5HC

Gerry Quinn · 03 Sep 2014, 12:59 · from 2014-September.txt.gz

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From: gerry at bindweed.com (Gerry Quinn)
Date: Wed, 03 Sep 2014 13:59:55 +0100
Subject: (urth) 5HC
In-Reply-To: <1409716383.75676.YahooMailNeo at web171305.mail.ir2.yahoo.com>
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Message-ID: <540710CB.4040501 at bindweed.com>

On 03/09/2014 04:53, Richard Simon wrote:
> On Wednesday, 3 September 2014, 8:58, Gerry Quinn <gerry at bindweed.com> 
> wrote:
>
>
>
>  Let's look at just one thing:  Why does Wolfe harp on the fact that 
> Marsch's eyes are an unusual > green.  That the boy Victor's eyes are 
> an unusual green.  And - even at the cost of some clunkiness - make 
> sure we know that for Sandwalker's people, "Green is the colour of eyes"?
>
> I believe there are indeed clues, deliberately inserted by Wolfe to 
> lead us to the soliution, and that they point in a single direction.

Richard:
>
> If 'green is the colour' of Annese eyes, then a Shadow Child imitating 
> an Annese would take very good care to have green eyes, no?
>

For millenia, apparently this didn't occue to them, while they were 
imitating Sandwalker's people who you argue were an ancient race of 
humans, who for some reason all have green eyes.

Then suddenly, as soon as the French land, the Shadow Children put away 
their drugs, and become perfect imitators of, not the new humans, but of 
Sandwalker's people.  If the landing is the proximate cause, why do they 
not imitate the French instead?

Sandwalker's people (the vast majority of the pre-Landing population: we 
are told "there are so many of you now and so few of us") just disappear 
into the human population.  The Shadow Children, now suddenly successful 
in looking like Sandwalker's people, become persecuted abos.

It still doesn't explain why green eyes are a signifier - if the ancient 
humans vastly outnumber the Shadow Children, why is the signifier 
anything special?  If a race of ancient green-eyed humans merged with 
the colonists, you'd expect green eyes everywhere among the ordinary 
folk of Sainte Anne.

And why on Earth would there be two levels of imitation anyway?  Why 
does a Shadow Child have to imitate and ancient human before he imitates 
Marsch.  Why is he unable to change his eye colour to that of a 
modern-day human (after taking such care to have green eyes when 
imitating - for some reason - a poor downtrodden 'abo')?  How did the 
Shadow Children kick their drug habit?  Why does Victor know he is type 
2 alien imitating a human, but has no idea he was previously type 1 
alien imitating type 2?  Why does the imitation take time to master 
sometimes, and at others is completely immediate?

Switching the origin of the Shadow Children and the abos just creates an 
expanding wave of inconsistency!

- Gerry Quinn

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