Urth Net
The Secret: protection, not conversion (actual
8 quoted lines
Adam wrote:
I have to abandon my nice new theory on the Secret. I just
noticed that on p. 350 of the hardback OBW, Horn says: "If
only we protected one another, they would all be idiots or
worse. As it is, they always get enough to keep them going."
So it has to be boring old keep-everybody-safe, not the idea
that the inhumi will become good by drinking the blood of
good people, attractive though this is.
Good catch, good call. I'm afraid I also have to abandon my own theorizing about a grand communion of humans and human-inhumi, in favor of what you say; in which case the "grand communion" becomes a blasphemous parody of the Eucharist ... which makes sense. Neither of the Eucharistic scenes we're shown involve the inhumi in any way, and neither involve physical blood. (I am using the word "physical" to avoid a whole set of metaphysical [in the sense of Aristotle and Aquinas] issues about in what sense the Eucharistic species "are" the flesh & blood of Christ, which I presume are not of general interest.)
So we're back to "protect one another?" H'mm... Okay, if Silk is
a Moses-figure (which makes far more sense than a Christ-figure), then we're talking about a people living under Law and Justice rather than (explicit) Grace. "Protect one another," and especially the idea of protecting the poor (and, somewhat by implication, the idea of protecting the "stranger") fits.
--Dan'l
*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun.