(urth) 5HC

[Lee]

>Andrew Bollen: His "confusion" is the confusion of a drug wearing off. Now 

>there's a"first" and a "second" race, but he's no longer sure which is which.

>Finally there's only one SC left, and it seems to me that this SC's
>drug-wad is all used up; at any rate, he is sharply focused and rationally
>intent on saving his own life. Now the OWO says: "Since they [ie the non-SC
>people] first came here. Now I know that we were always here listening ...
>Or it may be that all are one stock ..."  So the OWO's final, least-addled
>guess is it that SC and the hill folk and the marsh folk all have the same
>origins.


This is my view also. One shape-shifting species is present in various stages

of imitative, Lamarckian evolution. Self-deception at each stage of their

evolution toward perfect human mimickry is a crucial part of their

disguise.


>"It is possible that our home was named Atlantis or Mu - or
>Gondwanalnd, Africa, Poictesme, or The Country of Friends. I, for five,
>remember all these names."

>The origin names come from listening in to the thoughts of contemporary
>star-travelling humans, not from any historical memory; listening to
>stories, with no capacity for judging fiction versus fact.


Yes. Part of the Shadow Children's imitation of humans comes from their 

telepathic powers which can reach to passing spaceships, not just their

direct contact with humans. I'd note that the Shadow Children mix human

geographical locations with geological and fictional locations, as

Gondwanaland was a real place on earth which existed before humans evolved

there. There are some interesting implications to that. Who might the

Shadow Children have picked up thoughts from before the evolution of humans

on earth?


>Of course, in the context of the novellas, "Story" is just a story and
>doesn't necessarily reflect the "real" situation ...


Yes, but the story was written and inserted into the middle of this novel

by Gene Wolfe for a purpose. Wolfe, in interviews, has invoked the

story writing law of Chekhov's gun. He cannot insert Shadow Children into 

this novel unless they directly impinge on the stories of Number Five and 

Dr. Marsch. 


And I think they do. I don't think this novel is simply the story of one person 

(a somewhat unlikeable person we really don't know very well or care about) being 

killed and replaced. There has to be more to tie it all together.


And what ties it together for me are the two scientific principles Dr. Marsch

discusses in the first section- 1. Veil's Hypothesis, suggesting the entire human

population of the system has been replaced. And 2. the Relaxation Principle which

describes a process of gradual approximations and adjustments which would allow

shapeless, shadowy things to eventually take near-perfect human form.