More Green Thoughts SPOILERSWhorl

One thing that stood out to be while reading IGJ is Wolfe's treatment of soldiers. I noticed it in the Long Sun books and now again in IGJ but couldn't quite put my finger on what bothered me. Wolfe constantly keeps me off balance with the personality he gives to soldiers, whether human or chem. One instant they seem to be warming to their prisoners and becoming friends with them and the next they are treating them roughly (like leaving Horn and Fava exposed in the snow). It's probably an evolution of the torturer theme. The other thing that keeps me off balance is the prisoners reactions to the soldiers. They never develop ill will towards their captors. They don't take it personally if treated roughly. Once again an evolution of how they reacted to torturers? So by the time humans have gotten to the Long Sun/Three Whorls era, have soldiers inherited the torturer mantel? There is some implication that the clergy are the inheritors of the torturer "cloak" but the augurs do not exhibit torturer behaviors. Dennis/Endy http://home.mindspring.com/~endymion9/index.htm *This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun.