From: William Ansley <wansley@warwick.net>
Subject: Re: (whorl) Yet another Secret theory: we have met the enemy and he is
Date: Mon, 23 Apr 2001 23:51:51 

At 8:14 PM -0500 4/23/01, Adam Stephanides wrote:
>Say what you will about Nicholas Gevers' proposal, he's got people thinking
>about the Secret again.

And this is a good thing? <G> I swore to myself that I was not going 
to contribute any more to this conversation. But your theory is too 
good to pass up, Adam.

>When Jahlee says that the inhumi take their children's minds from the humans
>whose blood they drink, she is not merely referring to their intelligence.
>The children's spirits (perhaps their souls, if inhumi have souls) are taken
>from humans.  Krait is Horn's son, not just by adoption, but because his
>spirit is the same as Sinew's.  This is why, during astral travel, the
>inhumi appear human.

Interesting. This may explain why Krait had to die. If he had ever 
been the catalyst for astral travel, under this theory, presumably 
his astral body would have looked just like Sinew or at least bourne 
a strong resemblance to him. (This does raise the question, who did 
Jahlee's mother bite? Anyone we know?)

>So the way in which the Secret can be used as a weapon is indeed the Golden
>Rule bit proposed here before.  If humans loved each other enough and were
>unselfish enough, then the inhumi, drinking their blood, would produce
>children who were too unselfish to drink human blood.  Then the inhumi would
>lose their intelligence, and this would not be cruel to the inhumi because
>they were meant to be just animals: they have no spirits of their own (this
>is what I take to be Wolfe's view, not necessarily my own).  The inhumi as
>they exist now are monstrosities, albeit pitiable monstrosities, like the
>beast-men of "The Island of Doctor Death" (sorry, alga, but I think that
>this fits Wolfe's portrayal of the inhumi better than visions of
>human-inhumi brotherhood [*] do).

I have always thought that an insurmountable objection to this was 
that humans who truly obeyed the Golden Rule would freely give their 
blood to inhumi, if doing so made them truly human, in the soul 
department at least. This would lead to a glorious human-inhumi 
partnership and they all would live happily ever after. But, if what 
the inhumi are actually getting is a copy or a piece of a human soul, 
then perhaps perfectly moral beings (that is, if this isn't too 
extreme a description of humans who follow the Golden Rule) would not 
feel it was necessary to give their blood to the inhumi.

(Hey, maybe the inhumi are stealing part of the soul of the child 
whose blood drink. Maybe that's what was wrong with Sinew. Naaaah!)

William Ansley

*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