(urth) Father Inire

[Gerry Quinn]

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
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