{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/whorl/1185",
    "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": 1185,
    "subject": "Quadrifons and the godling",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "2001-02-18T00:41:37+00:00",
    "last": "2001-02-18T00:41:37+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<whorl-v0012-0276@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Nicholas Gevers",
        "address": "vermoulian at yahoo.com"
      },
      "date": "2001-02-18T00:41:37+00:00",
      "subject": "(whorl) Quadrifons and the godling",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "I haven't finished RTW yet, but a couple of topical\nimpressions:\n\n1) The physical impossibility of the godling: I saw\nthis as a deliberate breach of SF protocols by GW. The\ngodling is present in the text as a mark of the\nOutsider's presence there (the godling's message is\nultimately the Outsider's), and thus must take the\nform of a miracle, a suspension of the laws of nature.\n\n2) Quadrifons: interesting that he is listed at the\nfront of RTW as a major character, yet doesn't appear\nin the text other than as a tessera and part of an\nabstract discussion. We know from late in OBW that\nHorn in fact communicated with Quadrifons, who advised\nhim on how to recognise Smoothbone. The authors of the\nthird person sections of RTW have clearly obeyed\nQuadrifons' general injunction to avoid using his\nname, and written him out of the text. They are\nunreliable narrators (or Horn was in OBW). Any\nthoughts on Wolfe's reasons for this fascinating\nlacuna?\n\n--Nick Gevers."
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}