Seawrack and the Mother

David Stockhoff · 19 Sep 2012, 03:17 · from 2012-September.txt.gz

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From: dstockhoff at verizon.net (David Stockhoff)
Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2012 23:17:17 -0400
Subject: (urth) Seawrack and the Mother
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On 9/18/2012 10:59 PM, Ant?nio Pedro Marques wrote:
> No dia 18/09/2012, ?s 20:07, David Stockhoff <dstockhoff at verizon.net> escreveu:
>
>> I'm sorry, but how does a stump from a limb torn off by teeth look different from a stump from a limb torn off by a shot?
> The latter kind doesn't exist in that context.
>
>> I think it would be more profitable, if we are to consider Lee's theory, to determine things like whether Horn's gun was capable of such a thing,
> He did fire the shot.
>
>> and how Seawrack's physiology would respond to a shot in the first place,
> I'd be more comfortable with Seawrack having an alien physiology if she had responded to the injury to her arm differently from she did, which was the way any human does, except possibly for speed of healing and lack of infection.
>
>> and what effects it would have had on Babbie. I think it unlikely that Horn was carrying a gun big enough to do this to a human arm.
> And doing no other damage.
>
>> But the larger point is that once again we have two parallel plausibilities
> We can always have a number of parallel possibilities at about any point in those books.
>
>> and little help from the narrator.
> What would constitute more than little help, in your opinion?
>
>> We also have a plain indeterminacy: if Seawrack was not the pirate girl, then why does Wolfe put them so close together? What happened to the girl and where did Seawrack come from? Wolfe does this all the time with his characters.
>>
>> Furthermore, is it too complex to suggest that Babbie attacked Seawrack because he recognized her as the pirate girl Horn shot at? If he hit her in the arm, Babbie would have known who it was, smelled blood, and torn it off defending the boat.
> Not a problem at all. I was just pointing out the need for something other than the shot.
>
> Though I find Seawrack being the pirate woman (not girl) solves nothing, but I wouldn't have bothered to talk only to say that.
>
> I find the suggestion that Seawrack's first landing on the boat was an attack, rather than merely seen as such by Babbie, important.
>
>> Her arm could have suffered both injuries without messing up anything [this last is in partial response to Sergei, whose perspective on this scene baffles me though I understand his reaction to Leeism]. A gunshot wound would explain why she wanted to get on the boat.
> Why?

Injury.

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