<div>Sorry I haven't figured out how to reply to a thread, I'm still creating new ones instead.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Re: Unpronouncable Seawrack:</div>
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<div>Some relevant passages.</div>
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<div>On page 148:</div>
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<div>"...the truth is that her name, which was no word of the Common Tongue, baffled</div>
<div>me, and that Seawrack was near to it in sound and seemed to suit her very well."</div>
<div> </div>
<div>I guess you could say that "no word of the Common Tongue" means an alien language,</div>
<div>or it simply means an archaic name taken from a very old language. Either way, Horn</div>
<div>can't pronounce it properly.</div>
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<div>Page 149:</div>
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<div>"She smiled, It was if a child had smiled, and by smiling had made her face</div>
<div>transparent, so that I could see the woman she would someday be and had always </div>
<div>been, the woman who stands behind all women and stands behind even Kypris,</div>
<div>Thelxiepeia, and Echidna. If that woman has a name I do not know it; "Seawrack"</div>
<div>is as good a name as any."</div>
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<div>The three Long Sun Gods are linked to Greek mythology:</div>
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<div>Kypris = Aphrodite, born of sea foam</div>
<div>Thelxiepeia = One of the sirens in the Odyssey according to Tzetzes</div>
<div>Echidna = Mother of all Monsters, head of a nymph and body of a serpent</div>
<div> </div>
<div>So, I think that Seawrack is a Common Tongue translation of an Ancient Greek name for</div>
<div>"a woman who stands behind all women," probably the Great Mother who shows up</div>
<div>in the Soldier series. I see parallels between Short Sun and the Odyssey, </div>
<div>so will dig around more when I can.</div>
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<div>Re: One Arm</div>
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<div>The Babbie evidence appears at the top of page 155, where Seawrack is petting </div>
<div>Babbie's head:</div>
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<div>"As her left hand stroked it, I noticed dried blood among the folds</div>
<div>of skin on the stump that had been her left arm, and understood why she had been</div>
<div>so afraid of Babbie, and whose blood had stained the deck of the bow."</div>