Simply put, why can we initialize "char *s[]", and not "char **s"?

char ** is a scalar type. An initializer list should be used with aggregate types. An array of char is a special case in that you can initialize it with a string literal. The reason char * works with a string is because a string literal is an array lvalue (surprise) which will implicitly convert to a char *. The equivalent for your char ** case would be something like:

c:

char **x = (char *[]){"hello", "world"};

So, in essence, when I say "char **s", all C knows is that I have a pointer to a pointer (which is scalar, one value). Initializing with a list of values only works for aggregate types (which I gather are definitions like arrays that allow for multiple values).

So in C's mind:

char **s -> single value
char *s[] -> because we have the sq. brackets, C is smart enough to see that we're using an array.

in the case of char **s, the meaning is ambiguous (could be a list of char pointers, or a list of strings, so it avoids doing anything "fancy" (e.g. accepting a list as initialization))

I hope I'm understanding this right.