From: "Alex David Groce" <adgroce@eos.ncsu.edu>
Subject: Re: (urth) Weer is not dead.
Date: Fri, 28 Aug 1998 13:58:10 

On Aug 27, 11:57pm, William H. Ansley wrote:

> Nope. I don't think Weer is a serial killer and I never have, although I
> have heard this theory before. But there is one caused death in the book
> that might be said to be morally equivalent to murder, even if it doesn't
> fit the legal definition. Weer may have had nothing to do with it and even
> if he did he was not solely responsible.
>
> I am talking about the worker at Julius Smart's OJ plant that froze to
> death in the juice freezer. The incident is described on p. 247 (_Peace_,
> Orb ed.) and further illuminated on p. 249. The death has been publicly
> been attributed to accident - the latch on the freezer froze up while the
> guy (a young man of eighteen or so) was inside stacking boxes of juice.
>
> But, on p. 249, Weer reveals that it was actually a practical joke that
> turned fatal. An object was put through the hole in the latch designed to
> receive a padlock hasp by some men who worked with the guy. The guy stacked
> juice crates near the door and sent them crashing against it to try to
> batter it open. The man on the outside (who was not much older than the guy
> inside) was frightened because he couldn't imagine what was happening
> inside the freezer. The door and latch were bent and the hinges partly
> sprung, so he couldn't open the door when he tried and he was frightened of
> what the guy would do to him when he got out so he went home.
>
> When the guy was found dead the next day, plant management hushed it up and
> didn't discipline the man who failed to let the guy in the freezer out.
>
> Weer tells the story as if the man outside the freezer were someone else
> (although he doesn't name him or anyone else involved) but it is very
> tempting to believe it was him. His description of the events is very vivid
> and he was working at the plant at the time and was the right age.
>
> If it was Weer, then I would say that this incident was a conscious choice
> and an action for which he could be legitimately judged.

	Oh--then we are actually in agreement here.  I think there's a good
chance that it was Weer (or Wolfe meant it to be Weer--the correspondence model
of truth is tricky when dealing with a fictional reality...)  And that
definitely if so it's one of the most important things preventing him from
finding Peace.  I was thinking of all the theories where every time there's a
scene change Weer goes and shoots some character.
	It's probably not exactly murder, legally or, more relevantly,
morally--but it's very close, and would definitely be something a Wolfe
character would be likely to hint at rather than outright admitting.

-- 
"And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free." - John 8:32
--
Alex David Groce (adgroce@eos.ncsu.edu)
Senior (Computer Science/Multidisciplinary Studies in Technology & Fiction)
'98-99 NCSU AITP Student Chapter President
608 Charleston Road, Apt. 1E (919)-233-7366
http://www4.ncsu.edu/~adgroce

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