(urth) Ouen's Catherine
thalassocrat at nym.hush.com
thalassocrat at nym.hush.com
Sat Oct 14 05:48:50 PDT 2006
On Sat, 14 Oct 2006 10:59:32 +1000 "Roy C. Lackey"
<rclackey at stic.net> wrote:
>What "dark woman" did Severian have in mind, and what did he know,
>or
>suspect, about her and this look-alike waiter? I can only conclude
>that he
>came to this conversation with a prior notion about a certain dark
>woman and
>her relationship to himself.
I took this to be just a simple deduction by Sev: He realizes first
that Ouen must be his father, then since Ouen is fair & he (Sev) is
dark, Sev's mother must have been dark also (is that valid
genetics?).
>It is always assumed that the "order of monials" Catherine ran
>away from was
>the Pelerines. That may also be true, but being tortured to death
>is hardly
>an apt or likely consequence of deserting a voluntary religious
>order.
Maybe there's an analogy with Cyriaca's circumstances. Something
like: by running from the Pelerines and taking up with a low-life,
Catherine brought discredit to Somebody Important (her father?) and
exemplary punishment upon herself. Sev's mother as Thecla's aunt?
Or: a sister/daughter/whatever of a rebel, she had been consigned
to the Pelerines under a suspended sentence of death, which became
effective upon her escape. Sev's mother as Vodalus' sister?
Actually, I don't think there's enough information to do very much
with any of this. I think we are supposed to see an echo of Sev's
mother in Cyriaca, but the woman herself is lost.
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