{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/whorl/1145",
    "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": "whorl",
  "thread": {
    "id": 1145,
    "subject": "Urth sacrifice",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "2001-02-12T21:23:21+00:00",
    "last": "2001-02-12T21:23:21+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<whorl-v0012-0200@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Dan Rabin",
        "address": "wolfe-lists at danrabin.com"
      },
      "date": "2001-02-12T21:23:21+00:00",
      "subject": "(whorl) Urth sacrifice",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Matt asks,"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "(5) What does the following passage mean:\n\"It was the magnetism that drew others to him that caused his embryo \nto be put aboard the lander. That was the work of Pas's scientists, \nas Pig's size and strength were. (Recalling the Red Sun Whorl that \nit became, I cannot but wonder whether it did not sacrifice too much \nfor us.)\" (RttW p. 96)\n\nThe phrase in the parentheses really mystifies me. What does the \nfirst \"it\" refer to? What became the Red Sun Whorl? Is he merely \ntalking about Urth itself? Is he talking about Silk's embryo? Is he \ntalking about Pig's size and strength? Is he talking about the work \nof Pas's scientists? I just don't get it.\n\nAnd what is the second \"it\" referring to? What sacrificed too much \nfor us? I assume he is referring to the first \"it\" as well, which \nmeans I still don't have a clue."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "I take the parenthesis to mean that Urth looks very weak with its \ndying sun, yet it is the original Short Sun Whorl from which the \n_Whorl_ was sent out.  Urth can no longer accomplish such wonders as \nbuilding the _Whorl_, so the speaker is imagining that creating the \n_Whorl_ sapped Urth of its vitality somehow.\n\nBeing exhausted by a magical creation is a common motif in the \nfantasy tradition, I believe.\n\n   -- Dan Rabin\n\n\n*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun."
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}