(urth) Father Inire theory cont.

[Andrew Mason]

Lee Berman wrote:
>>
>> As I've tried to express previously, this is not a concern for me. I spent 20
>> years reading BotNS on the surface level and I haven't lost that perspective.
>> A 5 pronged candlestick can be just a light source. Ultan can be seen as a venerated
>> servant of the Autarch. Severian could really be a 20 year old virgin.
>>

It seems to me, though, that this runs together two different things.
There is the literal/symbolic distinction; these can exist together; a
candle can both be just a light source (literally) and have some
Satanic significance (symbolically). And there is the distinction
between two literal meanings, surface and hidden; and these, I feel,
are not compatible; Severian cannot both be a virgin and have
homoerotic experience. (I'm not especially worried about that one; but
some of the contrasts are more disturbing.) One you see the hidden
meaning, the surface meaning - in cases like this, where they actually
contradict each other - ceases to make sense. If the hidden house is
the kind you have found, then the visible house is an illusion. Well,
perhaps it is.  But still it is hard to swallow.

And on a complete tangent: I don't think Ultan is a servant of the
Autarch. In his note at the end of COTC, GW says that all the
residents of the Citadel except Ultan are servants of the throne. I
originally took this just to mean that he was an exultant. But that's
weird; Pelerines can be both exultant by birth and religious by
vocation; why can't Ultan be both exultant by birth and servant of the
throne by vocation? Cyriaca (as so often) provides the clue. the first
keeper of the archives was appointed by Tyupon, and he appointed his
successor, and the succession continues to this day, faithful to the
charge given them by Typhon. It is a trust that existed before the
autarchy and is not bound by it.