[blue] Inhumic morality and dwellers in the deepWhorl

Morally repugnant to whom? My interpretation of Krait's "cattle" metaphor and his comment "I must eat" is that the inhumi's drinking of blood is as matter-of-fact to them as eating fish is to Horn. When leatherskins kill humans, are they being immoral? I don't detect any self-loathing or guilt in either Quetzal or Krait (or Jahlee for that matter). Inhumic morals could even be very similar to one prevalent human system (killing other species isn't particularly bad; needing to eat justifies the means, etc.) and still fit the story. But our planet only has one intelligent species, so we don't know which way we'd develop if cows could discuss philosophy with us. Or maybe inhumi aren't moral agents at all. * * * We don't (yet) have any idea of how inhumi reproduce. We know they have sexes, but do they care for their young? Do they have a larval stage? The secret could lie in this area, too. * * *

I speculate that the Mother is somehow connected with Erebus and Abaia. She has the right habitat, anyhow, and Jonas's aborted tale at the end of Shadow of the Torturer seems to point to an origin on a planet far from Urth, visited by the human diaspora. -- Dan Rabin *This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun.

Dan Rabin asked:

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The last is possible, but with Wolfe I think it's always best to assume everything that looks intelligent and capable of willed action IS a moral agent. Wolfe seems to have a pretty broad definition of human (Horn, at least, goes on about this at some length in OBW)--Jonas, Dr. Talos, sort of Babbie, etc. After all, the moral framework Wolfe's presumably working in doesn't mean that just because the inhumi say "they're cattle--who cares?" they're right about it. I think the inhumi are clearly more likely to be moral agents than leatherskins. Anyway, the inhumi seem (A) capable of being a bit gleefully cruel--Jahlee and Krait show this at times, a kind of awareness of villainy that's at the least a parody of moral agency and (B) capable of acting quite in-inhuman--how do we explain Krait's actions on the lander (not that we know exactly what happens yet) otherwise? At least for now I'm giving Krait the benefit of the doubt--he betrayed his kind for Horn, which was (so it appears now) a good act. It seems we're saying that Seawrack may be like an adopted Undine. The more I look at those sections (and the telling bit in the Dramatis Personae), the more I think "Mom" is an Erebus/Abaia type thing (whatever they are) and clearly Up To No Good, although maybe resulting in good--BOT<N,L,S>S all evince Wolfe's statement that (in the story of St. Brendan in PEACE, this quote is inexact) "the wicked do God's will also, they just don't like it." "And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." John 8:32