On Blue's Waters

[avram]

When Horn accidentally uses his own name instead of his sons’ (pg. 129), Wolfe is foreshadowing the switch that takes place later, when Horn winds up in Silk’s body. This confused me on the first reading (as it was supposed to), but it’s obvious on the second. Maytera Marble/Rose’s shifts of self also foreshadow this.

On page 145, Horn describes the knife Sinew gave him, and writes: “I have heard men speak of better blades, but I have never met with one.” I’m pretty sure Severian said something similar about his sword, Terminus Est, but I can’t find it.

The Mother, who Horn believes is a sea goddess of Blue’s native people, appears as a humanoid woman three times his height, rising from the sea. She could be one of the titanic sea-women of Urth, who could swim among worlds. Though he also glimpses something beneath her that she appears to be standing upon; for some reason, I’m thinking of her humanoid form as a malleable pseudopod of a larger being, given that shape for the sake of communicating with Horn or Seawrack, but I don’t know if I’m remembering something from my previous reading.

Horn gives Seawrack her name because he can’t pronounce the one she previously had, which he says sounds similar. “Tzadkiel”, perhaps? This would fit in with Mother-as-pseudopod, and imply that Seawrack is herself a detached appendage (as Zak was in Urth of the New Sun).

Comments

[mneme]

>When Horn accidentally uses his own name instead of his sons’ (pg. 129),
>Wolfe is foreshadowing the switch that takes place later, when Horn
>winds up in Silk’s body.

It's worth remembering that the entire Short Sun is written from the POV of Horn-inside/as-Silk. I really need to reread these keeping this in mind, since it changes a lot of how things are flavored, I think.

>On page 145, Horn describes the knife Sinew gave him, and writes: “I
>have heard men speak of better blades, but I have never met with one.”
>I’m pretty sure Severian said something similar about his sword,
>Terminus Est, but I can’t find it.

Is it significant that Silk had a legendary weapon (um, whatever it's called -- the light saber)?

[avram]

The azoth. It might be, except he doesn’t use it much, and gives it away halfway through the series. Still, he gets it as a gift (as Severian does his sword, as Horn does his knife).