Inhumi and devils
The Urth list — 2 messages, 2 voices, 30 Nov 2010
https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/5787

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Andrew Mason — 30 Nov 2010, 18:52

> James Wynn wrote:
> 
> A daemon, note the spelling, is merely a disembodied spirit. Inhumi
> contain the spirits of others, living and dead. Mucor, at times, meets
> this criteria. Also, an important theme is in the book is that if a
> demon imitates a god, he becomes, in some sense, a god. Quetzal becomes
> a holy man, sacrificing his life for his flock. Horn becomes Silk.
> Inhumi become, in a metaphysical sense, Horn's son and Silk's sister.

OK, so there's a thematic similarity between inhumi and devils, which
makes it appropriate that Pike called them that. But if I am reading
you rightly, the inhumi as Pike knows them - creatures which fly in
through windows and suck blood - don't possess people; rather they are
themselves in a sense possessed by the spirits of others whom they
have absorbed. (Bear in mind I haven't read _Short Sun_ yet, so don't
know the details.)  I still think it's unlikely the chrasmologic
writers has inhumi in mind.

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James Wynn — 30 Nov 2010, 19:30
  in reply to Andrew Mason

> Andrew Mason-
> OK, so there's a thematic similarity between inhumi and devils, which
> makes it appropriate that Pike called them that. But if I am reading
> you rightly, the inhumi as Pike knows them - creatures which fly in
> through windows and suck blood - don't possess people; rather they are
> themselves in a sense possessed by the spirits of others whom they
> have absorbed. (Bear in mind I haven't read_Short Sun_  yet, so don't
> know the details.)  I still think it's unlikely the chrasmologic
> writers has inhumi in mind.

Well, the inhumi are "demonic" but the C. writings are an accumulation 
of mythology, the Odyssey, the Gospels, Islamic tradition, and other 
writings. So, I agree that it is unnecessary to ascribe inhumi as the 
original source of demons. They merely fit the Type.

u+16b9

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