{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/whorl/885",
    "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": 885,
    "subject": "IGJ, impressions, riddles, many spoilers! (of",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "2000-07-30T14:05:04+00:00",
    "last": "2000-07-30T14:05:04+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<whorl-v0011-0018@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Kevin J. Maroney",
        "address": "kmaroney at crossover.com"
      },
      "date": "2000-07-30T14:05:04+00:00",
      "subject": "Re: (whorl) IGJ, impressions, riddles, many spoilers! (of",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "At 12:04 PM 7/29/00 -0400, vizcacha wrote:\nSecond, and more importantly (and here we are getting close to the true\nsecret), there are actually no inhumi.  There is only, poignantly, \"a girl\ntrapped in the body of a blood-drinking reptile.\"  The inhumi only have\n\"spirits\" because their victims have spirits, only have intelligence because\ntheir victims have intelligence, and so on. "
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "I don't think this point has been made here: The inhumi seem specifically\nto be telepathic reptiles tht developed their telepathy to enhance their\npredation. It seems likely that the assumption of human characteristics is\na side-effect of this telepathic ability. I can't tell if they are capable\nof true shape-shifting; their ability to pose as humans is certainly\nenhanced by, and may be completely, telepathic projection. Note that this\ndoes *not* seem to be part of what Krait told Horn on Green, since Horn\ndoesn't realize this until he sees the camouflaged hunters in Goan. \n\nIt seems that Incanto's travel between worlds is a combination of the\ninhumi telepathic projection and the Vanished People's indeterminate reality. "
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "Jahlee describes the\npursuit of Horn at the end of OBW, and how the inhumi all felt they should\nkill him, but each hoped that another would do it first.  They feel this way\nout of gratitude and also, I think, because the people whose blood they have\nabsorbed would not be quick to kill either. Few are eager to cast the first\nstone, sinful or not.  Result, Horn escapes."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Well, also, the inhumi are strongly biologically conditioned not to kill\ntheir prey. In \"nature\", they will feed on a victim repeatedly over the\ncourse of years rather than kill. If the inhumi surrounding the Rajan at\nthe end of _Blue_ have not fed from killers, they will not have \"learned\"\nhow to kill, themselves. "
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "Perhaps the secret is that if the inhumi are treated justly, treated as we\nwould like to treat other human beings, they will gradually become less of a\nthreat.  ... Horn sees that as a possible future for humanity as well, and\non Green it is coming true; the villages capture other humans to sell to the\ninhumi as slaves."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "I'd go a step further: If all the inhumi are treated as human by all\nhumans, they will *become* human. But I think there's one more twist to the\nsecret coming, and I don't know what it is. So far, Wolfe has overdelivered\non every promise of the narrative; I'd like to think he's capable of\noverdelivering on the promise of the secret of the inhumi as well. \n\n(The telepathic predator reminds me of a minor humorous Larry Niven short\nstory, \"The Nonesuch\". Spoiler: The Nonesuch is so powerfully telepathic\nthat when its human prey sees it and thinks, \"The Nonesuch isn't real! It's\na fairy-tale\", the beast disappears.)"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "Horn pushes all the clues out, and lets Hide [figure it out] himself.\n(There's a lot of this in the book.  It happens with Mora, too.  I wonder if\nWolfe does this a lot in his real life?  Must have been very frustrating for\nhis children.)"
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "I don't know Wolfe well enough in person to judge that at all, but note how\nthoroughly he does it to his readers. :-) "
        },
        {
          "kind": "sig",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Wombat, a.k.a. Kevin Maroney kmaroney at crossover.com\nKitchen Staff Supervisor, New York Review of Science Fiction\nhttp://www.nyrsf.com\n\n*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun."
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}