(urth) Shadow, Chapter X

[Son of Witz]

>-----Original Message-----
>From: Matt Teel [mailto:adeodatus43 at yahoo.com]
>Sent: Thursday, November 13, 2008 04:01 AM
>To: urth at lists.urth.net
>Subject: (urth) Shadow, Chapter X
>
>I've checked the archives, but don't see that this has been discussed: what do you all make of the enigmatic reference at the beginning of Shadow Chapter X (The Last Year), where Severian and Roche are leaving the House Azure and the white-haired man pulls out something that Severian assumes at first to be an icon, but then discovers is a vial shaped like a phallus?
> 
>Possible foreshadowing of his becoming Autarch?  I don't know.  Even if it is foreshadowing, it should make sense within the scene itself, but I can't quite figure it out.


I would say that these books are FULL of stuff that doesn't make sense within the scene itself, so that notion doesn't deflate your idea.

and I believe you are right. It is most definitely foreshadowing. But it's a strange sort, because it's not the usual literary foreshadowing that one is used to, the kind that does make sense in the scene.

What this scene tells us is that the Autarch knows that Severian will likely be his successor.  In this scene Severian ends up with a faux Thecla, but he doesn't remember having chosen her, and seems perhaps drugged.  The next time he encounters the Autarch, Appian calls him Death, foreshadowing that it is Severian who will actually deliver his death.  The third meeting: "It's you. Miracles converge on us"

Remember, the Autarch's vizier is Father Inire, who's perspective in time is fluid, not fixed.  As Robert Borski points out in "Masks of the Father" Father Inire is apparently manipulating Severian from the beginning, so far as to suggest that Gurloes and Paleamon steer him along the beginnings of his path, where the House Azure is surely a first step.  If I remember right, Severian says that the fake Thecla prostitute only kindled his love for the real Thecla,  exactly opposite of the stated motive.  Yet no one seems to give Severian straight advice ever.

All of this begs the question of whether or not Severian is completely steered along or not.  One of my early complaints with the story is that he stumbles into everything perfectly, in a way only a fictional character can.  He bumps into Agia & Agilus of all people, (quite possibly his cousins)  he stumbles into Baldanders twice, which is of course significant. He trips in the Garden of Endless Sleep and just happens to resurrect his grandmother.  His possible cousin then brings him to his father's restaurant.  He wanders along and meets his past self, Apu-Punchau. He bumps into, and makes love to Cyriaca who he doesn't know he is supposed to kill. he bumps into Little Severian. He wanders onto Mount Typhon, and then to Baldandars.  He doesn't know how he got the Claw (his claw) He bumps into the Autarch when he's wounded on the battlefield. It goes on and on and gets worse in Urth of the New Sun.  

I'm now convinced that he's steered along almost completely. I take it as the hand of God. Dress that up with the characters however you want, be they Angels or Aliens or whatever.  He obviously has free will, but everything is placed very nicely in his path for him to exercise that will.  That's his testing, far more than the testing in Yessod.  With that in mind, I don't consider it a flaw of this fiction, instead it's the very fabric of this fable.