(urth) Undines

Jeff Wilson jwilson at io.com
Tue Jul 20 13:50:37 PDT 2010


> We are led to believe Severian gains his connection to the New Sun/White
> Fountain via intercourse with Apheta. I hope she didn't have to kill him
> for that to happen (though many female bugs do that sort of thing).

I interpret this as the Yesodis collecting a gene sample so that the White
Fountain can be attuned to him; this may also explain some of Juturna's
transcending of dimension, since she shares roughly half his chromosomes.
Despite the name, I don't think the White Fountain gives him underwater
breathing, since the its power is blocked by even the limb of the earth,
and the stars don't shine deeply under the water.

> Elsewhere, aren't we told that Severian's Yesod tests were all a sham?
> And that Tzadkiel had already imbued Severian with his White Fountain
> connection on the ship. Again we have the possibility that eidolon
> formation allows this.

I got the impression that there's no one time where he is imbued so much
as the WF sends out power on a frequency that he receives whenever its
light shines upon him, including frequencies that pierce storms and
clouds. This doesn't mean that he always has the skill or knowledge to use
that power, depending on where along his personal timeline he is.


> If not that then perhaps he became a water-breathing eidolon at the end
> of Sword. He had B, F and O above him and perhaps Juturna and Abaia in the
> lake below him. Perhaps either were capable of doing it though one seems
> more likely than the other.

Juturna tries to coax him into the water and apparently other people are
taken below the waves. If it isn't all a murder plot or dinner for the
hungry undines, it implies that undines can convert humans to breathe
water, and perhaps that the converted humans may even breed
water-breathing children who later return to the land, like Idas. A
symbiote could be involved, similar to the Green Man's "pond scum".

There remains the question of where the undine in Severian's family tree
is. Was Dorcas' husband some kind of spy for Abaia?




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