Subject: (urth) The leatherskin

From: Don Doggett <harlekin at earthlink.net>
Date: Sat, 16 Nov 2002 21:27:03 +0000

Howdy all,

One of (imho) Wolfe's first tricks in SS to give us the impression of Blue
as an alien world is his introduction of the leatherskin, a terrible
creature with three (gasp!) jaws.  It is the only really alien creature in
the book (even the neighbors are four limbed humanoids).  Or is it?  Here's
a more mundane (sort of) explanation:  The leatherskin is a sort of evolved
shark. Yes, a shark.  Its three jaws are really three rows of teeth.  To
someone like Horn, or Silk, who has probably never had any previous
experience with salt water creatures, these rows could very well appear to
be three jaws.  Sort of the way people with no experience with horseback
riding might have seen the first horsemen as centaurs.  Sharks also have
extremely rough skin.  Just a thought (a scary thought - a shark that can
climb into your boat.  Ugh.)

Don

--

---

From: Charles Reed <cmreed at link.com>
Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2002 15:43:53 +0000

Hello Don.

I'd like to respond to your idea about the "alien-ness" the animals of 
the Blue/Green system.  You say that the leatherskin is "the only really 
alien creature in the book," but I think you're mistaken.  ALL the 
animals we encounter on Blue are very and extremely alien to anything 
that existed on the Whorl.  It's just that settlers, where possible, 
have given the alien animals names that reflect the only animal names 
they know.

For example, there's a beast on blue that is rather large, lives in the 
forest, and has a very long snout.  Instead of making up something new, 
they start calling it an elephant, despite the fact that it has eight 
legs.  It's much easier to do that than try to create a new taxonomy. 
 Every settler knows what a real elephant is, and this new creature of 
Blue is similar enough in appearance that when somebody says "elephant" 
everybody immediately knows what is being talked about.  Similarly, 
there's a creature that lives in the river that is at least vaguely 
reptilian, probably looks like a log floating in the water when still, 
and might eat you if you fall in, so instead of making up something new, 
they call it a crocodile, even though these new crocodiles are obviously 
not the same animal as the "real" crocodile whence their name derives 
("real" crocodiles don't have eight legs).  

That's not to say that some Blue animals don't get new names.  Some 
animals are so different that they're not reminiscent enough of a Whorl 
animal to inherit a Whorl name.  In those cases, the names given are 
very utilitarian and descriptive in nature -- such as "leatherskin."

You're also forgetting the inhumi, and the great variety of alien beings 
on Green, which were pretty much mentioned only in passing.  Still, some 
of their descriptions bear little resemblance to anything we ran into on 
the Whorl.

Blue is an alien world.  The evolution of land-based life on Blue for 
some reason favored octopedal locomotion rather than quadrupedal 
locomotion, as was the case on Urth and subsequently in the Whorl.  In 
fact, I can't think of a single animal we meet that is native to Blue 
that does not have eight limbs, and that includes the departed Neighbors.

Wolfe is an extremely surprising writer, and is often subtle -- 
sometimes subtle to point of being frustrating -- but I really don't 
regard him as being "tricky."  I tend to take his (and his narrator's) 
explanations at face value until there is a reason to do otherwise. 
 Sometimes there is such a reason, but I don't think this is one of 
those times.

Charles

--

---

From: William Ansley <wansley at warwick.net>
Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2002 20:04:40 +0000

>climb into your boat.  Ugh.)

Don,

I don't agree that Horn mistook three rows of teeth for three jaws. Horn 
says that the jaws clashed shut like "the slamming of double doors." [p. 61 
of the hardcover edition of OBW]. I don't see how this can be interpreted 
to mean anything other than two separate, hinged jaws closing against a 
third fixed one.

In any case, a shark with at least *six* limbs [1] is as alien to Earthly 
evolution as one with three jaws, in my somewhat informed opinion (I was a 
genetics major in a previous life).

--
William Ansley

[1] Way back on October 18, 1999 I argued that the leatherskin has twelve 
legs and no one has bothered arguing with my conclusions yet.

What I said then:

>----------------
>The leatherskin, one of the largest I have ever seen, stood with six
>massive legs and half its weight on the starboard gunwale, over which
>silver water cascaded. [OBW (hc), p. 62]
>----------------
>
>If this creature has only six legs and all of them are on the starboard
>gunwale (rather a tricky balancing act in the first place), then how can
>the gunwale be only bearing half its weight?

--

---

From: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <ddanehy at siebel.com>
Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2002 20:24:49 +0000

Actually, since first reading that scene, I've always envisioned
the leatherskin as some kind of lobster ... possibly one with a
slightly softer shell, possibly one that has molted recently;
as for the three jaws, consider this from Thomas Huxley:

   "... when I turn to the forepart of the body I see, at first, 
   nothing but a great shield-like shell, called technically the 
   'carapace,' ending in front in a sharp spine, on either side 
   of which are the curious compound eyes, set upon the ends of 
   stout movable stalks.  Behind these, on the under side of the 
   body, are two pairs of long feelers, or antennae, followed by 
   six pairs of jaws folded against one another over the mouth..."

_Six_ pairs of jaws!?! Okay, that's a bit of overkill... but
perhaps Horn doesn't see them all...

--

---

From: Don Doggett <harlekin at earthlink.net>
Date: Tue, 19 Nov 2002 06:57:03 +0000

----- Original Message -----
From: "William Ansley" <
> legs and no one has bothered arguing with my conclusions yet.

 Then Blattid says:
"Actually, since first reading that scene, I've always envisioned
the leatherskin as some kind of lobster ... possibly one with a
slightly softer shell, possibly one that has molted recently;"

Sounds good to me.  Lobster anyone?  There's plenty for everybody.

--

---

From: James Wynn <crushtv at hotpop.com>
Date: Thu, 09 Jan 2003 17:06:10 +0000

William Ansley heroically proffers:
Way back on October 18, 1999 I argued that the leatherskin has twelve legs
and no one has bothered arguing with my conclusions yet. What I said then:
----------------
The leatherskin, one of the largest I have ever seen, stood with six massive
legs and half its weight on the starboard gunwale, over which silver water
cascaded. [OBW (hc), p. 62]
----------------
If this creature has only six legs and all of them are on the starboard
gunwale (rather a tricky balancing act in the first place), then how can the
gunwale be only bearing half its weight?

Crush blunders forward:
Ok. I think I have an understanding of what a leatherskin looks like.

The leatherskin is giant dugong with six pectoral flippers and a manticore's
jaws.

The reason "half its weight" was on the starboard gunwale was because its
massive tail-end was dangling in the water.

See the following link for my full explanation:
http://www.urth.org/whorlmap/leatherskin.htm

--- Crush

--

---

From: William Ansley <wansley at warwick.net>
Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2003 04:08:21 +0000

>and no one has bothered arguing with my conclusions yet. What I said then:

Oh happy day! Finally, someone is arguing with my conclusions!

If I am to buy your argument, I have to believe that Horn doesn't 
know the difference between flippers and legs. Maybe he doesn't. 
Maybe he has never seen any creature with fins or flippers on the 
Whorl, so he calls all such appendages "legs." But, until you can 
show me a quote where Horn or some other former Whorl denizen talks 
about fish legs, I will remain doubtful.
-- 

William Ansley

--

---

From: cilluff1 at optonline.net <cilluff1 at optonline.net>
Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2003 14:39:53 +0000

W. Ansley wrote, in response to Crush's leatherskin vision:

-- >>

I always pictured the leatherskin as more of a gigantic, mulitegged
aligator or similar creature (mostly because, as W.A. noted, the creature
had "legs," not "fins," but also because of its name, "leatherskin,"
reminded me of aligator skin leather products like cheesy cowboy boots).

As for how many legs, the quote is susceptible to both the six or twelve
(indeed, or more) legged interpretation:

"The leatherskin, one of the largest I have ever seen, stood with six
massive 
>legs and half its weight on the starboard gunwale...."

I tend to think the leatherskin had more than six legs, simply because I
think Horn would have said something more along the lines of "all six of
its massive legs" or such if six were the creature's total.  Of course, the
quote is not exactly definitive, especially because it is not really Horn
but Gene Wolfe talking, and Horn's description really is just GW's choice
of words for us to know that the creature is multilegged beyond what we on
Earth, rather than Urth, would think normal.

My feeling that there are more than six legs also goes back to my
aligatoresque vision of it, if half the creature's weight were on the sloop
then it probably had other legs still in the water -- an aligator's four
legs are roughly evenly divided between front and back of the torso, with
its tail accounting for not much of the creature's weight relative to the
rest.  Similarly, in my vision the leatherskin with half its body on the
sloop would have legs still in the water.  

--------------------------------------------------------------------
mail2web - Check your email from the web at
http://mail2web.com/ .

--

---

From: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <ddanehy at siebel.com>
Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2003 16:42:24 +0000

> >Way back on October 18, 1999 I argued that the leatherskin 
> >has twelve legs and no one has bothered arguing with my
> >conclusions yet. What I said then:
> >----------------
> >The leatherskin, one of the largest I have ever seen, stood 
> >with six massive legs and half its weight on the starboard 
> >gunwale, over which silver water cascaded. [OBW (hc), p. 62]
> >----------------

Well, I didn't exactly argue with your conclusion, but I'm
pretty sure I came back with the suggestion that the 
leatherskin is some kind of crustacean -- my first thought
was a lobster, but on more mature thought I suspect it of
being something like a softshell crab. Except, of course,
much bigger. And with twice as many limbs.

--

---

From: James Wynn <crushtv at hotpop.com>
Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2003 17:29:40 +0000

BTW It occurred to me last night that manticores have **horns** with
**stingers**. Wolfe's leatherneck "had" a Horn with a deadly sting as well
... a harpoon.

-----Original Message-----
From: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes [mailto:ddanehy at siebel.com]
Sent: Friday, January 10, 2003 10:42 AM
To: urth at urth.net
Subject: RE: (urth) The leatherskin

--

--

---

From: James Wynn <crushtv at hotpop.com>
Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2003 15:54:17 +0000

William  Ansley responded to Crush:
Oh happy day! Finally, someone is arguing with my conclusions!

Crush takes another whack at it:
Hmmm, I wouldn't want you to remain in doubt, so I'll make a feeble attempt
to calm your disquiet.

My first inclination was to say, "William, William, you're troubling
yourself over nothing. Flippers **are** legs for an aquatic mammal."

But then I remembered that Pausanias' "Description of Greece" is the
inspiration for the leatherskin (I'm quite certain of this). Pausanias said
the triton has "hands, fingers, and nails like the shells of the murex." So
it is reasonable to assume the leatherskin would too.

So I must amend my description, The leatherskin does not have flippers. It
has clawed "hands." Considering the leatherskin's apparent clumsiness in
getting on the boat, I'm guessing it did not have "arms". The point is that
it did NOT have true flippers.

-- Crush

--

---

From: James Wynn <crushtv at hotpop.com>
Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2003 20:28:06 +0000

One thing I've reconsidered:
The morphology of the "legs" seems to differ from the dugong's flippers in
that the foremost claws (at least) are attached to jointed "arms" that
permit them to be extended in front of the animal to some degree. This is
clear because Horn's first view of the creature was its claws "scrabbling"
for the gunwale with the head not in site.
"Looking behind me, I saw great, coarse claws, each as thick as the handle
of our ax, scrabbling for a hold on the port gunwale and rowling its wood
like so many gouges. A moment later the head appeared and shot toward me."
On Blues Waters, chapter 2
But it did not use its claws to impel itself at Horn because (I would guess)
if its claws had such strength, it would not have had so much trouble
getting on the boat. "The head shot toward" Horn because the leatherskin was
impelled itself with its tail.

I don't think this undermines Pausanias as the original inspiration.

--Crush

-----Original Message-----
From: James Wynn [mailto:crushtv at HotPOP.com]
Sent: Friday, January 10, 2003 11:30 AM
To: urth at urth.net
Subject: RE: (urth) The leatherskin

BTW It occurred to me last night that manticores have **horns** with
**stingers**. Wolfe's leatherskin "had" a Horn with a deadly sting as well
... a harpoon.

-----Original Message-----
From: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes [mailto:ddanehy at siebel.com]
Sent: Friday, January 10, 2003 10:42 AM
To: urth at urth.net
Subject: RE: (urth) The leatherskin

--

--

--