(urth) Short Sun blog review

[James Wynn]

>> Jack Smith-
>> Isn't Typhon dead when found by Severian, who then resurrects him?   Typhon
>> seems to have dried out after lying on the cold, dry mountain for 1000 or 2000 years.
>
> Lee-
> Sorry, I should have been more clear. I was not speaking of that encounter.
> I was speaking of the encounter in UotNS where Severian meets living monarch,
> Typhon, still strapped to his couch, presumably because Piaton still has
> some voluntary control over his muscles.
>
> I am interested in people's thoughts. I think maybe there is some presumption
> that The Whorl was sent right around the time of this encounter?
> Perhaps, as the blog suggests, it was meant to serve as a sort of Ark
> to preserve humanity in the face of impending destruction. (if so I can agree
> that Typhon and his ilk look upon humanity as Noah did his passengers, as animals)

 From the Urth Q&A again:

Q: /What was Typhon's purpose in launching the Whorl and was the 
Blue/Green [solar] system the intended destination?/ --

A: Knowing Typhon as I do, he probably had at least half a dozen 
purposes; but certainly one of the chief must have been 
self-aggrandizement -- to return human kind to the stars would be a very 
great thing indeed. Yes, the Blue-Green system was the intended destination.


This answer would require some finessing given the evidence in the Book 
and Urth of the New Sun that human-kind is already spread across the 
heavens, that Typhon himself was born or reared extraterrestrially, and 
that at some point he was still free to leave. Perhaps he means 
returning Urth humanity to the stars. The self-aggrandizement must mean 
he wanted to wow the humanity left on Urth, not the humanity being sent. 
Because he deprecates his memory among the colonists.

There is the possibility that Wolfe never really thought hard about why 
Typhon sent out the Whorl.

u+16b9


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