(urth) Inhumi in the Whorl

[David Stockhoff]

On 2/10/2011 10:28 AM, Gerry Quinn wrote:
> From: "James Wynn" <crushtv at gmail.com>
>>
>> I get what you mean about allusions, heaven knows. But I think this 
>> is different. We know the Neighbors left for some actual place, and 
>> the Neighbor says the _some_ of humanity call it "Neighbor Whorl". 
>> But the humanity he is talking about is not the humanity on the Short 
>> Sun whorls. Assuming "Neighbor Whorl" means "Faeri", the Neighbor has 
>> to be talking about people of Western France to Ireland 1000-2000 
>> years ago.
>>
>> It doesn't feel like an allusion. An allusion in my mind is Quetzal 
>> as a demon-Dionysus on the Whorl ship. This statement by the Neighbor 
>> seems to be a statement of fact.
>
> I don't believe "Neighbour Whorl" means Faerie.  The words themselves 
> don't really carry any strong weight.  After all, one obvious 
> interpretation is that it just means "the whorl where the neighbours 
> live" just as the "Human Whorl" could mean Urth.  And it's not at all 
> obvious that he is referring to huimanity in general (on Urth and the 
> many other colonised planets) rather than humanity on the Short Sun 
> whorls.
>
> I do get the impression that they have moved to another dimension 
> rather than another star.  Silkhorn gives us no indication, however, 
> as he tosses out both possibilities at different times.  At one time 
> he suggests a whorl circling another short sun, at another he says 
> "the place beyond this place".
>
> My main reasons for thinking it is not Faerie:
>
> 1. Why should it be a particular mythological dimension on distant a 
> unrelated planet, a mythological dimension that is not mentioned 
> anywhere in the Solar Cycle?
>
> 2. The Vanished People don't have major characteristics in common with 
> fairy folk.  [Now somebody is going to come up with some obscure 
> four-legged Croatian river demon and argue that this is what Wolfe was 
> talking about...]
>
> They went somewhere; we don't know where.  If Wolfe wanted to tell us 
> where, he would have.
>
Just how I see it. Except the "dimension" is merely "like" Faerie, in 
that its inhabitants are never really completely gone, until the time 
comes that they really are gone.


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