{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/735",
    "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": 735,
    "subject": "Roy Trenchard, Abo",
    "messages": 2,
    "voices": 2,
    "first": "1998-06-04T01:10:55+00:00",
    "last": "1998-06-04T17:32:11+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0012-0078@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Robert Borski",
        "address": "rborski at coredcs.com"
      },
      "date": "1998-06-04T01:10:55+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Roy Trenchard, Abo",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Now that I've had my bit of fun, it's time I finished the last of my major\nessays about FIFTH HEAD.\n\nThis one will attempt to prove that Roy Trenchard, the beggar huckster\nfather of VRT, is not human, as everyone in the novel assumes, but a\nfull-blooded abo.\n\nI'm going to do this differently than I normally do and use a semitemporal\napproach. Certain assumptions will be made immediately at the start, but I\nhope that you will come less to question them once you've completed the\nentire piece.\n\nPM = Annese years preceeding the arrival of Dr. Marsch from Earth at the\nRoncevaux starport (1 year Annese= 1.3-1.4 years Terran.)\n\n-17PM     In the back of beyond, a young woman of the Free People becomes\npregnant. She and the child's father debate whether they should stay in the\nAnnese outback where winters are harsh and half of all children die, or\nattempt to find surroundings more conducive to survival. Perhaps additional\nmatters weigh in on their decision. Since there is evidence to suggest that\nthe father-to-be is a Wetlander--i.e., of a rival abo group--he and the\nwoman he's impregnated may not have been welcome by either group (the\nMontague-Capulet scenario). Size and resource limitations may have also\nplayed a part in the decision (the Donner's Pass scenario); Annese groups\nin the wild seldom number more than 10 people, with an additional\nrestriction on males of fighting size (3-4), and so this might have placed\na burden on the survival of the overall group. \n\nFor whatever reasons the young couple decides to do something many other of\nthe Annese have done over the past two hundred years: they decide to pass\nas humans. It's easy enough to do; all you have to do is master their vocal\npatterns and avoid situations which demonstrate your lack of manual\ndexterity (a central conceit of the novel and undeniably a given).\n\nChristening himself Roy Trenchard, the man and his pregnant girlfriend go\nto Roncevaux, a sea-and-starport. Here Roy will attempt to earn a living as\na fisherman; while unable to work with tools, the Wetlanders are more than\ncapable, we are told, of manipulating nets woven from rawhide or vegetable\nfiber (this same ability will later be seen in Victor, who is adept with\nknots).\n\nBefore they take up residence, however, the Trenchards anthropomorphize.\nMom takes on a more traditional seductress form (Eve or Three Faces, which\nis no doubt meant to recall the movie, since Three Faces of Eve is about\nmultiple personality and Victor's mother is allegedly an actress), keeping\nher native large green eyes, but Roy, thinking it perhaps better to allay\nsuspicions (abo passers are probably more tolerated in cosmopolitan\nRoncevaux than anywhere else; still, it's wise to know your place) opts for\neyes \"little and blue.\"\n\n[There is a parallel to this with the carabao-thing Marsch shoots, but\nwhich doesn't die right away, prolonging its mortal coil shuffling until\nmid-morph; hence its double-pupiled eyes, the surmised nictitating effect\nspeculated upon by Marsch being totally bogus.]\n\n[We must also note that Victor's tiny blue eyes adumbrate where the former\nlight of his eyes will wind up by story's end; i.e., at that other little\nblue place in the sky, Sainte Croix.]   \n\nTo better fit in with societal mores Roy marries Eve in a ceremony at\nSainte Madeleine. The marriage may also provide them with documentage akin\nto baptismal certificates.\n\n-16 PM    Victor Roy Trenchard is born.\n\nThings appear to go well for the young couple and child during the next\nyear. Roy is able to make a decent enough living. Eve stays home with\nlittle Victor, her darling green-eyed boy.\n\n-15 PM     Here occurs the rowboat scene recalled by Victor from his\ncitadel cell. Earlier he explains how powerfully-subject to recall all his\nmemories are, even when they've pre-dated any foundation he lacked for\nunderstanding them. \n\nAlso please note what I've asterisked--they're important.\n\n\"...but the odd thing about my dream was that *I knew everything that I was\nto learn later,* and I looked at my father, who seemed a red-bearded giant,\nand *knew what would happen to his hands so that he could no longer follow\nhis trade.* My mother--yes, I am sure it was she, though \n*I have never understood how one of the Free People could bear a child to\nmy father*--had been buttoned into her yellow dress by him...\" (p. 216)\n\nUnbeknownst to the idyllic couple, however, much trouble has been brewing,\nespecially for abos who do not know their place.\n\nRoy, after Marsch arrives <PM =0>, provides us with hints of its nature:\n\n\"Now you say, 'where are they?' but would they be wise to show themselves?\nOnce all this world of Sainte Anne was theirs. A farmer thinks: 'Suppose\nthey are men like me after all? That Dupont, he is a clever lawyer. What if\nthey engage him, eh? What if he spoke to the judge--the judge who has no\nFrench and hates us--and said, This man you call abo has nothing, but\nAugier's farm was his family's--you make Augier show us the bill of sale?'\"\n(p.192) \n\nTwo things are important to note here.\n\nAll the records involving bill of sales and other documentage have gone up\nin smoke when St-Dizier, the capital of Sainte Anne, was \"fused\" in the\nwar. (I'm speculating laser armaments rather than nuclear; the former we\nsee in a military craft patroling Frenchman's Landing. It's also here, when\nVictor starts to wave at the craft, his father yells him, saying \"Faitez\nattention. *You are supposed to be* Francais.\" In the actual passage the\n*words are missing because Marsch does not comprehend French, but given the\nnature of Roy's \"the judge hates us French\" riff, it is not overly\ndifficult to imagine what he might be saying. It's also stated during\nMarsch/VRT's interrogations on Sainte Croix that the French hate the\ngovernment of Sainte Anne, so not waving is important to their cover.\n\nSo what might we assume from these new facts? That perhaps some uppity Rosa\nParks type abo decided to take such a case as Roy outlines to court?\nPerhaps Rosa Abo even wins. Horrors, it's not bad enough the French have\nlost the war and have no representation in the government. Now they want to\ntake our land from us too. (South Africa comes to mind here as a parallel).\nWhat are we going to go?\n\nLet's kill all of the abos we can find.\n\nAnd they do, either covertly a la the Klu Klux Klan or with the\ngovernment's full cooperation. It doesn't matter.\n\nA slaughter or series of slaughters takes place at a ford Dr. Hagsmith\ncalls Running Blood. Only later do we learn the French name for the river\n(Rougette, 'rosy') as well as its even more telling abo name: End of Days.\nBoth English and abo names omniously invoke images of slaughter and\ngenocide.\n\n[The account of Mr.D on p. 147 dates the Running Blood incident back 15\nyears, which would mean Victor was still only one year old. Hence my\ndating.]\n\nAnd how do the French know that whoever attempts to ford the Rougette might\nnot be human since shape-shifted abos appear indistinguishable from the\ngenuine article?\n\nAccording to Dr. Hagsmith everyone who comes to the ford--it is probably a\nmajor crossing area for both human and abo, and probably near abo sacred\nsites or required crossing to get there--must pass the Shovel Test.\n\nIf the challenged forder can dig with it, he/she's human. If he/she can't,\nthey're not, because abos don't have the manual dexterity: in other words,\nit's au revoir, a deadly litmus. \n\nNo big deal, though. The abos aren't people, they're magical animals.\n\nBut what if there are abos in our beloved cities, ask the blood-crazed,\nland-loving killers. We must devise ways of ridding them too.\n\nSo lists are drawn up. Anyone with green eyes is immediately suspect.\nAnyone with known abo skills like fishing is also suspect. Perhaps only men\nare questioned, the French thinking if we kill all the stallions, we won't\nhave to worry about the mares and foals.\n\nRoncevaux being a port to livestock breeders, its peoples are used to\nscreams of dispatched animals and blood in the streets.\n\nRoy, for whatever reasons, can't get out of town. Either he's heard the\nword too late or the baby's sick or the only avenues of escape they have\nare all patrolled by the shovel-wielding French.\n\nThere is only one way he can beat the test.\n\nHe has to show a reason why he can't handle the shovel or perhaps delay the\ntest for another day.\n\nRecall to mind now Dr. Hagsmith's story about the cattle-drover's wife, who\nloses her arms to a train when she collapses drunkenly on the tracks.\nRemember how these little abo tales have lots of ingrained semibiographical\ntruths, even when refractive.\n\nRoy, doing his best imitation of a drunkard (a role he will perfect over\nthe next decade-and-a-half), collapses on the tracks before an oncoming\ntrain and loses both hands. Yes, it hurts, but he loves his wife and child,\nas well as his own hide, and in the wild many of his kin lose limbs to\nferal beasts all the time. No big deal; he can slough off the transplants\nthey provide him with from the cryobank (the same as those that avail the\ncattledrover's wife), then regenerate his own. That's basically what\nshape-shifting involves anyway--contouring and directing your own flesh\nhowever you want--as if you're both pruner and bonzoi tree. \n\nEventually Roy recovers, but now either his grafted human hands allow him\nto take the test (conferred human abilities are implied by Hagsmith's\ntale), or the evidence of his hands, which never quite properly recover,\ncan't be used against him. (Or he regenerates his own hands somewhat later,\nafter the scare passes). Poor drunken bloke; leave him be. He'll have a\nrough enough time in life as it is.\n\nEventually the bloodlust passes or the courts issue a new verdict or\nconsidered expert scientific opinon decides there's no such as a remnant\naboriginal race left on Sainte Anne. \n\nFrench 10, Abos 0.\n\nUnfortunately, Roy now can no longer handle even the minimal manual skills\nhe needs to work his nets. This is a corollary of Dollo's Law; while he\nmight regenerate his missing parts, the function of those parts would *not*\nbe reacquired. And so he's forced to prostitute his wife to earn a living.\n\n[Cinderella interlude: look at the multiple shadings Gene Wolfe gets by\nhaving Dr. Hagsmith say the abo shaman's name is Cinderwalker, but then\nadding as if in clarification, \"No, not Cinderella--I know what you're\nthinking.\" Cinderella, after all, involves two different forms of\ntransformation: physical (mice to horses, pumpkins to carriage) as well as\npersonal (Cinderella the chargirl becomes the glass-slippered\ndebutante)--both types of transformation are seen in the Trenchards.\nCinderella also, at least for me, has tangents to the Holocaust with its\nash and chimney images.] \n\n-14 to -4PM     Things continue to deteriorate for the Trenchards over the\nnext decade. Eve must continue to prostitute herself, which is not only\npainful to Roy, because he still loves her (but how can I love a woman who\nsleeps with other men?), but erodes his self-esteem, since he can no longer\nprovide for his family.\n\nWhen Victor is old enough, and it is summer, Eve takes her son into the\nback of beyond and introduces him to the Free People and their ways.\n\nRoy, unable to pimp Eve during these same months, relocates to Frenchman's\nLanding, a prime spot to open up his\nAbo-Wonders-of-Yesterday-Tour-and-Souvenir Shop. Here he sells \"genuine\"\nabo artifacts that Victor has made, according to Vic, with his teeth. Roy's\nbecoming more and more deracinated, more and more marginalized by the\npeople who think he's little better than a\ndrunk-slash-conartist-slash-malingerer. Unfortunately, this is not a role\nuncommon to many figures in all societies where two cultures come together\nand one is adjudged to be more primitive or inferior (which usually means\nless technically adept--a case that applies here). It's even questionable\nif he could survive with his useless hands in the back of beyond, so this\nmakes him even more the man without a culture.\n\n [Note to mantis: you need to uplink your artifact speculations--they're\nanother point in my case, but yours to deliver.]\n\nVictor too seems caught between two cultures, or perhaps it's better to say\nhe has two cultures to pick from, although he does seem to lean more\ntowards the Free People side of his heritage until he eventually leaves\nSainte Anne (witness how he cries when an abo shape-shifted animal is shot\nby Marsch, but reviles the French with the \"Frogtown\" epithet). Victor must\nalso resolve the difficulties involved with having a mother who's a\nprostitute and the attendant associations these are likely to chart on his\npsychosexual development. (I maintain they contribute to psychosis and\npossible latent homosexuality.\") [Please note here I am not saying that\nhomosexuality is a malign pyschosexual response.]\n\nWitness too how at one point Victor says he is half animal. While at\nanother juncture he declares \"I am half the blood of the Free People.\" Many\nreaders might assume by this that he's implying the other half of him is\nhuman, but notice that's not at all what he's saying. His father has turned\nhis back on his feral heritage (he can't even fish, the one vestige of his\nWetlander roots he at one time retained), and is therefore nothing. Of\ncourse, Victor could still say \"and the other half of me is marshman.\" But\nthat would be too telling by Wolfe in several respects. Note too this\nexplanation accounts for the I-don't\nknow-how-a-Freelander-could-bear-my-father's-child line earlier.\n\n-3 PM    Victor, now an adolescent, though yet to shave, is witnessed by\nhis mother having sex in the back of beyond.\n  \nEve leaves Victor for Roncevaux where she will somehow work her way over to\nSainte Croix--perhaps seeking to fulfill her actress dreams (we do have the\nstaged plays of act 1 to perhaps hint at a more aesthetically minded\nplanet). Her responsibilities as a mother are over; her son has been\n\"milk-weaned\" i.e., he can take care of himself.\n\nVictor meanwhile returns to Frenchman's Landing, where he joins his\nfather's tent-and-pony show, often playing Kaspar Hauser's feral boy to his\nfather's assumed identity as Twelvewalker (and perhaps it does reprise a\nbit of family history), but otherwise reading as much as he can when\noffstage. Having been abandoned by the Free People side of his heritage,\nthe stage now seems tipped for him to go the other way--which he does,\nalthough it requires him to murder and leave his enfant sauvage days far\nbehind him.\n\nEve too fares similarily, winding up, as Tony Ellis has neatly\ndemonstrated, in the same cellblock as her later arrested son. \n\nFree People, right?\n\nAs for Roy Trenchard, for all we know he continues to thrive.\n\nPerhaps there are lessons to be drawn here.\n\nSome prisons are kinder than others.\n\nSome dreams are worse.   \n\nRobert Borski (who's trying to make amends for some of his weirder posts)\n\n\n\n \n\n\n\n\n \n \n\n\n\n \n "
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0012-0080@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Tony Ellis",
        "address": "tony.ellis at futurenet.co.uk"
      },
      "date": "1998-06-04T17:32:11+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Re: Roy Trenchard, Abo",
      "in_reply_to": "<urth-v0012-0078@digest.urth.net>",
      "reply_link": "subject",
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "Robert Borski wrote:\nThis one will attempt to prove that Roy Trenchard, the beggar huckster\nfather of VRT, is not human, as everyone in the novel assumes, but a\nfull-blooded abo."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "This is an inventive, imaginative theory, but I don't see any evidence\nin the text to support it. I do see plenty to the contrary.\n\nYou asterisk several lines in VRT's rowboat memory, but not this one:\n\"My mother...had been buttoned into her yellow dress by him.\" Buttoned\nin because the Annese can't handle buttons any more than they can handle\ntools or writing. How can Trenchard do that if he's Annese too?\n\nFor someone who grew up in a marsh, doesn't RT read rather well? Yet his\nwife remained illiterate.\n\nIf RT is an abo, why does his son have to keep correcting all his bogus\ninformation about the abos? \n\nWe're shown that VRT lacks the manual dexterity to have made the fake\nflint tools RT shows Marsch. That leaves RT. How did he make them, if\nhe's an abo too?\n\nAs for this incredible business of RT cutting off his hands, grafting on\nnew ones, and then growing a _third_ set... :-)\n\nWhy would he need to, when almost everyone thinks the abos are extinct?\nThe threat to abos RT speaks of is described as coming from gun-toting\nfarmers out in the country; there is no evidence of the sort of\ninner-city witchhunt you suggest. You're also saying that the Running\nBlood test took place a mere 15 years ago, but Dr Hagsmith tells us this\nis a test that the French applied, which puts it about a century back.\nHe even says that the French were \"supposed\" to have applied it -\nwouldn't he be a little more certain if it had only happened 15 years\nago?\n\nIf RT was a shape-shifting abo, why would grafted human limbs even\naccept his alien tissue in the first place? And if they did, why would\nthis give him the ability to use tools, when the organ that has\n\"atrophied\" is in his brain?\n\nIn any event, there is no evidence that the Free People can grow new\nlimbs. There's certainly no sign in \"A Story\" that they have this\nfantastically useful survival trait. If it comes to that, there's no\nevidence in \"A Story\" that the Free People can change their shape at\nall. I think there's an awful lot of misconception in this area - but\nthat's the subject for another post."
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}