{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/5076",
    "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": 5076,
    "subject": "Possession in the New Sun books?",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "2008-06-30T08:18:10+00:00",
    "last": "2008-06-30T08:18:10+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<486896C2.7090501@gmail.com>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Dave Tallman",
        "address": "davetallman at msn.com"
      },
      "date": "2008-06-30T08:18:10+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Possession in the New Sun books?",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "In the BotLS, people and animals are frequently \"possessed\" by the gods. \nThe technology to do this existed in Typhon's time. In the BotNS, there \nare hints that the something similar could be happening.\n\nIn Claw XXIV: \"Not only your Universal Mind, but many lesser powers wear \nour humanity like a cloak when they will, sometimes only as concerns two \nor three of us. We who are worn are seldom aware that, seeming ourselves \nto ourselves, we are yet Demiurge, Paraclete, or Fiend to another.\"\n\nTyphon himself seems to have such a power in his domain. He makes Sev \nsee places that are impossible to view from the eye of his mountain \nstatue in Sword XXVI. \"Fool,\" he said. \"You see through my eyes.\"  Sev \nsenses that even a temporary loyalty oath will give Typhon permanent \ncontrol: \"It is the truth that binds men.\"\n\nMiles is a clear case of possession, though in this case the old host \nmind is gone. Jonas must have used Heirogrammate-level technology to do \nthis after he used the mirrors to get back to the Ship.\n\nMy question is this: can we find other places where characters might be \n\"possessed\" by the Heirogrammates or other high-tech beings? Cases where \nthe possessed people are still \"seeming ourselves to ourselves\"?  This \ncould be used to explain sticky plot points where certain actions or \nwords have to be forced (like Sev's sword stroke during his elevation \nceremony). I'd like to use it sparingly, since overuse would make \neveryone a puppet."
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}