From: Adam Stephanides <adamsteph@earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: (whorl) Re: Re: Crocagators
Date: Thu, 26 Apr 2001 09:58:26 

on 4/26/01 1:18 AM, Robert Borski at rborski@charter.net wrote:

> Nacre has written:
> 
> <I do have to agree with Dan'l, though; the
> inhumi aren't going to kill off Blue's human population any time
> soon.>
> 
> Or even at all, for as Jahlee tells Horn in IGJ p. 377, "I drink blood.
> Human blood mostly. We don't kill you though. At least very often."
> 
> Granted, it's in Jahlee's best interests to fudge the truth a bit, but does
> anyone that we know of in either the Long or Short books actually succumb
> fatally to an inhumu's bite? I don't recollect a single person. Therefore
> the comparison with leeches--who only kill those with hereditary or
> spontaneous idiopathic coagulopathies--is probably dead on.

There are the thousand of dead bodies in the sewer on Green, whom Horn says
have "bled to death" (IGJ, 380); and elsewhere, iirc, Horn says or implies
that the inhumi on Green drain the bodies of their slaves when they get too
old to work or fight.  And Horn, who should know, thinks that Juganu might
kill him by drinking his fill; and that if Juganu brought companions he
"would certainly die" (but this, as Horn anticipates it, would be
premeditated murder by Juganu, not the typical opportunistic inhumi attack)
(RttW, 403).  But I agree that inhumi attacks do seem to be rarely fatal on
Blue, perhaps because on Blue they rarely have the chance to drink their
fill without being disturbed.  And the inhumi are not going to wipe out the
humans of Blue: aside from anything else, in doing so they would be
eliminating their main source of human blood.  A more realistic danger is
that the inhumi would gain control over the humans on Blue, as they have
over the Pajarocans and most of those on Green.

--Adam


*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