{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/2226",
    "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": 2226,
    "subject": "Fairy Blood; Orrery",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "2000-05-02T12:44:16+00:00",
    "last": "2000-05-02T12:44:16+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0028-0958@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Jim Jordan",
        "address": "jbjordan at gnt.net"
      },
      "date": "2000-05-02T12:44:16+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Fairy Blood; Orrery",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "At 11:53 PM 4/29/00 -0400, you wrote:\nFrom Ratty:"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 2,
          "text": "Violet as the source of fairy blood. Is that a guess, or is there any real\nevidence? Hawksquill is not from her, but from her earlier lover -- but\nViolet's son from that union is the non-fairy Auberon! \nI can \"see\" your argument, but I'm not sure the text supports it. My\ninclination was that the fairies are \"seducing\" people into their \"trap,\"\nand that Violet's father is one of these. That is, the Victorian\ntheosophists and fairy photographers, etc., are \"seduced\" into the plan. \nContinuing \"my\" line of argument, I notice that once Violet moves into the\npentacle, everyone conceived THERE is part fairy. Yes, August does spawn\n(being fishy) a school of kids, but \"my\" take would be that all the people\nwho moved into the pentacle of the five towns have moved into the border of\nfaerie, and thus have part-fairy children anyway. It's geography more than\ngenetics."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Slimina replied:"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "Well, gosh, I don't think it's a \"guess,\" exactly, any more than S. Holmes\n\"guessed\" at his conclusions. Just look at the evidence! JC doesn't flat\nout say, \"Hey, Vi was a fairy!\" but why would he give us the backstory and\nthe chart otherwise? Why would he have August go on a spending spree (I use\nthe word in its old-fashioned sense--no, not spree) among the local girls\notherwise? It's not geography, it's genetics. Form, in the sense of the\npentacle, follows function. Besides, this is fiction, and you get to have\npentacles if you want them."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "The Big Rat rejoinds (Hey, any noun can be verbed.):\n\tUnpersuaded am I, Alice. It does not seem so simple, and Ariel Hawksquill\nis the problem. Where does she get fairy blood? But then again (against\nme), she's not conceived in the pentacle either. I guess you could say that\nOliver H. gets \"infected\" by Violet -- a kind of Fairy VD -- and then this\nis passed to his daughter Ariel.\n\tThe chart does not strike me as \"evidence\" either way. The backstory, it\nseems to me, is to establish that the Rev. Bramble was an apostate\nAnglican, turning away from Christianity and possibly scientific humanism\ntoward fairy magic, and this is the point of initiation of the \"tale.\" \n\nAlga continues:"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "Well, I think you may be right. American fairies, yes. Drawn by Vi and by\nthe pentacle, but dwindling in number. And I do agree that Drinkwater seems\nquite oblivious to anything \"odd\" about his circumstances. But in a way\nthis is part of the fun (if I may use that word--you don't seem to think\nit's much fun). Folklore and literature are rife with tales of the man who\nmarries a fairy wife. But I think JC is the only one to explore the \"and\nthen?\" aspect--what happens to the family? What do you think about the\nnotion that the fairies didn't plan anything at all, that it all came into\ntheir heads at the moment when August wished, rashly, that no girl could\nresist him---that this suddenly came to them as a way to implement a new\nplan to perpetuate themselves?"
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Ratface replies:\n\tI'm not invested in anything here, but Violet does not have to be a fairy\nto be an agent of the fairies. She can be a \"fairy wife\" in that sense. \n\tAs to your last suggestion, it seems unlikely to me. Underhill moves to\nAmerica with Violet, so to speak, and seems to have enlisted her\npreviously. I think the House On The Borderland is built by accident, so to\nspeak, and turns out to be just what the fairies want. So they move there\nand start to use it. They need a place separated from the\nChristian/Scientific world.  But I'm vague on the details here, and may be\noverlooking important details."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "Mantis: "
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 2,
          "text": "I don't think there are meant to be logical explanations for all these\nthings.  At any rate, that seems to be the meaning of Mrs. Underhill's\nspeech to Eigenblick in \"Give Way, Give Way\" (Book Six, Chap. Five), the\ngist of it is that there are no explanations, it's just the way the\nworld is."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "Alga:\nYes, I keep on about this too. This isn't a tidy kind of book. Many of the\nmost interesting books are not too tidy."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Nutria:\n\tDunno. He worked on it for a long time. Rather than setting something\naside as untidy, I'd assume the opposite. As to Mantis's point: Well, the\nfairies are nature powers, and nature does work like clockwork. Humanity\nhas freedom, but the Drinkwaters are giving theirs up and becoming part of\nnature, \"devolving\" on the \"evolutionary\" scale, so to speak, moving\nbackwards and down. Freedom and choice seem to be seen in Smoky. So, of\ncourse, the fairy explanation for things is that \"this is how it is.\" \n\tOn the orreries: Ariel's is run by electricity in the City, while the\norrery in the House is run by astral influences from the stars and makes\nelectricity. This suggests to me that the pentacular House is not just a\nconduit \"down\" to lower nature, but also \"up\" to the heavens. It is in the\nborder in both respects. The fact that Smoky dies implies that this is the\nway to the heavens, in some sense; and also implies that the Drinkwaters\n\"die\" in order to get into nature. Dunno for sure, though. Grist for the mill.\n\nNutria"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}