(urth) Urth-Earth links

[Lee Berman]

>David Stockhoff: I'm not sure why Death + Sin = monsters, beyond that the whole 
>reason Adam and Eve were kicked out of Eden is that they sinned and thus 
>found mortality. Cue Pandora and her box.


Perhaps the monsters figure in if we add Adam's first mate Lilith (Jahi) to the mix.

After the failed relationship, she mated with a fallen angel and produced many of 

earth's mythic monsters. (also, child-stealing was her special province, a tradition

which extended to faerie folk and kelpies and such creatures who seem to lurk in the

shadows of Wolfe's stories)

 

 

 

>Jeff Wilson: How do we know they (the large pale pandours on the ship) are Erebus'?

 

Well, I don't suppose we can know but I find it to be a reasonable conclusion.

Erebus is said to command cold, pale warriors. The ship and the undines and the

voices seem to clearly invoke Abaia. I take this scene as symbolic of the alliance

between these two powers (or perhaps an even closer connection).

 

 

>I don't see that skin color supports their Ereban origin. Fuegians would
>have to sit at the back of an Alabaman bus, there's no Antarctic natives
>to judge by, and arctic indigines like Sammi and Inuits are also darker
>than the average caucasian.

 

That's good anthropology.  But I interpret this idea in more literary terms.

The text does say Erebus resides in the Antarctic, like his volcanic namesake,

and that he commands pale warriors. Moreover, the most southern-residing character

we meet is Hallvard, who is light in coloration. IIRC, Ascians are pale also, so I 

have tended to think that pale color= colder home environment is a connection Wolfe 

uses in this story.