My response to this post has somehow gone astray. Rewriting/reposting here:

actual email: KNOCK KNOCK There's a handsome wolf at the door. Let him in and he will take away everything, including your reason for living, and then leave you to die. Deliverance is not sexist-- it is not imperialist-- it is not misogynistic-- it's a test. Only the victim will find excuses and fight to open the door and let the wolf in. Even when the truth is spelt out to them. THINK.... WHICH ARE YOU-- WOLF OR SHEEP? Wendy

Thanks for reposting that, that's useful to have.

the thread. For what it's worth, this was the post that irritated me most and I believe others must have reacted in the same way because despite Mr. Little's own interpretation

Please! Call me Shane!

this struck me as a direct criticism of failing to understand (despite the truth being spelt out to me) that I am making excuses to accept an existing paradigm (and based on the handsome wolf- leave to die reference one directly referring to the poster's position on sexism of the episode) because I am a sheep.

Reading it back, I can see how that post might, coming at the time it did, have been problematic for many. However, one interesting thing about it is that it states that "Deliverance is not sexist, misogynist [etc]" Which suggests that this post can't be an assertion that anyone who doesn't see Deliverance as sexist is stupid, since by definition that would include Wendy herself.

The crux of the matter as I see it lies in the "Wolf or Sheep" question. As I said, I believe the answer to be "both,"-- after all, in Deliverance itself and in the Deliverance thread, everybody acted like wolves and like sheep at different times. That's what it is to be human.

The nature of riddles is to be obscure, and to require analysis to puzzle out the meaning. Which is what I am trying to do here.

Shane

"We were bait in a trap you laid for him, Avon"--Soolin