{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/whorl/658", "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": 658, "subject": "Horn's Hints", "messages": 2, "voices": 2, "first": "1999-10-05T15:15:15+00:00", "last": "1999-10-12T11:00:34+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "David_Lebling", "address": "david_lebling at avid.com" }, "date": "1999-10-05T15:15:15+00:00", "subject": "(whorl) Horn's Hints", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "As promised, these are hints Horn gives us about the inhumi's secret:\n\np. 217: The inhumu had told me that we human beings were the cattle of his kind.\nThey drink our blood in preference to the blood of animals merely because they\nprefer it (this is what he said) ...\n\np. 315: He [Mehman] and Evensong waited outside while I explained what I had\nlearned from Krait on Green. ... \"Will you do whatever we tell you, if I release\nyou?\" I asked the inhuma. \"Or shall I make good on my threat?\" ... \"I warn you,\nif you will not I am going to spread my knowledge everywhere.\"\n\np. 317: \"It's just occurred to me that you inhumi are rather like a kind of\nlizard I've noticed in my garden. It can change colors ... While I acknowledge\nthat you inhumi are a much higher form of life, it seems to me that the\nprinciple is about the same.\" ... She only nodded. \"You are correct, Rajan.\"\n\np 350: \"If only we protected one another, they would all be idiots or worse. As\nit is, they always get enough to keep them going.\"\n\np. 372: \"I couldn't kill them here and now, if that's what you mean; but I know\nhow they might be returned to the mere vermin that they once were -- mindless,\nhideous, blood-drinking animals seeking their prey in Green's jungles.\"\n\np. 374: \"Krait told me why they have to have it as he lay dying. ... He was\nthinking of the thing that linked him to me, and me to him -- of the bond of\nblood between us.\"\n\np. 375: \"That's the kind of thing the inhumi must have done before the Vanished\nPeople reached Green -- reshaped themselves to look like the animals they hunted\n... \"\n\"If only we cared about each other sufficiently. If only all of us loved all\nthe others enough, they would go back to that. They would still think them\nhorrible creatures, and they would still be dangerous, as the crocodiles in this\nlower river water are. But they would be no worse.\"\n\nThere may be others that I've missed, of course, particularly any that are early\nin the book.\n\nI think the foregoing fits pretty well with the theory that it is only by\ndrinking the blood of intelligent creatures that the inhumi established and\nmaintain their own intelligence. In addition, the inhumi may get their attitude\nfrom humans as well -- that is, they are monsters because we are monsters.\n\nIf that is the secret, then we have a certain nice symmetry with parts of the\nChristian worldview. That is, we are threatened by evil, but the evil comes\nfrom ourselves. If we protected each other from it, it would disappear. In\nshort, we should all follow the Golden Rule. I won't speculate on how this would\nfit with Catholic (or any other) theology, but it seems like too good a match.\n\nThis story is, first and foremost, about love. Not love as in sex or lust\n(though that's there, too), but love between father and son, son and father,\nhusband and wife, even between pet and master. The secret of the inhumi is that\nlove will protect us from them.\n\n --- Dave Lebling\n (aka vizcacha)\n\n\n\n\n*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Jim Jordan", "address": "jbjordan at gnt.net" }, "date": "1999-10-12T11:00:34+00:00", "subject": "Re: (whorl) Horn's Hints", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "At 03:15 PM 10/5/99 -0400, you wrote:\n\nI think the foregoing fits pretty well with the theory that it is only by\ndrinking the blood of intelligent creatures that the inhumi established and\nmaintain their own intelligence. In addition, the inhumi may get their\nattitude\nfrom humans as well -- that is, they are monsters because we are monsters.\n\nIf that is the secret, then we have a certain nice symmetry with parts of the\nChristian worldview. That is, we are threatened by evil, but the evil comes\nfrom ourselves. If we protected each other from it, it would disappear. In\nshort, we should all follow the Golden Rule. I won't speculate on how this\nwould\nfit with Catholic (or any other) theology, but it seems like too good a\nmatch.\n\nThis story is, first and foremost, about love. Not love as in sex or lust\n(though that's there, too), but love between father and son, son and father,\nhusband and wife, even between pet and master. The secret of the inhumi\nis that\nlove will protect us from them.\n\n --- Dave Lebling\n (aka vizcacha)" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "\tWell, that's what I was going to write, having finished the book last\nnight and reading the posts today, but you beat me to it. Completely agree.\nI think we have all we need to know the secret now. Remember also that\nWolfe discusses devils/fallen-angels in other stories, and calls them\nservants of God who are used to chastise/punish people. The inhumi have the\nsame role here. It might be useful to consider how exorcisms are done, both\nthose in the Gospels and in Acts, and the Roman Catholic rite. \n\nNutria\n\n\n*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun." } ] } ] }