(urth) Baldanders

[Dan'l Danehy-Oakes]

> I think this is part of Wolfe's
> commentary, found throughout the books, on the
> morality of so-called "transhumanism."  Depending on
> the morality that motivated the alteration, the
> alteration is beautiful (ie. the green man) or
> perverse (Typhon, Baldanders).  There may be a third
> category, morality that is simply alien -- Im thinking
> of the undines -- reflected in characters who are
> sometimes beautiful, sometimes terrifying or ugly,
> sometimes both simultaneously.Ooooh, nice take.

I had the impression that the undines were women
once who'd gone through a process like-but-unlike
what Baldanders is doing to himself: like, in its main
physical effects; unlike, because they allowed it to
be done to them in service to another, while Baldanders
is doing it to himself in service _of_ himself. This takes
on fuller meaning with what you've just said: they are
both beautiful and terrifying, both transhuman and
monstrous.

Clearly to a Christian (i.e. Wolfe), transhumance
cannot be _of itself_ monstrous: the new body of the
general resurrection is to be transhuman (though I
distrust anyone's specific ideas of _how_).

Thought for rumination: in the Lupiverse, if you strive
to be more than "mere" human, you become a monster;
while if you strive to be more fully human, you become
more than human.

--Dan'l

-- 
I do not fear Satan half so much as I fear those who fear him.
                        -- St Teresa of Avila
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