(urth) shapeshifting Hethor

[Chris]

MSG said:
bsharp said:
> >Mg you don't say what you base your likelihood and almost certainties on,
> >though I think my post on building a mental mosaic applies.  
>Shapeshifting
> >does not fit the picture you have built of Urth and so you discard it
> >whenever you see it.

>Absolutely not true. I pointed out the likely shapeshifting ability of
>Venant and could make an interesting case for the voiceshifting alzabo; 
>I've
>no trouble with the notion of Hethor being a shapeshifter nor for Mother
>Pyrexia being the degenerate terminus of one such witcherly attempt; and in
>many respects Baldanders, some of the Megatherians, and the undines are
>beings that have chosen to change their shapes. This does not, however, 
>mean
>that Father Inire periodically morphs himself into the two individuals you
>claim just because other individuals are able to shift their appearance.

Right, and I think it may again be time to point out that interpretation of 
Wolfe tends to get into an occasional lunatic (in the memorable sense 
presented in Foucoult's Pendulum) circle. That is, we tend to latch on to 
one thing and then attempt to explain *everything* in terms of it, finding 
connections everywhere we go - because it is easy to find connections of 
some sort or another.

This came up in the infamous clone wars on this list, that were alluded to 
recently, where (to exaggerate a bit) we started to reach a point where 
everyone in the Urth cycle was a clone of Typhon (though I am not sure 
whether we established whether, through some elaborate time-travelling 
trick, Typhon was a clone of Typhon as well).

Borski's book, I think, is quite prone to this sort of thing. Given the 
frequent mentions we've been seeing of that book, it might be good to keep 
this in mind.