(urth) Is Agia a robot?

[Jerry Friedman]

From: "brunians at brunians.org" <brunians at brunians.org>

> Who has purple eyes in the story?

I won't answer that because I'm afraid to get into a game with ancient, 
inviolable rules that I don't know.  But if I were to answer it, I'd say Thecla and presumably her khaibit.

>Does any girl in the story have notably small or delicate hands?

Here I'd mention Thecla's khaibit.  I'd also say that Thecla has 
"impossibly narrow" hands, which I picture as long and thin, like her 
body.  You may or may not picture them that way, and however you picture them may or may not be what you mean by "small or delicate".

From: Jeff Wilson <jwilson at io.com>

...

> Here's a video of a pitcher getting beaned. Right after the crack of the bat, there's a *tok* of the ball-skull
> collision. IMO the bat's crack is sharper than the skull's *tok* , which is still sharper than the *thump* of meaty
> limbs being struck on the floor which doubtless we are all familiar with. The ball hits faster than Agia's head
> would have hit the wall, but the stone wall would be much more rigid than a baseball.
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auss-QFCor4&feature=PlayList&p=4C9AAD000C45EE30&
> playnext_from=PL&playnext=1&index=18
>
> http://preview.tinyurl.com/2dy5gd2

That's worse than reading about Allowin's Necklace.

However, "sharp" is not the word I'd use to distinguish those two sounds.  Maybe just me.

I live in a fairly rural area, I suppose I could round up a cattle skull, put a wig on it, and record it smacking it into stone surface.

> Second, she may have something to hide, vs having modesty, although
> modesty could just as well be "programmed." For all I know, she has a
> penis.

This is modesty *after* she has been seen completely naked. And why would anyone program a sexbot to cast runic curses?

> Third, you are exactly right about Agia's character. Severian is a
> torturer; I propose that Agia is an assassin; Brunians proposes that she
> is a whore. His theory works better in some ways than mine.

I do not see that Agia is an assassin, her murders do not appear to serve anyone's purposes outside hers and her brothers.

> Fourth, the aureole is not of hair, but that's an interesting
> observation. More importantly, it covers the pair, not Agia. The two
> together are more than either of them individually.

Rereading about their "aureate faces" and "a narrow beam of sunlight that had given his head, and Agia's, an aureole a few moments before", it could be the dust and fibers from the straw on the floor, the way mist makes an aureole around the moon's sunlit face.

http://www.lpod.org/?p=702

or since "aureate" can also eman decorated with gold, there might be no actual fringe of light, but instead this would be another reference to their skin tone, which Sev has already likened to gold where the sun glints from Agia's skin through a rent in her ragged gown.

I'm not saying this doesn't count as a subtextual halo, of course.

> And if she's supposed to be a fully functional android, it would
> hardly do for her to go around boasting of her strength and her
> nuclear power cell.

That's not the same as a sexbot - "sleeping" immobile in a box is a strong advertisement that you are not really a person.



-- Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com
IEEE Student Chapter Blog at
< http://ieeetamut.org >
_______________________________________________
Urth Mailing List
To post, write urth at urth.net
Subscription/information: http://www.urth.net