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From: erkyrath@netcom.com (Andrew Plotkin)
Subject: Re: Cyclops puzzle in Zork I: How does one solve it?
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Date: Mon, 16 Dec 1996 23:42:40 GMT
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Trevor Barrie (tbarrie@cycor.ca) wrote:
> erkyrath@netcom.com (Andrew Plotkin) wrote:

> >(SPOILERS, yeah, for Zork 1.)





















> >Saying "Odysseus" is hinted all over the place, if you know the Odyssey. 
> >First of all, Odysseus (or Ulysses, both names work) is a famous hero who 
> >defeated a cyclops -- *the* cyclops, in fact. 

> No, *a* cyclops. Polyphemus was quite explicitly a member of a whole race of
> cyclopes. Or did you just mean that this was the same one as in Zork I? (Was
> that one blind? I don't recall.)

No, no, I'm sorry. I didn't mean there was only one cyclops in the 
Odyssey (although for some reason I thought so -- look, I'm a geek, I 
haven't read it since junior high school). I meant that the Odysseus 
story is the only mention of cyclopes in our fictional storehouse. It's 
not like, say, dragons -- there are dragon legends from all over the 
place, not obviously connected. Well, maybe in Homer's time there were 
cyclops legends all over the place, but all of them have been lost except 
one. Unless some historian knows otherwise.

> Eh. D&D or not, in my experience most people will know that a cyclops is a
> one-eyed monster; few of them are familiar with the Odyssey.

That's exactly my point. All of them learned it from some source which 
traces back to the Odyssey.

> >Furthermore, the prayer book in the temple *is* the story of the Odyssey, 
> >just to remind you. 

> Maybe I'm not being metaphorical enough, but I don't see how Odysseus'
> problems were caused by him going around saying unto others "Hello
> sailor".:)

Not *him* specifically, but all the events apply. His ship was thrown 
upon the rocks, he poked out someone's eye with a sharp stick... and unto 
the land of the dead he eventually went.

--Z

-- 

"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the
borogoves..."
