(urth) The Tomb of the Unknown Severian
Jeff Wilson
jwilson at io.com
Mon Dec 24 07:05:24 PST 2007
Todd wrote:
> I think that in one sense, there is only one Severian and this is his
> way of describing the paradoxes involved in passing into his own past.
>
> On the other hand, it is an apt metaphor for the two divergent
> histories of Urth which are set up, where everyone experiences the
> alterations made by Sev1, thus everyone lives alternative existences.
>
> If I may be excused for quoting a popular British Science Fiction
> program, "it is a big ball of wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey," in the sense
> that neither the future nor the past are set in stone.
...except that they are. As I recall, the good Doctor uses the phrase to
describe when a moment in time is uncertain and resolves in favor of
preventing a larger paradox by using information from "nowhere". Both
recent uses involved him using information that ultimately came from an
observation of himself using the information. The only time I can think
of something like this happening in New Sun is Severian lifting one of
his Conciliator speeches from Talos' play, which was ultimately informed
by wossname's ancient account of the Conciliator's sermons.
--
Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com
< http://www.io.com/~jwilson >
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