Like a good Neighbor

David Stockhoff · 21 Nov 2011, 22:13 · from 2011-November.txt.gz
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From: dstockhoff at verizon.net (David Stockhoff)
Date: Mon, 21 Nov 2011 17:13:09 -0500
Subject: (urth) Like a good Neighbor
In-Reply-To: <602CA7F39DE942879074C2A89EE13870@Rover>
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On 11/21/2011 4:01 PM, Gerry Quinn wrote:
>
>
> From: David Stockhoff
> On 11/21/2011 2:53 PM, Gerry Quinn wrote:
>
>> > 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.
>
>> I'm not sure how you know this but I agree. Typical Faerie behavior.
>
> I know it because we are told it in the text.  I haven't reached IGJ 
> in my re-read yet, but I remember the sewer.

Yes. That Neighbor says they COULD do it themselves, but Horn would do 
it better. Perhaps it is in some strange way also true of Horn in the 
pit, even though it doesn't seem that way.
>
>
>> > 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.
>
>> Possibly. I said much the same thing (you called it "inane sarcasm") 
>> and suggested that it was a test of sorts, whether of Horn or of his 
>> "recovery."
>
> I don't think that was one of the comments I was thinking of as 
> sarcasm.  Of course a "test-drive" might seem a bit ludicrous in some 
> ways but that's what you get with resurrection theories.  My theory is 
> simpler - they do what they can to help, but Horn isn't able to take 
> advantage by going to Seawrack as he should have.  (Or she might have 
> already left the boat, in which case maybe he couldn't have gone to 
> her anyway.)

It makes sense.
>
>> > 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).
>
> [Note: I know now he was already hanging around; I hadn't spotted the 
> timeline clues then.]
>
>> Why do you think the Neighbors do not know the inhumi?
>
> They know the inhumi very well.  They don't think asking one to save 
> the life of an injured human will do anything more than give the 
> inhumu a good laugh.

I think they think much better of the sentient inhumi than we do at 
first and Horn does, and they (the Neighbors) aren't nearly as 
sentimental about life and death as we are.
>
>> > 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.
>
>> Why would either Krait or Seawrack have anything to do with it? Why 
>> wouldn't she have told Horn if they appeared to her?
>
> She's the obvious person to ask for help for Horn, but they may not 
> have recognised her as such.  But if they did, and she fled from them, 
> thereby condemning Horn to death if Krait had not intervened, it 
> wouldn't be an easy thing to admit.

Or to hide.
>
>> > What is their motivation in helping Horn if they are not willing to 
>> > appear to his friends like Lassie barking that Tommy is down the 
>> well? > Are they moral people at all, even to the extent of helping 
>> themselves?
>
> I've proposed that they probably did try that, and if they didn't it's 
> pecause they didn't recognise the possibility.  Your question would be 
> better addressed to James, whose theory has considerable issues of 
> exactly this kind.  Their actions according to his theory seem 
> remarkably whimsical, and I think Horn would have resented them if asked.

Not at all. They obey iron laws that are invisible to us. I think I know 
why they interfered and why they didn't physically help him or get help 
for him. Sometimes it's really important to do things yourself in Faerie.
>
>> > 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.
>
>> Easily disproved, but to you, possible.
>
> Disproved?  How?  I am only on the next chamber, but I understand 
> Seawrack (if she started human) was taken as a small child and used to 
> lure seamen to their death.

We apparently disagree, but Seawrack clearly knows corpses when she sees 
them.
>
>> > 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.
>
>> And your evidence for this expectation of "whatever" is where? Give 
>> page numbers.
>
> You've been going on about Faerie.  Everyone agrees they like trees 
> (Mark thinks they ARE trees).  The Neighbours seem to live in an 
> adjacent dimension.  They have eight limbs.  Is your question serious?

Where is the evidence that people who hang with fairies like trees, see 
other dimensions, and feel like limbs are missing? The page numbers 
don't need to be in BSS. I have read about Faerie from age 7 through 
graduate school and these are not familiar to me. Show me.
>
>> > Where did he get his trailblazing ability from---is that not to be 
>> > expected from association with "a Neighbour psyche"? What do you 
>> think > that "sharpness" is?
>
> I think it awakened certain powers innate in humans.  He got his 
> initial jaunt as a consequence of some device pressed to his forehead.

Trailblazing through Faerie is an "innate human power"? Gerry, I don;t 
think you and I use words the same way.

Horn was what we Dungeons and Dragons players in high school would have 
called "blessed." He gets a +150 in trailblazing and a -200% chance to 
ever get lost in woods. Thorny branches caress him and hedges part 
before him. These ... are ... not ... innate ... human ... powers.
>
>> > 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.
>
>> Thanks, but you failed to outline in detail how the timing of events 
>> in the pit helps your case, just as you have failed to detail why it 
>> hurts ours.
>
> I said my theory doesn't depend too much on the timing.  I think the 
> timing (late long-nose) causes obvious problems for James's theory of 
> an impetuous young Neighbour who kills Horn by accident, then decides 
> to leap into his body and continue his mission.  Perhaps James will 
> modify his theory to be more consistent with the timing.

We've said our theory doesn't depend on the timing at all. You may be 
right about one thing: maybe the trap was deliberate, not impetuous.
>
>> It seems to me that what you do is find the easiest path to the 
>> lowest place and amaze yourself at how easy it is to defend it. You 
>> are Wolfe's ideal foolish reader---you fall for every single one of 
>> his plausible surface explanations, which are ALWAYS provided. It's 
>> as though he makes a place where one can stand and see nothing going 
>> on in all directions; you seek that place and on finding it feel you 
>> have done real work getting there.
>
> The explanation I provided is no more a surface explanation than 
> James's. Little of it is stated explicitly by Wolfe.  The question is, 
> which explanation works?

Yours least of all, as I have explained.
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