{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/whorl/1400",
    "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": 1400,
    "subject": "Yet another Secret theory: we have met the enemy and he is",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "2001-04-23T23:51:51+00:00",
    "last": "2001-04-23T23:51:51+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<whorl-v0012-0711@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "William Ansley",
        "address": "wansley at warwick.net"
      },
      "date": "2001-04-23T23:51:51+00:00",
      "subject": "Re: (whorl) Yet another Secret theory: we have met the enemy and he is",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "At 8:14 PM -0500 4/23/01, Adam Stephanides wrote:\nSay what you will about Nicholas Gevers' proposal, he's got people thinking\nabout the Secret again."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "And this is a good thing? <G> I swore to myself that I was not going \nto contribute any more to this conversation. But your theory is too \ngood to pass up, Adam."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "When Jahlee says that the inhumi take their children's minds from the humans\nwhose blood they drink, she is not merely referring to their intelligence.\nThe children's spirits (perhaps their souls, if inhumi have souls) are taken\nfrom humans.  Krait is Horn's son, not just by adoption, but because his\nspirit is the same as Sinew's.  This is why, during astral travel, the\ninhumi appear human."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Interesting. This may explain why Krait had to die. If he had ever \nbeen the catalyst for astral travel, under this theory, presumably \nhis astral body would have looked just like Sinew or at least bourne \na strong resemblance to him. (This does raise the question, who did \nJahlee's mother bite? Anyone we know?)"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "So the way in which the Secret can be used as a weapon is indeed the Golden\nRule bit proposed here before.  If humans loved each other enough and were\nunselfish enough, then the inhumi, drinking their blood, would produce\nchildren who were too unselfish to drink human blood.  Then the inhumi would\nlose their intelligence, and this would not be cruel to the inhumi because\nthey were meant to be just animals: they have no spirits of their own (this\nis what I take to be Wolfe's view, not necessarily my own).  The inhumi as\nthey exist now are monstrosities, albeit pitiable monstrosities, like the\nbeast-men of \"The Island of Doctor Death\" (sorry, alga, but I think that\nthis fits Wolfe's portrayal of the inhumi better than visions of\nhuman-inhumi brotherhood [*] do)."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "I have always thought that an insurmountable objection to this was \nthat humans who truly obeyed the Golden Rule would freely give their \nblood to inhumi, if doing so made them truly human, in the soul \ndepartment at least. This would lead to a glorious human-inhumi \npartnership and they all would live happily ever after. But, if what \nthe inhumi are actually getting is a copy or a piece of a human soul, \nthen perhaps perfectly moral beings (that is, if this isn't too \nextreme a description of humans who follow the Golden Rule) would not \nfeel it was necessary to give their blood to the inhumi.\n\n(Hey, maybe the inhumi are stealing part of the soul of the child \nwhose blood drink. Maybe that's what was wrong with Sinew. Naaaah!)\n\nWilliam Ansley\n\n*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun."
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}