(urth) Is Agia a Robot?

[Jerry Friedman]

From: David Stockhoff <dstockhoff at verizon.net>
>Jeff Wilson wrote:

>> On 6/19/2010 8:45 AM, David Stockhoff wrote:
>>> It doesn't explain the eye color change, though perhaps that is such a
>>> minor alteration as to allow us to jettison the "facedancer" technology
>>> (she never changes gender either), except for one point. How does she
>>> resemble Agilus so closely? Is that just Severian's inability to
>>> distinguish Asians? Or is Agilus fresh off the ship too, and Nessus has
>>> not seen his kind for millennia? Why do they not have Asian names?
>> 
>> After many chiliads of racial mixing from mechanized travel, there would be a  much smoother distribution of >>"Asian" features. Severian has seen many people with broad cheekbones and elongated eyes, at least by the >>time of his writing.
>
>Exactly---if A&A are particularly Asian in appearance, they could be from the deep past, before such mixing. If
>they are human, that is.

They're not all that Asian in appearance.  Agia has "brown hair" (/SotT/ Ch. XXI, referred to elsewhere too, I think) and "fair skin and freckles" (/SotL/ Ch. XXVIII, in a brief mention for comparison with Pia).

Jerry Friedman