Some of you must be thinking, "This guy, Shackley, finds some grotesque comparisons to make." However, a phrase in a work of prose fiction can recall an image in a work of graphic fiction even if the settings are as diverse as an extrasolar planet in a hard sf novel and Hell in a dark fantasy comic strip.
On the Fleet flagship, Rodonis hears the rattling of wings that have been cut from a slave and hung on a yardarm. (Ythrian slaves also have clipped wings although I think that, in that case, they can grow back.) Rodonis imagines her imprisoned husband bearing red stumps on his back.
When, in Neil Gaiman's The Sandman: Season Of Mists, Lucifer Morningstar resigns and retires as Lord of Hell, he asks Morpheus to cut off his wings. One panel, which I could not find by googling, shows red stumps on his back.
A single fictional universe can contain realms as diverse as Gotham City, the Dreaming and Hell. A multiverse contains even more. A version of the Adversary speaks in Poul Anderson's Operation Chaos although, since this prosaic, non-visual version is more like a personified abstraction of evil, he is not described as either embodied or winged.
Addendum: Concerning Ythrians:
"'...the feathers could grow back...'"
-Poul Anderson, The People Of The Wind IN Anderson, Rise Of The Terran Empire (Riverdale, NY, 2011), pp. 437-662 AT IV, p. 486.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
Yes, the clipped wings of Ythrian slaves mentioned in Chapter IV of THE PEOPLE OF THE WING could grow back. Ythrian slavery does not seem to have been permanent. I get the impression that it was used as a punishment for crime and was of varying lengths. Yes, clipping was much milder than the grimmer, and permanent cutting off of a Diomedean's wings in THE MAN WHO COUNTS.
Sean
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