{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/1493", "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it. Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.", "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'" }, "archive": "urth", "thread": { "id": 1493, "subject": "The Nature of the Aborigines of St Anne (again)", "messages": 1, "voices": 1, "first": "1999-04-07T14:11:53+00:00", "last": "1999-04-07T14:11:53+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Tony Ellis", "address": "tony.ellis at futurenet.co.uk" }, "date": "1999-04-07T14:11:53+00:00", "subject": "(urth) The Nature of the Aborigines of St Anne (again)", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Mitchell A. Bailey wrote:\nI myself when I first read 5HC pondered the possibility that the Shadow\nChildren were the evolved offspring of pleiomorphs and the abos were\ndescendants of human colonists. I belive that the evidence, apart from\nwhat the Shadow Children say about themselves, more convincingly\nsuggests the converse." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "My primary objection to this is artistic. If the Shadow Children really\nare the descendants of space-travelling humans, why is that fantastic\ntruth handed to us on a plate right from the start? Why is the \"wrong\"\nexplanation raised at the climax of the story? That's not how it's done.\nYou build to a revelation. You feed your reader the wrong explanation\nfirst, then surprise him with the truth. Look how we're set up to think\nthat Number Five is Maitre's son in the first novella, or that the\nperson writing in jail in \"V.R.T.\" is still Dr Marsch.\n\nI'm also struck by the way the Shadow-Children-as-indigenous theory is\nraised not once, but twice. The Old Wise One first says \"we were mostly\nlong, and lived in holes\", casting a shadow of doubt over what we've\nbeen told earlier, and then -later-, on a different occasion, \"we were\nalways here\". Such reiteration suggests to me that we're being told\nsomething significant." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "The explaination I would offer is basec on the fact that, as you say,\nthe Old Wise One at the time this remark was made was being generated by\none lone Shadow Child, Sandwalker, and a tenuous contribution from every\nother Shadow Child band on St. Anne." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Guess I better own up to a goof: when the OWO makes that statement there\n are still three Shadow Children of that band remaining with Sandwalker." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "As you say." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": " ...Contrast this with the\nOld Wise One's manner when the Shadow Child band was intact earlier, at\nwhich time he was more knowledgable and confident of his viewpoint and\nbeliefs." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Which is just why I don't believe him. As you yourself say, the Shadow\nChildren have \"inflated\" egos and \"a poor grasp of reality\", and each\none is \"part of a telepathic mental continuum\". We are also told that\nthey have the power to pick up the \"songs\" or thoughts of those around\nthem, and amplify them. They tell Sandwalker, for example, \"we are\ntaller than you, and stronger\". We should trust the Old Wise One, when\nthese are the ones generating him?\n\nOne more thing. When the Old Wise One confesses that he is confused, he\ngoes on to talk of an indigenous people, and a second, star-travelling\nrace, our \"Atlanteans\". The first \"heard the songs of the second and\nsent them out again\", which is to say, they had a strong telepathic\nability right from the start. If Sandwalker's people were the indigenous\npeople, why is it that the Shadow Children are the ones with the\ntelepathic ability?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "My impression of the contact accounts Dr. Marsch recorded in his journal\nin \"V.R.T.\" were more likely with pleio-abos than Shadow Children. It is\nstrongly implied they only occured in daylight..." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Well, Mary also says \"one night Pa killed three\", arguing that the same\ncreatures she saw were also active at night. But I'm mostly persuaded by\nher \"...the children, the little ones, you know\", which sounds like\nclassic Wolfean hiding-the-truth-in-plain-view." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": " ...and the last one\nremembered by Culot's grandfather in particular was alone and\ncamouflaging itself." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I don't think that was what was being described. We're initially told\nthat the creature looked \"sometimes like a man, but sometimes like the\npost of a fence\" which certainly sounds like the fabled Annese\nshape-changing ability, but then Wolfe immediately has M. Culot correct\nhimself, saying \"sometimes like a man, sometimes like old wood.\" We're\nalso carefully told that M. Culot senior liked to express his contempt\nfor the way other people failed to see properly, by being economic with\nthe truth. Now, why go to all this trouble? Why prime us with all this,\nunless there is more going on here than meets the eye? I think what M.\nCulot senior was really saying was that this creature was gnarled and\ntwisted like old wood, which sounds like one of the Shadow Children to\nme." } ] } ] }