Date: Fri, 08 Nov 2002 14:49:14 -0600
From: James Jordan 
Subject: Re: (urth) Pas's Two Heads

At 02:18 PM 11/8/2002, you wrote:

>As regards two-heads-being-better-than-one for inspiring or enhancing
>religious awe, as Nutria suggests, I must have been born lacking that gene.
> A two-headed man is a freak, like a two-headed calf; the idea of
>worshiping such a thing would never cross my mind. Sev's thoughts on first
>seeing Typhon were:
>
>"A man, larger than I and far broader of shoulder, stepped from between the
>foot of a cataphract, and it was as though one of the monstrous
>constellations of the night sky had fallen to Urth and clothed itself in the
>flesh of humankind. For the man had two heads, like an ogre in some
>forgotten tale in _The Wonders of Urth and Sky_.
>     "Instinctively, I put my hand on the sword hilt at my shoulder."
>
>Sev's gut reaction was not to fall to his knees, but to grab a weapon. And
>the more Sev found out about him, the less he liked him. Sev may have feared
>the power of the monster, but that didn't stop him from killing it, having
>first refused, specifically and emphatically, to worship it.
>
>-Roy

But then, why would Typhon make himself look like an ogre? My point was 
that two-headed gods are not unknown, especially in Rome, and Rome is a big 
deal for Wolfe. In the symbolism of the Whorl novels, the mainframe gods 
are like the Roman ones, the Whorl like the Roman empire, and Viron like 
Israel at the time of Jesus. So a two-headed Roman god like Janus makes 
sense. The Romans did not view Janus as an ogre, however Severian might 
have looked upon him.

FWIW

JBJordan


--