so that had 
to be young Mucor. Later, in Calde LS, Mucor tells him the window 
doesn't matter any more, but this is clearly still the young Mucor.

---One clue might be the variable strength of her voice. Calde LS: 
"Mucor herself said, "They're arguing about you." Her voice sounded 
faint and far away;" But she is physically present in that scene, so 
this is only an indication that Mucor is elsewhere, not that she is in 
another time or on another planet.