(urth) Severian's skin color
Seth Lombardi
sethlombardi at hotmail.com
Fri Jun 17 16:09:13 PDT 2005
>This is a clear case of artists assuming that the generic SFF hero
>is white no matter what the writer says.
>
>Somewhere in there Wolfe (or Severian) makes a comment to
>the effect that each of the continents has a characteristic
>physical "type," and that peoples who live on a continent long
>enough will tend towards that "type." (Something like a hundred
>generations?) Since the Commonwealth (a) is on - roughly -
>the South American continent, and (b) has been there a long
>time, we can reasonably conclude that its citizens resemble
>contemporary native South Americans.
>
>--Dan'l
But much of South America is peopled by people who do not necessarily
resemble "native" South Americans.
Assuming Severian's theory be true, then we also have to assume that the
people who happen to live there have lived there in isolation without
invasion or other ethnic turmoil for a hundred generations, and also that
there have been no significant changes in diet or environment on that
continent between now and TBOTNS. We already know that the sun has dimmed
significantly. It is also harped on that Severain is tall and may or may not
have some exultant blood in him, and it's not even clear if exultants are
natives of Urth, much less what was once called South America. So, while I
think it may be reasonable to assume that Sevarian may be tale, pale and
sunken-cheeked only by the standards of his community and not that of
contemporary Europeans, I think it's a bigger stretch to assert one way or
another that he or the people of Nessus look like contemporary native South
Americans, or any other ethnic group we can imagine.
seth
*****************************
Seth Lombardi
sethlombardi at hotmail.com
http://sethlombardi.blogspot.com/
AIM: melombardi
"Two faces are alike; neither is funny by itself, but side by side their
likeness makes us laugh" -Pascal
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