(urth) Gummed-Up Works or Got Lives?

[Craig Brewer]

I know what you mean. But Dr. Talos always seemed to borrow from the inscrutability of a fairy figure for me. Random dancing, riddling, otherworldly. I know his nature is "explained", but he still retains that sense for me.

On Dec 15, 2011, at 4:57 PM, "Gerry Quinn" <gerry at bindweed.com> wrote:

>  
>  
> From: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes
>  
> > Gerry Quinn wrote:
> 
> > > You said: “a sword, a giant, a sleeping beauty, magic, palaces”.  But none
> > > of those are really much like their fairy-tale counterparts.  The sword has
> > > no magic powers.  Baldanders, fair enough, Severian even fights him in his
> > > castle, though not for gold.  Dorcas isn’t really a sleeping beauty – we
> > > don’t know she was dead until she is already leaving the narrative.  Magic
> > > is tech.  Palaces... the House Absolute is underground.
> >
> > > What we have learned of these things from fairy-tales doesn’t really help us
> > > here.  They don’t mirror their fairy-tale counterparts.  BotNS really isn’t
> > > a fairy-tale in any strong sense.  Or so it seems to me.
> >
> > > Conversely, understanding magic as technology does help us see what’s going
> > > on.
> 
> > Contraconversely, understanding technology as magic, a la Clarke's
> > Third Law, _also_ helps us see what's going on. Wolfe goes out of his
> > way to provide a pseudoscientific explanation for at least some of
> > Severian's miracles; but does anybody really believe that they are
> > _not_ miracles? The clue for this is near the beginning of CLAW, where
> > it is observed that the real miracle is that the laws of the Universe
> > are such that the Cathedral of the Pelerines will rise
> > non-miraculously: Wolfe is reminding us that there will always be a
> > way to "explain away" a miracle ... but that miracles happen,
> > nonetheless. (This is also my understanding of Dr Crane's
> > "explanation" of Silk's enlightenment, btw: plausible bullshit.)
> 
> > tBotNS is indeed a fairy story, a once-upon-a-time whisking away of
> > the reader to a land where miracles happen, giants (who somehow
> > resembles Queequeg...) battle heroes, the dead walk, and monarchs live
> > in invisible palaces. (Even the invisible palace hides an invisible
> > palace!) If it questions the assumptions of the fairy story, and
> > especially the happy ending, well so too does it question the
> > assumptions of classic science fantasy: and we cannot understand that
> > questioning unless we understand "what we have learned of these things
> > from fairy-tales."
>  
> You are right about technology as magic, but I don’t think that BotNS maps well onto fairy stories.  Not every story containing magic is a fairy story, or a sword and sorcery tale, or any particular genre of magical tale.  I would see a typical fairy story as largely about personality (albeit often clinically insane personalities).   A dysfunctional family is frequently the main driver of the plot.  Baldanders is not so bad a fit as a fairy tale giant, but I don’t really see too many fairy tale tropes in BotNS. 
>  
> Even the fairies themselves don’t seem evident on Urth, and that is unusual for Wolfe.  You might find fairies or fairy-like beings on Blue, or even on the Whorl - and perhaps they will return to Ushas - but on Urth they have been crushed under the weight of ages.  There are new monsters, but no real fairies or ghosts.  Anything even vaguely close is a consequence of technology or physics.
>  
> - Gerry Quinn
>  
>  
>   
> 
> 
>  
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