(urth) Father Inire

[David Stockhoff]

On 12/3/2011 9:00 AM, Lee Berman wrote:
>> 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?

Symmetry and the centrality of procreation does suggest that there may 
be some related aspect to the Katherine ritual. But birth vs death seems 
more likely, doesn't it?

Birth = Mag and the witches, sex/marriage = man's animal nature and the 
beast handlers  (I don't think their patron saint is mentioned, rather 
Mithraism is suggested), death = Katherine and the Seekers. These are 
the three Serious Events of human life. It seems like all Urth's core 
historic religious folklore is preserved in the Citadel.

Also, in the Celtic belief system (I hesitate to call it religion), the 
head was the seat of the spirit. In some places, heads were apparently 
detached and kept for longer than the body, which was buried quickly; 
heads were buried weeks later, sometime with the body, sometimes higher 
than the body. So decapitation is a strong symbol of the separation of 
body and spirit/life and death and thus possibly salvation from materiality.

Beheading also seems to be a link with the Pelerines, since some but not 
all of their namesakes were beheaded, although that may only apply to 
those who leave the order, such as Catherine and Cyriaca (Mannea was 
beheaded, however). I don't recall whether they take vows of celibacy 
(like the virgin martrys) but it would make sense; they are a female 
counterpart to the Seekers, as are the witches.

>
> 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.

I doubt witches leave the Tower more easily than the Torturers. But that 
is a solid point: anyone who recognizes a carnifex so far from the 
Citadel might have had some history near the Citadel, and we don't know 
what she used to be a month earlier. The soldiers thought Severian was 
in carnifex costume, as did Agia, but Jolenta said "One of you is a 
carnifex."

Any idea what her coloring was before Talos transformed her?