From: Dan Rabin <danrabin@a.crl.com>
Subject: (whorl) [blue] Inhumic morality and dwellers in the deep
Date: Sat, 2 Oct 1999 23:13:28 

Alex David Grace wrote:

>The intelligent blood idea does present the cruel vision of species that, in
>order to remain morally and intellectually aware, must do something morally
>repulsive.  Essentially, to have any will, they must exercise their will in
>a malevolent way.

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.

 *
* *

Alice Turner wrote:

>Does anyone think that Seawrack's Mother is an undine? The description is
>not so undine-like, but it's very brief and Horn did not see her well. They
>can swim between the stars, so why not?

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.
*More Wolfe info & archive of this list at http://www.moonmilk.com/whorl/
*To leave the list, send "unsubscribe" to whorl-request@lists.best.com
*If it's Wolfe but not Long Sun, please use the URTH list: urth@lists.best.com