Tracking Song and vizcacha

Damn, how thick of me! It was Dave Lebling, aka vizcacha, who first wrote about that "lost dog" stuff I mentioned yesterday. Nine years ago! Why didn't you say something? Better yet, say it now! -Roy

Roy, the easiest answer is that I had completely forgotten that I was the one who introduced that theory. I remember a couple of long threads on "Tracking Song" back in the dim and misty past, and it took me a while in the archives to find this one (vol. 6 of the Digest, for those who care). When I reread my own archived messages, sometimes they are embarrassing, sometimes I'm impressed. This is one of the "impressed" ones, although I notice I discounted the relationship to CotW, which I think the recent discussion is more correct on. I was probably looking at straight plot correspondence, rather than thematic. Dave Lebling, aka vizcacha

Oops. Make that vol. 7 of Urth. Sigh. -- Dave

Well, I think I first read it in one of alga's posts. There's lots of clever people making astute observations in those archives, if you can manage to find them, but it's not easy to determine who said what first.

Actually, here is proof that Dave Liebling was the first to speculate on Cutthroat's dog nature (though I can't find the original post for some reason): http://www.urth.net/urth/archives/v0007/0574.shtml Very interesting: he speculates that the Great Sleigh sleigh is, at one level of representation, the car (!!!) in which Cutthroat was riding before he was left behind. He also compares the bouillon cubes to a domestic dog's kibble. I like it a lot!

Thanks, Matthew. It's "Lebling," by the way, not "Liebling." I think the archives have various lacunae; my original post on this topic isn't there, just responses from alga and others. A little earlier in that archive is a post about problems with the database or the host, which may explain it. The epigraph has multiple meanings. The simplest is that Cutthroat, like the Trojans, is an exile; he was expelled from the Great Sleigh, they were expelled from Troy. On another level, remember that the Romans, the descendants of Aeneas, were fostered by a she-wolf, as was Cutthroat by wolves. Third, consider the human-like animal people who have been approaching humanity for "seven years" and may now have reached it in the person of Cutthroat. Fourth, consider the destroyed Troy reborn as Rome, then a destroyed or at least diminished humanity (on the asteroid or even universally) reborn from the animals. Dave Lebling, aka vizcacha