{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/2649", "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": 2649, "subject": "re Copperhead stuff", "messages": 1, "voices": 1, "first": "2001-05-16T13:04:08+00:00", "last": "2001-05-16T13:04:08+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Michael Andre-Driussi", "address": "mantis at sirius.com" }, "date": "2001-05-16T13:04:08+00:00", "subject": "(urth) re Copperhead stuff", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "GenevaRoy,\n\n\nThe Changer was experimented with by the General at least, we agree.\nWhat would be the results of such experiments, aside from more\nmonsters? If you beamed an inanimate object, what would you get? \nWould a chair become a Platonic Chair? < \n\n\nThe suicide note is deeper than the obvious sex scandal, we agree.\n\n\nThe Press and the public know little about the crash and nothing about\nthe Changer and Jane Doe, agreed.\n\n\nJane Doe as Lilith is a very strong thread, agreed." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Roy wrote:\nWhy? She merely did unto him exactly what he was going to do unto her,\nonly" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "she did it first. What, exactly, did she do to merit such a fate? How\ndid\n\nshe sin? Where did the \"glorious\" man get the moral authority? The\nredhead\n\nwas entirely blameless in the matter of her appearance in this\nuniverse. If\n\n\"Dhoss bhoyes\" fight and die because they lust after her, how is that\nher\n\nfault? I mean, just what the hell was she supposed to do about any of\nit?\n\nSurrender, just lie down and say \"Do with me as you will\"? Evidently\nshe\n\nalready tried that. Commit suicide to save their souls? What?<<\n\n\nPart of our problem here is, I think, the clash between modes of\ncausality, ancient/magical versus modern/realistic. For example, we\nknow the Temptation story, and how The Serpent was the agent of it, and\nthen after it was done, The Serpent was made snake-like (a detail that\nlinks it to \"How the Crow Became Black\" and other animal explanation\nstories like that). That magical thinking that shows how essence\npreceeds existence: how Serpent, because of his primordial nature,\nbehaved in a certain way and was rewarded or punished by being turned\ninto the shape/condition which we associate with \"serpent.\" (What was\nThe Serpent before it was snake-like? In realist terms, it is a\npuzzler; in magical thinking, it makes no sense.)\n\n\nOkay. So the NP beams a copperhead and Jane Doe rises up.\nRealistically it doesn't make any sense--Jane doesn't act like a snake,\nfor example. She acts like a sex kitten with a destructive agenda,\nwhich would be \"early Lilith\" I guess (as opposed to \"Lilith, =mother=\nof monsters\"). That is, Lilith and the godlike man are both\narchetypes: once released upon Earth they automatically do the things\nthat they are archetypally famous for. Like a cartoon cat and cartoon\ndog suddenly put into the real world--you know exactly what they are\ngoing to do with regard to each other, without any of the nuances of\nreal life cats and dogs.\n\n\nSo I'm not sure about the continuity from one form to another. The\ngodlike man is not the NP, since the NP is in the Eden place; the\ngodlike man probably doesn't have any of the backstory (that is, I\ndon't think that the godlike man knows everything that the NP knows).\nHe is, I suspect, reacting to Jane Doe the way he always does at a\ncertain point in his story: like a dog to a cat. (And Jane isn't\nrustling through the leaves of D.C., looking for something to eat\nbefore hibernating . . . or is she? Hmm.)\n\n\nAs for equivalence of the action: well, the NP is trying to restore the\nprevious condition, trying to send her back or at least away; she is\ntrying to avoid that, and is willing to further the interdimentional\ncontamination/chaos by sending the NP away. So if she did anything\nbeyond that, it was pushing the wrong button! (Well, she had maybe a\nfifty-percent chance <)\n\n\nSo the short answer: she could have co-operated (\"submitted\" sounds so\nheavy-handed) and allowed herself to be beamed back to her homeland.\nInstead she opted to sow more confusion but it backfired a bit. \n\n\nMeanwhile, there is the repeated trouble in Spokane. That and the\nquestion of \"how long to the next election,\" these are the points that\nsound like \"National Crisis\" to me. Especially the way that the\n\"election\" conversation plays out: the security guy seems to be certain\nthat the NP has or will soon have dictatorial powers, the NP (like\nCaesar?) is refusing that crown by insisting that there will be\nelections. Or so it seemed to me.\n\n\nMore geography: Jane is five hours away. So where is the story set? \nHard to say. Jane is not in Washington D.C., it seems, but she might\nnot be too far from it (maybe they tried to move her away but she has a\nway of crossing the distance anyway). The NP is at some sort of Camp\nDavid retreat, but it might be the family ranch or whatever. Jane and\nher handler Karen were removed from the D.C. area for the trouble that\nhad already happened (the murder, at least), and Jane secretly slips\naway to cause more mischief, so that Karen doesn't even know--cannot\nsuspect. \n\n\nThis story occupies the Wolfe-space we might term \"Tabloid Wolfe.\" \nLike CASTLEVIEW, and \"The Ziggurat,\" and \"A Cabin on the Coast,\" and\nmore. So the other experiments with the Changer probably created a Big\nFoot, a Bat Baby, and other tabloid staples. <\n\n\n=mantis=\n\n\nSirius Fiction\n\nCatalog and errata sheet at http://www.sirius.com/~mantis/" } ] } ] }