(urth) Father Inire

[Lee Berman]

>David Stockhoff: if there *is* a Severa and Sev is *not* to mate 
>with her, it might make sense that he would engage in ritual holy mating 
>with someone else *instead of* Severa

 

My own thought is that if Wolfe is playing ironic Oedipal games, Severian

might have sex with every female relative he encounters except his mother.

Could the Holy Katharine ritual be your ritual holy mating, along the lines

of the animal guys marrying a bear sow?

 

Then there is Agia. There are a couple converging lines of evidence that

she is Severian's cousin. There is intense mutual desire there but it is

never consummated.


>Gerry Quinn: Jolenta is a waitress not a witch.

 

Jolenta is an actress. We don't know her name when she was a waitress. The

thin girl with straggling hair had only been a waitress for about a month 

and she recognizes Severian as a carnifex. Is there any evidence she had 

not previously been a witch but left her guild in symmetry with Severian's

story? If not she is a viable candidate for Severa.

 

>Jeff Wilson: For the 99th time, Rudesind is TALL. He makes a ladder look 

>like stool when Sev comes across him.


Heh. I missed those 99 times, Jeff. And I am very interested in the character

of Rudesind (for obvious reasons). 

 

The first time Severian meets Rudesind, he is on a ladder (and scrabbles down).

His ladder is mentioned twice in their third meeting.

 

The second time Severian meets him, from a distance he: 

 

>"saw someone ahead of me sitting (as I first thought) upon a high stool.  As I 

>drew nearer, I found that what I had taken to be a stool was a stepladder, and 

>that the old man perched on it was cleaning one of the pictures."

 

A stepladder, this time. Is Rudesind standing or sitting? Perching could be either.

It is most normal to  stand on a ladder, though a stepladder does offer the option 

of sitting. I think standing is more normal in the course of doing work. So if, from 

a distance, Rudesind standing looks like a normal person sitting, it means he is very 

short. I understand Jeff's ladder/stool= tall conclusion. But I think short-man- 

standing-appears-as-normal-person-sitting to be a more direct interpretation.

 


>Saying he is old and bent and looks like a monkey is double counting; 
>being old makes him bent into a simian posture instead of properly upright.

 

Being old is not the equivalent of being bent and monkey-like. Palaemon, Ultan and 

Ash are good examples of the contrary. As a fellow curator, I could see why Rudesind

might be made to look tall like Ultan. But I don't think he is. Old, bent and 

monkey-like are all Father Inire attributes. Rudesind being short also should not be

a surprise.  If you don't think he actually IS Father Inire, he needn't be. But I think 

there is a resemblance.

 

Moreover, Rudesind's nose almost touches his chin. Here are a couple images which I 

think resemble what Wolfe was going for with that:

http://images.mudfooted.com/face-Proboscis-Monkey.jpg

 

http://www.lightwatervillage.co.uk/takefive/graphics/illusion5a.jpg