(urth) Pike's ghost

[Gerry Quinn]

From: Lee Berman 

> > Gerry Quinn: Their minds weren’t wiped – we know that quite clearly from Mamelta 
> > and Rigoglio, who remember much of their time on Urth.

> I would keep in mind that Mamelta was awakened improperly and there was no chance
> for what might have been the mind wiping process. Rigoglio seems to be a special 
> case, for some reason (authorily to provide the reader with needed information).
They are the two Sleepers that we talk to (unless there are more in IGJ and RttW that I haven’t got to on my re-read) and so must be taken as representative.  Mamelta indicates that she has had a brain operation, presumably long enough before the Whorl was launched to allow recuperation.  No special additional procedures seem to be available or required.  

> But, there was mind erasure going on as is made clear in Tartaros' conversation
> with Auk. You shouldn't assume it was complete mind erasure. The conversation
> reflects a selective erasure with regard to the gods and their worship.

Sure.  [Although it’s not certain that the procedure was exactly the same for the First Settlers and the Sleepers, and it seems to have been different again for the Crew, if indeed their memories were tampered with at all – they see the Whorl gods as “aspects of Mainframe”.]  In any case, it’s quite clear that any memory erasure among the Sleepers was very incomplete.


> >As for the painting, it might well have been an realistic psychological portrait, 
> >but presumably Piaton had but one penis.....Campion’s painting was probably created 
> >at the time the Whorl was being fitted out (it shows bulldozers, referred to as taluses), 
> >and in the Whorl, which is unlikely to be as prone to viral images as our current society,  
> >would have needed some time to become  famous.  The obscene parody, then, was presumably 
> >created much later.
 
> The evidence suggests you have it backwards. The bulldozers are a direct reference to the 
> autonomous machines ("wains", iirc) which were used to carve the mountains into Typhon's
> likeness. The orgy is a direct reference to Typhon's demand of Severian, as his regent, to
> provide him tribute of young women and boys. The nursing of erections also a direct
> reference to Severian's experience with Typhon.

None of that can sustain even cursory scrutiny.  A “wain” is just a large cart, but that’s beside the point.  The description refers to two of Pas’s bulldozers which “were still at work upon the whorl”.  They were planting a tree behind his throne.  If the mountain head were above a throne, a tree behind it would be kind of invisible, no?  It has absolutely nothing to do with the mountain head.

The orgy is on a drape Blood has ordered or acquired to cover the Sacred window in his brothel.  It is an obscene parody of Campion’s well-known original painting.  Typhon did not have two penises, or if he had Severian did not mention it.  The two penises in the orgy painting are clearly created by a painter steeped in the two-headed iconography of Pas the whorl god – it was painted by someone in the Whorl, and could not have been painted before Typhon became Pas.  [Campion may or may not have departed with the Whorl.]


> Thus the perverted, blasphemous painting, accurately depicting reality on Urth is the
> older and more original painting. 

That kind of summarises your entire approach to Wolfe.  And, as I’ve shown above, it doesn’t work as an interpretation.

- Gerry Quinn


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