Author Topic: Kincaid microfiction "Goodbye"  (Read 84315 times)

Offline Mira

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Re: Kincaid microfiction "Goodbye"
« Reply #360 on: May 05, 2020, 02:28:27 PM »
In both cases I would err on the safe side and sacrifice a goat to the spirit of my dead mother. You never know.

  If you feel you need to do that..  ::)

Offline morriswalters

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Re: Kincaid microfiction "Goodbye"
« Reply #361 on: May 05, 2020, 02:54:23 PM »
I'm not sure I've ever actually use it that way. When I see it, it's usually pretty clearly "those two things aren't anything alike." There are a lot of common sayings and words that I see used improperly more often than properly. Ever sense Jim pointed out decimates meaning and misuse, I haven't stopped seeing people misuse it.
Are we discussing rhetoric or taxonomy?  Everything shares something with other things. Obviously you have never went to war on the internet with any group who keep a book full of fallacies and rhetorical devices at hand to slap down the unwary adversary in a particularly tasty argument.

In a more practical sense if you spouse requested apples from the grocery for an apple pie and you brought home oranges, I suspect she would doubt your vision and your good judgement.  For the purposes of apple pie baking they aren't comparable at all.
In both cases I would err on the safe side and sacrifice a goat to the spirit of my dead mother. You never know.
I like goats.  Better to sacrifice a pig. Afterwords you can make bacon.  And mom loved bacon.  She told me so just now.

Offline Mira

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Re: Kincaid microfiction "Goodbye"
« Reply #362 on: May 05, 2020, 06:36:37 PM »
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argument.

In a more practical sense if you spouse requested apples from the grocery for an apple pie and you brought home oranges, I suspect she would doubt your vision and your good judgement.  For the purposes of apple pie baking they aren't comparable at all.

I had a husband like that... ::) But he always redeemed himself by buying me a flower.. ;) Sweet
man, just not to best to send to the grocery store, even with a detailed shopping list.
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I like goats.  Better to sacrifice a pig. Afterwords you can make bacon.  And mom loved bacon.  She told me so just now.

Yeah, but pigs are smart.  How about a cockroach?  The world can always use fewer of them...

Offline Arjan

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Re: Kincaid microfiction "Goodbye"
« Reply #363 on: May 05, 2020, 08:01:11 PM »
I had a husband like that... ::) But he always redeemed himself by buying me a flower.. ;) Sweet
man, just not to best to send to the grocery store, even with a detailed shopping list.
Yeah, but pigs are smart.  How about a cockroach?  The world can always use fewer of them...
The whole thing with a sacrifice is that you share the meat. I do not eat cockroaches.
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Offline Mira

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Re: Kincaid microfiction "Goodbye"
« Reply #364 on: May 05, 2020, 09:42:47 PM »
The whole thing with a sacrifice is that you share the meat. I do not eat cockroaches.
  I thought usually when there is sacrifice the carcass is tossed in the fire and burned for the god to whom it is being offered..   
What you describe is simple butchering... 

Offline g33k

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Re: Kincaid microfiction "Goodbye"
« Reply #365 on: May 06, 2020, 01:21:59 AM »
... I do not eat cockroaches.

I'm pretty sure you do.

You may not intend to, you may not include them, or eat anything that lists them... but you do.  The number of foodstuffs with cockroach-bodypart "accidental inclusion" is ... rather startling.
 
 

Offline g33k

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Re: Kincaid microfiction "Goodbye"
« Reply #366 on: May 06, 2020, 01:22:53 AM »
In both cases I would err on the safe side and sacrifice a goat to the spirit of my dead mother. You never know.

In BOTH cases?

Apples AND oranges?
 

Offline Arjan

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Re: Kincaid microfiction "Goodbye"
« Reply #367 on: May 06, 2020, 01:42:32 AM »
  I thought usually when there is sacrifice the carcass is tossed in the fire and burned for the god to whom it is being offered..   
What you describe is simple butchering...
Most sacrifices were eaten. Some were not but that was an exception.

That was the economic meaning of the centralization of worship in Jerusalem in the Judaic kingdom, a monopoly on the slaughter of animals by the priesthood in Jerusalem. That is the meaning of trans substantiation in the catholic mass. The host changes in the body of Christ that was sacrificed and you eat it.

Cows sacrificed to the gods in Homer were eaten as were the humans the Aztecs sacrificed.

The Greeks had a mythological explanation for ythis but it was universal:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trick_at_Mecone

Sacrificial meat was common in antiquity and early Christians had to be told not to eat it.
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Offline Arjan

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Re: Kincaid microfiction "Goodbye"
« Reply #368 on: May 06, 2020, 01:45:19 AM »
I'm pretty sure you do.

You may not intend to, you may not include them, or eat anything that lists them... but you do.  The number of foodstuffs with cockroach-bodypart "accidental inclusion" is ... rather startling.
But they are not the main part of the dish, the part we taste and live on.
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Offline Arjan

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Re: Kincaid microfiction "Goodbye"
« Reply #369 on: May 06, 2020, 01:46:51 AM »
In BOTH cases?

Apples AND oranges?
You can eat both.
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SH[Elaine+++]

Offline Bad Alias

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Re: Kincaid microfiction "Goodbye"
« Reply #370 on: May 07, 2020, 08:42:54 PM »
You can eat both.
See, they are the same.

Offline AClone

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Re: Kincaid microfiction "Goodbye"
« Reply #371 on: May 07, 2020, 09:46:00 PM »

You might be talking "neutral" in terms of the Accords, but many people are talking about her cover story of neutrality. The neutrality explicitly stated in books. It's pretty common for people to build theories around that neutrality or to object to theories based on that neutrality. The fact that it's a cover is only stated by Jim. It's not in any of the books, short stories, comic books, or paranet papers.
Ah. I see where the misapprehension comes in. Alas.

I am familiar with that WOJ. Jim elaborated on how it’s the Archive’s cover story that her role is simply to be the repository of all human knowledge—when she is actually on the lookout for mentions of beings better left forgotten. At which point she dispatches agents to deal with them.

That is not a lack of “neutrality”. Being neutral does not mean being inactive. Switzerland has been neutral for centuries, and yet continues to be active in it’s own pursuits.

The Archive is neutral. She doesn’t ally with anyone, or act in any interests of any party other than those of the Archive itself.

Though she might work around the edges of that proscription where one of her two friends is involved.

So, “neutral” is not a synonym for “inactive”. I hope That helps all of the people out there who misunderstand.


There's a WoJ that being in the coins limits the influence of the Fallen in them to Earth, which I had taken to mean that the Fallen in the coins absolutely can project themselves out of them, it's just against the rules. If that's the case, then there wouldn't be any need for a ritual.
I think you perhaps misunderstood that WOJ.

When a Coin is in secure storage, it is able to influence it’s immediate surroundings. Slightly, to the extent that over an extended period of time, it can work it’s way back into circulation.

The speed that coins have gotten back into circulation so fast indicates corruption, a outside force other than the coin/Fallen combo.

A Fallen that dominates it’s host (such as the first incarnation of Ursiel) has limited abilities due to a lack of the hosts’ choice in every action.

For a Fallen such as Anduriel, working in partnership with Nick, enabled by free choice, Jim was saying that their power is “limited” to this world alone, to Earth—rather than galaxies, the universe, Reality—as Uriel’s power is limited only by choice.

In essence, that a Fallen working in partnership effectively has unlimited power—but it’s restricted to Earth. That’s their only limit. He’s saying that they are still very powerful.

As far as which Fallen influenced Harry in Changes, there is a WOJ that I didn’t understand until now.  In Skin Game, Lasciel made it clear that it was she who had done it, and now I think I understand. Most of it, anyway.

I don’t recall the context, but WOJ said that in Changes when Harry told Mab that he had other options besides taking up the mantle of the Winter Knight, he was “kinda lying”. I puzzled over that one for a while, because Jim had made it clear that he thought that was an
option for Harry.

Then I got it. By the time Changes rolled around, Lasciel’s Coin had already escaped containment. Not only that, but someone had also taken up the coin for themselves.

That’s how A. Lasciel was able to act, and B. Why Harry would have been able to summon the coin, even though he thought he’d be able to. In other words, it’s not a lie if you believe you’re correct.

The only qualifier being that the person who took up Lasciel’s coin had to either voluntarily give it up or lose it—intentionally, so that it could be given to Hannah Ascher.

In the former case, just as an example, someone like Nick might have put down Anduriel temporarily—or ordered someone else to do so—just so that Lasciel could act against Harry at a crucial juncture. Well, Anduriel would have known that it was a “crucial juncture”, after all.

Anyway, that makes sense to me.

What happened to Ursiel and Lasciel’s coins after Harry left is another question. I suppose it’s possible that Nick managed to grab Ursiel’s coin before he made a dash for it. Not Lasciel’s—though if Hannah Ascher managed to survive beneath all of that molten rock, that seems a very Jim thing to do.

Otherwise, it would appear that Hades has a couple more religious artifacts to display when he tidied up Vault Seven.

Offline morriswalters

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Re: Kincaid microfiction "Goodbye"
« Reply #372 on: May 08, 2020, 12:02:43 AM »
By implication if Lasciel had a host Harry couldn't have summoned her. And assuming she didn't, and he could have, there is no indication that she could have fixed his back in time to save his daughter or would have desired to, since she tries to kill him with a whisper just when he would have tried to summon her.(If indeed it was her). And he couldn't have done the Darkhallow since he had a broken back.  In my neighborhood as a youth we would have said he was talking shit. Certainly Jim could have written Changes in a different way, but given the story he wrote Harry, was desperate and hoping that Mab could heal him.

Jim's intentions have been clear since Proven Guilty. Harry was going to be the Winter Knight. Slate posed in that frozen prison pretty much made it clear.

Offline Bad Alias

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Re: Kincaid microfiction "Goodbye"
« Reply #373 on: May 08, 2020, 05:56:53 PM »
Ah. I see where the misapprehension comes in. Alas.

I am familiar with that WOJ. Jim elaborated on how it’s the Archive’s cover story that her role is simply to be the repository of all human knowledge—when she is actually on the lookout for mentions of beings better left forgotten. At which point she dispatches agents to deal with them.

That is not a lack of “neutrality”. Being neutral does not mean being inactive. Switzerland has been neutral for centuries, and yet continues to be active in it’s own pursuits.

The Archive is neutral. She doesn’t ally with anyone, or act in any interests of any party other than those of the Archive itself.

Though she might work around the edges of that proscription where one of her two friends is involved.

So, “neutral” is not a synonym for “inactive”. I hope That helps all of the people out there who misunderstand.
I think you perhaps misunderstood that WOJ.

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"All that knowledge makes the Archive powerful--and it was created as a repository of learning, a safeguard against the possibility of cataclysm of civilization, a loss of all knowledge, the destruction of all learning. It was bound to neutrality, to the preservation and gathering of knowledge."
Harry, Small Favor, Ch. 35, emphasis original.

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"But the Archive was created neutral," Sanya said. "Constrained."
Small Favor, Ch. 35.

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The Archive was created to be a neutral force. A repository of knowledge.
Luccio, Small Favor, Ch. 46.

Ivy's cover story is that she was created bound by neutrality for the preservation and gathering of information. We know this is a lie. She was created for the tracking and destruction of information. Here we are introduced to her being bound by neutrality as part of her cover story. We know for a fact that her purpose is a lie. Her neutrality is part of that larger lie. She isn't bound to neutrality.

The Archive is just about the least neutral party to the Accords. Her purpose is to basically obliviate them all. The Archive tried to obliviate the fairies. See Backup, Thomas's conversation with Bob. If that's neutrality, I don't want to know what hostility is. The Archive only appears to be neutral because she doesn't need to act openly to achieve her goals.

Additionally, each time her being bound to neutrality is brought up, it's noted that it's not Ivy's neutrality but the Archive's. The point is repeatedly made that it's a very real possibility that Ivy can wield the power of the Archive in a non-neutral manner. Perhaps this is considered such a real possibility because the holder of the Archive has acted in a non neutral manner in the past.

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Marcone had begun expanding his power base into the supernatural world as well, signing on to the Unseelie Accords as a freeholding lord. It made him, in the eyes of the authorities of the supernatural world, a kind of small, neutral state.
Narration, Small Favor, Ch. 5.

I'll concede, as I already have, that Ivy is a neutral party under the Accords. This isn't the same thing as saying that she is bound to neutrality. I'm fairly certain that one would only describe Marcone as neutral because they were unwilling to admit a point in favor of my argument that the Archive only pretends to be neutral or they were speaking very specifically about neutrality under the Accords. Even under the Accords the term neutral has multiple meanings. Accorded neutral ground and "neutral" parties are very different things.

Offline Mira

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Re: Kincaid microfiction "Goodbye"
« Reply #374 on: May 08, 2020, 07:56:33 PM »
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I'll concede, as I already have, that Ivy is a neutral party under the Accords. This isn't the same thing as saying that she is bound to neutrality.

Actually the Archive is bound to neutrality, that why it was asked to act/direct the duel between Harry and Ortega.  Ivy on the other hand as the host for the Archive may not feel so neutral, especially where Harry comes in.  However even if she feel conflicted she has to abide by the rules for the Archive.