From: =?iso-8859-1?q?Nicholas=20Gevers?= <vermoulian@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: (whorl) OBW:  Yet another Inhumi secret theory
Date: Sat, 8 Jul 2000 23:32:25 

More likely, by giving themselves to the inhumi,
humans would see to it that the sentience the inhumi
imbibed was of a benign, self-sacrificial flavour--a
means of rendering the inhumi themselves more benign.

--- David Lomax <dlomax@idirect.com> wrote: > All,
> 
> Pardon for going back to a dead horse, stick in
> hand, but I just got around to
> reading OBW (in preparation for  the next which I
> believe is coming out soon).
> Immediately, I went and read a whole bunch of old
> posts from this list which I had
> been saving for the occasion.  I'm fascinated with
> the quest for the Inhumi secret
> (which I acknowledge may be unknowable given our
> present information).  Like most
> of you folks, I had rejected the "can't we all just
> get along" hypothesis and many
> of the other likely candidates.  One I haven't seen
> suggested (perhaps because I
> haven't read _all_ the old posts) has to do with
> giving.
> 
> Giving, people giving themselves to others, seems an
> important theme for Wolfe.
> What if the secret went something like this:  if
> people were to willingly give
> themselves over to the Inhumi, then (1) the Inhumi
> wouldn't be able to kill the
> people (much as Krait doesn't kill Horn or Horn's
> people once Horn has properly
> given his word) and (2) the Inhumi would, for some
> reason, no longer drink
> sentience along with the blood.
> 
> This is not a satisfying theory, mostly because it
> seems too simplistic, but I
> thought it might spark of someone else's ideas.  If
> it's a repetition of stuff
> that's already been said, my apologies.
 


__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Get Yahoo! Mail – Free email you can access from anywhere!
http://mail.yahoo.com/

*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