{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/3632",
    "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": 3632,
    "subject": "Nodding trees",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "2002-12-02T04:26:41+00:00",
    "last": "2002-12-02T04:26:41+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0212-2301@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Dan Rabin",
        "address": "wolfe-lists at danrabin.com"
      },
      "date": "2002-12-02T04:26:41+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Nodding trees",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Marc Aramini writes,"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": " Also, remember that the trees take part in the cannibalistic ritual\nof Vodalus: \" the trees nodded, and I nodded with them\". THE TREES PARTICIPATE\nIN THE CEREMONY OF THE LIEGE OF LEAVES."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Severian is under the effects of a powerful psychoactive drug \n(alzabo) at the moment narrated.  He is hallucinating.  I can't count \nthis as an instance of Wolfe intending the trees to be understood as \nsentient."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "Also remember that there is a big\nsection that talks about Vodalus hiding the forests of Lune - sentient trees\nthere, maybe?  The trees of Green?"
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Not a big section.  From _Torturer_ chapter 5:"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "This was done before they got it irrigated.  See that gray-brown? \nIn those times, that's what you'd see if you looked up at her.  Not \ngreen like she is now.  Didn't seem so big either, because it wasn't \nso close in-that's what old Branwallader used to say.  Now there's \ntrees enough on it to hide Nilammon, as the saw goes.\"\nI seized my opportunity.  \"Or Vodalus.\"\nRudesind cackled.  \"Or him, that's right enough.  Your bunch muyst \nbe rubbing their hands waiting to have him.  Got something special \nplanned?\"\nIf the guild had particular excruciations reserved for specific \nindividuals, I knew nothing of it; but I endeavored to look wise and \nsaid, \"We'll think of something.\"\n\"I suppose you will.  A bit ago, though, I thought you was for him. \nStill you'll have to wait if he's hiding in the Forests of Lune.\""
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "OK, so there's this once-arid Moon that's now a big forest.  It's \nhard to find things even in a little forest full of ordinary \nnon-sentient trees, because you can't see very far.  So this really \nbig forest is so big that it can hide Nilammon, who was trying to hid \nfrom a mob (thanks to _Lexicon Urthus_ for the reference).  So \nSeverian thinks it a chance to work in a mention of Vodalus, who he \npresumes to be hiding from all the Autarch's horses (or destriers) \nand all the Autarch's men.  Forests don't need volition or sentience \nto hide things--they just stand around being composed of zillions of \nopaque trees, and human lack of x-ray vision does the rest.\n\nIf Wolfe does have a thing about sentient trees, it's certainly much \nmore muted in his works than concerns with memory and identity.  You \nwant sentient trees, read _The Lord of the Rings_, which has them in \nabundance, right out in the open, with raw explicit scenes like Old \nMan Willow trapping hobbits, Huorns making Orcs disappear, and Ents \ntearing down the stronghold of an evil wizard.  Great material, those \nsentient trees--too bad that slacker Wolfe had them all over his \nmajor works and never got any good action out of them!  Instead, his \nreaders have to settle for tired old stuff such as vampire popes, \nrobot nuns, giant time-travelling sailing ships, false gods who \nappear on giant vision screens, monarchial succession by practical \ncannibalism, splendid giant underground palaces with coextensive \nsecret passageways, maintenance crews that strap on wings to tend the \nsun, all kinds of shallow showy stuff like that.\n\n   -- Dan Rabin"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}