{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/whorl/1034",
    "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'"
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  "archive": "whorl",
  "thread": {
    "id": 1034,
    "subject": "wild speculations",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "2000-10-29T12:06:29+00:00",
    "last": "2000-10-29T12:06:29+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<whorl-v0012-0007@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Donn Seeley",
        "address": "seeley at sover.net"
      },
      "date": "2000-10-29T12:06:29+00:00",
      "subject": "(whorl) wild speculations",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "I have finally caught up with the Whorl list after reading JUNGLES\nand I would like to contribute to it, but I seem to have missed the\nlander, er, boat.  I shall send this epistle to the list in the hope\nthat someone is still reading it...\n\nReading the archives, I see that I have ideas about the SHORT SUN\nthat haven't been discussed (or I missed the discussion by skimming\nover it :-).  I find myself somewhat annoyed that I didn't make it\nto Readercon this year to talk some of this over with John Clute\n-- I went hiking in Colorado instead.  Mea culpa.\n\nAnyway, here are some questions and (for some of them) my provisional\nanswers.  I'll offer them even though we're only a couple of months\naway from the advent of RETURN.  Boy, am I an optimist!\n\n(1) Why does the narrator of JUNGLES seem so different from the\nnarrator of WATERS, given the short amount of time that seems to\npass between the events in the foreground story at the end of WATERS\nand the beginning of JUNGLES?\n\nThe question was discussed on the list, but I don't remember reading\nany comments that matched my own reaction.  The figure in the\nshadows at the end of WATERS was the Outsider.  The reason for the\nconfusion between Babbie and Horn is that Babbie is to Horn as Horn\nis to the Outsider.  Horn discusses the relationship between owners\nand pets / slaves [p. 368-369 WATERS]; I felt the emotional connection\nhere before the intellectual one.  From that step, I jump to the\nconclusion that the Outsider (partly?) healed the rift in Horn that\nprevailed through WATERS, allowing some of the Silk nature to appear\nin Horn in JUNGLES.\n\n(2) Why does Fava seem to know how to speak when she meets Horn on\nGreen in her second story?\n\nSome messages that I've seen on the list seem to assume that Fava\ncomes to consciousness in an egg, and that she breaks out of the\ndarkness of the egg to reach the world.  Fava notes that she couldn't\nsimply break out of the container, however -- she had to rip at it\nwith her claws.  My own impression is that Fava wasn't in an egg\nbut rather some sort of cocoon.  The food wasn't a yolk sac, but\na paralyzed prey creature.  I vaguely recall reading about parasitic\ninsects that wrap a living prey with their larva as food.  Of course\nthe 'prey' here is a human.\n\n(3) Why does Horn seem to think that he doesn't look like Silk?\nWhy did Oreb depart for a year to 'find god'?  What did the remark\nabout the 'surgeon' and 'Passilk' mean?  Why does the transmigrated\nHorn find himself covered with blood next to Hyacinth's body in an\notherwise empty house?\n\nMy wild guess:  when Horn arrives, Silk has two heads, and Horn\ngets the non-Silk head.  The scene is bloody because the Silk head\nhas been fighting with the Pas head.  Thus Horn has Silk's body but\nnot Silk's head.  For this to work, the Silk head must be removed\nin RETURN so that the body has a single head.  Horn's search for\nSilk from Gaon in WATERS leads me to believe that he thinks that\nSilk was transmigrated (or surgically implanted on yet another\nbody?), and survived.\n\nMy sketchy reasoning: (i) Silk's amazing abilities are surely due\nto the fact that he was created as an embryo to be the host for\nPas.  (ii) Pas is recognizable because he has two heads; surely\nthe resurrected Pas would also have two heads?  (iii) We know that\nTyphon and Piaton fought; why not Pas and Silk?\n\nIf this scenario is correct, then why does Horn seem to have so many\nmental and spiritual resemblances to Silk now?  I think it's because \nhe 'drank' Silk's blood, and we know that it's a principle of the\nUrth/Whorl universe that consuming the flesh of another can cause\nthe consumer to acquire some of the soul of the consumed.  Horn is\nSilk in the same way that Severian is Thecla or that Fava is Salica.\n(Or that any who partake of the Eucharist are God.)\n\nOreb went looking for 'god' and came back.  I think that may be an\nindication that he found the transmigrated Silk.  If so, then Silk\nis probably on the scene in WATERS and/or JUNGLES and we haven't\nrecognized him:\n\n\t'Oreb, why did you come back to me?' I asked him.\n\n\t'Find Silk.'\n\n\t'I'm not Patera Silk, Oreb.  I've told you -- and everybody\n\t-- that over and over.'  I ought to have asked him to find\n\tSilk for me, but I felt sure he could not unless he discovered\n\tsome way to return to the WHORL, and I do not want to lose\n\thim again.  'Where did you go, Oreb?'\n\n\t'Find god.'\n\n\t'I see.  Passilk?  I think that's what the surgeon called\n\thim.  Did you find him, and is that why you returned to me?'\n\n\t'Find Silk.'  [p. 369 WATERS]\n\nAre we going to meet Silk on Blue in RETURN?  Another clue:\n\n\tOreb has been pulling my hair.  'Go now?  Go Silk?' (Or\n\tperhaps it is, 'Go, Silk!'  I cannot be sure.) [p. 355\n\tWATERS]\n\n(Huh -- is 'Quadrifons' Horn's name for Silk's original head?\nIs that why finding 'Silk' is finding 'god'?)\n\nI'm sure that this speculation will sound silly in January, but\nthe idea seemed just so cool...\n\n(4) Why did the Whorl come to Blue and Green?\n\nHere I'm really stepping off into the deep blue waters...\n\nThe Neighbors abandoned Blue and Green to the inhumi.  The inhumi\ndescended into near-animal state, although they retained some subset\nthe Neighbors' abilities that allowed them to improve their\ncamouflage.\n\nA small ship arrives in the system bearing humans.  Some inhumi\nfeed on the crew.  They acquire human characteristics and develop\nthe skills to pass as human.  An inspiration occurs to them about\nhow to restore the inhumi race to its previous level of intelligence.\n\nThe human ship returns to Urth with a crew of humans and inhumi.\nThe inhumi (passing as human) persuade Typhon to launch an enormous\n'colonization' vessel to Green and Blue.  Perhaps they play on\nTyphon's vanity...  In any event, millions of prey are sent on\ntheir way to the inhumi.  The inhumi on the Whorl boarded it on\nUrth.\n\n(5) What secret did Horn learn from Krait about the inhumi?\n\nI actually don't know the answer to this one, but I wanted to say\na couple of things about it.  One is that we have surely been shown\nthe secret in action in WATERS and JUNGLES, but we haven't realized\nwhat it is.  Horn is using it to control the inhumi who serve him.\nMy second point is that the secret is NOT the Golden Rule, or at\nleast not the Rule alone.  Horn explicitly denies that the Rule is\nthe secret in JUNGLES, and I believe him.  However, I do believe\nthat the answer is at least partly spiritual in nature.\n\nOne very strange tangent: In WATERS, Horn shakes the hand of a\nNeighbor, then stops himself from describing more of the experience.\nIs this because it would reveal part of the inhumi's secret somehow?\nI can't think of any other good reason why Horn would clam up here.\n\n(6) Are the inhumi natural or artificial?\n\nThis subject comes up often enough with Horn (and on the list :-)\nthat I think there must be something to it.  I think the grabber\n/ colorcat is provided as an example of a native Green predator\nthat uses camouflage in an essential way, just like the inhumi.\nThat suggests that the inhumi are at least partly natural.  But I\nthen begin to wonder -- were the inhumi 'improved' by the Neighbors\nas weapons?  Horn certainly uses them as weapons.  If that's the\ncase, then that might explain how the inhumi acquired the extreme\nabilities to reshape themselves and to cross the vacuum between\nGreen and Blue.  It's clear that humans have been reshaping animals\n(and themselves) for quite a long time before the Whorl sets off.\nMaybe the Neighbors provided a similar service to the inhumi?\n\n(7) Why does Horn seem to have such a prejudice against 'things'?\n\nHorn's relationship with animals and pets is an interesting one.\nI think Seawrack's diatribe [pp. 336-341 WATERS] is fundamental to\nthe story.  Evil characters like Rigoglio in SHORT SUN and for that\nmatter in NEW SUN and DEVIL IN A FOREST and other Wolfe books seem\nto be evil in major part because they don't respect the moral\nobligation that they have to those whom they lead.  That moral\nobligation is based on an appreciation of personhood, an appreciation\nthat Horn originally lacks, but is gradually growing into.\n\n\t...  'What I'm trying to say is, there are two people on\n\tthis boat you don't think are people at all, Babbie and\n\tKrait.  You don't think they are, but you're wrong.  You're\n\twrong about both of them.'\n\n\tSinew muttered, 'He doesn't think I'm anybody either.'\n\n\t'Yes, he does!'  In the chill starlight, I could see her\n\tturn to face him.  'You've got it exactly backwards.  No\n\twonder you're his son.'\n\n\tWhile Sinew was wrestling with that, she added, 'It's the\n\tother part he doesn't like, the thingness.  You try to be\n\tless of a person and more of a thing because you think\n\tthat's what he wants, but it's really the other way.'  ...\n\t[p. 337 WATERS]\n\nHorn is learning to be more of a person and less of a thing.  Part\nof that lesson is to see others more as persons than things.\n\nIt's interesting to view the Eucharist scene in JUNGLES in this\nlight.  Up to this point, it has been acceptable to sacrifice\nanimals to the gods.  After this point, the gods have sacrificed\none of their own instead, so His blood may substitute for the\nanimals' (and ours).  Horn's cooperation with the baletiger is an\nexample of his new view of things.  (But he still seems to resist\ngranting personhood to inhumi.  Maybe that breakthrough awaits us\nin RETURN?)\n\n(8) Some questions that I have no answers to at all:  Is the\nreference to Hyacinth as Seawrack on p. 121 of JUNGLES a typo?\nWhat happened in the City of the Inhumi after Horn's force cleared\nit of inhumi and inhumans?  What happened to the lander that Horn\nalmost rebuilt on Green?  Is Green's orbital eccentricity natural?\nWhy are there no annotations from Hoof and Hide in JUNGLES?\n\nHaving way too much fun with this stuff,\n\nDonn\n\n*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun."
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