{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/2464",
    "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": 2464,
    "subject": "Fifth Head's Last Line",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "2000-11-14T12:47:18+00:00",
    "last": "2000-11-14T12:47:18+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0030-0122@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Robert Borski",
        "address": "rborski at charter.net"
      },
      "date": "2000-11-14T12:47:18+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Re: Fifth Head's Last Line",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Blattid having wondered:"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "Meanwhile, I've just finished reading FIFTH HEAD for, rather\nsurprisingly, only the second time, and find that there are some\npretty basic things I don't understand. I know that many people\nfind the last line of the first part very disturbing: I truly\ndo not understand _why_."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "I'm one of the people who believe this and say so both on my website and in\nmy 5H review in Ultan's Library.\n\nI have three reasons for so doing.\n\n1) The last line  (\"Someday they'll want us\") recapitulates George\nSantayana's most famous dictim. Specifically, Number Five has not learned\nfrom his father's mistakes, therefore he can only repeat them. Hence he will\nnot be able to move on to the next evolutionary step, where he and his clan\nwill be wanted by the high and the mighty of Sainte Croix as something other\nthan flesh peddlers. Think of Number Five as Sisyphus here, who must forever\ntoil but ultimately fail at the same task (cf. Number Five's two nightmares\nabout stasis, one where he's trapped by graveyard pillars, the other where\nhe's on a ship steered by his dead father, who seeks to find out \"why the\nship doesn't move\").\n\n2) There is also in the last line the implication that the ends justifies\nthe means. It's therefore all right if Number Five and his father/brothers\nconduct unorthodox experiments on their own cell-line and sell the monstrous\nresults in the slave market. Think of Number Five as Josef Mengele here,\nconducting his own little personal Holocaust--no big deal really, since\nsomeday he'll be lauded for the sacrifices he's made in the name of science,\nmedicine and personal growth.\n\n3) Lastly, there's a good measure of ironical inversion in the line. Of\ncourse, someday Number Five will be wanted--but by Number Six (the baby\ncarried in by Phaedria at the end), who will eventually exact his own blood\ntoll for the atrocities perpetuated against him--thus starting the entire\nmurderous cycle all over again.\n\nRobert Borski"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}