# Marbles hands and Oz magic *The Urth list — 3 messages, 2 voices, 26 Nov 2002* > 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. --- ### James Wynn *26 Nov 2002, 15:49* Roy wrote: Ah. [the quote] from when Marble was killing Musk, LS3: 3. "Her hands, the bony blue-veined hands of an elderly bio, glowed crimson in the flames." As for the rest . . . I'll save it for another day. But do you really think that Hammerstone fell in 'love' with a chem "girl" he described as "pretty as a picture", who had hands that looked like the bony blue-veined hands of an elderly bio? Crush responds: Whenever is fine. :) In answer to your question, no, I don't believe Moly had hands like that. I don't believe any chem had hands like that. That's what is troubling, because as you surely remember, Marble only inherited ONE hand (by my reading) from Rose. Remember Marble's conversation with Blood at the end of LS3? Talking about the times Rose would come and visit him as a child, he notes that (quoting from memory) "One time you came with a hand like that one." Then Marble notes "it *was* this one." So now we're left with the question of how *both* Marble's hands looked that way during the sacrifice of Musk. As you know, I've been inclined to believe that there were limits to what the gods could do with their possessed hosts. The passage you've quoted *seems* to suggest that there is very little they can't do. If Echidna could so dramatically transform Marble's metal flesh to exhibit a more Echidna-like appearance, what can't they do? At this time (and I don't have the books with me) this sounds Wolfean "Oz Magic" as it seems to be called around here. I'd like to hear ANY other opinion to explain Marble's hands. --- Crush --- ### Roy C. Lackey *26 Nov 2002, 19:46 · follows James Wynn* > Crush responds: > Whenever is fine. :) > > In answer to your question, no, I don't believe Moly had hands like that. I > don't believe any chem had hands like that. That's what is troubling, > because as you surely remember, Marble only inherited ONE hand (by my > reading) from Rose. Remember Marble's conversation with Blood at the end of > LS3? Talking about the times Rose would come and visit him as a child, he > notes that (quoting from memory) "One time you came with a hand like that > one." Then Marble notes "it *was* this one." Marble did get both her hands from Rose. Rose didn't receive all her prosthetics at the same time, that's all; she would have scared the hell out of that boy if she had. Much of her face was prosthetic, both arms and both legs, her "ears", one eye, and a host of internal organs. Before Marble got the new hands, her old ones had lost most of their synthetic bio veneer; the veneer had worn through from constant work over the course of three-hundred-plus years. Now that you've acknowledged that you "don't believe any chem had hands like that", that plays hell with your theory that they originally came from a dismantled chem. Either Rose had them made to look that way, or that was the best she could get when she needed them. Echidna had nothing to do with the hands. They were not an illusion produced during possession. Marble "snapped her new fingers" when she was deciding how to get the attic door down, followed by more references to her new fingers (LS3: 5). She couldn't snap her old ones because they were worn down to the bare metal. -Roy --- ### James Wynn *26 Nov 2002, 21:42 · follows Roy C. Lackey* Roy said: Now that you've acknowledged that you "don't believe any chem had hands like that", that plays hell with your theory that they originally came from a dismantled chem. Either Rose had them made to look that way, or that was the best she could get when she needed them. Echidna had nothing to do with the hands. They were not an illusion produced during possession. Marble "snapped her new fingers" when she was deciding how to get the attic door down, followed by more references to her new fingers (LS3: 5). She couldn't snap her old ones because they were worn down to the bare metal. Crush responds: Raise one hand and one hand only. Now tell me how you snap your "FINGER" (singular). There is no doubt that the parts came from a dismantled chem. Silk's conversation with Horn in LS2:1 proves beyond argument that Rose's prosthetics were not made originally for bios. Silk says quite clearly that (1)such technology was left behind on Urth and (2)while Xiphias' leg was such an artifact, Rose's definitely were not. The onus is on you to explain where they came from if not from a chem? Marble (impersonating Moly) in LS3:10 says she had been at the Sun St. cenoby since before humans came to Viron. The onus is on you to explain what happened to Moly. Maybe you can show why anyone would create "bony blue-veined" prosthetic hands for ***anyone***, but I'm afraid I find the concept absurd. I've explained why the hands looked like that during Musk's sacrifice. I don't like the lack of rational explanation FOR the explanation -- I'm not sure "illusion" is the right word -- but I can't come up with any other explanation. If you want to believe Marble inherited TWO hands and that the Chapter had **altered** the hands in order to promote humility in Rose, have at it. I like that explanation a great deal less. But the text places us beyond believing that they were prosthetics originally created for a bio. --- Crush ---