(urth) Severa

[Larry Miller]

Why do you think Merryn is Severa?  Just because she is a witch?  I
think this is the biggest red herring in the book.

On 12/2/11, Gerry Quinn <gerry at bindweed.com> wrote:
>
>
> From: Lee Berman
>
>
>> > larry miller: Id say that Jolenta is a better candidate for Severa
>> > than any other female character in the book.  Yes the fact that we
>> > never know her real name is a clue that Wolfe is hiding something.
>
>
>> Agreed. If there was a witch character of the right age named Severa,
>> we wouldn't be having this discussion. Even if we ignore the theme of
>> incest (which we should not do, imho), are there any other characters
>> who are Severian's age and who might be named Severa and who might have
>> been raised with witches? I think only (stage name) Jolenta fits that
>> bill.
>
> Merryn might be Severian’s age for all we know.  We know there is something
> odd about her age; she looks both old and young, and one or other appearance
> must be false.  It might be the old appearance as easily as the young.  If
> Severian has a sister who is a character, I am pretty sure it is Merryn.
>
> Jolenta is a waitress not a witch, and there’s no indication that she was
> ever otherwise.  Come to think of it, if she had been a witch she would
> surely have been much more wary of Talos’s blandishments.  And I can think
> of no thematic reason why someone like Jolenta should be Severian’s sister.
>
>
>> Severian's travels resemble those of a clueless Greek hero like
>> Oedipus, stumbling into situations of which he doesn't understand the
>> significance. Oedipus had sex with his mother, an act that defined him.
>> If he had sex with other women too, that does not make him any less of
>> a motherf..well, you know. A pattern of incest among Severian's mates
>> does not require that all his mates were family members.
>
> It requires that more than one of them was.  If you can demonstrate that
> someone other than Jolenta or Dorcas is closely related to Severian, then
> you can argue that a pattern exists and Jolenta might follow it.  But if you
> just have Jolenta and Dorcas, you are assuming what you want to prove.
>
> If we just have Dorcas (the subject of a weird age distortion amounting to
> time travel and therefore not really within the bounds of ‘normal’
> incestuous relationships anyway) there’s no pattern involved.
>
> And as we’ve seen, it’s very obvious that most of Severian’s lovers cannot
> be close relations.  And also that sex with Dorcas isn’t in any way a
> defining characteristic of Severian’s story, as was the case with that of
> Oedipus .
>
> - Gerry Quinn