{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/whorl/130",
    "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": 130,
    "subject": "Sphigx, etc.",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "1997-02-25T13:32:16+00:00",
    "last": "1997-02-25T13:32:16+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<whorl-v0003-0182@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Alice Turner",
        "address": "al at interport.net"
      },
      "date": "1997-02-25T13:32:16+00:00",
      "subject": "(whorl) Sphigx, etc.",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Heh, heh. I hate There Are Doors too, Patrick.\n\nKipling's Jungle Book is one of the right-out-front sources for the Brown\nBook in NS, but I can't see much of a connection to LS, and I know (or used\nto know) my Kipling pretty well. The story mantis mentions is, I think \"The\nCity of Endless Night\" (not at home to check). \"Baa, Baa Black Sheep\" is, I\nunderstand, bleakly autobiographical. It's a fine, wrenching, realistic\nstory, but how does it relate to Wolfe's work?"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "How do you square this with the claim by the Trivigauntis that they talk\nto Sphigx all the time?  I get a little worried when _everything_ isn't\nwhat it seems.  I think only Viron has had its gods turned off."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Dave, they talk to her, but she doesn't talk back. Sort of like Owen\nGlendower summoning spirits from the vasty deep in Henry IV. I think the\ngods were turned off everywhere till Mamelta turned Echidna, Scylla and\nTartaros back on. 'Cept for cunning Kypris, who hid. And Pas, who is dead.\n\nNice rundown, Henry, with especially good observations on Oreb.\n\nI remember that Heinlein two-headed character, Joe-Jim or something like\nthat---he played chess with himself. He wasn't a tyrant...but your title is\ntoo good to resist!"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "\t[Kypris] and Tartaros worked fulfill the Plan of Pas\n\tby getting a lander launched from Viron.  Why Viron?\n\tBecause it's a godless (in both senses) city -- no \n\ttheophanies for 30 years.\n\nThat's great!  Finally an answer for \"Why Viron?\"\n\nBut if Quetzal wasn't primarily responsible for this\nshortage of gods in Viron, um, who was? "
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Er, um, I don't think this argument will wash. The only other city we\nactually know of, Trivigaunte, doesn't get theophanies either. And, judging\nfrom the Fliers' responses, the Trivs are operating under a surprising (to\nthe Fliers) feminist heresy by chucking out the other gods. I think Pas &\nCo. were originally programmed to be the gods of the whole Whorl. And that\nTrivigaunte gets away with it precisely because the gods have been\ndeactivated for more than a generation.\n\n-alga-\n \n\n\nQuestions or problems to whorl-owner at lists.best.com"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}