# Disarming Seawrack *The Whorl list — 2 messages, 2 voices, 14 Nov 1999* > 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. --- ### William H. Ansley *14 Nov 1999, 23:46* OK, all of you people who think Wolfe always has a reason for everything he writes (you know who you are!), what is the reason for Seawrack's missing right arm? I find it rather odd that having her arm mangled and then amputated, doesn't seem to bother Seawrack very much. Even odder is the way she adapts instantly to having no right arm. She is not unbalanced, even at first, or inconvenienced in any way we are told about. She can swim just as well as ever, apparently. It also doesn't seem to bother anyone else that she has only one arm. It certainly doesn't make her any less desirable to Horn or any other man. Not that it should, but I think it might put some men off. No one even seems to be curious about why she is missing an arm or how it happened, which strikes me as being quite against human nature. Is Seawrack really missing an arm or is Horn being mislead somehow? ("Prepare for mind control!" -Evil, in the film _Time Bandits_.) William Ansley *This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun. --- ### Alex David Groce *15 Nov 1999, 12:09 · follows William H. Ansley* One thing it made me think of was the Venus de Milo, especially re: the story about her arms in PEACE. Perhaps Mother arranged for her to lose her arm, knowing this would make Horn less suspicious of her (if beauty doesn't get 'em, go for sympathy). At the end of OBW, I pity Seawrack, and think no ill of her, but I have a sneaking suspicion that the hints dropped and Krait's evident distrust of her may indicate that she's less innocent and good than she seems. "And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." John 8:32 ``` Alex David Groce (agroce+ at cs.cmu.edu) Ph.D. Student, Carnegie Mellon University - Computer Science Department 8112 Wean Hall (412)-268-3066 http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~agroce *This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun. ``` ---