{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/whorl/710", "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": 710, "subject": "The secret of the inhumi, again", "messages": 1, "voices": 1, "first": "1999-11-06T01:16:10+00:00", "last": "1999-11-06T01:16:10+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "William H. Ansley", "address": "wansley at warwick.net" }, "date": "1999-11-06T01:16:10+00:00", "subject": "(whorl) The secret of the inhumi, again", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "\"Roberson, John\" wrote:\nI'm new to the Whorl and would like to discuss OBW, but don't know whether\neveryone has read it yet, so SPOILER WARNING regarding the questions below." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Although it's really not my place to say so, welcome to the discussion." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Once again, Gene is playing identity games with us regarding Horn." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "[a lot of stuff omitted]\n\nThere has been some discussion of this already. You might want to read the\nlist archives, starting September 24, which is when the discussion of _On\nBlue's Water's_ really began. (You can use the URL\n, added to the end of every message posted\nto this list, to get to the archives.)\n\nThe discussion has died down to almost nothing recently for no particular\nreason (unless it is in protest to my recent attempt at humor)." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Also, does anyone care to speculate about the secret of the inhumu?\nIt would seem that their chameleon-like body-shaping goes even further to\nimitating the intelligence and anger/hatred of man for them and other men.\nThere is a passage to the effect that if humans would only be more caring,\nthen the inhumu would revert back to beasts in the jungle. Also, Krait\nbecomes more like Horn and Horn's son as Horn begins relating to him as his\nson by proxy. If people only loved one another, does this mean that inhumu\nwould be unable to prey on them and eventually slink back into the jungles\nof Green? It would appear in the Long Sun series that Quetzal absorbed some\nof the benign aspects of their religion while masquerading as a human and\nProlocutor." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "As a matter of fact, I would. There has been some discussion of this\nalready, which you can find on the archives, too. I have been meaning to\npost about this, because I don't completely agree with what has already\nbeen said on the subject.\n\nI will quote the relevant postings below (I have inserted an additiontional\n\"Horn's hint\" in among those in Dave Lebling's list. By the way Dave,\nthanks for all the work you put in on collecting the \"Krait's secret\"\nreferences.):" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "David_Lebling at avid.com (Dave Lebling) wrote:\nAs 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\nkind.\nThey drink our blood in preference to the blood of animals merely because they\nprefer it (this is what he said) ..." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "[William Ansley] p. 241: ...I would cheerfully have burned or buried the\ninhuma that bit Sinew when we were living in the tent. They are vile\ncreatures, exactly as Hari Mau says; but how can they help it, when we are\nas we are? I wish sometimes that Krait had not told me." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "p. 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\nrelease\nyou?\" I asked the inhuma. \"Or shall I make good on my threat?\" ... \"I warn\nyou,\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\nworse. 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\nknow\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\nVanished\nPeople reached Green -- reshaped themselves to look like the animals they\nhunted\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\nin 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\nearly\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\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 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\nis that\nlove will protect us from them.\n\n --- Dave Lebling\n (aka vizcacha)" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Jim Jordan (Nutria) wrote:\nWell, 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." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I agree that drinking human blood is what makes the inhumi intelligent and\nhuman in their emotional/mental/moral structure. I find an interesting\nparallel between the inhumi and the nephilim in Tim Powers' _The Stress of\nHer Regard_, which I highly recommend to everyone here who hasn't read it.\nIn Powers' book the nephilim use the pattern (presumably DNA) in human\nblood to take on human form. However, I have a problem with the way Dave\nphrased the final passages of his posting.\n\nThe threat contained in the secret that Horn uses to control the inhumi\n(Krait's secret) has to be something that they believe is possible to carry\nout. If the threat Horn is holding over them is, \"I will tell people that\nthey can defeat you by following the Golden Rule,\" I think they would have\nhave laughed in his face. The inhumi know human nature much too well to\nbelieve that, even with the survival of humanity at stake, all people, or\neven most of them will be able to do unto others only what they would have\nthe others do unto them. While it seems possible to me that if all the\npeople on Blue started to love one another then the inhumi would love them\nas well and no longer want to prey on them, I don't think that the\nprecondition is possible. And, more importantly for my argument, I don't\nbelieve that the inhumi would believe it was possible, either.\n\nI think that if we have enough information to know what the secret is\nalready (and we may not) then it has to be something a good deal more\nspecific than obeying the Golden Rule, although I don't think it's\nsomething entirely different. I think this quote is the key:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "p 350: \"If only we protected one another, they would all be idiots or\nworse. As\nit is, they always get enough to keep them going.\"" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I think the secret is that ALL human beings must be protected from the bite\nof the inhumi. No one on Blue wants the inhumi to feed on themselves or\ntheir loved ones and they will usually go to great lengths to prevent it.\nBut, even though most of them probably don't want the inhumi to feed on any\nhuman being, they won't risk themselves or even make much of an effort to\nprotect anyone else. But, if everyone knew that if the inhumi were\nprevented from getting any human blood at all, they would become\nunintelligent and (more importantly) unable to pose as human, then they\nmight be motivated to actually act on this knowledge.\n\nI have to wonder how possible this complete protection would be, however.\nIt doesn't seem entirely plausible to me, which makes me expect that there\nwill turn out to be more than this to Krait's secret.\n\nWilliam Ansley\n\n\n\n*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun." } ] } ] }