(urth) Severian I, Severian II, Severian III, Severian Ad Nauseum

[Son of Witz]

>-----Original Message-----
>From: John Watkins [mailto:john.watkins04 at gmail.com]
>Sent: Wednesday, December 3, 2008 10:42 AM
>To: 'The Urth Mailing List'
>Subject: Re: (urth) Severian I, Severian II, Severian III,	Severian Ad Nauseum
>
>On 12/3/08, Son of Witz <sonofwitz at butcherbaker.org> wrote:
>> from the perspective of the 4 books proper, there is only really one Severian body, though that is confused by the tomb.  This is why there is the explosion when he meets Apu Punchau.  The Two bodies can't be in the same time because they are one, ala Inire's law of mirrors (so to speak).
>>
>> Book V, as a Sequel, convolutes the hell out of that simplicity.  By most readings, we now have to modify Apu Punchau to be this Aquastor Tzadkiel made.  Now, if Tzadkiel made him a new body and discarded the old (which I've argued is not necessarily in the text) he does not really run the risk of self cancellation when he meets Apu Punchau in the stone town. Right?  If it's a new body, it's NOT subject to that time paradox, I don't think.  They're not two instances of the same body, unless I'm right that Tzadkiel just fixed his body and resurrected him into the same one.
>> (that argument here:  http://lists.urth.net/pipermail/urth-urth.net/2008-December/010873.html)
>> So, the self cancellation scene becomes dodgy in light of the sequel, unless we realize that what Tzadkiel did is NOT necessarily a new body separate from the Author of BoTNS.
>>
>
>I don't think the bodies are the problem with Apu Punchau.  It's the forms.
>
>The Hieros explain that at the end of Urth, I think, with the bit
>about writing the same lines too close together.
>
>There's a lot of this Aristotelian/Scholastic philosophy dusted about
>in the Sun books--think also of Severian's definition of
>larvae--"masked spirits."  Hardly what a modern who's taken a semester
>of biology thinks, but absolutely accurate in Aristotelian
>metaphysics.


The form is what the Heirodules call the Anima, no?
the example is of a verse. The Verse would be the Anima, the multiple writings in the dust would be the instances that cancel each other out.  The way they explain it is different than the Law of Mirrors cancellation, I think.

Here's the relevant passage, which does account for why his Aquastor would leave a corpse where Malrubius's wouldn't. 

man this shit is really confusing.



"One further question, illustrious Hierodules, before you return me to my own period. When I spoke with Master Malrubius beside the sea, he dissolved into a glittering dust. And yet " I could not say it, but my eyes sought out the corpse. 
Barbatus nodded. "That eidolon, as you call them, had been in existence only briefly. I don't know what energies Tzadkiel called upon to support you on the ship; it may even be that you yourself drew the support you needed from whatever source was at hand, just as you took power from the ship when you tried to raise your steward. But even if it was a source you left behind when you came here, you had lived a long time before that, on the ship, in Yesod, on the ship again, in the tender, in Typhon's time, and so on. During all that time you breathed, ate, and drank matter that was not unstable, converting it to your body's use. Thus it became a substantial body." 
"But I'm dead not even here, dead back there on Tzadkiel's ship." 
"Your twin lies dead there," Barbatus told me. "As another lies dead here. I might say in passing that if he weren't dead, we couldn't have done what we did, because every living being is more than mere matter." He paused and glanced toward Fainulimus for help, but received none. "What do you know of the anima?" 
I thought then of Ava, and what she had said to me: "You're a materialist, like all ignorant people. But your materialism doesn't make materialism true." Little Ava had died with Foila and the rest. "Nothing," I muttered. "I know nothing of the anima." 
"In a way, it's like a line of verse. Famulimus, what was the one you quoted to me?" 
His wife sang, "Awake! for Morning in the Bowl of Night, Has flung the Stone that puts the Stars to Flight." 
"Yes," I said. "I understand." 
Barbatus pointed. "Suppose I were to write those lines upon that wall and then to write them again upon that other wall. Which would be the true lines?" 
"Both," I said. "And neither. The true lines are not writing, nor speech either. I can't say what they are." 
"That is the way of the anima, as I understand it. It was written there." He indicated the dead man. "Now it is written in you. When the light of the White Fountain touches Urth, it will be written there again. Yet the anima will not be erased in you by that writing. Unless " 
I waited for him to continue. 
Ossipago said, "Unless you come too close. If you write a name in the dust and retrace it with your finger, there are not two names, but one. If two currents flow through a conductor, there is one current." 
While I stared in disbelief, Famulimus sang, "You came too near your double once, you know; that was here, in this poor town of stones. Then he was gone, and only you remained. Our eidolons are always of the dead. Have you not wondered why? Be warned!" 
Barbatus nodded. "But as for our returning you to your own time, we can't help you. Your green man knew more than we, perhaps; or at least he had more energy at his disposal. We'll leave you food, water, and a light; but you'll have to wait for the White Fountain. It shouldn't be long, as Famulimus said." 
She had begun to fade into the past already, so that her song seemed to come from far away. "Do not destroy the corpse, Severian. However tempted you may be be warned!" 
Barbatus and Ossipago had faded while I watched Famulimus. When her voice was gone, there was no sound in the House of Apu-Punchau but his own faint breath. "