(urth) interview questions

[Gerry Quinn]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Tony Ellis" <tonyellis69 at btopenworld.com>
Gerry Quinn wrote:
> > [The Shadow Children] have returned to the state of
> > "long ago, before a fool struck fire" and rediscovered a lost human 
> > capacity
> > for telepathy. This power may be amplified by the presence of the native
> > Annese ("the first heard the songs of the second and sent them out 
> > again,
> > greater than before").
>
> So there is a native telepathic race *and* a human race that has
> rediscovered telepathy? I find that messy.

Perhaps.  But that, I think, is the only messy thing about it.  Making 
Sandwalker's people human involves much messiness. And it doesn't quite 
solve the telepathy problem either.  Note that not only does Sandwalker 
connect to his twin in dreams, which could perhaps be ignored - he also 
dreams about the killing of one of his tribesmen.  Maybe Sandwalker is an 
anomaly.  Maybe the Shadow Children make him telepathic.  But you haven't 
really eradicated the notion of telepathic humans, even if you have lessened 
their power.


> The other comments are not in the same breath but much earlier, when the
> Shadow Child consciousnesses dominate the Old Wise One. He is speaking of
> how the Shadow Children see themselves when he says they are tall, and
> strong, and gods.

Exactly. This is how they see themselves. And since how they see
themselves is blatantly at odds with reality, why should we put any
stock in the fact that they also see themselves as human?

A few days ago I had to point out to James that Sandwalker's 'tree' was not 
an actual tree.  Cannot it be accepted that characters in Wolfe can use 
metaphor?  Let's look at what the OWO actually says:

"We've changed too much.  Do you think we look like you, Sandwalker?"
[Sandwalker politely points out their deficiencies.]
"True".
[..]
"It is thought", the OWO said, "that makes things so. We do not conceive of 
ourselves as you describe us, and so we are not actually so.  Still, it;s 
sobering to hear how another thinks of us."
"In any event, we once looked just as you do now."

For me this makes it clear they are no crackheads with a psychotically 
irrational perspective.  They know what they are, even if they do not always 
choose to describe themselve in humiliating terms.

We must put stock in what they say, or there is no story!  Nearly all the 
origin information we have comes via the OWO.  I don't think these 
exaggerations - which I find easily explicable - affect the reliability of 
the statements.  They are part of the story - they are degenerated humans 
with an elevated idea of themselves, but they are the only ones who know 
about their history, about starcrossers, stuff like that.

> > And there is no reversal of his claim, because when he says
> > "we were mostly long" he is speaking of Sandwalker's people.
>
> *If* he was speaking of Sandwalker's people he wouldn't be reversing
> his claim, but what makes you so sure he is? Here's the Old Wise One
> again:
> Shadow Child: "Since first we came here-"
> "Since first *they* came here," the Old Wise One corrected him gently.
> "Now I am half a man, and know that we were always here listening to
> thought that did not come; listening without thought of our own to be
> men."
>
> Since he is addressing a Shadow Child, there is no room for confusion
> over who is meant by 'they' and 'we' here. This is what the OWO thinks
> when he is at equilibrium: 50/50 Shadow Child and Sandwalker. Should
> we believe him? Since he is no longer making patently untrue claims
> about being tall and strong, I think we should.

He can be refering to the half of himself that is Sandwalker.  This isn't 
too terribly odd a construction.  How would he have said what he was saying 
otherwise without a long inelegant rignarole about who was who?  He's saying 
"Don't call us 'we', I'm half abo now."


> > Why did the humans
> > disappear? Why do the Shadow Children think they are the humans who 
> > landed?
> > There are no apparent clues to any of these questions.
>
> They humans didn't disappear. They are Sandwalker and his people. The
> Shadow Children think they are the humans because, as we are told on
> several different occasions, the arriving humans profoundly
> 'impressed' the native shapechangers. A telepathic blank canvas, the
> shapechangers wanted to be these exciting, sentient people, much as
> the inhumi do.

Okay, you have a LOT of problems if Sandwalker and his people are human - at 
least if you assume that they became the 'abos' (they were far more numerous 
than the Shadow Children).

First, how did they forget *everything* about their origin?  Earth, 
starcrossers, clothes... you name it, they forgot it.  How and why?

Second, why can't they use tools?  Why have they got a strange eye color? 
How did VRT replace Marsch?

Third, why did the Shadow Children copy humans so badly?


Or are you saying the Shadow Children became the abos?  But then where did 
the humans, who outnumbered them, disappear to?  Why does VRT look like a 
normal boy, apart from his eyes - the Shadow Children don't seem to look 
like that.  Why were the abos not easy to tell apart from humans?  Who was 
the abo shaman named Cinderwalker?


The way I see it, if we assume the Shadow Children were human, and somehow 
developed telepathy, everything else falls comfortably into place.  I don't 
interpret the words of the OWO as contradicting this. I don't believe any 
other theory can fit the bones of the story nearly so well.

- Gerry Quinn