Like a good Neighbor

James Wynn · 20 Nov 2011, 17:23 · from 2011-November.txt.gz

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From: crushtv at gmail.com (James Wynn)
Date: Sun, 20 Nov 2011 11:23:48 -0600
Subject: (urth) Like a good Neighbor
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>> 
> I agree. You're missing your own point. Fairies are notoriously amoral and, as you say, limited in their powers. Why expect the Neighbors to be perfectly moral and powerful? When are fairies ever that?

Well, they aren't amoral. An seemingly unending list of strange rules govern their behavior. Rather, their morality is alien to ours. So one ought expect that a human who consults with Faeries is going to behave immorally by human standards. Think of the sorceress Medea who burned her own children. From her perspective she was making them immortal, purging them of their mortal parts. (To go to Faerie is also to go to the Underworld, the Land of the Dead.)

Gerry's mistake (one of them) is thinking that all the Neighbors must be acting in concert, always with larger ultimate plan in mind. If we were talking about a human character, he wouldn't make that mistake.

Just because a young faerie has acted to resurrect Horn out of personal guilt does not mean he stopped to plan beyond that decision. 

Incidentally, I consider Horn's replacement here to be instructed by the story from the Mabinogion of Pwyll who chased a white stag into Faerie (Annwvyn) and ended up having to swap identities with a faerie.

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