(urth) The Tomb of the Unknown Severian

gwern0 at gmail.com gwern0 at gmail.com
Wed Dec 19 20:07:46 PST 2007


On 2007.12.19 00:17:57 -0500, stoneox17 at aol.com scribbled 1.8K characters:
> Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net> wrote
>
> >Joel Sieh wrote:
> >>It could also be a tomb fashioned by the "original" Severian, the
> >>Severian who failed the test in UotNS, went back in time, and modified
> >>events (e.g. sending Juturna to rescue his boyhood self after falling
> >>in the river IIRC) so that he would later succeed at the test instead
> >>of failing.  Sev goes on a bit about this at the end of UotNS.
>
> >I don't care about the mausoleum stuff, but the Juturna part intrigues
> me.
> >The problem with the above is that it was Sev2 (our narrator Severian)
> who
> >spoke with Juturna in the throne room near the end of Book V about the
> >boyhood near-drowning incident. Near the end of Book IV is where Sev2
> spoke
> >of Sev1 (the "first Severian"). There, Sev2 said that Sev1 hadn't
> drowned
> >either, because someone was already messing around in his (their) life
> by
> >that point. So, when Sev2 spoke to Juturna about her having saved his
> life
> >when he was a boy (though she had not yet saved him in her own backward
> >personal timeline, but never mind), he was referring to the incident
> at the
> >beginning of Book I when he shot out of the river propelled by her
> hand,
> >obviously. Yet, if Sev1 didn't drown either -- and he obviously didn't,
> >since he went on to become autarch -- who saved *him*? You can't say
> that
> >time-walking Sev1 saved himself as a boy -- he wouldn't have been
> alive to
> >become a time walker. Care to speculate?
>
> The green man is wandering through the corridors of time looking for a
> situation where Sev is captive so that he can free him. He seems to save
> him from Hethor's monster in the Antechamber, although he doesn't free
> him then -- Thecla does that.  Could the green man have freed Sev1 here?
>
> -Peter S.

But doesn't that present the same problem? Yes, perhaps Sev1 and Sev2 both saved the Green Man and so he helps them out - but isn't the issue that if Sev1 hadn't been saved, he wouldn't've gone on to do any of the things which would cause various time travelers to go back and save him?

Or another way: without rescue, Sev1 would've drowned and never freed the Green Man, and so the Green Man would never have been grateful to him and sought out a time where he could save Sev1. The initial rescue has to come from a non-Sev-caused source, I think. We need to be looking for someone who before the drowning incident would have the desire to see him live and go on to become Severian. So who would know of his potential and be in the position to save him? Inire, maybe.

--
gwern
picking FID DES Mole Cap-Stun timers Z7 NAAP 2.6.2. ARC
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