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

[David Stockhoff]

On 11/17/2011 7:51 AM, Gerry Quinn wrote:
> *From:* David Stockhoff <mailto:dstockhoff at verizon.net>
> On 11/16/2011 7:44 PM, Gerry Quinn wrote:
> > > Perhaps Silk is right about Oreb jumping down to the kitchen garden.
>
> > That's impossible because Oreb does not lie. Wolfe is faithful to
> > character above all else.
> Oreb can certainly deceive, as he did when he played dead when he was 
> due to be sacrificed. If he can do that, he can surely lie if he wants.

He doesn't want. That's the point of having consistent characters---Oreb 
only deceives to save his own life. I hope you see the difference. If 
you think he lied to Silk then you must explain what he was hiding that 
was such a threat to him that he feared death.
> I don’t *think* he is lying (for some reason “no hop” convinces me 
> most). But I would accept it before I accepted a time-travelling Silk 
> who snatches Mucor out of the ether and comes back looking exactly 
> like an aged Pike, wearing Pike’s hat.
> If you want a wacky theory that’s less wacky than the above, consider 
> that the technology to project ghosts is known to exist on the Whorl. 
> Maybe some god sent a flier down to Silk’s window with a projection 
> device. Mucor was just visiting, but as becomes clear later she’s 
> hovering around Silk all the time anyway, so that’s no surprise.
> Or maybe Mucor found Silk by possessing a bird, then released it to 
> appear in astral form while the bird flew away. What about Pike who 
> comes along later? A ghost sent by the Outsider, perhaps, signalling 
> that Silk (who was sent, or so he believes, to help Pike) is on the 
> right track.
> Of course, none of these theories are terribly convincing. I 
> personally find them more convincing than James’s theory, though, even 
> if they do depend on separate series of events leading to denouments 
> in Silk’s bedroom.
It's interesting that you go to greater lengths in making up straw-man 
theories with which to mock others' attempts at explanation than you are 
in creating explanations you can actually believe in yourself. If you 
want to think that was actually Pike's ghost, go right ahead. Just a 
coincidence that a ghost, an astral Oreb, and a demented teenager appear 
to Silk within minutes of one another.

Not important at all---Wolfe is a notoriously sloppy author who 
constantly gets his plot threads mixed up. The real question 
is---where's dream-Severian? He must be hiding in the pantry!