Posted on July 19, 2011 by Jenna
Hello again!
You all are so lucky today was a quiet productive day or I’d never have realized I needed to start this letters column early. ^_^
Oh! Speaking of productivity—if any of you have been missing the more random whimsical Hitherby in this deluge of canon, please feel free to read the Book of Divine Letters entries over at eos-sama.com/jenna … they’re technically about the Chinese language, and technically silly Nobilis content. But they’re basically silly in the same way as silly Hitherby entries. I don’t know how many I’m going to post there, but there’s like 8 or something up at present.
They start here!
Also, remember that Chibi-Ex exists! And is awesome!
**
So I’ve been reading over a lot of the archives, and I think I finally understand this one. I originally thought that Daniel was trying to get money to somehow buy// Jenna away from Central, which of course would never have worked. Now I think the key here is the three-way confrontation: Daniel was trying to get leverage over// Tinkerbell, and Mr. Banks was no more than a means to that end. He was trying to get fairy magic and the forces of Neverland to go up against Central. That’s a plan worthy of Denial. But of course reality got in the way, in both a metaphorical and a literal sense. (And of course Hitherby Dragons specializes in literalizing metaphors.)
— David Goldfarb, on Daniel
Yup! That is in fact Daniel’s plan.
To be honest, I’ve always felt that that entry was weak. I’m not very good at capers. I don’t know what to do about it except come back to it someday and write it a little better. Possibly from a different perspective.
I mean, I’ve been going over some of the events in Tantalus to see the hidden sense behind them, and I expect you’ll see that fully written out someday—but I’m not sure I’ll ever have a reason to do Daniel’s history in more detail. It’s kind of sad. There’s not enough there there to make it actively worthwhile—I mean, I need a reason, because in the abstract a story I write to fix that will not be as cool as a story I write to do something else.
Maybe if I wind up at a state where fixing all the little things is viable ^_^
The guard is an interesting figure, whom I didn’t pay much attention to before. He’s specifically called out as wearing a jacket, which is diagnostic of angels. His characteristic (mentioned more than once) is that he likes words. Is he some sort of angel of language?
— David Goldfarb, on Daniel
I … don’t know.
The guard confuses me. He is definitely an A (unless there are Grigori in this world). I haven’t figured out who. Maybe one day I will realize, “Oh! Of course. That’s why I did that. Smart, brain, smart!”
Or maybe he’s just a random bit of magic in the world.
Huge portions of Hitherby are Chekhov’s guns, but the guard just kind of showed up. Maybe he’s someone from a nearby story. He looks a bit like Train Morgan, so maybe he’s Train’s dad? That would be really weird. So probably not!
Liril’s mother is Priyanka! Perhaps I should have guessed that before. I wonder whether Liril is the child of her body, or whether the monster just put her in the role of “Liril’s mother”, just as (I guess) he put someone in the role of “Jane’s mother” when she was off living with Bob.
The monster does already have a child, of a sort, but it’s very plausible that Priyanka wouldn’t know that.
It’s 1982 CE, so the monster already has Jenna as well as Liril.
Liril has a mother in 2004, but it could well be someone else.
— David Goldfarb, on Stupid Words and their Stupid Power, Anyway
I believe Liril is Priyanka’s biological daughter. I don’t think either Jenna or Liril qualifies as a legitimate heir to the monster’s line. It’s as hard to draw a clean line around the people of salt as around any real world ethnicity but Amiel’s line is a little different.
There’s a reason there’s only one kind of god that Melanie can be. It’s not a pretty reason.
You’re going to hear it before the current story ends.
(I’m thinking of Jane’s mother when she lives with Bob and Jane’s mother at the time of The Angels (III/IV), which seems to take place when Jane’s already at the tower and generally seems not to have much need for a mother.)
— Xavid, on Stupid Words and their Stupid Power, Anyway
I wrote a Hitherby book. We’ll see how and in what format I get it to you at some point. It’s called Jack o’Lantern Girl. And in it there is a reproduction of The Angels, titled:
In Which Jane, Amidst Circumstances Wholly Inexplicable Within the Context of this Volume, Meets Four Angels For the First Time
December 8, 1996
So it’s OK if you don’t entirely understand what’s going on there. You aren’t really supposed to. I don’t even think it’s a mystery you need to worry about at this point; maybe near the end. ^_^
I wasn’t thinking of Jane’s biological mother, who’s apparently named Tara, here, but now that I search for her I have to wonder if there’s any connection between that Tara and Tara the Buddhist Pirate. I don’t see any particular connection between them other than the name, but stranger things have happened.
— Xavid, on Stupid Words and their Stupid Power, Anyway
Wait, is having more than one person with the same name even possible?
http://www.mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=002587 seems relevant! Or maybe not.
— Rand Brittain, on Stupid Words and their Stupid Power, Anyway
Heeheehee.
Yeah! The only Mayor we’ve seen is Bidge, if that, so you know they’re awesome.
I mean, except for that vivisection problem. But it is OK to vivisect people. It does not hurt them!
Absolutely!
Yeah!
Anyway, though, it turns out that we have seen other Mayors. So I’m wrong on that. Sorry. I’m probably wrong on the vivisection not hurting people too. And Bidge might not even be the Mayor!
There’s like the resigned Mayor of New Respite; and the Mayor who tried Sapphire in the tale of the worm; and the Mayor who refused to talk about the place without recourse, but rather stayed focused on dogs; and Mayor Cloon, who couldn’t box the Stitch doll. Interestingly, several of those do relate directly to the Kings.
Sorry.
I blush!
Sorry. *^_^*;;
Hrm. Is it wrong that, in the theatre of my brain, this entry ends with a camera pan to the street where a man in a white leather jacket takes off his sunglasses and says, simply, in that way of his, “Uh-huh.”
And now this makes me wonder how relevant this legend is to this story.
— Nyren, on Stupid Words and their Stupid Power, Anyway
Nthanda?
Hmmm.
Jane, she thinks that there’s a connection. Jane, she thinks that Elvis is … troubling. That said, Jane isn’t really being extremely targeted and on point there. There’s some connection to the Dominion coming to Elm Hill, maybe, and tryin’ to make everything magically all right. But it’s not like Elvis’ spirit was what moved Melanie to want to be free of Billy or anything; that was Billy’s incompetence. And dang but 1977 is barren of events in Hitherby canon. I mean, seriously, there’s Melanie feeling rebellious and Elvis “dying” and that’s it.
I’d say that Jane was thinking a little about the people who don’t have happy endings and the people who are ground down impersonally for wealth instead of personally for power and to some extent or other about the cultural context of suffering—not that she really gets what Claire means when she rants at Jane about the imperial arrogance of trying to fix the suffering of the whole world, but Jane’s at least able to think about it.
And also thinking about the Dominion at Elm Hill, and what might have happened if the monster hadn’t been there with a piece of the broken wheel in his hand.
I think there’s been an explicit mention by Dr. Moran that there may be enough clues to figure out who’s currently sitting on the throne of the world, but darned if I can figure it out.
— cariset, on Stupid Words and their Stupid Power, Anyway
I will tell you a story.
Wednesday.
Not today, but on Wednesday, I will tell you a story. I will tell it to you outside a letters column, because I wish it to be canonical; and outside the chapters of the Frog and the Thorn, because its narrator is a mystery and its language is unruly and kind of fraught; and then I will try to pick up the letters column again this very week—on, let’s say, Friday—to comment on all the discussion of who is sitting on the throne.
Because I am very kind.
Categories: Letters Columns, Additional Content