Inhumi in the Whorl

James Wynn · 10 Feb 2011, 02:35 · from 2011-February.txt.gz

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From: crushtv at gmail.com (James Wynn)
Date: Wed, 09 Feb 2011 20:35:26 -0600
Subject: (urth) Inhumi in the Whorl
In-Reply-To: <AANLkTi=QSyDC3djSHpKxVRJzp6ZR=3CR29K6+py5oCNB at mail.gmail.com>
References: <AANLkTi=QSyDC3djSHpKxVRJzp6ZR=3CR29K6+py5oCNB at mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <4D534EEE.7090400 at gmail.com>

>> Seriously? Their whole civilization on Green was destroyed centuries
>> ago, but the Whorl arrives and they say "Here are the keys, Horn, we
>> found a way off the planet. S'long."
> Andrew Mason-
> Here is what the Neighbour says:
> ?Most of what you have said, we might say. This whorl of yours was
> ours. We, the remnant of our race, have abandoned it, giving it to no
> one and making no provision to keep it for ourselves. We found a way
> to leave and we left, seeking a new and a better home.?
> He turned from me, his face lifted to the western stars. ?Some of you
> call the place where we are  the Neighbor Whorl. It does not matter
> what we call it, or what we once called this one. This whorl is yours
> now. It is called Blue. It belongs to your race.?
>
> This doesn't sound as if they are just now abandoning it. They did so
> a while ago, and are now coming back to hand the keys over. It may be
> that they left just twenty years ago, as the humans started to arrive.
> But it may be that they left much earlier. Indeed 'giving it to no
> one' might well be taken to mean that they had left before the humans
> turned up, since once they did the Neighbours started thinking of them
> as possible inheritors.

If they left when the Whorl arrived, it was more like 60 years ago, that 
is, around 40 years before the Exodus. However, your point is taken. I 
was overly glib in that response.

This quote, though, in my opinion, proves that the Neighbors have left 
through the Whorl, traveling back in Time all the way to Urth. Did they 
end up there? I'm not sure. Here is my point:

The Neighbor says that the place they went "Some of you call [...] 
Neighbor Whorl."
Well, other that right here, that term is never used from 'Nightside of 
the Long Sun' to 'Return to the Whorl". Who calls it that? I believe 
that Wolfe chose the term 'neighbor' deliberately as a synonym for 
"fairy". We know Wolfe is fully aware of this meaning because he has a 
character point it out in "An Evil Guest". Who calls it Neighbor Whorl? 
WE do. Only we call it Fairyland, that is, Faerie. Where the Neighbors 
ultimately ended up, I'm not sure. Perhaps in Urth's ancient pre-history.

u+16b9

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