{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/1940",
    "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": 1940,
    "subject": "brown \"walls\" a cradle make",
    "messages": 3,
    "voices": 3,
    "first": "1999-11-08T16:09:20+00:00",
    "last": "1999-11-09T02:17:24+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0028-0429@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Michael Andre-Driussi",
        "address": "mantis at sirius.com"
      },
      "date": "1999-11-08T16:09:20+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) brown \"walls\" a cradle make",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": []
    },
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0028-0437@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Charles Dye",
        "address": "raster at highfiber.com"
      },
      "date": "1999-11-08T21:44:18+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Re: brown \"walls\" a cradle make",
      "in_reply_to": "<urth-v0028-0429@digest.urth.net>",
      "reply_link": "subject",
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Michael Andre-Driussi <mantis at sirius.com> writes:"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "brown \"walls\" a cradle make"
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Or, as the mandragora suggests, a basket....\n\nraster at highfiber.com"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0028-0438@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Roy C. Lackey",
        "address": "rclackey at stic.net"
      },
      "date": "1999-11-09T02:17:24+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Re:brown \"walls\" a cradle make",
      "in_reply_to": "<urth-v0028-0437@digest.urth.net>",
      "reply_link": "subject",
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "mantis,\n\nYes, that occurred to me, too. I wonder if Dorcas's basket was the same\ncolor. <g> It was just an aside, leading to this question: Where was\nSeverian born? He states than none of the guild are born among the torturers\nand that new guild members come \"solely from the children of those who fall\ninto our hands.\" I take that to mean that only children orphaned by the\nguild's actions (or simply stolen from \"clients\" who survive their ordeals)\nare eligible. Only male children able to stand upright beneath a bar the\nheight of a man's groin are taken. That means, presumably, that the male\nchildren have to be old enough to stand on their own, but no more than 2 or\n3 years old. Male children of pregnant women who survive their mothers'\nbeing gutted are given a wet-nurse. Since there are no women in or otherwise\nemployed by the guild, this means that the male babies are not raised in the\nMatachin tower. There is no nursery. Whether any of these new-made male\norphans eventually become eligible to pass the height test for admission to\nthe guild is uncertain from the text.\n\nThe above, coupled with the memory Sev has of being breast-fed by his mother\nwhile surrounded by the gray walls of a cell, suggest to me that he was not\nborn there. His mother would not likely have survived being \"opened up\", and\nhe would have been sent out to a wet-nurse in any event. He must have been\nborn before his mother was \"taken\". The \"brown wall\" memory of when he was\ntoo young to crawl and was screaming came either before his mother's\nincarceration or, more likely, afterwards, when he was permanently separated\nfrom his mother because she was to be tortured (if she was), and/or killed\n(if she was). [Sev to Cyriaca (III, XII): \"No woman is killed for being\nunfaithful, except by her husband.\"]\n\nIn any event, either Sev was weaned very early in his life yet was still\nraised in the Matachin tower and could stand beneath the bar when he was too\nyoung to crawl, or Sev doesn't have his facts straight. Even if we dismiss\nthe height issue (an infant is below groin height), an infant too young to\ncrawl is not much different from a new-born; he should have been sent to a\nwet-nurse. Yet Sev has no memory of a wet-nurse. But his \"earliest memory\"\nis of playing with pebbles in the Old Yard outside the Matachin tower. Where\nhis hypothetical sister fits into this scenario, I don't even want to think\nabout.\n\nWell, was he born in the Matachin tower, or not?\n\nRoy"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}