From: "Roy C. Lackey" 
Subject: Re: (urth) "Hour of Trust" supernatural vs. mundane
Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2002 21:15:27 -0600

mantis quoted:
>Andy Robertson wrote:
>>Maybe here is something actually "supernatural" here?  Maybe the religion
of
>>the rebels, if that is what it is, actually allows them to turn their
bodies
>>into bombs, through meditation or feedback or something?
>>
>>It's a wild thought, but then I disagree about the human flamers being
>>"minor".  As I have posted before, I think they are expressing and proving
a
>>faith.

[snip]
and wrote:
>So a primary sticking-point of interpretation, that of "realism," is thrown
>out. Likewise is "motive" and the issue of whether Clio is a mole or not,
>or anything like that, including politics and meaning. Clio is History and
>she does as History is said to do. Fickle, capricious, all that stuff.

I have to agree with mantis that, in the absence of clearer indications that
the supernatural is involved, we have to look to a "realism" interpretation.

[snip]
>(The ken-kins shirt of flame reminds me of those poisoned/fire shirts of
>classical myth--the one with blood of Nessus, for example, which got
>Herakles.)

Again, this story dates from the 1970s, in the wake of the war in Vietnam,
and that clinging fire reminds me of one of the most famous photographs of
the Vietnam era, that of the naked girl running down a road, trying to get
away from the napalm that is burning on her.

-Roy


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