{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/3815", "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": 3815, "subject": "DOORS: Tina's origins", "messages": 3, "voices": 2, "first": "2003-01-27T11:37:26+00:00", "last": "2003-01-28T10:03:18+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Spectacled Bear", "address": "spectacled.bear at pobox.com" }, "date": "2003-01-27T11:37:26+00:00", "subject": "(urth) DOORS: Tina's origins", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "The lady in the haberdasher's called Tina a \"magic doll\", and in\na world with a real goddess that has to be a possibility, as Mantis\nsuggested. But at lunch with Lora, Green talks about how Tina isn't\nreally magic, and that Heathkit will sell you a robot and the Air\nForce have planes that can fly and fight and land themselves. \"I\ncouldn't build her, and I don't know anybody who could. But somebody\nhere might be able to, if we put our minds to it.\" (p270)\n\nMaybe they did?\n\nI know it doesn't work if the time differential is constant.\nI know artificial intelligence isn't as easy as it seemed, and it\nnever seemed very easy - though from the point of view of a mechanical\nengineer, in the late Eighties, it might seem possible enough to allow\nwilling suspension of disbelief. I can believe it, for a story.\n\nBut the really interesting question about Tina, that I have not seen\naddressed before, is: how does she know about Daddies? For his birthday,\n\"Didn't Mama and Daddy give you anything?\" (p228) Green hasn't seen his\nfather for years, but Tina says his father still loves him. \"I know about\nDaddies, though. And you don't.\" And so on. Where in the world - in which\nworld - did she learn about Daddies?\n\nSpectacled Bear. " } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Roy C. Lackey", "address": "rclackey at stic.net" }, "date": "2003-01-28T08:14:03+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) DOORS: Tina's origins", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Spectacled Bear wrote:\nBut the really interesting question about Tina, that I have not seen\naddressed before, is: how does she know about Daddies? For his birthday,\n\"Didn't Mama and Daddy give you anything?\" (p228) Green hasn't seen his\nfather for years, but Tina says his father still loves him. \"I know about\nDaddies, though. And you don't.\" And so on. Where in the world - in which\nworld - did she learn about Daddies?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "And just to confuse things further; when they were in the limo Tina said to\nKlamm, speaking of Green: \"He needs your help, Papa.\" Klamm matter-of-factly\nanswers her: \"Then he shall haff it. Whatever I can give.\" (300) Why did\nTina call him \"Papa\"?\n\nAlmost by definition, children in the Otherworld to whom the dolls were\ngiven wouldn't have a daddy. Given the necessarily limited amount of memory\navailable in a mechanical doll, I don't think it would be expended on a\nperson the child could never know.\n\n-Roy" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Spectacled Bear", "address": "spectacled.bear at pobox.com" }, "date": "2003-01-28T10:03:18+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) DOORS: Tina's origins", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "At 08:14 2003-01-28, Roy C. Lackey wrote:\nSpectacled Bear wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "But the really interesting question about Tina, that I have not seen\naddressed before, is: how does she know about Daddies? For his birthday,\n\"Didn't Mama and Daddy give you anything?\" (p228) Green hasn't seen his\nfather for years, but Tina says his father still loves him. \"I know about\nDaddies, though. And you don't.\" And so on. Where in the world - in which\nworld - did she learn about Daddies?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "And just to confuse things further; when they were in the limo Tina said to\nKlamm, speaking of Green: \"He needs your help, Papa.\" Klamm matter-of-factly\nanswers her: \"Then he shall haff it. Whatever I can give.\" (300) Why did\nTina call him \"Papa\"?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I think she simply recognized him as such - but was it only because he was\nacting in a helpful and fatherly manner, or is he really Green's father?\nSome versions of the legend of Attis have him being the son of Cybele as\npart of a cycle of death and rebirth. This fits with Green having memories\nof Billy Hurst's life come back to him. But if all Lara's lovers are Attis\nreincarnated, it's hard to see how there can be two of them around at the\nsame time in Green and Klamm. But if they aren't (and the story really \ndoesn't seem to be constructed that way), why does Green feel that\nhe is remembering a previous life as a sea captain?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Almost by definition, children in the Otherworld to whom the dolls were\ngiven wouldn't have a daddy. Given the necessarily limited amount of memory\navailable in a mechanical doll, I don't think it would be expended on a\nperson the child could never know." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "That's right. Whereas if it was manufactured here, the manufacturers might\nwell not be in on the secret of the existence of the Otherworld, and would\nprogram the doll for life in our world.\n\nSpectacled Bear." } ] } ] }