(urth) Plant/Animal

Marc Aramini marcaramini at gmail.com
Wed Sep 17 06:57:43 PDT 2014


I think sometimes Wolfe likes making clichés come to life in not so obvious
ways. (green men, silk purse of a pig's ear for Silk in Pig, etc.)

On Wed, Sep 17, 2014 at 6:48 AM, Lee <severiansola at hotmail.com> wrote:

> >Marc Aramini:  Anyway, as I think Andrew Mason surmised long ago, the
> half vegetable
> >Spring Wind is Mars/March, son of Early Summer/June/Juno, Bird of the Wood
> >Is Rheas Silvia (whom Mars begets Romulus and Remus upon) ...
> >so how is the Green Man related to Mars? The name of Mars is Verthandi
> now,
> >eh? hmmm
>
>
> Yep, good detective work all around!
>
>
> > The story of Hyacinthus, where flowers spring up from blood, is vital to
>
> > the Short Sun universe.
>
>
>
> Given the character "Hyacinth" in Long Sun, I think the theme deserves all
> the attention
>
> is has gotten on this board and more.
>
>
> >Perhaps the Green Man is partially alien too, and only believes himself a
> true descendent of
>
> >man.
>
>
> The tale of the origin of Hieros is twisted and confused. But I think
> there is an implication that
>
> they are ultimately derived from human stock. There is a term I now
> forget,  in animal husbandry
>
> which describes taking extreme variants and rebreeding them with the
> original stock for genetic
>
> robusticity. I kinda think that may be what Wolfe is getting at here.
>
>
> >The Green Man warns Severian that if he begets a son, it will be his
> enemy.
> >Sev takes this as a generic prophecy.
>
>
> Interesting observation. Might this relate to the relationship of Zeus and
> Dionysus? In ancient
>
> Greece, rustic vine god worship was replaced by worship of the Olympic
> pantheon, but the
>
> worship of Zeus and his ilk was eventually replaced by Dionysisan worship.
>
>
> Severian does not have a son. But on the Whorl it seems like the
> relationship between Pas and
>
> Silk is somewhat Zeus-Dionysian.
>
>
> > That Green Man might be a damn Martian ...>
>
>
> >Dan'l Danehy-Oakes: Thank you very much. Now I will never be able to
> reread tBotNS without
> >envisioning Marvin.
>
>
> Heh. Though if any Martian connection was intended, perhaps Edgar Rice
> Burroughs and/or Ray
>
> Bradbury were the main reference? On the other hand, must we be snobby and
> assume that Wolfe
>
> valued these SF giants higher than Looney Toons?
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