5HC: Green eyes

adam louis stephanides · 15 Jun 1998, 12:01 · from urth-v0013.mbox · original

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From: adam louis stephanides <astephan at students.uiuc.edu>
Subject: (urth) 5HC: Green eyes
Date: Mon, 15 Jun 1998 12:01:11
Message-ID: <urth-v0013-0064 at digest.urth.net>
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I had been planning to put 5HC behind me for now, unless someone replied
to one of my posts, but mantis's discussion of eye colors reminded me of
one of the most enigmatic passages (to me, anyway) in the book.  In "A
Story," after Wolf has called the starcrossers down, we get the following
passage:
    Sandwalker looked at the last Shadow child and saw that he was weeping
    and that his eyes held nothing at all.  He felt that way himself, and
    turning to Cedar Branches Waving asked, "Mother, what color are my
    eyes *now*?" [emphasis added]
       "Green," Cedar Branches Waving answered.  "They look gray in this
    light, but they are green.  That is the color of eyes."  Behind her
    Seven Girls Waiting and Sweetmouth murmured, "Green."  And Seven
    Girls Waiting added, "Pink Butterflies' eyes are green too." (142-
    143, Ace edition)
What is going on here?  My first thought was that somehow th Shadow
children's "shield" made it impossible to see the color green, but that's
not true (105).  And it can't be just that the "shield" had caused the
eyes to appear other than green, because Cedar Branches Waving knows that
Sandwalker's eyes are green even though they look gray, and that green "is
the color of eyes."  A quick search through the text didn't turn up any
references to eye color before this passage, though several to eyes.

--Adam=20


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