{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/741",
    "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": 741,
    "subject": "5HC: abo debate",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "1998-06-05T18:38:00+00:00",
    "last": "1998-06-05T18:38:00+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0012-0086@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "m.driussi",
        "address": "m.driussi at genie.com"
      },
      "date": "1998-06-05T18:38:00+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) 5HC: abo debate",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Thesis (official colonial): there are no abos (never were or they\nwere killed by the French)\n\nAntithesis (from behind the mask of \"Veil,\" i.e., mystery, hidden,\noccult): the French were killed by the abos, and said abos have since\nblended among the subsequent French colonists as faux-French.  (Which\ncomes perilously close to saying that there are no \"French.\")\n\nSynthesis (Liev or something else?): the excluded middle of the above\narguments? I.e., maybe, yes and no, some but not all.\n\nPersonally I think the texts weave in and out and around through\nthese three points.\n\nIt might not be possible to apply any one to the trilogy with a\nhermetic fit.  It is proving quite difficult to apply it to\ncharacters who appear in more than one of the novellas.\n\nPerhaps we can narrow the range down to one character and one\nnovella.  For example, the \"Maitre\" reading and judging in \"V.R.T.\"\nHe is presumably not an abo, nor a brainwashed clone of 666, and he\nis filtering through a criminal case--he is probably the most\nreliable character we have.  What is his attitude towards abos\n(official, Veil, or other)?  How many theories does he have about\nthe prisoner, and do any of them include a notion that the prisoner\nis an abo?\n\nThe assassin theory seems to be that the prisoner got his\ntraining and instruction from \"the junta\" of Sainte Anne and came to\nkill somebody important, but not Number Four.  With a heavy rifle at\nlong range with one shot.  A sort of Lee Harvey Oswald scenario.\n\nThe attitude toward Number Four revealed in the interrogations seems\nto be that he was secretly in league with the government of Sainte\nCroix, as spy and surgeon.\n\nBut the officer also seems to notice the shift in handwriting from\nMarsch to V.R.T.  This by itself does not mean that the officer\nbelieves in abos, since impersonation by humans exists; V.R.T. as a\nhuman can still murder and replace Marsch.  Does the officer think\nthat V.R.T.'s abo-ness is just a symptom of insanity in a human man?\n\nWhat about the officer's reaction to the Poe visitations?  When was\nhe at a graveyard?  Who was buried, what was his involvement such\nthat the cat has followed him back?\n\nAnd what about that damn book, the Field Guide?  Is it one of the few\nbooks Marsch brought from Earth, or one of the many he bought when he\nfirst arrived at Roncevaux (and then presumably listed in the excised\nsection of the journal)?  V.R.T./Marsch implies that he brought it\nfrom Earth--the officer responds by saying he doubts the prisoner has\never been to Earth.  The officer =doesn't= say, \"This book was\npublished on Sainte Anne,\" which would be the answer to the\nprisoner's implication that the book originated on Earth (and by\nanalogy so did the book's owner); the officer refutes the analogy\nrather than addressing the implication.\n\n(Robert, re: the scarred prostitute in Roncenvoux, thanks for the\nnote.  I sense that this was during the second visit to Roncevaux,\nwhen V.R.T./Marsch was living there for a year before going to Sainte\nCroix.  If Marsch was homosexual [well gosh, what, 100% gay I guess]\nand V.R.T. was not [say 100% hetrosexual], then Marsch wouldn't have\nhired a female prostitute, whereas V.R.T. might have [re: mom caught\nme with that girl; the love-object-women of \"A Story\"]; this might\nalso help to explain the sexual confusion suffered by V.R.T./Marsch\nas a sort of \"50% bisexual dysfunctional\" as per the prostitute of\nRoncevaux, the tea and sympathy chats with Dr. Veil \"I'm looking for\na mature man to talk Plato with . . . a mentor to provide a role model\nI could grow into . . . \" <g> and the nasty remarks about C.E.)\n\n=mantis="
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}