{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/2948",
    "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": 2948,
    "subject": "IGJ tidbits",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "2002-02-11T03:32:10+00:00",
    "last": "2002-02-11T03:32:10+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0202-131@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Michael Straight",
        "address": "straight at email.unc.edu"
      },
      "date": "2002-02-11T03:32:10+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) IGJ tidbits",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "1. Y'all probably caught this the first time, but it was only on the\nsecond reading I noticed the real purpose of the fireworks at the Battle\nof Blanko:  cover for Incanto so he could use the azoth to wipe out the\ncavalry!\n\n2. The first time, I was really annoyed by the chapter \"Say Father\" in\nwhich Incanto takes Hide up to Fava's grave for a chat.  I think it was\nbecause it was so different from what I expected.  Also, there was a\nsomething really weird about the way Incanto was talking, I was almost\nfearing he was going to do something nasty to Hide (this was just after\nhe'd wished for an animal to offer as sacrifice to the Outsider, and I was\nwondering if Wolfe would do some kind of Abraham and Issac thing).  \n\nBut reading it the second time, I really liked this chapter.  A lot of the\nweiredness is Incanto trying to stay calm to avoid the baletiger, the bit\nwhere he asks Hide to hold his staff and walk behind him is just so he can\nuse his walk-through-brush magic to lead Hide by a path he hopes the tiger\ncan't follow.  \n\nOn the first reading, I thought Incanto was being tediously coy, as I\nwanted him to just come out and tell Hide what had happened.  But this way\nmakes much more sense, as he tries to break it to Hide very gently.  \n(After all, how would you react if some stranger came up to you and said,\n\"Your father is dead, but his spirit has posessed my body, partially, so I\nam your father.\")  Anyway, thinking more seriously how hard and weird this\nwould be for Hide, I think the conversation there is great.\n\n3.  In general, I'm noting that frequently Wolfe sets you up to think\nyou're going to hear a conversation about an event, that he's going to\ndole out a little more of that plot he's got you craving, but instead the\nconversation meanders off into something that's more about the thoughts\nand feelings of the characters.  I think this choice of writing about\npeople rather than events is very deliberate, reflecting the priorities of\nthe narrator and of Wolfe himself.\n\nIt sounds unremarkable to say an author focuses on character over plot,\nbut I think Wolfe's unique spin is to make the reader get very preoccupied\nwith the plot, and then redirect him to the people.\n\n-Rostrum"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}