Subject: (whorl) Jahlee's End

From: David Lebling <dlebling at ucentric.com>
Date: Wed, 14 Feb 2001 08:49:56 +0000

> From: Michael Andre-Driussi <mantis at sirius.com>
> Putting aside the godling issue as the lesser, I'm still working on how
> alga is bugged by Jahlee's death.

I find Jahlee's death very straightforward, if disappointing. Jahlee attacks
Nettle because she has always loved Horn, and she will never have him
because Horn loves Nettle. Horn kills Jahlee because she violated the
agreement never to touch his family, not to mention his obvious rage that
his wife is being attacked (no Michael Dukakis, he). (Yes, this agreement
was made with Krait, but that's a legal quibble; as Rajan his agreement with
her was all-encompassing, too). Jahlee is clearly a loose cannon, almost as
much so as Jugurna. Doesn't the attack happen the morning after Horn/Silk
and Nettle spend the night together? Jahlee has no way of knowing there was
no "warm commerce" involved. She is a woman "trapped in the body of a
blood-drinking reptile," and she will never be human, never experience the
kind of love Horn has for Nettle. The tragedy of the inhumi is that they are
humans who will never be human.

I wonder if Wolfe's "failure" to provide a satisfying conclusion to the
problem of the inhumi is that there is none. The inhumi, like evil in the
abstract, are created by people. If people solve the problem of evil, they
will solve the problem of the inhumi.

Not your usual SF resolution, where Silk would have found the Seekret
Formula for Inhumi-bane hidden away in Mainframe (virtual reality
sword-fight with Pas optional). I see Keanu Reeves as Silk.

    Dave Lebling
    aka vizcacha

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