(urth) Severian's Family. What the text shows...

James Wynn crushtv at gmail.com
Wed Dec 22 10:10:27 PST 2010


> Son of Witz-
> So James, are you mapping Ouen to Fish, as an anti-poleric brother to 
> Severian?
> That is interesting, though there is an age difference that keeps them 
> from being twins as Fish and Frog are.

I'm not making any claims about Ouen. The Stream introduces Time-travel 
so all bets are off regarding age differences.

> Ouen is balding, and describes his twenties, when he got the locket, 
> as in the past, yet Severian is only about twenty.  I had assumed Ouen 
> was his Father of course, too, but somehow it always felt a bit flat 
> to me.  (we need an aesthetic blowback icon)

That would be useful.

"This theory sucks. There's no way it's true! [blowbackicon]"

> Of course, if tying Ouen to Fish one would want to make sense of the 
> slaying of fish and founding of the wall. Is this just a conflation 
> with Romulus and Remus?  Would it be possible to say that Severian's 
> reign is built somewhat on this foundation of having Ouen caring for 
> Dorcas in the Oldgate Quarter? It is the first thing he does when he 
> has returned and claimed the throne.

Meh. I don't like that solution. But you are right that "slaying" might 
not mean really "slaying".  But it should be good enough that one would 
say "Oh! Now I get it."

u+16b9



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