(urth) Undines

Lee Berman severiansola at hotmail.com
Tue Jul 20 15:54:46 PDT 2010



>Jeff Wilson- Idas is presumed to be an undine due to his/her gills and 
>complexion. Do the other undines feature gills?

I'm not seeing that Idas has gills though she does have concealed
web feet.
 
 
 
>James Wynn- I thought the implication of the skull Severian finds at the bottom of 
>the Gyoll after the flood is that he drowned when she met him at the 
>beginning of Shadow of the Torturer. The boy that left the river was an 
>aquastor.
 
I think that is a damn good guess. Especially since Severian lays that skull
at the threshold of his mausoleum. Fits so nicely with Jeff's idea that 
Severian's powers come to him during the process of resurrection. 
 
 
 
>Jeff Wilson- Is he also an aquastor/eidolon at the time he finds the skull?
 
Surely but I think Severian dies and is resurrected as an eidolon several times
(probably five). Maybe he gets a new superpower each time. He probably died in
the Flood. He says he was underwater a long time before he found the raft. 
Later, Eata thinks he is an eidolon. And when Severian meets Jurturna he says,
"You lived". She replies, "You did not".
 
 
 
>brunians- There is more than one way to look at it, as there normally (regularly?)
>are in fact when these things happen.
 
Yes, Severian contemplating the skull is probably a reference to another suicidal
guy, Hamlet. But I like James Wynn's interpretation as the proximate plot explanation.
 
 
>brunians- I could go that way if I was willing to do the kind of things that
>Baldanders is willing to do. It is helpful to him that he is gay.You could get your
>boyfriend to help you with something like this. 
 
Usually, being gay is not considered the same sexual orientation as being a pedophile.
Interestingly, Severian compares Idas to Baldanders' catamite baby. Those pagan gods- 
they were all such perverts. Unfortuately, Severian has his own pedophilic moment....
 
 
 
>Gerry Quinn- He has gills: Severian notices strange scars on his neck when he sleeps with 
>him in the inn.
 
He does notice strange scars around Baldanders' neck and ears. I always took this to be 
another Frankenstein allusion. But you could be right that Severian misidentifies gills. 
Interesting connection to a recent thread, the original title to Mary Shelley's book was
*Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus*

 
 
>Jeff Wilson- There remains the question of where the undine in Severian's family tree
>is. Was Dorcas' husband some kind of spy for Abaia?
 
Well, he does mention undines, well, "manatees" as does Maxellindis' uncle. I still can't 
shake the boatman's resemblance to Father Inire. Could be him. Though recent mythological
readings remind me that the pagan gods who wanted to sleep with human women often did it
by shapeshifting into their husbands' form. Dorcas pulls severian up but perhaps it is
another hand in the lake which was pulling him down, earlier.
 
 
 
>Lane Haygood- Why not Dorcas herself?  She has connection to rising from water/watery deaths.
 
Argh, how could you sully Dorcas like that? But she does consider herself an "unclean spirit"
with vampiress leanings. She seems too sincere to be a spy, (she voluntarily leaves Severian) 
but I think her past has been marked by mating with demons/pagan gods/fallen angels. In the 
play as Meschiane she mentions talking to a beam of light which was not a beam of light. This
alludes to Zeus' mating with Danae as a shower of gold, I think.
 
 
  		 	   		  
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