Like a good Neighbor

James Wynn · 21 Nov 2011, 23:54 · from 2011-November.txt.gz

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From: crushtv at gmail.com (James Wynn)
Date: Mon, 21 Nov 2011 17:54:34 -0600
Subject: (urth) Like a good Neighbor
In-Reply-To: <C4672865EA574B39A269780A758F9EDE@Rover>
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Message-ID: <4ECAE4BA.90607 at gmail.com>


> *From:* James Wynn <mailto:crushtv at gmail.com>
> > I think people who claim that Seawrack was wrong need to explain why
> >
> Wolfe would have her make such a false diagnosis in the first place.
> To explain why she abandoned Horn in the pit?

yeah. He didn't need to complicate things by having both her and Babbie 
check him out and say, "Well, I guess dead. No sense trying to listen to 
his heart or anything. <cue the Stupid People music: Doy duh dum dum 
ding dang daaaaah>

> > After all, he could have just had Horn get separated from Seawrack and
>
> >
> Babbie, to allow his encounter with Krait.
>
> He'd have to be separated for days, to be in such a state that
> he betrayed his wife and children to the inhumu to save his life.

He was separated for days. Two days and an afternoon, if I recall my 
previous count correctly. But he only needed to be separated for a few 
hours for Seawrack and Babbie not to know where to find him.
He does not betray them to the inhumu. Nor, by the time he writes this 
account, view his time with Krait and something to be regretted. He sees 
him as his true son. (I realize you haven't got to that places yet. 
Spoiler.)

>
> >
> Additionally, they need to explain why the text is justified at the end
> > of Chapter 8, entitled "The End".
>
> ***************
> Very suddenly I was falling into darkness.  [---]
> But it cannot be. It cannot be a mere incident like Wijzer's drawing his
> map and the rest. Either that fall must be the end of the entire work
> (which might be wisest) or else it cannot close at all.
> So let me say this to whoever may read. With that fall, the best part of
> my life was over. The pit was its grave.
> ***************
> Well, it is literally true, isn't it?  The best part of his life *was* 
> over.  Soon be betrayed Nettle and his sons.  He travelled with an 
> inhumu.  He was abducted to a hell planet and died there.  There might 
> have been something about finding his girlfriend was a mass murdering 
> cannibal too, but I'm not sure of that part yet. You've got to admit, 
> his life after that moment was a bit of a bummer.

I didn't notice that his life before that was so great. He knew this 
mission would be no picnic. But the narrator makes more of it. Falling 
into the pit is not just another event. It would be a fitting place to 
end the novel, he says...or else it just goes on and on. He nowhere 
bemoans dying on Green. He knew Seawrack was no ordinary girl already. 
"Mass-murdering?"

> And why is he so coy about it, if he died in the pit anyway?  He's 
> been telling us all along about that *other* time he died.  What was 
> different that time?

Why did the King of Annwvyn not tell Pwyll's family that he had switched 
identities with him? He has declared over and over that he is motivated 
to BE Horn.

Anyway, you still have not justified that very hard underlining that the 
narrator places on this incident...why above all others--even his death 
on Green-- this event is so significant. We'll restart this conversation 
again when you are able to do that.
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