{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/2897",
    "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": 2897,
    "subject": "pen case and stiff walking fellow",
    "messages": 2,
    "voices": 2,
    "first": "2002-01-30T17:33:14+00:00",
    "last": "2002-01-30T18:37:28+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0202-17@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "maa32",
        "address": "maa32 at dana.ucc.nau.edu"
      },
      "date": "2002-01-30T17:33:14+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) pen case and stiff walking fellow",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Hey Joe.  The pen case has some other odd things about it - the narrator \nclaims he picked it up between the time he left Pig and the time he first \nglimpsed Olivine through the window, but in the portion directly narrated by \nSilk he claims he cannot have acquired it that way - yet he did.  Some kind of \nparadox going on, and then the actual finding of the pen case is out of order \nin the otherwise strictly chronological third person sections of Return to the \nWhorl - presented in flashback while he talks to Olivine, I believe.\n\nAlso, the stiff walking fellow: I think I have made a pretty good case for the \nnarrator's staff being a primitive form of the inhumu, the evil liana branch.  \nIf you accept that trees are sentient and eating everybody and recombining \nwith their DNA, then the staff is the parasitic embryonic inhumu sans animal \nconsumption: it can walk in astral travel (remember the words Hoof uses to \ndescribe an epiphany?  \"When you realize a stick was a snake without moving\".  \nAlso, the narrator spends a great deal of time talking about a walking stick \nthat is not a walking stick when it leaves it's master, just a stick that \nwalks. and Krait is always described as being snakelike, while Jahlee clings \n\"liana\" like.  The reason that Silk can complete the astral sojourn is because \nhe has his staff and it is a primitive inhumu, and that was it's spirit ... or \nso I believe, unless someone wants to make a case for colorless being fuligin \nand bird-like being limping.  (I honestly believe my blue is ushas theory - \nbwa ha ha.)\n\nActually, the better case for the presence of Severian is that some of his DNA \nwas preserved in that immortal four armed dude that comes up from the sea in \nOn Blue's Waters.  Perhaps either the claw or Severian himself was exposed to \nthe big trees of the island (where all that blue glass was).  Wasn't there \nsomething about Severian's blood on the claw?  Or was that some episode of \nStar Trek where the Klingon savior was cloned from blood on a blade or \nsomething?  My memory has finally failed me!\n\nIf you want me to clarify any of these points, feel free to ask.\nMarc Aramini\n\n\nQuestions or problems: write ranjit at urth.net"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0202-21@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Michael Straight",
        "address": "straight at email.unc.edu"
      },
      "date": "2002-01-30T18:37:28+00:00",
      "subject": "Re: (urth) pen case and stiff walking fellow",
      "in_reply_to": "<urth-v0202-17@digest.urth.net>",
      "reply_link": "subject",
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "On Wed, 30 Jan 2002, maa32 wrote:\nHey Joe.  The pen case has some other odd things about it - the\nnarrator claims he picked it up between the time he left Pig and the\ntime he first glimpsed Olivine through the window, but in the portion\ndirectly narrated by Silk he claims he cannot have acquired it that\nway - yet he did.  Some kind of paradox going on, and then the actual\nfinding of the pen case is out of order in the otherwise strictly\nchronological third person sections of Return to the Whorl - presented\nin flashback while he talks to Olivine, I believe."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Since the first have of RTW is reconstructed by Hoof, Hide, et. al. from\nwhat Silk told them about what happened on the whorl, it wouldn't be\nsurprising for them to have a few of the details in the wrong order.\n\n-Rostrum\n\nQuestions or problems: write ranjit at urth.net"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}