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

[Son of Witz]

On Dec 22, 2010, at 10:10 AM, James Wynn <crushtv at gmail.com> wrote:

> 
>> 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.
> 

ok, good point. I forgot to consider how much a bit of distance can mean in that stream.


>> 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."
> 

Yeah, me either. Clearly we would expect a myth to wander from its roots, especially when theybare prophetic rather than historic.