Subject: (urth) Aunt Jeannine isn't an abo...

From: William H. Ansley <wansley at warwick.net>
Date: Fri, 19 Jun 1998 00:31:25 +0000

Aunt Jeannine isn't an abo, she's a dead abo priest!

I don't believe this but I could have argued it from the parallels I found
between the first and second novellas of 5HC. (I couldn't have argued it
convincingly, but I could have argued it.) I just started this way to see
if alga would notice.

>But even if V.R.T. had somehow inherited Marsch's knowledge, how would
>that tell him #5's a clone?  He hasn't seen #5's father; all #5 tells him
>is "'I'm supposed to look a great deal like my father,'" something not
>uncommon among us non-clones, not "'I'm supposed to look exactly like my
>father did at my age'"; and as far as I know clones per se have no
>distinguishing marks.  It's a strange passage (and has been so noted
>earlier on this list, IIRC).  Maybe he saw a photograph of #5's father
>somewhere.  Another, perhaps less likely, possibility is that V.R.T. has
>heard rumors that there is a wealthy family of clones somewhere on St.
>Croix, and when he meets #5 and hear his remark he thinks "Oh, maybe this
>is _that_ family."  I agree that it's best to stick as close to the text
>as possible, but I think the above suggestions are preferable in this
>regard to positing an otherwise unmentioned ability in V.R.T.

I assume that you mean personality merging when you say "otherwise
unmentioned ability in V.R.T." alga is the one who suggested the merger
theory, not me. I don't accept it any more than you do, as I attempted to
say in the message you are quoting from. I find the "Are you a clone?"
passage strange for the precise reasons you do, as I also attempted to say
in an earlier message.

Although I can't recall any direct evidence right now, I certainly got the
impression in 5HC that the whole clone business was kept a deep, dark
secret and successfully so. Thus, I find the idea of VRT having some other
source of knowledge about the Wolfes unlikely.

My feeling right now is that VRT just guessed right about #5 being a clone.
(I am tending to the "all wild guesses in 5HC are true" theory. Now all I
have to do is precisely define "wild" as it pertains to guesses and create
a numerical scale of wildness, list all the guesses in 5HC, rate them on
the wild-o-meter and figure out the 'wild'/'not wild' cut off point, then
search the text for evidence of whether they came true or not. I should
have it done before lunch tomorrow. 8->) So he could have read up on
anthropological relaxation between that time and the time of the fatal
meeting with #5 and Maitre.

Which is what you said, IIRC.

For two guys who agree so much we are exchanging a lot of messages. 8-)

William Ansley

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