(urth) Gender and creation myth

[DAVID STOCKHOFF]

>________________________________
> From: Lee Berman <severiansola at hotmail.com>
>To: "urth at urth.net" <urth at urth.net> 
>Sent: Monday, September 24, 2012 8:55 AM
>Subject: (urth) Gender and creation myth
> 
>
>
>>David Stockhoff: 
>>(1) The Long Sun Whorl bears a number of systemic resemblances to Eden, 
>>including gender-based naming systems
>>(2) The Neighbors presumably introduced the inhumi to the Whorl as a 
>>sort of test, much like another well-known reptilian character
>
>I could use some elaboration or explanation for these two.
>
>---It's mostly a fairly loose collection of big, obvious things; nor do they strictly follow the old myth but rather mix it up with later myths. The Whorl has winged monitor beings. The Whorl seems to be heating up to drive out the colonists, though later it seems to cool itself. The Long Sun draws attention to itself as a feat of human engineering, resembling the imaginary though iconic "first fire" kindled by evolved humans. (Which was after all itself an act of imitation.) 
>
>There is a lot of uncertainty regarding the genesis of the colonists: Quetzal's tale of the tree, the origin/creation of chems and their pairing/mating, the scrubbing of religion from the colonists' minds. Even the ancient telepathic society when all humans "spoke" the same language seems to echo the post-Eden that exists as a potential within the Whorl, as do all the towns and cities reflecting languages from all over Urth/Earth, derived from the previous Eden. 
>
>As I have noted before, the Whorl resembles the Tower of Babel in its hubris but also resembles a man-created Eden in its human-bearing function as well as its furtherance of God's "plan" for Man. (Man behaving as God could be either the ultimate evil or the ultimate good, or---paradox!---both at once.) In the Whorl universe, Eden is not one-way but cyclical---you CAN return or ascend or strive higher, and Silkhorn does.
>
>---I think it's the consensus that the Neighbors put Quetzal and others on the Whorl. I don't recall the location of the text supporting this and the motive for it, but it is stated. They wanted to see what would happen, perhaps to see if humans fared better than they did.
>
>(3) The Neighbors withdrew from both Green and Blue, essentially giving 
>them to humanity to make their own (and in Marc's word, "make better"?)
>
>I read this part of the text as social allegory. How does a Christian-
>Libertarian author think we ought to work to make the world a better place?
>
>What are the problems facing Blue? We have the expected human social issues
>found in New Viron, Dorp and Gaon. And we have giant false gods in the ocean
>who produce temptations. So perhaps some of the improvement Wolfe is expecting
>it that we stop worshipping false gods (money, power, sex?). Perhaps this is 
>the Christian side.
>
>But surely the worse and more immediate problem is the inhumi.
>
>---I can only direct you to Marc's summary and quote. Social/political allegory does not seem to me to be a fruitful path for interpretation when we have something better. Besides, Wolfe is not a "Christian-libertarian"---there is no such thing, not with a hyphen---but a ~1960s Catholic liberal. The distinction is perhaps slight in terms of how two such people might respond to the same political survey, but it is critical. Justice (but not fairness) is a central goal.
>
>Those problems are merely emblems of the problems that will always face us as long as we are human. There is no solving them. Ever. There is only always recognizing and confronting them. "Making better" does not need to mean "constructing a permanent utopian society." Those attempts are insane anyway; far better to work for incremental improvement within one's own sphere.
>
>>Marc Aramini: Also, note quetzal's tree planted on the Long Sun: man has climbed 
>>up the tree, but has not yet climbed down it.... "No one ever asks why the cobra 
>wanted Wo-man to eat his fruit"
>
>Could this partly be an evolutionary allusion? Is Wolfe asking us to improve by 
>fully shrugging off our animalistic, primate heritage?
>
>---I don't think so. Plainly that is a start, but it's not enough and it's not spiritual enough or concrete enough.
>
>Anyway, that tree was planted by an inhumu named Quetzal. A quetzal is a bird
>but could Wolfe be hinting at Quetzalcoaltl, the feathered serpent god of the
>Azteks?
>
>---Yes, the key words being "serpent" and "god." Remember that Satan works for God by goading us forward. Classic carrot and stick!
>
>The Inhumi are deceptive parasites by nature. They can't do anything through
>their own efforts except deceive people and leech off them. They are presented
>as the ultimate evil. Could this be Wolfe's Libertarian, anti-socialism side
>showing?
>
>---No reason to go political. Remember that fairy folk often are shown as unable to do the simplest things, when they are not shown forging magical blades, cutting marvelous stones, and hammering invulnerable armor. Of course, that just brings us back to their function as a projection screen for humans. So maybe, but so what? No one likes freeloaders. I suppose Wolfe might say that at least pirates fight and die for their looted treasure. But anyone could observe that, and anyway the inhumi are not very different from pirates in that regard.
>
>(Sorry, to restart a previous debate but when I say the inhumi can't do anything
>through their own efforts, that includes flying through space. I still assert
>they cannot do this impossible thing but perpetuate the lie because it masks
>their greatest weakness/secret. They can only achieve interplanetary travel as 
>stowaways, unwanted hitchhikers or even (in the case of the lander) hijacking. 
>I bring it up because I recently started to wonder about Patera Remora. His 
>name indicates a creature which is, by essential nature, an unwanted hitchhiker.
>Is there any evidence that Remora is or is not inhumi?)                              
>
>---The name is indeed troublingly out of place, and remoras are certainly hitchhikers, although they perform a service in exchange---don't forget symbiosis as an instructive moral lesson provided by our universe. They are also sometimes (ice) dragons. Are there any other characters named for fish?
>
>However, Remora doesn't act like he recognizes Quetzal for what he is, which you'd think he would if he were an inhumu. Maybe not.
>
>
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