# Short Sun notes: Inhumi and their sources *The Urth list — 7 messages, 5 voices, 07 Jul 2013* > 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. --- ### Andrew Mason *07 Jul 2013, 21:29* 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. I suspect that for each featured inhumu/a we are meant to be able to work out who their source is. Krait’s we know is Sinew. Quetzal’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. Jahlee’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.) I 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.) Juganu’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. This 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. --- ### Lee Berman *10 Jul 2013, 14:23 · follows Andrew Mason* > Andrew Mason: I suspect that for each featured inhumu/a we are meant to be able to work > out who their source is. I find the blended identities found within inhumi to be very confusing. Likewise for the merged identities within other characters like Babbie, Oreb, Pig, Kypris/Hyacynth, etc. I appreciate and admire your fortitude in trying to map these out. I've been lazy, and content to take a broad-based interpretation of all that. For the inhumi I find them to be Wolfean allegory on the presence of blood-sucking parasites among us; the liars and criminals and drug addicts who only take from society without contributing. The conflation of inhumi with Horn's children and surrogate children seems a bit like the Shakespearean lament: "how sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child". Since I think only Number 5 and Severian rival Horn as a Gene Wolfe literary avatar, I suspect there is masked autobiography going on here as well as a general statement on humanity and the difficulties of parenthood. --- ### Marc Aramini *12 Jul 2013, 12:58 · in reply to Andrew Mason* 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. Sent from my iPhone > On Jul 7, 2013, at 2:29 PM, Andrew Mason wrote: > 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. > > > > I suspect that for each featured inhumu/a we are meant to be able to work out who their source is. > > > > Krait’s we know is Sinew. > > > > Quetzal’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. > > > > Jahlee’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.) > > > > I 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.) > > > > Juganu’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. > > > > This 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. > > _______________________________________________ --- ### Andrew Mason *12 Jul 2013, 21:30 · follows Marc Aramini* Lee Berman wrote:. > I find the blended identities found within inhumi to be very confusing. > Likewise for the > merged identities within other characters like Babbie, Oreb, Pig, > Kypris/Hyacynth, etc. I > appreciate and admire your fortitude in trying to map these out. Thanks! I hope to say something about some of these, especially Babbie, later. > I've been lazy, and content to take a broad-based interpretation of all > that. For the inhumi > I find them to be Wolfean allegory on the presence of blood-sucking > parasites among us; the > liars and criminals and drug addicts who only take from society without > contributing. I think I take a more two-sided view of the inhumi than that. I take it to be very important that they have human spirits, and are capable of human virtues as well as vices: Krait and Fava turn out nobly in the end. Jahlee doesn't, but that's not just because she's a monster, but because of the human emotion of jealousy. But of course if inhumi are people it follows that people can also be inhumi; that I take it is the point being made with Juganu and Gyrfalcon. (It has just struck me, by the way, that if Lemur is Juganu's source, it is quite likely that Quetzal - who, as Remora rather pointlessly points out, knew Lemur - is Juganu's father.) > The conflation of inhumi with Horn's children and surrogate children seems > a bit like the > Shakespearean lament: "how sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a > thankless child". > Since I think only Number 5 and Severian rival Horn as a Gene Wolfe > literary avatar, I > suspect there is masked autobiography going on here as well as a general > statement on > humanity and the difficulties of parenthood. Yes indeed. With Krait I think it's fairly clear what's happening - Horn adopts Krait as his son, and it turns out that he is in a way his son, through Sinew. I think that Horn is unfairly judging Sinew - perhaps because he reminds Horn of his younger self - and that through Krait he comes to appreciate him better. But Jahlee is a real mystery. Why does the Rajan see her, not as his sister - which would make sense if she is Chenille - but as his daughter? You might just say 'by adoption', and adoption is certainly taken seriously in the Vironese community, but there are suggestions there's more to it than that; he thinks in retrospect of Krait as his grandson, and wonders whether it was legitimate to adopt Krait in the light of that; yet the adoption of Krait happened long before he met Jahlee. But there's no suggestion that either Silk or Horn ever had a daughter. There's something here I'm not fathoming. --- ### David Duffy *13 Jul 2013, 00:40 · in reply to Andrew Mason* > On Sat, 13 Jul 2013, Andrew Mason wrote: > Yes indeed. With Krait I think it's fairly clear what's happening - Horn > adopts Krait as his son, and it turns out that he is in a way his son, > through Sinew. I think that Horn is unfairly judging Sinew - perhaps > because he reminds Horn of his younger self - and that through Krait he > comes to appreciate him better. But Jahlee is a real mystery. Why does the > Rajan see her, not as his sister - which would make sense if she is > Chenille - but as his daughter? You might just say 'by adoption', and > adoption is certainly taken seriously in the Vironese community, but there > are suggestions there's more to it than that; he thinks in retrospect of > Krait as his grandson, and wonders whether it was legitimate to adopt Krait > in the light of that; yet the adoption of Krait happened long before he met > Jahlee. But there's no suggestion that either Silk or Horn ever had a > daughter. There's something here I'm not fathoming. Well Silk may feel in loco parentis to Horn... --- ### entonio at gmail.com *13 Jul 2013, 20:33 · in reply to Marc Aramini* Silk fred them? No dia 12/07/2013, ?s 13:58, Marc Aramini escreveu: > 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. > > Sent from my iPhone > > On Jul 7, 2013, at 2:29 PM, Andrew Mason wrote: >> 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. >> >> >> >> I suspect that for each featured inhumu/a we are meant to be able to work out who their source is. >> >> >> >> Krait’s we know is Sinew. >> >> >> >> Quetzal’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. >> >> >> >> Jahlee’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.) >> >> >> >> I 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.) >> >> >> >> Juganu’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. >> >> >> >> This 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. >> >> _______________________________________________ --- ### Marc Aramini *13 Jul 2013, 20:47 · in reply to entonio at gmail.com* 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. Sent from my iPhone > On Jul 13, 2013, at 1:33 PM, entonio at gmail.com wrote: > Silk fred them? > > No dia 12/07/2013, ?s 13:58, Marc Aramini escreveu: >> 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. >> >> Sent from my iPhone >> >> On Jul 7, 2013, at 2:29 PM, Andrew Mason wrote: >>> 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. >>> >>> >>> >>> I suspect that for each featured inhumu/a we are meant to be able to work out who their source is. >>> >>> >>> >>> Krait’s we know is Sinew. >>> >>> >>> >>> Quetzal’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. >>> >>> >>> >>> Jahlee’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.) >>> >>> >>> >>> I 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.) >>> >>> >>> >>> Juganu’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. >>> >>> >>> >>> This 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. >>> >>> _______________________________________________ ---