From: Michael Straight <straight@email.unc.edu>
Subject: Re: (whorl) Re: Digest whorl.v012.n105
Date: Thu, 19 Apr 2001 11:11:15 

Alga wrote:

From Rostrum:

>> But what does Horn think about the rape?  He says that the fault is his
>> own, and he says the song is no excuse, but he does mention it, possibly
>> wanting his readers to excuse him.  (Of course this is Silk|Horn writing.
>> Is Silk dragging an honest confession from a rapist who wants to excuse
>> himself, or is Silk finding the true cause behind Horn's attempt to blame
>> himself?)

> To have her bleeding to the point she cannot swim? Perhaps you are
> excusing him too much. Until the Wooly Bug's post, I tended to do that
> too.

If anything, the extreme brutality of what happened makes me lean more
toward believing that Seawrack's song produced some kind of irresistable
compulsion to act as Horn did.

It all depends on how it works.  If the song simply increases Horn's
desire to do what he wants, then it reveals that his desires are pretty
ugly and Horn should be condemned for acting on them (but I'd also be
tempted to give him credit for normally keeping such desires in
check--unless you buy an extreme Bad Horn theory that has him doing lots
of ugly stuff he never tells us about--Nettle could hardly survive such
treatment regularly even if she were the type to stay with so abusive a
husband, nor is it likely his Gaonese concubine would escape with him if
he were normally that brutal--but then that's Silk).  But if the song
actually compells Horn to act in a certain way, then whether he's nice or
ugly doesn't tell us anything about Horn because it's not him doing.

What we really need to know is what sort (if any) of madness or mind
control the song causes.  And given the scant evidence we have, I'm
inclined to think that it is sufficiently mindwarping to give Horn the
benefit of the doubt.

-Rostrum




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