(urth) The mystery of the image of an astronaut cleaned byRudesind

[Roy C. Lackey]

Eugene Zaretskiy wrote:
> The point, the one I believe you misinterpreted to believe it supports
> your point, is that the Autarch's mask in this case serves a very
> strong purpose that enriches the story. The suggestion that Inire is
> Rudesind seems to be ignoring this. What value to the book is there if
> Inire is indeed Rudesind? Saying that it proves Inire is guiding
> Severian seems ridiculous to me (and perhaps only me) since Rudesind's
> directions could have been obtained from anyone, and if Inire wanted
> to guide Severian in meaningful ways, there were many other, better
> opportunities to have done so. Why search for masks for the sake of
> masks?

Indeed.

(I don't know how this topic got switched to this thread.)

As I have already said, the last recorded conversation with Rudesind took
place *after* Severian became autarch, and was written ten years after the
conversation. Okay, one may argue that Sev becoming autarch wasn't enough
(to satisfy the theory that Inire-as-Rudesind was guiding Sev to the throne
and toward a New Sun), that Inire must get Sev to Yesod. Fine, let's make
that assumption just for the sake of the theory.

Somewhere early in URTH, Sev wrote that he had had few friends while
autarch, save for Inire. He also lets drop that Inire had told him that the
Cumaean was a Hierodule and it is revealed that the Hierodules BF&O had been
his "councilors" (p-354) while he was autarch. It's hard for me to imagine
that Sev was not told about Inire's supposed disguises during those ten
years, or that he didn't figure it out, but I'll set that aside.

The facts mentioned in the above paragraph come from Sev's second
manuscript, written *at least* two generations after the events related in
it, which includes the arrival of the New Sun and the transformation of Urth
into Ushas. It's a done deed. It's all over with. It's in the history books
and can't be undone. There is no need for anyone to play games, no need to
maintain past charades that are now meaningless.

If Sev knew, or even suspected, that Rudesind had really been Inire, there
was no reason not to say so. If BF&O knew Inire had been an agent of Yesod,
there was no reason to withhold that information from him in their meeting
in Apu's tomb.

-Roy