(urth) Severian's family tree

[Matthew DeLuca]

See I interpret the "childhoods in the Citadel" as a reference to the  
theory of multiple Severians, It also could be the memory of Ymar  
(UOTNS) and other Autarchs who are now part of Severian.

We have to take into the fact that Severian and Thecla consistently  
crossed each other's planes of consciousness. Then after the infusion  
of the Autarchs we have multiple people writing through one man who  
is "cursed with memory"



On Aug 23, 2006, at 11:05 AM, b sharp wrote:

> Matthew DeLuca asks:
>
>> Was it ever established that Catherine was Thecla's mother?
>
> Unfortunately for those interested in Severian's family tree, it  
> can't even
> be said that  Dorcas is Severian's grandmother.
>
> I made my guess that Catherine is Thecla's mother based largely on  
> that one
> cryptic passage:
>
> "I played again with pebbles in the courtyard beside the fallen  
> curtain
> wall, as Thecla dodged the hooves of my father's mounted guard."
>
> Mark Millman interprets it this way:
>
> [Severian] I played again with pebbles in the courtyard beside the  
> fallen
> curtain wall, as Thecla dodged[Thecla overcomes Severian] dodged  
> the hooves
> of my father's mounted guard."
>
> Robert Borsky also thinks this is Thecla taking over in mid- 
> sentence.  For
> years I reluctantly had the same interpretation.  Reluctantly because
> elsewhere in the text, Severian and Thecla's memories tend to get  
> their own
> paragraphs.  In this passage, Severian and Thecla trade memories,  
> sentence
> by sentence, each one set apart with the word "Again".  Midsentence
> switching seemed contrary to the mood I felt Wolfe was trying to  
> set and too
> confusing.  If the sentence had to be split why not word it:  ".....as
> Thecla, I dodged the hooves of my father's mounted guard".
>
> My mind was set to the opposite in a re-reading of Urth where I found
> Severian saying something about, "my childhoods in the Citadel".   
> Plural
> childhoods?  The other childhood wasn't Appian's was it?  It could  
> be other
> memories but combined with the cryptic passage.....  Perhaps that very
> important passage above should be read just as it was written:  that
> Severian, in his first memory as a child, remembers Thecla in the  
> Citadel.
> (I spent an hour last night trying to re-find that plural childhood
> statement in Urth but couldn't. Am I delusional? Help!)
>
> So if Thecla was a child in the Citadel then perhaps her mother was
> Catherine, sequestered in the Citadel.
>
> Roy makes some good objections against the Castellan being Thecla's  
> father,
> including that her father is said to be dead (now Roy, that is told  
> in a
> dream sequence, and those are not to be trusted, right? ;-)).   
> There are
> some small hints that Ultan could be involved here (books, obscured  
> eyes, a
> family resemblance).  Perhaps he is a better candidate for true  
> father and
> assume the owner of the northern chateau and villas remains an unnamed
> stepfather.
>
> Roy also raises the good question of Thecla's exultant status and  
> height.
> Catherine is clearly of armiger height and thus makes a good mother  
> figure
> for Severian.  Could she have produced a child as tall as Thecla  
> with an
> exultant father?
>
> All this isn't very satisfying, but neither is just resigning,  
> ignoring many
> clues and saying, "okay, Thecla is just a chance acquainance of  
> Severian's.
> No family connection, no incest, nothing important here."  Maybe "my
> childhoods in the Citadel" includes Severian's and Reechy's (Ymar's)
> memories?  I dunno.
>
> Perhaps someone, someday, can come up with a truly cohesive family  
> tree for
> Severian.  Or maybe some people's hope will come true and Gene  
> Wolfe will
> reveal his notes.  Please Gene! It will stay right here in the
> archive...nobody else will ever know....
>
> -bsharp
>
>
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