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Disappointing egg posted:Really? I thought the theory was Silk is a clone of Typhon instead, or is that what you're talking about? Yeah, I thought Pas was Typhon, more or less. His personality uploaded to Mainframe (like the other Gods) when Typhon launched the starships back in his time of BotNS. I get that Silk was genetically engineered, so I assume the theory is that he was more or less a clone of Pas/Typhon?
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Jun 7, 2012 13:54
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Oops, I forgot about the Short Sun books and haven't read them yet
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Jun 8, 2012 10:33
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I still don't really know what I'm supposed to think about the Latro books 
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Nov 1, 2012 02:21
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I just started reading Book of the Long Sun again and realized (this probably isn't anything amazing) but basically everything Silk does is probably influenced by him being enlightened at the very beginning. He gets a glimpse of everything and then from that point on his decisions are probably influenced by that...what to do, etc. Kind of a play on fate and controlling your destiny, perhaps Or I"m completely wrong, I dunno
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Nov 12, 2012 01:14
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Yeah I wasn't exactly thinking that he saw his entire path layed out exactly before him, but the coincidences that happen immediately afterwards made me kind of thing he was subconsciously acting on the information he did receive. But maybe I'm making too much of that
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Nov 12, 2012 14:56
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That's actually what I don't really remember, is he reviving himself or are the hierodules reviving him every time he dies?
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Mar 12, 2013 19:43
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House Louse posted:On the other hand, they and Tzadkiel are both on the ship. I seem to remember it as always being his own virtue, though. It's been too long since I've read these. I know what I'm reading next. Yeah, I can't remember why the heirdols are interested in him and doing all that they do if he doesn't have some kind of innate powers, but it's been a long while since I read it as well
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Mar 13, 2013 19:37
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Ornamented Death posted:I've read BotNS twice and I have almost no idea what anyone is talking about. I think it's time for a reread + finally getting to Long and Short Sun. A lot of that stuff is in Urth of the New Sun, I think. I just don't remember how he brought about the New Sun or he specifically was needed for that or whatever
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Mar 14, 2013 03:02
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Fenrra posted:At least that is better then This is amazing
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Jul 9, 2013 19:54
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House Louse posted:I think this is explicit, but just in case yes, Typhon buit the Whorl when the Old Sun suddenly faded, which he mentions in Sword. Why the gods are him and his family... I dunno. Also it's pretty clear that Severian is not Christ. iirc the gods are him and his family because he basically uploaded their consciousness into the spaceship and gave them admin access. It also sounds like he was kind of big on being worshipped as a god back in the book of the new sun
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Oct 20, 2014 15:34
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Long sun is great and even better when you realize that what appears to be an omniscient author can be unreliable as well
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Sep 19, 2015 05:46
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I'm reading The Dying Earth and besides the obvious setting that Wolfe drew from it, it's funny to see the parallels between Cugel and Severian. Wolfe's writing is much more complex and the character partially hidden behind his own narration but they're both characters you really aren't supposed to look at as heroes you should like. Cugel starts of his story by selling fraudulent baubles, breaks into a house to steal poo poo, rapes several women, and basically is just a lovely person, but it is funny how it's written that it's not so entirely in your face about how lovely he is. His terrible deeds aren't exactly played up for drama or something. It's a little like how you can miss a lot of what Severian is doing being really lovely if you're just casually reading through the books (though again not as subtle, it's definitely hard to miss that Cugel is a lovely person)
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Jun 10, 2017 13:27
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Pistol_Pete posted:I hate the bit in Wizard Knight when Abel rocks up on a ship, insults the captain to his face and eventually murders him and chucks him off the ship 'cos he failed to show proper respect or some poo poo and never seems particularly sorry afterwards. I wondered a bit how much of that was him still being a kid inside an adult body and Pouk told him how everyone’s going to be out to scam him so he went a bit far in aggressively making sure he wasn’t being scammed Though he killed the captain since the captain tried to kill him and after able had helped save the ship
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Jul 13, 2023 12:31
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Lex Talionis posted:Able is an immature kid who thinks honor is how people treat you, so he violently forces his own self-image of himself as a Knight on people and thinks that makes him honorable. Because he happens to have lucked into being the biggest, strongest dude alive with an over-the-top number of enchanted inventory items, he wins every fight and so people come around to thinking he's amazing despite the fact he's acting like an enormous rear end in a top hat. I mean, I think it’s even more complicated than that. He knows he’s a kid, he’s still really thoughtful on some things, but yeah is still an rear end in a top hat on a lot of other things, but the world is complicated and full of people being assholes and weird stuff as well The ship scenario is a little more complicated than Pistol Pete mentioned but still kinda initiated by able being an rear end
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Jul 15, 2023 00:41
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Re-reading the long sun and about 200 pages in and drat Silk is really suicidal huh
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Oct 16, 2023 04:01
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on the last book of Long Sun now and man...just really gotta feel for Silk again I go back to the number of times he thinks about or attempts suicide as well and just desperately craves some release from the burdens put on him but also feels so responsible, it's pretty interesting and very Gene Wolfe how things can be hinted at/left unsaid but play a lot into character development. I think one part where it says something along the lines of him testing Hyacinth's needler but it didn't fire and he congratulated himself on testing it really came across as a failed suicide attempt that was very played off as just a thing
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Nov 28, 2023 21:19
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Ogmius815 posted:But Apu-Panchau is dead and has been for a long time. In this chapter the characters interact with him by somehow warping space time (which the seer tells us is eternal). But if time is eternal (i.e. unchanging and permanent) surely the past can’t actually CHANGE. To be honest I"m not good with all of the crazy details of BotNS but I don't think this point is correct. Think about Severian "nearly drowning" near the beginning, or "miraculously" surviving the avern duel. I think there's more to it later so I'm trying not to spoil things (and I might even be remembering them wrong anyways). This also has implications regarding Apu-Panchau though I'm not sure if that becomes clear until Urth of the New Sun
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Dec 18, 2023 20:22
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I think a lot of things are made more explicit in Urth and I'm probably remembering parts from that but I think interpreting time as not being changeable isn't quite right
Levitate fucked around with this message at 21:36 on Dec 18, 2023 |
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Dec 18, 2023 21:33
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Gaius Marius posted:I swear there is a part in Urth where someone in Typhon's camp outright states that he built a fleet and sent it out to return and reconquer Urth as a backup plan, but I cannot find it with a simple text search, one of the few drawbacks of the baroque vocabulary used. Regardless It fits with his character the man is completely obsessed with his material form achieving immortality, in contrast to his clone Silk who desperately wants to end himself because the fragile emotional state he is in nearly constantly being torn between his duty and his feelings, not knowing if the gods he worships are real gods, or even worthy of respect, and finding that he can't tell how much of his life was of his own volition, based on his genetic disposition as the heir of Pas, or part of the Outsider's grander plan. Imagine falling totally and completely in love with a woman, someone you'd throw away every precept of your upbringing for, and at the back of your mind knowing that some/all of it must be because you were designed to fall for her because she is possessed by your Father/Genetic Twins favorite mistress. If we take Typhon and Silk and treat them as the same character, you can see that the reason Typhon acts as he does is a fear of being dominated himself leads him to dominate others, it is a response built out of fear, Silk himself cannot seem to walk his own path even when he tries and he himself is scared of the latent impulse to destroy and dominate that comes out in him when he is cornered or forced to act. I like this post if for no other reason that it does tie everything together in plausible ways (though I can't really say much about the Short Sun analysis). I just finished Long Sun last night and it didn't quite click with me that Silk was a clone of Pas until you mentioned it, even though right there at the end he has another theophany with Kypris which reveals his face as one of Pas'. Though which raises another questions in that I thought Silk was a clone of the previous Calde as it is hinted, so was the previous Calde also a Pas clone? But also as I read that and the Defense at the end of the book it did click about Hy and how with Silk as the Pas standin, she would be the Echidna standin, and how that works with how she's portrayed in the books and Horn's comments on her at the end of the book. That said, what evidence is there of her being possessed by Echidna? I don't remember if there's anything explicit other than I guess when Silk first enters her chambers at Blood's mansion, he briefly sees colors in the glass. I do really like your breakdown of the tensions within Silk though as it jives a lot with what I was trying to put together in my head of his feelings and actions. How all the rest of it ties together I can't really say if I get on with it or not as I need to read Short Sun again but again I think some of the stuff with Wolfe is that you can put it all together like that and make thematic sense of it, whether or not that is the true" intention Gaius Marius posted:I don't know who said that the back half of Long is slow but they are out of their gourds. poo poo is popping off so quickly in the last book that it's nearly impossible to keep up with who is allied to who and who is where. It's like the French Revolution, WWII, and a Tsunami are all happening simultaneously and the writing and pace reflect that. I think there are a lot of long discussions that take place in the back half but also a lot of stuff moves forward very quickly (and many times off screen). Up to the reader I think to decide if it feels like an "exposition dump" or if it's a method of exploring characters and their motives while slowing the pace of events before jerking forward again in actual events. Consider we learn at the end that this is an account written down by Horn and not an omnipresent narrator then some of the bouncing to different things and locations and parts being more filled out where Horn is present makes sense. I think the first half of Long Sun has that self contained story feel and you're looking at the small actions that gradually build to the culmination of Silk being named Calde, while the second half takes on the bigger picture of not just the Whorl politics but the grander scheme as well
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Dec 20, 2023 18:50
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Appoda posted:And I like Silk, who in spite of having what I'd consider an unrealistic level of devotion (and is sometimes treated as such), is so much more approachable as a character than Sevarian, who was always a dark little weirdo with a personality that's hard to extricate from the present moment, his future self writing, eating brains, his "memory", the "first Sevarian" stuff, etc. Also fun contrast in how Sev fucks every woman he meets, while Silk gets mad pussy laid at his feet and is nothing but mortified every time a girl so much as looks at him. I mean it's a pretty large plot element with how Silk struggles with his faith (and how it changes over time), what is demanded of Augers, and his own desires. He clearly wishes he could take action on many of the proposals that come his way yet cannot (at least for the fear of losing access to theophanies)
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Dec 20, 2023 19:31
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Gaius Marius posted:In the same dream that Silk is revealed definitely to be a Pas/Typhon clone you also learn that Hyacinth is possessed by Kypris, same with Chenille. That is why Silk conflates his mother's face, Kypris, Chenille and Hy. oh hm, yeah I see. For some reason I thought I read what you said as her being possessed by Echidna. I guess we don't know a lot about Kypris but her being obsessed with Silk/Pas the way Hy is also makes sense. Her demeanour towards everyone else I suppose is less domineering in the way we are shown Echidna is supposed to be, and more shallow quote:
yeah he explicitly talks about seeing the worst of people and how horrible it is, not just in himself but in others, and how that led to his near suicide attempt. I feel like the Outsider is setup to be literal God but when you put it that way as well I guess it gets somewhat interesting in thinkign what the Outsider could be. What are your thoughts on that? Another construction of Typhon to carry out his plan one way or another "outside" the influence of the family feuds? AI of Mainframe carrying out Pas' plan?
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Dec 20, 2023 21:27
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