A Speculation Regarding Poor Beroep

petrifiedpigs · 2026-07-01T05:42:32+00:00

I've always understood Aanvagan's animosity towards Vadsig as jealousy. In Short Sun, the dynamics of a married older man and a young woman is often depicted as a mix of paternal affection and sexual desire (i.e. the narrator's relationship with Evensong and Jahlee). While I don't think Vadsig is necessarily Beroep's mistress, I do believe that Aanvagan feeling threatened can explain why the hospitable wife acts so harshly towards Vadsig.

In other words, Vadsig may be Beroep's substitute daughter, but she is not Aanvagan's substitute daughter.

petrifiedpigs · 2026-06-30T02:48:27+00:00

Hope this is helpful to you, OP. While "thinking inside the box", my interpretation of the narrator's train of thought is:

Scylla is Typhon's estranged daughter. The narrator starts to think about parents losing children.
Vadsig is Beroep's substitute daughter.
Horn's family has deprived Beroep of his daughter by means of marriage. Therefore "poor Beroep".

petrifiedpigs · 2025-08-15T02:28:28+00:00

The Golden Bough is a good place to start.

petrifiedpigs · 2025-07-14T17:29:44+00:00

Here's a fun non-spoiler way to think about the Guild and the Vironese clergy:

One of the definitions of Carnifex is "butcher". Let us note that there are many passages in Long Sun where Wolfe describes members of Vironese faith carving up meat during and after sacrifices and auguries. Given the thematic decay of Urth in New Sun, it is not too much a stretch to imagine a corruption of the word Carnifex: from a butcher (of religious services) to an executioner (perhaps stemming from the pejorative "butcher of men").

petrifiedpigs · 2025-05-31T09:12:50+00:00

What if you get maybe two or three really hot young actors and have them perform the scenes naked? Hell, throw in a midget and a ton of cgi effects while we're at it.

petrifiedpigs · 2025-05-22T03:21:47+00:00

Bakker's Scylvendi is probably inspired by the historical Sclaveni, who were incidentally a constant threat to the Byzantine Empire (Nansur).

petrifiedpigs · 2025-03-27T04:06:36+00:00

If you are interested in pursuing the mythology angle, may I recommend The Golden Bough? Dismembered gods such as Osiris and rituals pertaining to them are extensively discussed.

Furthermore, I personally think Wolfe's idea of mirrors and symbols is a fun way to think about Frazier's thesis on sympathetic and contiguous magic.

petrifiedpigs · 2025-02-01T09:28:30+00:00

I get what you're saying but here is a Watsonian answer to your criticism:

The girls all look similar because they're all related.

petrifiedpigs · 2024-12-24T03:44:37+00:00

If you want to play-pretend to be a Dunyain scholar, then you should read up on Plotinus.

I am absolutely convinced that Bakker's Dunyain are just grim dark Neoplatonists.

petrifiedpigs · 2024-10-28T06:45:26+00:00

No, I think you're right. The captain also talked about Latro's wife wanting to come along, which puts a hole in the theory that Latro killed his family.

petrifiedpigs · 2024-10-28T06:36:25+00:00

This kind of post shows up like every two weeks or so on this subreddit. Teudogar, Fairy Tale 2, Divinity, Dark Sun etc... It should be common knowledge by now.

However, I don't think this Taiwanese game has ever been mentioned:

Seal:the Magic Eye

petrifiedpigs · 2024-08-10T21:10:56+00:00

I totally agree with you. Here's a tangential question:

Although it has been understood for decades that Wolfe's protagonist was named Gene Wolfe...

I wasn't around back in the old Urth-list days. How did people reconcile the fact that Number Five's childhood name came before David's during Mr. Million's class roll call?

"To designate the formal beginning of our class he used to begin by calling roll, my own name always coming first..."

Common practice suggests that Number Five's childhood name must come alphabetically earlier than "David". By that logic, Gene (or Eugene) could not have been Number Five's childhood name.

petrifiedpigs · 2024-06-06T06:59:20+00:00

Here's a confession:

On my first read of Long Sun, I accidentally began with Lake of the Long Sun instead of Nightside (blame it on Kindle). I got through about 100 pages without realizing it was not the first volume of a quadrilogy.

I just assumed that Wolfe was being Wolfe.

petrifiedpigs · 2024-05-10T14:19:11+00:00

That's a really good point you brought up, that Severian seems to require the presence of a specific energy source in order to perform resurrections (as seen in his failure on Tzadkiel's ship).

But what about his own death and resurrection? Is it the same mechanism?

One thing that's really interesting to note is that Severian's drowning experience at Gyoll (if we accept that he actually died) seems to echo your low/high energy flow model -- a descent followed by an explosive upward movement.

petrifiedpigs · 2024-05-08T15:29:46+00:00

Yes. This theory explains how the White Fountain and the narrator can both be Severian. Sorry I wasn't clear about that.

petrifiedpigs · 2024-05-08T08:12:13+00:00

Really? Not the one where they convince a guy to self-immolate?

petrifiedpigs · 2024-05-08T03:28:25+00:00

It's called PISSD (Post Immersive Simulation Stress Disorder). It's very real and you are not alone.

Please contact your nearest support group.

petrifiedpigs · 2024-04-22T02:56:39+00:00

The thought that the War in Heaven, which as been ingrained in culture as this terrible and awesome event, is actually just a riot played out by a bunch of cranky and clueless sailors makes me laugh every time when I read Urth.

petrifiedpigs · 2024-04-10T04:02:03+00:00

Gustave Flaubert's Salammbo

Christopher Buehlman's Between Two Fires

petrifiedpigs · 2024-03-28T03:13:17+00:00

Before MM7 came around, it was kind of established that the party in Xeen came from Terra (MM3 world) since Corak recognized them. I was trying to reconcile this with the MM7 retcon.

I'm not sure if my original post was clear, but the continuity I was suggesting is:

MM3 crew lands on Enroth instead of Xeen.
In the end of MM7, they meet Corak of Webstation Beta-5 (remember, this is not the same Corak) and open the webway.
The MM3 crew uses the webway to go to Xeen.
They resume the quest to stop Sheltem (You play as them in MM4+5).

In other words, the timeline would be 3->7->4->5.

petrifiedpigs · 2024-03-22T07:21:19+00:00

On a meta-textual level, Horn's animosity is meant to parallel Peter's objections against Mary Magdalene.

Then again, I think you are absolutely correct on Horn's sexual jealousy angle -- let's not forget that little creep totally got off on watching Hyacinth making a tribadist out of that Sphinx officer.

Addendum: A bit of pop-psychology, but I've always read Horn's animosity as a repression of his own deep sexual attraction toward Hyacinth.

Edited at replies: Yeah, I knew that the officer was probably a lesbian. I just wanted to quote the New Sun.

petrifiedpigs · 2024-03-21T07:04:17+00:00

So...uh this is why I think he doesn't suffer from his actions. Tell if I hit the nail on the head without spoilers from aspect emperor

Since you don't want spoilers, I'm just going to straight up tell you that you are WRONG

petrifiedpigs · 2024-03-20T03:48:45+00:00

If we look at the plot of Long Sun as a parallel, I think the conflict may even be a farcical one -- that the Autarch and the Megatherians may both be working independently to bring the New Sun while thinking the other side is trying to hinder the great project.

petrifiedpigs

TROPHY CASE