Talk:The Golden Man

Novels: Short story / Sci-fi Mid‑importance

	Novels portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Novels, an attempt to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to novels, novellas, novelettes and short stories on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the project and contribute to the general Project discussion to talk over new ideas and suggestions.NovelsWikipedia:WikiProject NovelsTemplate:WikiProject Novelsnovel articles
Mid	This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.
	This article is supported by Short story task force.
	This article is supported by Science fiction task force.

Questions[edit]

I have a couple of questions about specific lines in this article:

"The titular "Golden Man" is a feral young man named Cris with gold-colored skin, who does not appear to be sentient, but possesses the ability to see into the future (specifically, the ability to see all possible outcomes from any single action, described in the story as similar to a chess player with the ability to see all possible moves 5 steps ahead)."

I could see this with one exception: If he "does not appear to be sentient", then where'd he get his name? How did he communicate his name to the researchers? Symbolic thought, including naming, implies sentience; as does the ability to communicate those symbols. Does this line mean that he does not appear to possess any great intelligence? Or does he actually appear to lack higher-order thought processes (and, presumably, was given his name by one of the protagonists)?

Cris does not appear to exhibit sentient intelligence, acting more like an animal. He was named by his family. He never speaks in the story. The reader doesn't get any insight into his thought processes, if any.201.235.188.220 00:10, 19 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

"...his golden skin acts like a lion's mane, and allows him to seduce members of the opposite sex."

What the heck is this about? Do you know something about lion's manes that I don't? This line comes from Wikipedia's Lion article: "It is possible that lionesses more actively solicit mating with heavily maned lions in prides led by a coalition of 2 or 3 males, though there seem to be no published studies." Is the lion's mane a meme in the story, or is it something the editor added? If it's actually in the story, then the process needs to be described very briefly - does the sight of the golden skin trigger deep-seated subconscious instincts in human females? Does it give off some kind of pheromones or radiation? Or does he just look super-hawt? Applejuicefool 20:46, 30 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Again, we are told so in the story. His golden skin makes him irresistible to women. We don't know the exact mechanism at work, because the story doesn't tell us. 201.235.188.220 00:10, 19 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

But does the story talk about the lion's mane ? -- Beardo 05:14, 4 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]