From: "Dennis G. Berdanis" <endymion9@mindspring.com>
Subject: (whorl) More Green Thoughts SPOILERS
Date: Mon, 7 Aug 2000 16:09:00 

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



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