(urth) The mystery of the imageof an astronaut cleaned by Rudesind

Gerry Quinn gerryq at indigo.ie
Mon Jul 5 01:07:30 PDT 2010


From: "Ryan Dunn" <ryan at liftingfaces.com>

>The appearance of the Autarch at House Azure opens the gates to other 
>unannounced, unnamed characters appearing. He did it with Hildegrin as 
>well, and a handful of other characters. Why not Inire, perhaps the most 
>talked about yet never seen character??

>You sort of proved my point for me.

>Why go to the trouble of giving Rudesind monkey-like description? Why have 
>Eata say Inire looks like a monkey? Why have a red, wizened monkey who 
>could be a man were it not for the hand-feet watching over Severian from 
>the jungle above? Why, why WHY?


It's not that strange that two people, or one person and one cacogen, might 
resemble in some way our closest animal relatives.  We've all known of 
people likened to monkeys.  A recent US president was regularly caricatured 
as a chimp.  The monkey in the jungle may have looked human, but he had 
prehensile feet.  Maybe Inire has too... but nobody has suggested that 
Rudesind had anything unusual in the foot department.


>Because Inire has a clear motive to make sure Severian's journey goes just 
>so, and that he and his eidetic memory make their way to the war with the 
>proper "experiences", for the inevitable trip to Yesod.

>No? Not sure that is as speculative as it may seem.


Even if this were so... what exactly would be the implications of Severian's 
monkey sightings when it comes to bringing the New Sun?

- Gerry Quinn





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