(urth) Astral travel in time

[Dan'l Danehy-Oakes]

On 4/7/06, thalassocrat at nym.hush.com <thalassocrat at nym.hush.com> wrote:
> In the New Sun context, the Sev we know has been constructed by the
> Hierogrammates or whoever by layering different histories on top of
> each other (at least two histories, anyway). Or if not layering,
> then replacing one history by another - but I like the layering
> image better, partly I guess because you see the same mechanism in
> Free Live Free.

I also think "layering" is the right term. I don't know whether Wolfe
actually believes this or not, but these books seem to suggest something
I have long thought possible -- that God is an artist who revises His work
as He goes along.

The analogy I use is Tolkien writing <b>The Lord of the Rings</b>. When
he first got the Hobbits to Bree, they found there an odd, weatherworn
Hobbit named "Trotter." Nobody was more surprised than Tolkien when
"Trotter" turned out not to be a Hobbit at all, but Aragorn.

I suspect that this is something like what it's like to create a world
that contains creatures with free will. They come up with stuff you had
never expected and you wind up revising the world to fit it better. And
sometimes this revision leaves behind artifacts of the earlier versions.
(Thus Severian's awareness that there were other versions of him
before.)

> My hypothesis is that SilkHorn astral-travelling to Urth launches a
> new future Sev world-line, perhaps radically different to the one
> in New Sun. The instigator of the change is no doubt the
> Outsider/Increate, intervening with SilkHorn as his agent.

Yes, that is precisely what I think also -- though, as noted, it could
also be argued that the O/I used the Narrator to make Severian what
he would become in NS.

(Side point: an alternate explanation for the inconsistencies ...
one that wouldn't involve wiping out the NS. We know that Severian
the Memorious nonetheless suppresses certain things and lies
about others. Perhaps there was something in the encounter with
the Narrator that he finds very threatening ... perhaps even something
that might give him a presentiment of his destiny?)

--Dan'l

--
I do not fear Satan half so much as I fear those who fear him.
                        -- St Teresa of Avila
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