(urth) vines

[Marc Aramini]

Mostly this is a quick response to James Wynn about vines as the natural base state of the inhumi when they don't have blood to feed on - we both agree Dionysus is an important symbolic association in the book because of the strange nature of the vegetation.  In 2002 or so the resistance I met every time I brought up trees was amazing, and now there seems to be less hostility to the theory that the neighbors are related to them. 
 
Clearly, there are "trees that eat trees" on Green, the neighbors react badly when hunters go into the woods with axes, etc.  the lianas are the brides of these trees.  I just wanted to clarify that the lynchpin for this recognition of vine with primitive pre-human inhumi is the staff of Silk made from a liana.
 
The external fertilization described by the sexual habits of the inhumi seem to be either that of very low sea life or possibly vegetative in nature - spore + seed, etc.  When Silk has his staff made of a liana, he can astral travel without an inhumi, the staff has a mouth and a face and thumps around at night.  Inhumi can survive being buried for long periods of time.
So the staff is a stand in for the powers inhumi would grant him, and that's enough for me.
 
So anyway, hybridization is such an important theme, I always thought these vines assumed some of the mystical recombinatory stuff of the trees that eat trees through their parasitism, and then kind of took other essences from whatever they fed upon.  There are inhumi on Blue and Green because there were once humans on Blue and Green.  Whatever these guys feed on, they come to resemble, even in the next generation.   
 
I think where James and I differ is that I don't like extratextual information unless it is explicitly referenced, as I am weak on myths in general.  Sure, Herodotus can help your Latro.  Gene rips off a lot of cool quotes from Proust.  But drag in too much extra stuff and you run the risk that Gene has never read it (King Jesus).  So I see Dionysus as a general symbol of the transmogrification of humanity, just like the Green Man, and I think this story is about how the next stage of humanity comes about.
 
Marc


      
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