(urth) The Two Katharines

[Ryan Dunn]

On Aug 16, 2010, at 11:08 AM, Lee Berman wrote:

> Do not be deceived by the teachings of Master Gurloes, Jack Bauer and Dick Cheney. Torture IS 
> unnecessary and cruel and so is the guild which beheads Holy Katharine each year. 
> (sorry no more politics, I swear ;- ))

- The torturers exist under the Autarch's rule. They obey faithfully. You know, the Autarch whose every breath blows tides against the sea in the form of perfect waves. That one. Also, whether torture is or isn't necessary, and whether it is or isn't cruel, is best left to people with more expertise on the matter than I.


> Ryan, I'm not so sure that guild would agree with your definition of "an innocent woman". First, it
> would appear that Catherine (as Severian's mother) is not innocent or she wouldn't have been given to 
> the torturers.

- So every apprentice ever elevated has to behead Severian's mom? Or are they beheading a puppet? Or an ageless woman in costume with a detachable head which is not real?


> Second, the implication is that khaibits are being sacrificed each year. Khaibits are clones. How 
> expendable are they considered in the Commonwealth? Every cell in your body is a clone of the other.
> Yet we are willing to sacrifice the lives of millions of our clones in male masturbation, 
> providing blood samples, amputation and other activities which benefit the greater source material.

- Severian seems to imply it is the SAME young woman every time, doesn't he?

"What became of the maid I do not know," Severian says. "She disappeared as she has each Katharine's Day I can remember. I have not seen her again." Wouldn't he recognize if it were a different person every time? Would he really be confounded about where she goes?

I don't buy for one second that a real human is sacrificed during the elevation of an apprentice.

"She took the wax head from Master Gurloes and pretended to replace it on her shoulders, slipping it by some sleight into the fuligin cloth, then standing before us radiant and whole. I knelt before her, and the others withdrew."

So someone dies, but then someone else in a similar shape gets up and pretends to put on the head of the one who was just killed? Not buying it.

The lochage indeed said that if a pauper jumped from a bridge every time we breathed, it wouldn't matter, because the Commonwealth breeds and breaks men faster than we respire.

But there is a code of honor of how things are done at Matachin Tower, and I find no evidence of murder without cause anywhere. Now, if Severian told us they bring up a client from the oubliette and give them the off in a sacrificial ritual sanctioned by the Autarch, then okay, but he doesn't say that.


> If you were the unfaithful exultant Contessa Catherine and offered a 15-20 year reprieve from torture 
> in exchange for providing yearly khaibit donations for ceremonial sacrifice, would you do it? 

- I don't know. But I don't think it's relevant to the text that I read, wherein paper roses and a fake broken wheel precede Severian tripping an "ingenius mechanism" which elevates a "wax head smeared with blood" while the maid "draped her own with a fuligin cloth."


> Whether khaibits could be raised to willingly sacrifice themselves for the greater good of their mistress
> is hardly a question worth asking, given our human history full of willing human sacrifices to the gods, 
> Jonestown, samurai, Heaven's Gate, and Pat Tillmans willing to give up their lives for honor, glory and 
> the greater good.

- Again, I think it's unfounded conjecture.

...ryan