(urth) bsharp's Inire theory

b sharp bsharporflat at hotmail.com
Tue Jul 8 05:42:36 PDT 2008


I think Roy makes some good arguments that the summoned ship is Malrubius'
and Triskele's.  At least that is a ship rather than a creature or open top flyer. My 
concern is that if it was summoned for the old Autarch, Malrubius and Triskele
shouldn't be there. It seems clear aquastors are assigned to one person and
can only be seen/heard by that person. Would Appian see his aquastor, Paeon,
flying the ship?

Roy notes:
>A "holy slave" need not be restricted to only one race of beings.

True, but I can't help but think Inire and the Cumaean are fundamentally
different than Famulimus and Barbatus. 

The latter are so tall, so graceful so beautiful.  They are short-lived.  They wear
 a couple uncomfortable masks and are careful to work only tangentially with 
the human race.  Their true nature seems above human.

The former seem old and ugly. They live a very long time. They don't wear masks
and are capable of shape changing and they interact directly with the human race.
Their true nature seems animalistic.

When Severian says: "know your master is what the people call a cacogen, and that 
for whatever reason, he is one of those few who have chosen to cast their lots
entirely with humanity, remaining on Urth as a human being. The Cumaean is another
such.."

I assign a lot of meaning to the disclaimer, "for whatever reason".  I don't see these 
two working for the New Sun. I think they have developed some bad habits.  Inire his
exo-pedophilia I think Jeff calls it? And the Cumaean trying to raise the dead and 
collecting souls , represented by the faces Severian sees on her snake-like body. 
(Dave Tallman do you really see The Cumaean as a kindly old woman in contrast
to Mme. Prisca?)

Barbatus and Famulimus clearly eschew the  debauchery of these two, remaining
above it. I think if Inire and the Cumaean are of the race of angels they have clearly
fallen (the play does happen to have two demons). Maybe broke they broke the other 
Edenic taboo and ate from the Tree of Life? While perhaps these two are not "evil" 
(Ava warns us against the dichotomy) I think maybe they corrupted the human race 
necessitating a cleansing. Surely neither Inire or the Cumaean survives on Ushas.

Perhaps Severian is successful in Yesod because unlike previous autarchs he is able to
transcend the stagnating influences these two have been perpetrating: war, incest, 
witchcraft, alzabo-type soul collecting etc.

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