{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/2961",
    "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": 2961,
    "subject": "food of the narrator",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "2002-02-16T22:45:40+00:00",
    "last": "2002-02-16T22:45:40+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0202-164@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "maa32",
        "address": "maa32 at dana.ucc.nau.edu"
      },
      "date": "2002-02-16T22:45:40+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) food of the narrator",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Some have recently speculated on the obviously disturbing lack of appetite in \nthe narrator of the Short Sun books.  Remember that in the chilly snows of In \nGreen's Jungles the narrator becomes deathly ill.  At first I ascribed this to \nbeing fed on by his liana staff.  \nMy theory is that somehow the blood of the narrator has assimilated some plant \nlike qualities that allow him to feed directly from the sun.  If this is the \ncase, then the link between the narrator and Severian becomes even more \nexplicit: the narrator is powered by Severian.  If Silk is in fact one of the \nfirst green men, then he no longer needs to eat and can simply pretend to eat.\n How were these factors introduced to his blood stream in particular?  We have \na case for the physical body of Horn being subjected to sharing blood with the \nVanished People (trees) when He Pen Sheep talks to him in On Blue's Waters and \nsays that Horn is a vanished person because he has traded blood with them \n(which, I would argue, occurs when he falls in the pit and shares DNA, but is \nsomehow resurrected).  How were these elements introduced into the body of \nSilk?  Through the soul of Horn? When he sits under the big tree at the end of \nOn blue's Waters? I would argue that the wounds Silk has on his hands and arms \nat the very beginning of Return to the Whorl, which seemed to be caused by \nsome \"brush\", actually introduced this into his bloodstream (through tree \ncontact), which might have opened a path for Horn to travel into him in spirit \n(in other words, I am rejecting the Silk's suicide hypothesis in favor of a \nTree Attack).  When Silk runs out of the house, he runs into a big tree.  I \nthink Silk's appetite may have been affected by the sun-harnessing quality of \nhis mixed blood --> What does this say about his relationship to Severian?  If \nSeverian is the new sun that brings light to mankind, and Horn and Silk \ntogether form one of the first men who can be sustained by that light, are \nthey some kind of new Adam to the more Godlike Severian? Or does Severian \nserve Silk, since Silk in some ways is the good father figure of mankind, who \nguides how he will write his narrative and advises him? And how the heck are \nTriskele and Silk related?\nOK, I guess you have to buy my tree ideas to believe this.  At least I've \nconvinced a few of us ... but when the sun is not around, Silk ails and the \ninhumu (the vines of the trees) tend to die rather easily.\nMarc Aramini"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}