(urth) Is Agia a Robot?

brunians at brunians.org brunians at brunians.org
Fri Jun 18 15:33:24 PDT 2010


They are biological and short lived.

I think they are biological.

.


> Exactly.
>
> You make me think of Famulimus/Ossipago/Barbatus. Could Agia be a robot
> on that level of technology, rather than Typhon's Whorl tech?
>
> António Pedro Marques wrote:
>> David Stockhoff wrote:
>>> Well, the proverb doesn't describe female assassins---just women. So
>>> it's ambiguous. She could certainly be a trained or experienced female
>>> assassin, in addition to being either nonhuman or nonfemale. But since
>>> Wolfe probably made up the "proverb," it was with a purpose, and there
>>> are no clues that Agia is simply an angry trained human female
>>> assassin.
>>> (Unless she wears secret assassin armor on her head.)
>>
>> I just find that Agia is the single most important character in the
>> whole story and precious little is known about her. Maybe Wolfe's
>> hints are not in the sense of her being a robot, but something else -
>> though just what I can't guess.
>>
>> - She is there almost from the beginning until the end - even as
>> Severian becomes Autarch, she becomes the Autarch's antagonist,
>> seemingly out of nothing - what's she got to do with the Vodelarii??
>>
>> - Compare Agia's omnipresence to Thecla's, who Severian is always
>> mentioning, yet barely appears in the story in person - by contrast,
>> Agia has a will of her own to remain relevant.
>>
>> - Why the obsession with Severian? He killed her brother/lover, ok,
>> but it's not like it was undeserved, and he did it merely as an
>> instrument of Law - not to mention that A&A went to great lengths to
>> entrap Severian before he did anything - can anyone believe that the
>> twins' usual business was killing unwary travellers in avern duels?
>>
>> The fact is that Agia's whole purpose from beginning to end seems to
>> be to work as an antagonist to Severian. To me this suggests that the
>> character is much more important and mysterious that it seems at first
>> sight, and that the oddities about her beg for some grand explanation.
>> Iow, I don't think the odd hints point to her being a robot, but
>> rather to something much more extraordinary (whether part of it is
>> being a robot or not, and bearing in mind that pretty much everything
>> in Wolfe's books is extraordinary, both in etymological and pedestrian
>> sense). Just what, I have absokutely no idea at all. I certainly don't
>> think she's the Devil, she's not that powerful.
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