(urth) Patera Inire
James Wynn
crushtv at gmail.com
Sat Jul 17 11:30:15 PDT 2010
>> Gerry Quinn wrote:
>> Admittedly he seems to have no problem with calling himself "Father",
>> but then again the word "father" here is clearly (?) being used
>> metaphorically.
>>
>> And later wrote:
>> The '?' is to acknowledge that someone has proposed or will propose
>> that Inire is the biological progenitor of nearly all the characters
>> in the story, including himself. Its singleness is intended to
>> indicate that I do not personally find such lines of inquiry terribly
>> useful.
The thing about inquiry is that you don't know if it's useful until
you've done it.
>> Roy wrote:
>> I can't say why Inire was addressed as Father, but I have doubts that he was anyone's father in the usual sense of the word, as I am the father of my sons, any more than Silk was anyone's father yet was addressed as Patera, which is just another word for Father.
>>
>> And Later Roy wrote:
>> I intended nothing more by my use of "Patera" in the subject line than to
>> point out that Patera means no more and no less than Father or Padre or any
>> number of other linguistic equivalents.
Is it? "Pater" means "father" in Latin. "Pateras" means father in
medieval Latin. "Patera" is a sort mish-mash Wolfe doesn't seem to
typically engage in in the Sun Cycle. In the end, a patera is just a
shallow bowl. I could connect it a twisted insult of a religious title
by drawing from the Czech language, but that's a real stretch. Whether
Silk is anyone's father...well, not directly by seed and
copulation...but, I don't want to get off track. I agree that a Darth
Vader/Luke Skywalker show-down is unlikely ("Ymar and Severian, I *am*
your father").
The thing is, that while Silk had no "son of his body", I don't think he
is a good example to under-cut Father Inire's possible "fatherhood".
>> Roy wrote:
>> The religion faded away, but not Inire. He may have kept the title Father,
>> just as the Domnicellae of the Pelerines was addressed as Mother.
> Craig Brewer:
> Quite a stretch, but Inire's title always did stand out, and the title/office is
> so prominent in LS that it seems worth considering.
I'm not sure it is that much of a stretch that Inire's title associates
him with the religion of the Concilliator.
u+16b9
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