{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/whorl/729",
    "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": 729,
    "subject": "Horn as Silk?",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "1999-11-16T13:11:40+00:00",
    "last": "1999-11-16T13:11:40+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<whorl-v0010-0181@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Roberson, John",
        "address": "robersonj at bek.com"
      },
      "date": "1999-11-16T13:11:40+00:00",
      "subject": "(whorl) Horn as Silk?",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Greetings, everyone.  SPOILER WARNING below for those who haven't read _On\nBlue's Waters_, though most appear to have done so.  I'm new to the list,\nbut have enjoyed all the insightful comments that have gone before---all of\nyou certainly take your Wolfe very seriously and delight in pouring over his\nbeautifully-crafted stories and mining out all the gems.  I've got two\ncomments I'd like to hear/read your ruminations about:\n\n1. As mentioned before in this column, there are numerous cases of identity\nconfusion with Silk, on Horn's part, after he returns from the Long Sun\nWhorl.  There's also mention of what we'd suspected for a long time:  the\npossibility of Silk being scanned into Mainframe and probably merged with\nthe Pas program (as well as mention of a surgeon who has perhaps grafted a\nPas-Silk in the physical world?).  Could Horn's identity problems result\nfrom the Pas-Silk amalgram program having transferred some of Silk's\nidentity into Horn via \"possession\", in a similar way to that which turned\nMaytera Mint into the \"Sword of Echidna\"?  This might have been the program\nSilk's only way of sending \"Silk\" to New Viron as a leader.  This would\nexplain the identity confusion.\n\n2. What is the \"secret of the inhumi\"?  Is it that they emulate men's\nfeelings toward one another, such that they are able to prey on men because\nmen prey on and hate each other?  There is a passage to the effect that if\nwe only cared about each other more, then the inhumi would be mindless\nbeasts still (I assume, unable to prey on men and gain their intelligence\nthrough blood-sucking).  I recall that Krait emulated Horn to the point that\nHorn thought of him as his own son and Seawrack said he resembled Horn, and\nthe inhumi are chameleon-like creatures.  This might explain why Quetzal\ndeveloped his benevolent, guilt-ridden side while on the LS Whorl, to the\npoint where he tried to avoid drinking blood...\n\nAnyway, I'm interested in your views on this.  Great discussion group!\n\n-John Roberson  \n\n*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun."
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}