{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/714",
    "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": 714,
    "subject": "The Tin Man",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "1998-06-02T08:45:34+00:00",
    "last": "1998-06-02T08:45:34+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0012-0054@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Robert Borski",
        "address": "rborski at coredcs.com"
      },
      "date": "1998-06-02T08:45:34+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) The Tin Man",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "For those of you into etymology (and many Wolfeans are), 'mantis' means\n'prophet.' And since there is an ancient art known as haruspicy practiced\nby fortune-tellers and sages, I issued this challenge to our own mantis.\n\n\"Do an organ reading for me, brother prophet (this being what haruspicy is,\nas I'm sure we all remember from LONG SUN), tell me from the blackness of\nthe bile and the glisten of the liver and the bloodcharge on the heart what\nthe following divines:\n\nAmong the things the adult Number Five finds above the door lintel, besides\nDavid's dessicated trumpet-vine flutes, \"there is a 'broken' puzzle made of\nthe bronzed viscera of some small animal.\" Besides the grisly nature of\nthis (I mean what the HELL kind of plaything is this? Guts-for-tots, a\nlearning toy for junior vet wannabes?), what relevance does it play in\nFIFTH HEAD?\"\n\nUnfortunately, mantis ran out of doves to sacrifice and is already out on\nbail for rustling free-range chickens, so he's turned the matter back to\nme.\n\nSo then...I see... entrails. Bronzed entrails. Metal-coated organs.\n\nThey're Mr. Million's.\n\nWe know this because he put them above the lintel himself, with the\nconfiscated flutes.\n\nWhat do they represent?\n\nSymbolically, several things.\n\nThe Wolfe clan's lost connection to the organic, the surrendering of their\nsouls. I.e., they've become so obsessed with their quest (read the\ncloning-as-immortality-trope for not just its hubristic elements, but its\nFaustian) and used such dire means to achieve their ends, they've forfeited\ntheir humanity. And so like some families did in the old days, to help\npreserve and remind them of where they've been, but can't return--the\n\"things lost\" motif--they've bronzed their much more organic equivalent of\nbaby booties.\n\nAnd why does Mr. Million put the bronzed viscera above the door?\n\nBecause he's the Tin Man from Oz. But unlike Baum's robotic woodsman, whose\ngoal in life is to secure for himself a heart, Mr. Million--easily the most\nhumane character in all of 5H--already has one, and so he can afford to let\nhis broken backup model collect dust above the lintel for all the rest of\ntime. \n\nRobert Borski (who still has Oz-induced nightmares about tornadoes)"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}