*shrugs* The dashes and comma did it for me. Encompasses both times. I agree it's a bit awkward, but then young Tom is more than a little pompous. I can see that kind of verbal ambiguity as part of his obsession with prophecies and myth (the myth of the Founders, of Eternal Life); he aspires to attain that same mythic status, so he speaks in deliberately vague and/or "diagonal" language. (Nothing like making a direct statement and then having it disproved, as many a current politician has learned to their cost -- or not. Certain administrations seem to make it work....)
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Date: 2004-11-09 05:56 am (UTC)*shrugs* The dashes and comma did it for me. Encompasses both times. I agree it's a bit awkward, but then young Tom is more than a little pompous. I can see that kind of verbal ambiguity as part of his obsession with prophecies and myth (the myth of the Founders, of Eternal Life); he aspires to attain that same mythic status, so he speaks in deliberately vague and/or "diagonal" language. (Nothing like making a direct statement and then having it disproved, as many a current politician has learned to their cost -- or not. Certain administrations seem to make it work....)