{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/3202", "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": 3202, "subject": "Shadow Children in the Lupiverse?", "messages": 2, "voices": 2, "first": "2002-04-26T18:46:59+00:00", "last": "2002-04-27T09:07:51+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Robert Borski", "address": "rborski at charter.net" }, "date": "2002-04-26T18:46:59+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Shadow Children in the Lupiverse?", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Tony Ellis having written this about the Annese's lack of manual dexterity:\n\n\"I go for explanation 2: the Annese had the ability, but lost it, and cannot\nrecover it due to Dollo's Law. If that doesn't make evolutionary sense,\nblame Wolfe, not me, because I don't think he would have slipped Dollo's Law\nin there unless that was the connection he wanted us to make. Victor may be\nself-taught, but we're given to understand that he is intelligent and a\nquick study, so I think we're supposed to accept his theory.\"\n\nIt's not so much that this in itself doesn't make evolutionary sense, but\nthat no mechanism is posited for the loss. You yourself cite a number of\npotential theories, but there is no more evidence for any of them than there\nis for the alleged shapechanging abilities of the abos. In the latter at\nleast there's a widespread oral tradition; but we hear nothing from Victor\nor Dr. Marsch about _how_ the native Annese arrived at this state. And when\nVictor, writing in his prison diary as Marsch, cites Dollo's Law, he is not\ndoing so to expound his own personal theory about the matter--on the\ncontrary he absolutely does not want the authorities to know he is\nAnnese--he's trying to come up with what he hopes is a scientific-sounding\n(and thus perhaps something a little more elevated than plain bullshit)\nexplanation for his own bad handwriting. I.e., \"I am unable to hold my pen\ncorrectly and therefore I hold it another way.\" The prison authorities are\nless than likely to be familiar with Dollo's Law (I was exposed to it only\nin an upper-level course on organic evolution), and Wolfe/Victor uses it, at\nleast in this case, invalidly: new handwriting stratagems may indeed be\n_learned_, but this is a far cry from evolving new working appendages over\ntime à la the panda's sixth digit (which is actually a mutated bone in the\nwrist complex, the radial sesamoid). So while you may be right about the\nDollo non-dexterity connection, it still remains speculative.\n\nOn to another recent post of yours, and then a question.\n\nOn one hand you seem to dismiss the shape-changing abilities of the Annese\nas mythologization, but on the other hand you're willing to credit the\nevents that take place in \"A Story\" as real. I would argue the reverse. \"A\nStory,\" for example, cites the colonization of space by starfaring races\nmore likely to be found in the history of the world as posited by such\ndiverse luminaries as Edgar Cayce, Erich von Doniken, and the tabloid press.\nThe Annese have no written documents, so everything Victor describes has had\nto come down to him originally as oral testimony. But while you discount\nsimilar oral testimony of the Annese French colonists as tall tales, you're\nwilling to accept the abo record as genuine. More likely it's as suspect as\nany body of such collected testimony, being part history, part myth, and\npart self-aggrandizement. As a boy in the states, for example, I learned\nabout how George Washington chopped down the cherry tree and then admitted\nhis guilt; while the westerns I watched in the movie house depicted Indians\nas bloodthirsty savages. Can you imagine the sort of history I would have\nwritten were I in a situation like Victor's? Especially if all I had access\nto was the oral testimony of my parents and grandparents? So I've always\nseen \"A Story\" as being more akin to a fable than anything else, even if it\ndoes incorporate actual, but probably somewhat distorted, historical events.\n\nAnd lastly then, this bit of evidence for the shapeshifting-is-real\nargument. In the back of beyond Victor becomes highly upset when Dr. Marsch\nattempts to kill a following farmcat. Why? Is it because he simply loves\ncats? If so, why does he himself later attempt to kill this same cat? I\ncontend it's because she's the shapeshifted abo girl Marsch later catches\nVictor trysting with; and that he must kill her because she knows he's\nkilled Marsch. Your theory?\n\nRobert Borski" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Tony Ellis", "address": "littlesense at necronomicon.co.uk" }, "date": "2002-04-27T09:07:51+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Shadow Children in the Lupiverse?", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Robert Borski wrote:\n...In the back of beyond Victor becomes highly upset when Dr. Marsch\nattempts to kill a following farmcat. Why? Is it because he simply loves\ncats? If so, why does he himself later attempt to kill this same cat? I\ncontend it's because she's the shapeshifted abo girl Marsch later catches\nVictor trysting with; and that he must kill her because she knows he's\nkilled Marsch. Your theory?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "The first time I ever read 'V.R.T.' I took it as read that girl and cat were\none, because hey, weren't these abos supposed to be shapeshifters or\nsomething? But that's never felt satisfactory since. Where does all that\nextra mass go when girl becomes cat? Why doesn't Victor change into a cat\nand escape from gaol? And why, as you say, does he later attempt to kill\nthis same cat? Certainly not because she saw him kill Marsch - what does it\nmatter what an ignorant abo girl in the middle of the outback sees?\n\nIt seems to me that there is singularity at the heart of 'V.R.T.' that we\ncan never see into: the circumstances of Marsh's death. The details given by\nVictor in the journal are too contradictory and too hallucinogenic - he's\nlosing it big time. And cat and girl are all mixed up in the affair. Did the\ncat really bite Marsch's hand, so that in fact some of the entries we think\nare Victor's are still Marsch's? Did the girl bite Marsch when he got too\nfrisky? Did she have a mouthful of narcotic plant when she did so, like the\nShadow Child at the end of 'A Story', so that in fact Marsch never died at\nall but only thinks he's Victor? (Believe me, I've thought about that last\none a lot.)\n\nSo. I don't really have a theory. It's another of those little bits of 5HC I\nkeep coming back to and coming back to." } ] } ] }