Subject: (whorl) OBW: Yet another Inhumi secret theory

From: David Lomax <dlomax at idirect.com>
Date: Sat, 08 Jul 2000 18:24:00 +0000

All,

Pardon for going back to a dead horse, stick in hand, but I just got around to
reading OBW (in preparation for  the next which I believe is coming out soon).
Immediately, I went and read a whole bunch of old posts from this list which I had
been saving for the occasion.  I'm fascinated with the quest for the Inhumi secret
(which I acknowledge may be unknowable given our present information).  Like most
of you folks, I had rejected the "can't we all just get along" hypothesis and many
of the other likely candidates.  One I haven't seen suggested (perhaps because I
haven't read _all_ the old posts) has to do with giving.

Giving, people giving themselves to others, seems an important theme for Wolfe.
What if the secret went something like this:  if people were to willingly give
themselves over to the Inhumi, then (1) the Inhumi wouldn't be able to kill the
people (much as Krait doesn't kill Horn or Horn's people once Horn has properly
given his word) and (2) the Inhumi would, for some reason, no longer drink
sentience along with the blood.

This is not a satisfying theory, mostly because it seems too simplistic, but I
thought it might spark of someone else's ideas.  If it's a repetition of stuff
that's already been said, my apologies.

David Lomax

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From: Nicholas Gevers <vermoulian at yahoo.com>
Date: Sat, 08 Jul 2000 23:32:41 +0000

More likely, by giving themselves to the inhumi,
humans would see to it that the sentience the inhumi
imbibed was of a benign, self-sacrificial flavour--a
means of rendering the inhumi themselves more benign.

--- David Lomax <dlomax at idirect.com> wrote: > All,
> that's already been said, my apologies.

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From: Nicholas Gevers <vermoulian at yahoo.com>
Date: Sat, 08 Jul 2000 23:32:25 +0000