(urth) blastoDePasto v2: Schultz post

[Son of Witz]

>
>The first 3 and a half books seem to deal with the theme of Severian
>becoming his own man and casting off other authorities' hold on him.  Every
>authority that is, except that of the Increate.  

This seems to be the basic meat of the story.
Glad I read this before finishing Sword of the Lictor again, because it helped me makes sense of the final musing of that book, when Severian is looking at the Claw broken out of it's corundum enclosure:

"At last, after a long series of these bold advances and fearful
retreats, I came to understand that I should never reach any real
knowledge of the tiny thing I held, and with that thought (for it was
a thought) came a third state, one of happy obedience to I knew not
what, an obedience without reflection because there was no longer
anything to reflect upon, and without the least tincture of rebellion.
This state endured all that day and a large part of the next, by which
time I was already deep into the hills."