{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/whorl/893",
    "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": 893,
    "subject": "Digest whorl.v011.n006",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "2000-08-02T01:07:16+00:00",
    "last": "2000-08-02T01:07:16+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<whorl-v0011-0032@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Josh Levitan",
        "address": "josh_levitan at hotmail.com"
      },
      "date": "2000-08-02T01:07:16+00:00",
      "subject": "(whorl) Re: Digest whorl.v011.n006",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Kevin J. Maroney wrote (quoting Alga):"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "At 10:46 PM 7/31/00 -0400, Alga wrote:"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 2,
          "text": "They are shapeshifters only to a degree and I don't think it's fully\n\"telepathic.\" Remember three things: They cannot change their density; a\ncareful upclose look, especially at their limbs and hair by someone who\nknows what to look for, will give them away; they are cold-blooded and\ncannot fake otherwise."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "Casting back, I seem to remember something in _Blue_ about the inhumi\nchanging shape to travel between the worlds. So they probably do *really*\nshapeshift mildly. But I think the projective telepathy is real; Incanto's\ndiscussion of watching an inhuma die indicates that there's something more\nthan just physical shapeshifting going on.\n\nThat said, the projective telepathy is far from perfect; that's obvious.\nThey emulate their prey, but not well enough to fool someone who knows what\nto look for."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "But it's a mostly physical change.  Horn tells Mora (and again, my poor \naddled brain can't remember the exact passage, and I'm too lazy to dig out \nthe book and get a cite) that the inhumi mold their faces like clay, and \nthen use makeup and wigs to cap off the illusion.  That's a big part of how \nshe can recognize inhumi (especially if it's a kid or a man wearing makeup). \n  And we get eyewitness descriptions of the inhumi changing their arms into \nwings as well, a definite physical change.  The telepathy, or magic, or \nwhatever you call it, probably just rounds out the physical stuff, and they \ncan apply that at will (like when Krait let Horn see him like an inhumi, not \nas a boy)."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 2,
          "text": "No, you really can't say that. Horn had to clean the sewers, with\nthousands of people dead from inhumu greed. Unless that was a dream, and\nI don't think it was."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "I don't think it was a dream, either. But I think that the inhumi of the\nCity killed lots of humans not deliberately but out of exhaustion--they\nreflect the cruelty visted on them by the Vanished People and work (and\ndrain) their humans to death, but do not necessarily set out to murder \nthem."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 3,
          "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\nto the secret coming, and I don't know what it is. So far, Wolfe has\noverdelivered on every promise of the narrative; I'd like to think he's\ncapable of overdelivering on the promise of the secret of the inhumi\nas well."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 2,
          "text": "I don't quite follow."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "I think that throughout the narrative of _Long Sun_ and _Short Sun_, Wolfe\nhas set up narrative expectations. He then, pretty consistently, has\nfulfilled those expectations in ways that, I feel, surpassed expectations.\n\nWolfe has spent a tremendous amount of narrative energy building up the\n\"secret  of the inhumi\". I have a hard time believing the secret is\nanything we could guess. Hence, I think that the secret encompasses the\nidea that humans can rid themselves of the threat of the inhumi by acts of\nloving kindness, but I have faith that it involves something much bigger."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "I hope it is something much bigger.  Besides, I don't see how being kind to \none another or to the inhumi would be a weapon \"too heavy to wield,\" as Horn \nputs it.\n\nNarwhal"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}