Blicero/Weissman q - GR spoilers

[Shane Jones]

Hey all,

Long time reader, first time uh, writer.

Finished my first read through of GR not a week ago. Something's been on my
mind I wanted second, third, etc, opinions on. I got the impression from
bits of pt 4 that Thanatz and Blicero were the same person. Choice quotes
that lead me to this conclusion:

Pg. 683 - "Could it be Blicero's eyes, in which Greta Erdmann saw maps of
his Kingdom, are for Thanatz reflecting the past? That would be strange. .
."

Pg. 684 - "Blicero's own reflection in the oval mirror, an old face. . .
two faces looking back now, and Thanatz, are you going to judge this man?
Thanatz, haven't you loved the whip? Haven't you longed for the brush and
sigh of ladies' clothes? Haven't you wanted to murder a child you loved,
joyfully kill something so helpless and innocent. . . The cry that breaks
in your chest then, the sudden, solid arrival of loss, loss forever, the
irreversible end of love, of hope. . . no denying what you finally are. . ."

Pg. 685 - "He lost Gottfried, he lost Bianca, and he is only beginning,
this late into it, to see they are the same loss, to the same winner. . .
the two children, Gottfried and Bianca, are the same. . . He's lost
Blicero, but it wasn't quite as real. . ."

Where I'm getting tripped up is whether or not we're meant to believe these
two are literally the same person, two aspects sharing a body, with Thanatz
having "disposed" of his inner Blicero.

It seems just as likely to me, as their names suggest, these two represent
the same force, the same concept (death). The similarities in their
character - chiefly their ultimately fatal obsession with their respective
"children" - might speak more to their mutual devotion to their namesake.

Could also be that Thanatz, having fallen off the Anubis (pg. 680 - "Back
here, in [the Anubis'] wake, are the Preterite. . . blundering across one
another's flotsam, the scrapings, the dreary junking of memories."), has
found himself among the Preterite, stubbornly unable, or unwilling, to
accept it. Given this "junking of memories," it might be easy to fall into
delusions of identity.

Could also be I'm a bit off the mark. If anybody cares to weigh in, I'd
appreciate it.
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