<div dir="ltr">and in VRT the officer reading the documents bathes the girls saliva off "prophylactically" or something of the sort - odd choice of words.</div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">
On Tue, Aug 5, 2014 at 10:12 AM, Marc Aramini <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:marcaramini@gmail.com" target="_blank">marcaramini@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div dir="ltr">It also seems to me that brides involve a method of propagation and reproduction, you know? like the life cycle involves them somehow. But like I said, I really don't want to argue too much about this because our views on parallel symbolic associations in Fifth Head of Cerberus are diametrically opposed.</div>
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<div class="gmail_extra"><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Tue, Aug 5, 2014 at 9:59 AM, Marc Aramini <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:marcaramini@gmail.com" target="_blank">marcaramini@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;padding-left:1ex;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-width:1px;border-left-style:solid"><div dir="ltr">they say the white creatures they chew and spit out are their "brides." - seems like an organism to me. As I said, the associations are symbolic rather than literal, so proving it is quite unlikely. Sandwalker and Eastwind ARE switched by a bite. Marsch is switched with a bite, too. But you don't buy it, that's fine. </div>
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<div class="gmail_extra"><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Tue, Aug 5, 2014 at 9:22 AM, Gerry Quinn <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:gerry@bindweed.com" target="_blank">gerry@bindweed.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;padding-left:1ex;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-width:1px;border-left-style:solid">
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On 05/08/2014 14:54, Marc Aramini wrote:<br>
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Seeing as how I view Shadow Children as psychically gifted and "empathetic" and capable of rising up in the draft of currents from the ground and take seriously the idea that even though they are many when they are confronted they fade into "one lonely" - (ie a parasitic community that infects a host so thoroughly that they are effectively only that one being, the small things living in the mouth that the large Shadow Child says might switch Eastwind and Sandwalker when he bites them at the end of "A Story" (because he is infected himself and is a "shadow child", though "A Story" is a myth and is not realistic in all details, being symbolic in some), I feel most of your discussion is probably moot - the Shadow Children are only human insofar as they can infect them. Also, I believe Shadow Child infection can alter the eyes, such as the doubled pupil that seems to be undergoing meiosis or something after Marsch shoots the wild animals near the back of beyond. I don't want to argue about any of that stuff, but I do want to point out "all this is stated quite clearly in the text" when you are talking about "A Story" in Fifth Head of Cerberus is simply not an accurate assessment of all the confusing stuff and mystical mumbo jumbo going on, where both species are very confused about their origin. One is imitative, one infectious, and both might have come from a single source of divergent evolution ... or not.<br>
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There are no small creatures in the Shadow Child's mouth. "That which swam in my mouth swims in his veins now" is singular - it refers to the drug plant they chew. "And because I spoke to him and he believed me, in his mind he is you" - drug-induced hypnosis. And I ask again, where do we find any reason to believe the original Marsch was infected in some way by Victor? He got a cat-bite that went septic, but nowhere is infection linked to imitation. The green eyes of the aborigines (such as Victor) are not double-pupilled - what have they to do with the eyes of the hippo or whatever?<br>
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I don't believe there is any confusion - we are given a quite coherent, if unlikely, story. The Old Wise One is never confused about his origin until a large part of him is generated from Sandwalker's mind. Then, and only then, does he become confused, and in a manner consistent with the story so far. Note that the actual story doesn't change anyway - he just doesn't know which of the two peoples he is - the humans who crossed from star to star, landing on Sainte Anne, or the shape-shifting tool-less people - Sandwalker's ancestors - they found there.<div>
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- Gerry Quinn<br>
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