(urth) The Two Coins...

Ryan Dunn ryan at liftingfaces.com
Fri Aug 13 11:36:12 PDT 2010


On Aug 13, 2010, at 2:23 PM, James Wynn wrote:

> What are these coins made of that feels so greasy? I was thinking polished brass, but I don't know.
> 
> Any metallurgists out there?

I think it is from the smoothness of the coin, here is how Severian describes Vodalus's coin upon receipt:

"He laid something in my palm: a small coin so smooth it seemed greased."


On Aug 13, 2010, at 2:16 PM, David Stockhoff wrote:

> I always mistrusted the assessment of those coins as false, but that's just me being suspicious. It would certainly be interesting if there was a coin with Severian's face on it before he was Autarch, but I don't recall that. Are you sure, Ryan?


The only thing I'm sure of is that Severian often goes to great lengths to conceal what he looks like when he sees himself. The flaw in my positing the face being Severians is that he is not androgynous, and Vodalus would have known him probably. I didn't get the sense that Vodalus was in on the divine plan for Severian to become Autarch.

I was trying to reconcile two things at once, 1) The title of the chapter, it's definitely an "Autarch's Face". Which rules out Tzadkiel. But which Autarch? I wondered whether Severian might not be rendered asexual as well, meaning he might not recognize himself at once, but surely he would later. He mentions something along those lines for sure:

"It seemed beyond explanation - so much so that at the time I did not even trouble to speculate about it, so sure was I that any speculation would be fruitless."

He's reacting to seeing the ship on the back, but something stirs inside him, in a manner similar to the feeling he had in the Atrium of Time, as though someone were watching him, which I took to mean the future Severian who revisits that same courtyard at the end of Citadel.

...ryan


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