(urth) Is Agia a Robot?

[John Watkins]

If only Gene Wolfe had written another text, possibly a short story,
exploring the idea of puppets in boxes.  Then maybe someone wiser than I
could draw wisdom from that text and apply it to the problem of the
paracoita, which is beyond me.

I will make a few observations that, while not wise, may spur others to
wisdom.

1)  It seems that delicate and/or doll-like characteristics are attributed
to several women in the story, but that Hethor meant one particular
paracoita--we may just be dealing with a motif, rather than a puzzle with a
definite character as the solution, and there may be red herrings...like a
sickening crack of bone on stone being described as as sharp as a metallic
clang.  Or not.

2)  Severian dreams of marionettes that seemingly represent him and
Baldanders.

3)  In Urth, Severian-as-White-Fountain describes Severian-as-Man as a
"marionette of flesh".

4)  An inveterate punster who was also a devout Catholic might be taken by
the term "marionette."  It might conceivably please him to make several
female characters in a single work "marionettes" in one sense or another.

5)  Why lemonwood?  After all, the classic wood for a doll that comes to
life is pine.  Per Google, the Howdy-Doody marionette was lemonwood.


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