(urth) The Piteous Gate (was: Book of the new sun (1-4) questions)

[Transentient]

On Feb 21, 2006, at 2:51 PM, mournings glory wrote:

> Mr. Ellis writes:
>
>> The soldiers are driving people off the road, because it's illegal to
>> use the roads of commonwealth.
>>
>> We're given all the facts we need before Severian even sets off on  
>> his
>> journey. Master Palaemon tells us: "...there is a redoubt, so I've
>> heard, every fifty leagues... [the roads] are patrolled by uhlans  
>> under
>> orders to kill anyone found on them, and since they have  
>> permission to
>> loot the bodies of those they slay, they are not much inclined to ask
>> excuses." Shadow, XIII
>
> Here's something I don't understand, however.
>
> If it's illegal to travel via the roads, how exactly are all these  
> people
> planning to get to where they're going? On the day in question  
> Severian
> claims the highway leading to the Piteous Gate is "*crowded* with  
> carts and
> wagons and traffic of all kinds." Surely, most of these people are  
> aware
> that traffic is prohibited on the Commonwealth's roads. So what  
> will they do
> once they've passed beyond the Gate? Jump into the Gyoll and start  
> swimming?
> (River traffic does seem to be tolerated.) Melt into the woods and  
> follow
> crude dirt paths--with carts and wagons and beasts of burden? Hide  
> in the
> bushes whenever they sense a uhlan nears?
>
> Moreover, if such a wide variety of traffic is allowed to exit and  
> travel
> beyond Nessus by whatever means, doesn't this simply circumvent the  
> law that
> made road travel illegal in the first place? Wouldn't, in fact, if  
> the law
> were strictly followed, most people be turned away at the Gate?  
> Apparently
> not, since enough people are aware they can reach their  
> destinations via
> alternate means -- which in effect makes the prohibition useless  
> anyway.
>
> "We have closed the roads to paralyze the social order," the old  
> autarch
> tells Severian. Methinks he needs to look again.

But it certainly doesn't make sense that there is a society of people  
descended from petitioners, living out their whole lives in a waiting  
room at the House Absolute, living off of danishes and coffee!

So, perhaps it was an order issued some time ago, and over time it  
has simply become an entrenched dynamic in the Commonwealth. The  
uhlans clearly don't enforce it in an efficient or organized manner,  
or people would never try to use the highways or gates.

Maybe the uhlans - are they the regular military? - are stretched so  
thin with the constant war that they can't spare the troops to  
enforce the rule efficiently; units are rotated back to Nessus so  
infrequently that the desperate people get to risking the roads  
again, and any uhlans who encounter them enjoy some fine sport, then  
loot the bodies, and that's how things are. Or perhaps the officers  
purposely wait until there are a lot of people hazarding the roads,  
and then hit them and split up the booty.

Either way, it is a situation a lot like Nessus, and the BOTNS  
itself: new orders built upon the old without the old being resolved  
or understood. A theme is laid down and it takes on a new life and a  
new meaning.

Like that one episode of Bablyon 5 where Londo was explaining the  
danger that a crazed emporer posed to the Centarui Republic: he  
related how many centuries ago a princess had discovered a single  
flower sprouting from the palace grounds in the middle of winter, and  
had ordered the palace guard to place someone next to it to keep it  
from being stepped on. The flower was long since gone but the palace  
guard still placed a soldier in that same spot to the present day.