Urth Net
V.R.T., Marsch and "man-shaped animals"
↰ answers Alice Turner
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3 quoted lines · 1–2 deep
On Fri, 19 Jun 1998 alga wrote:
I hadn't seen this thoery of V.R.T. merging with Marsch before, but I have to stick to my belief that V.R.T. is just impersonating Marsch in the ordinary way, perhaps aided by his shape-shifting abilities if he has them. [stuff deleted]
Yes, that is a good and convincing argument. But still, but still, there is that certainty among the Ste. Anne interviewees that the abos were "man-shaped animals," there is the evidence of "A Story," there is JVM/ART's own writing from his cell that seem to indicate something more.
Well, the Ste. Anne interviewees have a vested interest in portraying them that way, as R.T. points out. V.R.T. may even have internalized this view, as shown by his assertion that he is half an animal and by "A Story" (although personally I didn't feel that the characters in "A Story" were identical to animals in their actions, as you said before, if this is what you're referring to). That doesn't make it true. And even if it is true in some sense, it's not clear what it means: specifically, I don't think it's necessarily incompatible with the intelligence and curiosity V.R.T. displays as Marsch. Marsch regards V.R.T. as intelligent (Apr. 10 entry; 174, Ace edition), and he's not likely to be biased in the direction of overestimating V.R.T.'s intelligence.
--Adam