The castle hypothesis is thin ice, but ice nonetheless. It tells us that the VMs artist was familiar with fortifications having swallowtail merlons - probably through firsthand experience, but not necessarily. The implied geography is informative, the chronology not so much. That's why this is thin ice.
Pointing out the thin spots in other locations does not address the issue of interpretation of the cosmic comparison. Structure can be used as a basis for objective comparison. The similarities are clear. Why the VMs is visually divergent is a separate matter. Why are the 43 undulations in the VMs cosmic boundary ambiguous?
The VMs castle is anonymous. It has no known real-world connection. The VMs cosmos has two good historical comparisons. Well, the inner part - of course. The outer part of the VMs cosmos is where the artist totally blows the lid off of his/her modus operandi. The outer part also has a good historical connection.
If the alteration of appearance is a good trick to disguise the borrowed cosmic diagram - visual alteration in each of the three parts without any change in the cosmic structure - then the pairing of disparate images is a master stroke. As long as the trickery goes unrecognized, it's working. Artistic trickery can again be demonstrated in VMs White Aries. It is clearly built into that illustration.
That could be why the ice *appears* thin, if you're looking at the trickery, but not 'getting it'. It's because the trick is that the identification is based on structure and not on appearance.
Pointing out the thin spots in other locations does not address the issue of interpretation of the cosmic comparison. Structure can be used as a basis for objective comparison. The similarities are clear. Why the VMs is visually divergent is a separate matter. Why are the 43 undulations in the VMs cosmic boundary ambiguous?
The VMs castle is anonymous. It has no known real-world connection. The VMs cosmos has two good historical comparisons. Well, the inner part - of course. The outer part of the VMs cosmos is where the artist totally blows the lid off of his/her modus operandi. The outer part also has a good historical connection.
If the alteration of appearance is a good trick to disguise the borrowed cosmic diagram - visual alteration in each of the three parts without any change in the cosmic structure - then the pairing of disparate images is a master stroke. As long as the trickery goes unrecognized, it's working. Artistic trickery can again be demonstrated in VMs White Aries. It is clearly built into that illustration.
That could be why the ice *appears* thin, if you're looking at the trickery, but not 'getting it'. It's because the trick is that the identification is based on structure and not on appearance.