From: "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes" <ddanehy@siebel.com>
Subject: RE: (whorl) Babbie's 20-20-20-20 vision
Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2001 08:29:24 

Further Borskianism:

> How do you interpret the scene on dream-Urth that Hoof describes
> as following:
>
> "Our boat was water, and Babbie was a hairy man with thick arms
> and real big shoulders, and glasses, and a couple of Babbie's
> eyes (the little ones)."

...

> Will I now be damned if I theorize that Babbie has at least
> tetra-ocular vision--half of which apparently needs correction
> by spectacles?

You aren't even damned for thinking the Neighbors have two heads, 
or seven if it makes you happy; just wrong (or at best 
unsubstantiated). But you are quite right about Babbie (and thus 
presumably other Bluvian critters, including the Neighbors) 
having four eyes. This fits the general theme -- elephants with 
eight legs & two trunks, etc. 

(BTW, I noticed the two trunks long before I picked up the
octopedality, and had a rather nightmarish flashback to FOOTFALL, 
the last book by either Niven or Pournelle I bothered even 
trying to read. Niven shot his wad as a writer long ago; and 
Pournelle never had one.)

Again: I can't offer direct evidence that Neighbors, Hus, 
octodiles, etc., _don't_ have two heads apiece; I have only 
my argument that, if they do, one head does not constitute
the "person" in the same way that Typhon's transplanted head 
"is" Typhon.

[H'mmmmm. PiaTyphon, I think, has to be added to my list of 
bleshed people in the SUN books. This "theme" looks bigger
every time I look at it. One thing for sure about Typhon and
Piaton: it wasn't syzygy...]


> (Note also how Hoof describes Horn as looking more like
> the father he remembers from Blue.)

Thanks for reminding me of this. There was _something_ that
bothered me about Hoof-and-Hide's decision that Silkhorn is
not their father: this scene is what was niggling in the back
of my head. You'd think he'd (or they'd) have more of a clue
that, yep, Dad's in there.

--Blattid


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