{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/214",
    "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": 214,
    "subject": "Soldier: Oior and Drakaina",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "1997-09-21T14:22:25+00:00",
    "last": "1997-09-21T14:22:25+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0004-0317@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Alice Turner",
        "address": "al at interport.net"
      },
      "date": "1997-09-21T14:22:25+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Soldier: Oior and Drakaina",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "I've just been reading Soldier of the Mist again, and I've got a couple of\nquestions:\n\n1) I don't quite understand the role of Oior. He is the Scythian mercenary\n(son of Scoloti) bowman attached to Hypereides who goes to considerable\ntrouble to form an alliance with Latro---he says to protect himself from\nthese alien gods. He says one of the other bowman is a Neuri, who seem to\nbe like werewolves preying on the recently dead. He saves Latro's life from\n(presumably) this person (Spu) and extracts a blood oath from him. He turns\nup again in the last chapter, ravening over Drakaina's body---he is the\nNeuri himself, of course; there were at least two clues to this fact\nearlier, the Spu burial and something to do with his eyes. I presume he is\nalso the \"wolf\" that dug up the grave of the dead woman (Thygater) brought\nback to life. My question is---why is he such a big deal? Why is he\nmentioned in the prophecy, and why does Kore emphasize that he must be\nkilled? Is the test between the blood oath and loyalty to the gods? If so,\nit doesn't seem much of a test since a) Oior is offstage most of the time,\nb) Latro doesn't really remember his oath, c) Kore is right there on the\nscene. Or is he just alien magic and bad news that the gods want removed?\nOr is it that he belongs to the Great Mother who is at odds with Kore, and\nthis her Kore's way of claiming Latro for her side? Apollo predicted\nit--where does that put him?\n\n2) I don't quite get the metamorphosis of Eurykles into Drakaina/Medea.\nWhen Io says she turned Eurykles into herself (rather than him getting his\nheart's desire) she is right, since Io, like Oreb, is always right. But,\nsince Latro saw Eurykles as a shade at Drakaina's seance at Acheron, we\nhave to presume that the old body is dead. Why then, does the dying\nDrakaina identify her/himself as Eurykles? If it's just because the snake\n(Medea) has left the body, it seems rather a cheat for us to have seen the\nshade.\n\n(Someone could have some scholarly fun with the role and symbolism of the\nsnake in the New Sun, Short Sun and Soldier books!)\n\nBTW, though demons are rather a specialty of mine, I've never run across\nthe Neuri anywhere else, and they're not in my references, including the\nHerodotus index. Anyone else encounter them elsewhere? \n\n-alga-"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}