{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/6394", "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": 6394, "subject": "Short Sun notes: Inhumi and their sources", "messages": 7, "voices": 5, "first": "2013-07-07T21:29:21+00:00", "last": "2013-07-13T20:47:34+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Andrew Mason", "address": "andrew.mason53 at googlemail.com" }, "date": "2013-07-07T21:29:21+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Short Sun notes: Inhumi and their sources", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "We know that each humanoid inhumu/a has a human spirit, which is derived\nfrom someone one of their parents fed on before their birth. In the case we\nknow most about, Krait, it’s his mother, but I’m not sure it has to be in\nevery case. Indeed, one might wonder if sometimes one of them might have a\ndouble spirit, derived both from their father and their mother.\n\n\nI suspect that for each featured inhumu/a we are meant to be able to work\nout who their source is.\n\n\nKrait’s we know is Sinew.\n\n\nQuetzal’s, I suspect, is Pike. (I think this has been suggested before.)\nThe only positive evidence for this is that at one point, when they are\nwalking together in the dark, Silk mistakes him for Pike. But it would make\nsense of some things about his character. When he says “Some people love\nbirds so much that they want to keep them caged, and other people love\nbirds so much that they want to set them free”, that is amazingly\ncharitable both to Pas and to Echidna — it has a “see the good in everyone”\nquality worthy of Silk. That would make sense if Quetzal’s source is Silk’s\nmentor.\n\n\nJahlee’s, I agree with many people, is Chenille. There’s several pieces of\nevidence for this; in astral travel she seems to have red hair; Mora, on\nfirst meeting her, says “She looks like a whore”; and when she is drunk in\nDorp the Rajan mistakes her for Chenille. (It might be that Chenille is the\nwoman she has just fed on, but I don’t think so; she knows who Chenille is\n— “that lady on Green” — and doesn’t recognise her as her victim.)\n\n\nI do wonder in particular about Jahlee whether she might have a double\nsource, which could explain how she can switch so easily between looking\nlike an old woman and a young woman. (Fava can also look like both, but she\nhas to feed on children to keep looking young, while Jahlee seems able to\nchange at will.)\n\n\nJuganu’s, I propose (and I think this is new) is Lemur, or possibly Loris.\nWe are told that Juganu, in astral travel, has a hawk nose and eyes the\ncolour of ice. Lemur has an aquiline nose, and while his own eyes aren’t\ndescribed, his brother, Loris, has icy blue eyes. (These are their chem\nbodies, of course, but presumably they are modelled on their bio bodies.)\nIn the conversation with Remora at the end, the Rajan says Gyrfalcon was as\nbad as Juganu, and Remora then (a bit cryptically, as is his wont) compares\nGyrfalcon to Lemur.\n\n\nThis leaves us with Fava. I’m not sure about Fava, though we get enough\ndescriptions of her astral body (which is said to be quite similar to her\nphysical body when in disguise) to suggest that her appearance is\nsignificant in some way. It is possible, of course, that her source was in\nGrandecitta — the shape-changing witch about whom Salica tells a story\nmight have been Fava, or perhaps her mother. Could it be that Salica\nherself is the source? Fava does claim to remember her youth in Grandecitta\n— though it’s not clear the memory is her own — and is at one point\ndescribed as looking like a woman who had been beautiful thirty years\nbefore." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee Berman", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2013-07-10T14:23:06+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Short Sun notes: Inhumi and their sources", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Andrew Mason: I suspect that for each featured inhumu/a we are meant to be able to work\nout who their source is." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I find the blended identities found within inhumi to be very confusing. Likewise for the\nmerged identities within other characters like Babbie, Oreb, Pig, Kypris/Hyacynth, etc. I \nappreciate and admire your fortitude in trying to map these out.\n\nI've been lazy, and content to take a broad-based interpretation of all that. For the inhumi \nI find them to be Wolfean allegory on the presence of blood-sucking parasites among us; the \nliars and criminals and drug addicts who only take from society without contributing.\n\nThe conflation of inhumi with Horn's children and surrogate children seems a bit like the\nShakespearean lament: \"how sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child\".\nSince I think only Number 5 and Severian rival Horn as a Gene Wolfe literary avatar, I \nsuspect there is masked autobiography going on here as well as a general statement on \nhumanity and the difficulties of parenthood. \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "<40F3A2B4-F118-436A-9F62-71B7E5744792@yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2013-07-12T12:58:14+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Short Sun notes: Inhumi and their sources", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "The scene on dorp when Jahlee is mistaken for Chenille also has two other weird things - the presence of auks ghost and it is where Oreb brings a ring that changes to look like Horn's ring. Silk is also very concerned about the woman Jahlee just fed on, asking if she was dead, a big woman. Jahlee acts drink because she just fed on someone who turned to drugs in her sorrow. The ring, auk's ghost, and suddenly being mistaken for chenille and feeding on a big woman, as well as a lander for silk to leave in at the end, tell me auk fixed the lander and chenille wound up bled in an alley by Jahlee in dorp. Time paradoxes are irrelevant. Astral travel is time travel. Silk could have not have freed them in his time line yet. \n\nSent from my iPhone" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Jul 7, 2013, at 2:29 PM, Andrew Mason wrote:\nWe know that each humanoid inhumu/a has a human spirit, which is derived from someone one of their parents fed on before their birth. In the case we know most about, Krait, it’s his mother, but I’m not sure it has to be in every case. Indeed, one might wonder if sometimes one of them might have a double spirit, derived both from their father and their mother. \n\n\n\nI suspect that for each featured inhumu/a we are meant to be able to work out who their source is. \n\n\n\nKrait’s we know is Sinew. \n\n\n\nQuetzal’s, I suspect, is Pike. (I think this has been suggested before.) The only positive evidence for this is that at one point, when they are walking together in the dark, Silk mistakes him for Pike. But it would make sense of some things about his character. When he says “Some people love birds so much that they want to keep them caged, and other people love birds so much that they want to set them free”, that is amazingly charitable both to Pas and to Echidna — it has a “see the good in everyone” quality worthy of Silk. That would make sense if Quetzal’s source is Silk’s mentor. \n\n\n\nJahlee’s, I agree with many people, is Chenille. There’s several pieces of evidence for this; in astral travel she seems to have red hair; Mora, on first meeting her, says “She looks like a whore”; and when she is drunk in Dorp the Rajan mistakes her for Chenille. (It might be that Chenille is the woman she has just fed on, but I don’t think so; she knows who Chenille is — “that lady on Green” — and doesn’t recognise her as her victim.)\n\n\n\nI do wonder in particular about Jahlee whether she might have a double source, which could explain how she can switch so easily between looking like an old woman and a young woman. (Fava can also look like both, but she has to feed on children to keep looking young, while Jahlee seems able to change at will.) \n\n\n\nJuganu’s, I propose (and I think this is new) is Lemur, or possibly Loris. We are told that Juganu, in astral travel, has a hawk nose and eyes the colour of ice. Lemur has an aquiline nose, and while his own eyes aren’t described, his brother, Loris, has icy blue eyes. (These are their chem bodies, of course, but presumably they are modelled on their bio bodies.) In the conversation with Remora at the end, the Rajan says Gyrfalcon was as bad as Juganu, and Remora then (a bit cryptically, as is his wont) compares Gyrfalcon to Lemur. \n\n\n\nThis leaves us with Fava. I’m not sure about Fava, though we get enough descriptions of her astral body (which is said to be quite similar to her physical body when in disguise) to suggest that her appearance is significant in some way. It is possible, of course, that her source was in Grandecitta — the shape-changing witch about whom Salica tells a story might have been Fava, or perhaps her mother. Could it be that Salica herself is the source? Fava does claim to remember her youth in Grandecitta — though it’s not clear the memory is her own — and is at one point described as looking like a woman who had been beautiful thirty years before.\n\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Andrew Mason", "address": "andrew.mason53 at googlemail.com" }, "date": "2013-07-12T21:30:03+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Short Sun notes: Inhumi and their sources", "in_reply_to": "<40F3A2B4-F118-436A-9F62-71B7E5744792@yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Lee Berman wrote:." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I find the blended identities found within inhumi to be very confusing.\nLikewise for the\nmerged identities within other characters like Babbie, Oreb, Pig,\nKypris/Hyacynth, etc. I\nappreciate and admire your fortitude in trying to map these out." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Thanks! I hope to say something about some of these, especially Babbie,\nlater." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I've been lazy, and content to take a broad-based interpretation of all\nthat. For the inhumi\nI find them to be Wolfean allegory on the presence of blood-sucking\nparasites among us; the\nliars and criminals and drug addicts who only take from society without\ncontributing." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I think I take a more two-sided view of the inhumi than that. I take it to\nbe very important that they have human spirits, and are capable of human\nvirtues as well as vices: Krait and Fava turn out nobly in the end. Jahlee\ndoesn't, but that's not just because she's a monster, but because of the\nhuman emotion of jealousy. But of course if inhumi are people it follows\nthat people can also be inhumi; that I take it is the point being made with\nJuganu and Gyrfalcon. (It has just struck me, by the way, that if Lemur is\nJuganu's source, it is quite likely that Quetzal - who, as Remora rather\npointlessly points out, knew Lemur - is Juganu's father.)" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "The conflation of inhumi with Horn's children and surrogate children seems\na bit like the\nShakespearean lament: \"how sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a\nthankless child\".\nSince I think only Number 5 and Severian rival Horn as a Gene Wolfe\nliterary avatar, I\nsuspect there is masked autobiography going on here as well as a general\nstatement on\nhumanity and the difficulties of parenthood." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Yes indeed. With Krait I think it's fairly clear what's happening - Horn\nadopts Krait as his son, and it turns out that he is in a way his son,\nthrough Sinew. I think that Horn is unfairly judging Sinew - perhaps\nbecause he reminds Horn of his younger self - and that through Krait he\ncomes to appreciate him better. But Jahlee is a real mystery. Why does the\nRajan see her, not as his sister - which would make sense if she is\nChenille - but as his daughter? You might just say 'by adoption', and\nadoption is certainly taken seriously in the Vironese community, but there\nare suggestions there's more to it than that; he thinks in retrospect of\nKrait as his grandson, and wonders whether it was legitimate to adopt Krait\nin the light of that; yet the adoption of Krait happened long before he met\nJahlee. But there's no suggestion that either Silk or Horn ever had a\ndaughter. There's something here I'm not fathoming." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "David Duffy", "address": "david.duffy at qimr.edu.au" }, "date": "2013-07-13T00:40:34+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Short Sun notes: Inhumi and their sources", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Sat, 13 Jul 2013, Andrew Mason wrote:\nYes indeed. With Krait I think it's fairly clear what's happening - Horn\nadopts Krait as his son, and it turns out that he is in a way his son,\nthrough Sinew. I think that Horn is unfairly judging Sinew - perhaps\nbecause he reminds Horn of his younger self - and that through Krait he\ncomes to appreciate him better. But Jahlee is a real mystery. Why does the\nRajan see her, not as his sister - which would make sense if she is\nChenille - but as his daughter? You might just say 'by adoption', and\nadoption is certainly taken seriously in the Vironese community, but there\nare suggestions there's more to it than that; he thinks in retrospect of\nKrait as his grandson, and wonders whether it was legitimate to adopt Krait\nin the light of that; yet the adoption of Krait happened long before he met\nJahlee. But there's no suggestion that either Silk or Horn ever had a\ndaughter. There's something here I'm not fathoming." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Well Silk may feel in loco parentis to Horn..." } ] }, { "message_id": "<80CA3422-EEAD-4519-88FD-7B9C7DB37470@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "entonio at gmail.com", "address": "entonio at gmail.com" }, "date": "2013-07-13T20:33:38+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Short Sun notes: Inhumi and their sources", "in_reply_to": "<40F3A2B4-F118-436A-9F62-71B7E5744792@yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Silk fred them?\n\nNo dia 12/07/2013, ?s 13:58, Marc Aramini escreveu:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "The scene on dorp when Jahlee is mistaken for Chenille also has two other weird things - the presence of auks ghost and it is where Oreb brings a ring that changes to look like Horn's ring. Silk is also very concerned about the woman Jahlee just fed on, asking if she was dead, a big woman. Jahlee acts drink because she just fed on someone who turned to drugs in her sorrow. The ring, auk's ghost, and suddenly being mistaken for chenille and feeding on a big woman, as well as a lander for silk to leave in at the end, tell me auk fixed the lander and chenille wound up bled in an alley by Jahlee in dorp. Time paradoxes are irrelevant. Astral travel is time travel. Silk could have not have freed them in his time line yet. \n\nSent from my iPhone\n\nOn Jul 7, 2013, at 2:29 PM, Andrew Mason wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "We know that each humanoid inhumu/a has a human spirit, which is derived from someone one of their parents fed on before their birth. In the case we know most about, Krait, it’s his mother, but I’m not sure it has to be in every case. Indeed, one might wonder if sometimes one of them might have a double spirit, derived both from their father and their mother. \n\n\n\nI suspect that for each featured inhumu/a we are meant to be able to work out who their source is. \n\n\n\nKrait’s we know is Sinew. \n\n\n\nQuetzal’s, I suspect, is Pike. (I think this has been suggested before.) The only positive evidence for this is that at one point, when they are walking together in the dark, Silk mistakes him for Pike. But it would make sense of some things about his character. When he says “Some people love birds so much that they want to keep them caged, and other people love birds so much that they want to set them free”, that is amazingly charitable both to Pas and to Echidna — it has a “see the good in everyone” quality worthy of Silk. That would make sense if Quetzal’s source is Silk’s mentor. \n\n\n\nJahlee’s, I agree with many people, is Chenille. There’s several pieces of evidence for this; in astral travel she seems to have red hair; Mora, on first meeting her, says “She looks like a whore”; and when she is drunk in Dorp the Rajan mistakes her for Chenille. (It might be that Chenille is the woman she has just fed on, but I don’t think so; she knows who Chenille is — “that lady on Green” — and doesn’t recognise her as her victim.)\n\n\n\nI do wonder in particular about Jahlee whether she might have a double source, which could explain how she can switch so easily between looking like an old woman and a young woman. (Fava can also look like both, but she has to feed on children to keep looking young, while Jahlee seems able to change at will.) \n\n\n\nJuganu’s, I propose (and I think this is new) is Lemur, or possibly Loris. We are told that Juganu, in astral travel, has a hawk nose and eyes the colour of ice. Lemur has an aquiline nose, and while his own eyes aren’t described, his brother, Loris, has icy blue eyes. (These are their chem bodies, of course, but presumably they are modelled on their bio bodies.) In the conversation with Remora at the end, the Rajan says Gyrfalcon was as bad as Juganu, and Remora then (a bit cryptically, as is his wont) compares Gyrfalcon to Lemur. \n\n\n\nThis leaves us with Fava. I’m not sure about Fava, though we get enough descriptions of her astral body (which is said to be quite similar to her physical body when in disguise) to suggest that her appearance is significant in some way. It is possible, of course, that her source was in Grandecitta — the shape-changing witch about whom Salica tells a story might have been Fava, or perhaps her mother. Could it be that Salica herself is the source? Fava does claim to remember her youth in Grandecitta — though it’s not clear the memory is her own — and is at one point described as looking like a woman who had been beautiful thirty years before.\n\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "<76113F7C-71C8-4BF9-B929-4D25D3D35C02@yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2013-07-13T20:47:34+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Short Sun notes: Inhumi and their sources", "in_reply_to": "<80CA3422-EEAD-4519-88FD-7B9C7DB37470@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Off camera, in my opinion. A ring, auks ghost, a big woman high on something victimized by Jahlee, after which she looks like chenille, and a lander all near Dorp match up with stuff supposed to be on green- the ring, the lander with horn's body, chenille, and auk. Echoes of all that stuff wound up in Dorp. And the ring changes appearance so that the narrator first says it is the same ring, then isn't. Everything there near Dorp says Silk will free them on his visits- the timelines don't have to match up as Silk and Oreb already showed up in the past in that woman's story at the start of IGJ. \n\nSent from my iPhone" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Jul 13, 2013, at 1:33 PM, entonio at gmail.com wrote:\nSilk fred them?\n\nNo dia 12/07/2013, ?s 13:58, Marc Aramini escreveu:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "The scene on dorp when Jahlee is mistaken for Chenille also has two other weird things - the presence of auks ghost and it is where Oreb brings a ring that changes to look like Horn's ring. Silk is also very concerned about the woman Jahlee just fed on, asking if she was dead, a big woman. Jahlee acts drink because she just fed on someone who turned to drugs in her sorrow. The ring, auk's ghost, and suddenly being mistaken for chenille and feeding on a big woman, as well as a lander for silk to leave in at the end, tell me auk fixed the lander and chenille wound up bled in an alley by Jahlee in dorp. Time paradoxes are irrelevant. Astral travel is time travel. Silk could have not have freed them in his time line yet. \n\nSent from my iPhone\n\nOn Jul 7, 2013, at 2:29 PM, Andrew Mason wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "We know that each humanoid inhumu/a has a human spirit, which is derived from someone one of their parents fed on before their birth. In the case we know most about, Krait, it’s his mother, but I’m not sure it has to be in every case. Indeed, one might wonder if sometimes one of them might have a double spirit, derived both from their father and their mother. \n\n\n\nI suspect that for each featured inhumu/a we are meant to be able to work out who their source is. \n\n\n\nKrait’s we know is Sinew. \n\n\n\nQuetzal’s, I suspect, is Pike. (I think this has been suggested before.) The only positive evidence for this is that at one point, when they are walking together in the dark, Silk mistakes him for Pike. But it would make sense of some things about his character. When he says “Some people love birds so much that they want to keep them caged, and other people love birds so much that they want to set them free”, that is amazingly charitable both to Pas and to Echidna — it has a “see the good in everyone” quality worthy of Silk. That would make sense if Quetzal’s source is Silk’s mentor. \n\n\n\nJahlee’s, I agree with many people, is Chenille. There’s several pieces of evidence for this; in astral travel she seems to have red hair; Mora, on first meeting her, says “She looks like a whore”; and when she is drunk in Dorp the Rajan mistakes her for Chenille. (It might be that Chenille is the woman she has just fed on, but I don’t think so; she knows who Chenille is — “that lady on Green” — and doesn’t recognise her as her victim.)\n\n\n\nI do wonder in particular about Jahlee whether she might have a double source, which could explain how she can switch so easily between looking like an old woman and a young woman. (Fava can also look like both, but she has to feed on children to keep looking young, while Jahlee seems able to change at will.) \n\n\n\nJuganu’s, I propose (and I think this is new) is Lemur, or possibly Loris. We are told that Juganu, in astral travel, has a hawk nose and eyes the colour of ice. Lemur has an aquiline nose, and while his own eyes aren’t described, his brother, Loris, has icy blue eyes. (These are their chem bodies, of course, but presumably they are modelled on their bio bodies.) In the conversation with Remora at the end, the Rajan says Gyrfalcon was as bad as Juganu, and Remora then (a bit cryptically, as is his wont) compares Gyrfalcon to Lemur. \n\n\n\nThis leaves us with Fava. I’m not sure about Fava, though we get enough descriptions of her astral body (which is said to be quite similar to her physical body when in disguise) to suggest that her appearance is significant in some way. It is possible, of course, that her source was in Grandecitta — the shape-changing witch about whom Salica tells a story might have been Fava, or perhaps her mother. Could it be that Salica herself is the source? Fava does claim to remember her youth in Grandecitta — though it’s not clear the memory is her own — and is at one point described as looking like a woman who had been beautiful thirty years before.\n\n_______________________________________________" } ] } ] }