Like a good Neighbor

Gerry Quinn · 21 Nov 2011, 19:53 · from 2011-November.txt.gz

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From: gerry at bindweed.com (Gerry Quinn)
Date: Mon, 21 Nov 2011 19:53:52 -0000
Subject: (urth) Like a good Neighbor
In-Reply-To: <4ECAA77B.6050300 at verizon.net>
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Message-ID: <0230C293FD1A4D878E636E80061C04CB@Rover>

From: David Stockhoff 

On 11/21/2011 2:04 PM, Gerry Quinn wrote:
> > Actually I?m using it to shoot down a theory in which Horn did die. 
> > But it does work fine with my theory of what happened in the pit which 
> > I posted earlier. It?s not very dependent on when the long-nosed man 
> > appeared.

> Correct. It doesn't appear to depend on anything. As far as I can 
> tell---you haven't actually posted it.

I posted it today in a reply to James.  I think I had it in a couple of posts.  Here it is again anyway:

Horn fell in and was badly concussed. [As with Auk before him, this was the prelude to a mystical evolution, but that?s not germane to the episode, it?s just a trope that Wolfe recycles.] The Neighbours did their best to help him but they live in another dimension and can?t move anything physical or bring him water. What they did was touch his forehead with a mental amplifier that temporarily gave him the ability to astrally travel and get help. Unfortunately he went to Nettle who could not help him and indeed became frightened, thinking I suppose that he was a ghost or inhumu. 

The only other human or quasi-human entity on the island at that time was Seawrack (Krait may have been hanging around already, but even if the Neighbours knew that, they wouldn?t have expected him to help). It is possible that they didn?t recognise Seawrack as human. It?s also possible that they tried to communicate with her but she fled. We know she is terrified of Neighbour constructions at least ? it?s probable that she is even more terrified of Neighbours. 

It was this abandonment of Horn due to her fear that she is rationalising. Of course the simple scenario that she is ignorant of human life and ordinary death ? everyone she has met has quickly died and stayed dead ? is also perfectly possible.

It was his experience with the mental amplifier that initiated Horn?s subsequent development of extraordinary psychic powers. We already see that he has changed when he is going with Krait to find Seawrack ? he sees the world with ?a sharpness of detail born of a consciousness of detail?. He?s changed ? but nothing about the change is the sort of thing we might particularly expect to associate with a Neighbour psyche ? affinity with trees, consciousness of other dimensions, feeling he?s missing limbs, whatever. 
He doesn?t develop superpowers just like that, it requires other events and experiences ? his experiences on Green, his death, his experiments on inhumi which he is *contemplating carrying out in the future* during his time as Rajan of Gaon.

Anyway, that?s my working theory for the moment. I think it fits the facts and involves the swallowing of fewer camels than scenarios in which Horn died in the pit.

- Gerry Quinn

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