38verisimilitude · 6mo
question about "He Of the Trees": at what point in his life did Jack Orfeo realize he was echoing the tale of Orpheus, and at what point had his life repeated enough of the tale that it was possible for him to achieve apotheosis if he so wished?
Since it seems to have been something of a pet theory of his from the ambitious younger days, my guess is he was deliberately doing so before things went wrong. I think he assumed he could get in enough to use the parts of the story he wanted but not so deep that he was bound to end the same way, and that his failure to rescue Heuridisia was when he realized he'd been wrong, and Apotheosis doesn't necessarily let you pick and choose like that so easily. Which is maybe a necessary lesson, that he then used against Chapman.
