Short Story 110: The Cat

Gwern Branwen · 26 Aug 2014, 19:40 · from 2014-August.txt.gz

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From: gwern at gwern.net (Gwern Branwen)
Date: Tue, 26 Aug 2014 15:40:30 -0400
Subject: (urth) Short Story 110: The Cat
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On Tue, Aug 26, 2014 at 3:33 PM, Marc Aramini <marcaramini at gmail.com> wrote:
> The other issue is that if Inire has done something to get the cat back that
> costs the good part of her soul and innocence, it makes Inire truly a
> diabolical figure. His strict order to bury the doll with her lead me to
> speculate it is her callous action of throwing the cat that might have done
> the damage to her innocence, because she is peri-like before Inire ever
> meddles with her. A very ambiguous mystical description.

Inire is an ambiguous character all along; remember he is not human,
and is partially responsible for the destruction of Urth and murdering
millions/billions of people for the sake of a higher goal.

The sort of scenario I had in mind is Inire tells Sancha she has done
something irreversible, and Sancha angrily demands that Inire do
*something*, she *loves* her cat above anything, and Inire asks
whether she's willing to pay the price and she says something like
(how many stories or movies or novels have we seen this scene in? the
ill-considered statement to the wizard/magician/god/fae...) 'I don't
care whether it costs me my childhood, bring back my cat!' And so he
does.

> '"The people who wrote the mediaeval ballads," answered the priest, "knew more about fairies than you do. It isn't only nice things that happen in fairyland."
> "Oh, bosh!" said Flambeau. "Only nice things could happen under such an innocent moon. I am for pushing on now and seeing what does really come. We may die and rot before we ever see again such a moon or such a mood."
> "All right," said Father Brown. "I never said it was always wrong to enter fairyland. I only said it was always dangerous."'

-- 
gwern
http://www.gwern.net

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