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Post by doctornolonger on Nov 30, 2022 16:10:05 GMT
Verily, I have given yon my strength,
Says the father, says the father.
The shirt will cause you to live,
Says the father, says the father.We're in the home stretch now! The last few sections of the "secret pathway" reading order concern different facets and factions of the Remote, and that sequence begins this week with The Ghost Dance. - A’daltem Ano’nde (p. 7)
- Belial (p. 16-17)
- Catch-the-Bear’s War Bonnet (p. 28-29)
- Ghost Shirts (p. 73)
- North American Warrior Tribes (p. 139-140)
- Nun’aha’wu (p. 141)
- Open Doors (p. 142)
- Pai’ngya (p. 147-148)
- Peyote Dream-Runners (p. 151)
- Sand and Snow Ammunition (p. 171)
- Tenskwatawa (p. 187)
- Appendix II (p. 235-236)
See you next week for The History of the Remote!
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Post by garyshots on Dec 16, 2022 20:27:02 GMT
I like the alphabetical sections, they appeal to whatever the hell my neurodivergence is.
It's an interesting section, with some suggestive resonances. The Grandfather's shadow is long here.
For example, Pai'ngya lost his finger when he claimed the Screaming Skull rifle, like Octavia in the House of Lords. I initially thought this was merely the logic of magic (you've got to sacrifice a bit of yourself for power/knowledge, like Odin's eye), but now I wonder if they're re-enacting the Act of Severance in miniature? And Pai'ngya is described as "merely a tool for the medicine of Screaming Skull, an extension of the gun and not the other way around", and then again as "a mere extension of the weapon's function" in case we've forgotten. Is this a bit like Justine and the Grandfather's shadow?
When the "shadow-spirit" leaves the rifle, it erases the cartouche, a word that can also apply to Egyptian hieroglyphs. Wasn't the Grandfather's tattoo a sort of cartouche, then? When we learn about the Rubbing Ceremony, it also involves name-sigils being erased and intitates sung out of their family songs, and we're told that the similarity with the Grandfather's retirement from history is striking. What struck me was the parallel with (sigh) Elective Semantectomy (an ugly term, but then the Great Houses are an ugly culture). We're dealing with damnatio memoriae here (a far lovelier term).
Tenskwatawa's rebuke to Belial that prefaces North American Warrior Tribes is fascinating. We're told that Tenskwatawa is a Great Houses stooge, basically, and that Belial understood "how to counter the religious doctrines being introduced into the warrior societies by the Great Houses". We're told that the Great Houses propaganda involves messianic ideologies, encouragements towards pacifism, and a rejection of the Faction's techno-fetishism. Where does roasting a witch alive for three days come in? We learn from Appendix II that she has a mysterious "flying charm", but he's not that interested in it: he just gives it away to Belial to dispose of. Tenskwatawa's ritualised torture has echoes of Vlad III: if one was inspired by the Great Houses, perhaps they both were.
I like the joke about Alice Lugosi saying that Billy never drank ...wine. |
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