Letters Column in August 2011: VRUM VRUM VRUM VRUM VRUUUUUM

Posted on August 31, 2011 by Jenna

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So I was totally set to do awesome things today, including letters column stuff and Nobilis stuff, but today has been a totally awful sound day and I just … don’t … have anything remaining in my brain to do stuff with. Luckily I’m at the point where I can end the letters column, albeit a little late, with just these. New story entries in September!

**

I still think it’s Martin, or at least that it was when he left the underworld. Otherwise, we’re stuck with either it being someone who loved Martin before he even met Jane, or Martin being a person intrinsically good. And the latter is wrong for his story. Martin has good intentions, but a seriously wonky set of moral intuitions when left to his own devices.
— Eric, on Whoever Can Bear the Weight

Gasp! Such terrible slander!

It’s important to remember the seventeenth rule, which is, Martin cheats. (The first sixteen rules concern the Doctor, and have relatively little relevance, otherwise, to our tale.)

**

The link to Unclean Legacy with this post reinforces the interpretation that the person who ascends the throne in the first part of this entry is Belshazzar. Note that the description of the mandala here is identical to the description of the Wheel of Enoch that //Baltasar was using to try to take godlike power when he was torn apart – so you have a close similarity of names, goals, and fates.

Also, though this is more of a stretch: Montechristien – the half of Baltasar that persisted after the other half was damned (severed?) had enormous power over the world, but he gained it only through the death of the blue essentials. “‘It is said,’ he said, ‘in A Field Guide to the Blue Essentials, that the blue realm possesses the character of intentionality; and that you creatures are the knifepoint of that purpose’s expression.’” That privileged type of intentionality (“‘Blue intentions are more important than just any old intentions.”) seems parallel to the privileged dharmas of the gods, which suggests that the deaths of the blue essentials are parallel to the severing of the gods at the breaking of the world.

My instincts say the parallels are going to become misleading (if they haven’t already) if followed any further — for one thing, if you insist on continued parallelism then I think the threshing machine has to stand for Martin, which doesn’t seem right.//
— Greg, on Whoever Can Bear the Weight

A threshing machine can really only stand for a siggort, if it stands for anything. Though, sometimes a magical threshing machine that seizes up suitors and cuts them to pieces is just a magical threshing machine that seizes up suitors and cuts them to pieces, as Freud would probably not ever actually say!

**

//“Sadness! I’ll let you know if I somehow end up at 332 when all is said and done.”

Should that not be the case, i’m anyways pursuing another answer to suffering. Reading Hitherby grows strange after it was a causal factor (and a continuing inspiration) in turning me on to awakening-oriented buddhism.

Not bad strange, just strange and synchronistic. And very beautiful, as always.

It does make intuitive sense to me that 40-year old Jane should be cold and sharp and mysterious and alluring. Adults carry their wounds in a different way, and adults who pull everyone around them into their story impose their truths in a different way.//
— villum, on this very letters column!

Regrettably the timing was a total mess at the end. I think I did wind up with one spare but I have no idea what happened to it or who is getting it or if I already promised it to somebody or if the one we were supposed to be sending to somebody else …

AAAAAAAA

I mean to say, Buddhism huh? Awesome!

**

//Well, we also have the monster’s own testimony that he is powerless against suffering, from his account to Melanie in “I will make you cry.”

//
> The monster straightens.

//

“It’s all right,” he says. It’s kind of soothing. He squints a bit at the wall, thinking. “Dad told me once, ‘the thing about this job, the terrible part of this job, is that you can’t just force it. You’ve got to live with the frustration of standing in a land of plenty and having nothing to eat or drink. With the world fighting you at every turn, with a terrible weight hanging every moment right above your head, no matter how much you turn yourself this way or that. And the better you do, the closer you come, the worse it gets. Just imagine how bad it’ll be, my child, if you ever make it to the throne.’”

“Why?”

Melanie looks blankly at him. She’s used to things that she can’t just force but not to the idea that it’d be the worst at the very end.

“People,” the monster summarizes, “are pretty weird.”

That last line is an eerie echo of Jane.//
— Aetheric, on Whoever Can Bear the Weight

Jane and the monster share a culture in some ways.

And that’s terrible!

**

Granted, the monster is not necessarily a credible witness, but his account is consistent with what we know of the burden of the throne, from the histories of Zeus and Cronos. I think it’s clear enough that whatever power the throne gives, it cannot transcend the Fourth Tyranny. If ending a Tyranny were as simple as having the power and remaking the world, you’d think it would have happened more than 3-4 times by now.
— Aetheric, on Whoever Can Bear the Weight

Indeed!

That’s it for this … season? Although I might start doing these more often so they take less time. Thanks for reading. Thanks for commenting. I hope you’re all enjoying Chibi-Ex (by me & Ms. Harrell) and Nightlights (by the awesome Ms. Tzavelas) and I look forward to talking to all of you again soon! ^_^

Best wishes,

Jenna