{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/778", "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": 778, "subject": "Artifacts & Abos", "messages": 1, "voices": 1, "first": "1998-06-14T17:54:00+00:00", "last": "1998-06-14T17:54:00+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "m.driussi", "address": "m.driussi at genie.com" }, "date": "1998-06-14T17:54:00+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Artifacts & Abos", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "alga,\n\nWell okay, so you don't like the \"Aunt Jemima\" theory.\n\nStill, beneath the grosser elements, the loops and twists I listed\nbefore, that presumably ninety-five percent of us can more-or-less\nagree upon, beyond that, I say, there are a lot of weird little\ndetails. Crippled legs is one.\n\nThe abo dexterity issue is nearly as cloudy as the shape-changing\nissue. Does V.R.T.'s \"magical\" rope ability prove he is abo, not\nabo, or half-abo? Does V.R.T.'s inability to start fire (he waits\nfor Marsch to do it) or control fire (he always burns his fingers)\nprove he is abo or half-abo (because all \"pure strain humans\"\nlike you and me can easily start fires using two plain sticks,\nright? )? Is V.R.T.'s ability with the knife (\"no danger unless\nhe cuts my throat in the night\" bit) an indication that he is human\nor half-human? (Such simple tool use might relate to Jeannine's use\nof a key--actually a key is probably even simpler.)\n\nEarlier my own musings led me to look at the artifacts. They show up\nin \"5HC\" as plastic replicas, which seems to signal something--they\nare obvious \"fakes\" of artifacts. There is no question that the\nplastic models are fake, but there is an assumption that they\nrepresent real things. Plot-wise, they allow discussion of all\nthings abo.\n\nI don't recall any stone artifacts in \"A Story.\" The killing tools\nare shell-creatures clinging to the stalks of water weeds. There are\nropes, but the use of rope doesn't seem magical.\n\nIn \"V.R.T.\" such a big deal is made about the artifacts being\nfabricated (somehow) by Roy, that I start to wonder. Sometimes when\nWolfe has set up an A/B ambiguity, he then resolves it in the text as\n\"A is the truth\" when in fact just below the surface one can tell\nthat this is misdirection (e.g., Severian is just being dense again)\nand if there is any resolution it is that \"B is the truth.\"\n\nFor me, the way that Roy suddenly shifts and starts playing the\nMarsch line of reality in their confrontation seems to be more than\njust a con-man admitting to the \"truth\"; rather it is a con-man\nshifting his mode to match that of the \"customer.\" It is also close\nto the largely non-verbal exchange between Dr. Talos and Jonas when\nthey first meet. Jonas says, \"You have understood me better than I\nwanted, as the man said when he looked in the mirror.\"\n\nAll these Wellerisms in the Urth Cycle have to be unpacked. In this\ncase, the sense seems to be: \"You sieur are a rogue and I'm no better\n(wink, wink).\"\n\nSo. With this focus on artifacts being fakes (whether plastic or\nforged), with this sense of a con-man shifting from strategy one\n(\"straight sell\") to strategy two (\"draw the mark into the\n`conspiracy'\"), I began to wonder if the artifacts were somehow\n\"real\" (that is, in the face of clear \"A is true\" signals, I toyed\nwith \"B is true\" possibilities).\n\nI also was playing with V.R.T.'s \"half-breed\" status. How could this\nbe \"true\" in a sense that was not the sense understood by the anthro\ninformants?\n\nA lot stems from how we define \"race\" in a given society or a given\ncontext; endogamy (with its shadow of incest), exogamy (with its\nshadow of bestiality). On Earth there is talk of \"the white race\"\nand \"the black race\"; wars have been fought by and for \"the German\nrace\" and \"the French race.\" And in 5HC, Roy the human is depicted\nas Irish hardware with French software dating from the population\nshifts of the Napoleonic Wars (another conflict involving French and\nEnglish forces).\n\nSo I wondered if V.R.T. was a product of a mixed marriage, not\nbetween \"human and abo\" but between \"hillwoman abo and wetlander\nabo\"; that is, not so much \"Caucasian man and dusky native girl\" as\n\"Englishman and French woman.\"\n\nBut how could this be, when Roy has such blue eyes and we have been\nled to believe that abos all have green eyes?\n\nWell, I answered myself, the green eyes are from the high country.\nIt may be that the blue eyes are from the marsh. Or maybe the eyes\nreflect the worlds, and the blue eyes are abos from Sainte Croix (the\nblue world), nevermind for the moment how the abos got to Sainte\nCroix. That is: the abos who stayed on Sainte Anne maintain the old\nways, the abos who went to Sainte Croix immitate (to a greater\n[shapeshifting] or lesser [cultural] degree) the French; the\nformer abo twins (hill and marsh) are now alienated from one another\n(Annese and Croixese). The \"mixed\" marriage between Roy and his\n\"French actress\" (Brigit!!) wife fails; the English have made war\nupon the French; the Dreyfus case caused France to nearly war\nupon French Jews; the twin planets are in a state of war with each\nother.\n\nAnd thus: green eyes = Annese; blue eyes = Croixese; brown eyes =\nTerran. (Suddenly it seems like the twin worlds are crawling with\nabos!)\n\nLet me be the first to say that this has wandered far afield, from\nthe text and from any topic at hand. And Roy as \"assimilated abo\nfrom Sainte Croix\" causes more cans of worms to be opened. But these\nare the things that Robert Borski and I were chatting about in e-mail\nas we tried to puzzle out the lurking mysteries of 5HC.\n\n=mantis=" } ] } ] }