(urth) Abaia and the Claw
thalassocrat at nym.hush.com
thalassocrat at nym.hush.com
Tue Apr 19 17:41:08 PDT 2005
On Mon, 18 Apr 2005 20:22:41 -0700 Jeffrey Lefstin
<jeff.lefstin at stanfordalumni.org> wrote:
>The recent discussion of what role Abaia plays in the new Urth
>prompts
>me to note the interest Abaia seems to show in the Claw.
> ...In UotNS, the power of the Claw is shown to come from Sev
himself.
> But
>Abaia's interest in the Claw remains. Idas, Abaia's minion,
>ransacks
>Severian's cabin looking for "something so small it might have
>been
>concealed in the collar of a shirt." While Severian is ready to
>torture Idas in order to get Idas to tell him what it was, I think
>it's
>a no-brainer for us that Idas was trying to find the thorn that
>will
>become the Claw - what else is there?
>Maybe then Idas is trying to prevent the Claw from coming into
>existence; though the thorn got a drop of Severian's blood when
>he
>first found it, I read Apheta's explanation ("It was saturated
>with
>your blood") to mean that the thorn did not become the Claw until
>Severian jammed it good into his finger.
>That takes place, of course, when Severian tries to use it to
>revive
>the steward. Whom Idas has killed trying to find the thorn. So
>Idas,
>in trying to prevent the Claw from coming into existence, is
>actually
>the reason it comes to be....
That's interesting, but didn't Idas say she was actually searching
for Inire's letter endorsing Sev as Autarch to the Hierogrammates?
I don't recall the exact details. Somehow I got the impression that
the plan might have been to substitute somebody else for Sev at the
trial - which is kind of what happened in the end.
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