(urth) The mystery of the image of an astronaut cleaned byRudesind

[Roy C. Lackey]

John Watkins wrote:
> I'm not sure that anyone has said that there's nothing to be found in all
> the various clues about Inire.  The question is whether it makes any sense
> to assume that every candidate for being Inire-in-disguise is in fact
> Inire-in-disguise, and the dialogue has gone much like this:
[snip]
> At some point in that conversation, the burden of proof was shifted to the
> skeptic and the argument that X is Inire became non-falsifiable.  If Inire
> is an immortal shapeshifting, time-travelling bilocating liar, it's
> impossible to demonstrate to anyone's satisfaction that any given
character
> is not Inire.

Excellent! That is exactly the way the argument has gone, both now and in
the past.

António wrote:
[snip]
> To show a pattern is viable in a Wolfe book is like showing
> there are stars in the sky. "It couldn't work because..." is all but
> impossible - especially when all contrary evidence can be just ignored, as
> in this Rudesind/Inire case - and "Here's something else that fits that
> pattern...." is essentially gratis. [snip]

Ditto.

Things that get ignored tend to be anything in the text that that doesn't
fit or contradicts the pattern. It's okay to go on about monkey features and
noses, but when, say, the old man at Casdoe's says of Fechin "His face
wasn't a monkey's face at all. Fechin was handsome--the handsomest around.",
that gets waved away. The old man also said that Fechin was "A tall, wild
boy with red hair on his hands, on his arms. Like a monkey's arms, . . ."
(SWORD, chap. XV) But the old Boatman said of Inire, "Just a little man he
is, with a wry neck and bow legs." (SHADOW, chap. XXII) "Tall" doesn't fit
with "little" and "bow legs", but I guess that's where the lying comes in.
Or the shapeshifting.

Fechin seems to connect the old man at Casdoe's with Rudesind; that much is
in the text, but that doesn't make any or all of the three men Inire.

-Roy