(urth) Agia's Weapons

[Lee Berman]

>Jerry Friedman: Does he (Wright) ever get specific about any examples of manipulation, 
>beside the obvious ones (direct appearances of BF&O, the aquastors, and the Yesodim)?  
 
I think those are sufficient for him. There are certain weirdnesses in all those encounters. My
approach to Wolfe is different than Wright so I don't study him too intensely. As an atheist,
Wright's secular interpretation makes the books work for him, but I don't think that's how a
Catholic person like Wolfe sees his own work. And I am more interested in Wolfe's view.
 

>Yes, but can we even tell which (encounters) he's (Severian) maneuvered into and which ones 
>he isn't?
 
Perhaps not, and perhaps we are not meant to. I often think the solutions to BotNS mysteries 
are built assymptotically. Severian's meeting with Rudesind is openly revealed as contrived.
The Stone Town meeting with the Cumaean seems very contrived. I think the chance meeting with 
Dorcas, her husband and Hildegrin in the same spot seems quite contrived. The meeting with 
Ceryx seems rather contrived, Miles less contrived and so on. Each one less clearly contrived. 
Perhaps the least contrived resurrection encounter is Triskele? The healing in the jacal?
 
Likewise for Severian's family. Though we are not directly told, Dorcas and Ouen are most clearly
meant to be his kin. Catherine a bit less clear. Others like Jolenta (or Merryn), Agia, cyriaca,
etc. are less and less clear.
 
Might as well throw Father Inire in there. The cowled servitor seems his mostly likely appearance.
The jungle shaman a bit less so, Isangoma a bit less, etc. etc. I find a similar pattern in 
the appearances of Catherine. (Katharine maid is primary, then Contessa Carina, crying woman on the
Path of Air, woman in the coffin, etc.)
 
This assymptotic pattern is repeated often enough that I think it is intentional by Wolfe. He wants 
there to be progressively more difficult solutions to figure out but he doesn't want there to be any 
complete and final answers to his mysteries. By this principle, Wolfe himself does not know where the 
line should be drawn between likely solutions and red herrings or reader invented speculation.

>But how does it serve their plan?  They're putting corpses in Severian's way, in various circumstances, 
>and standing by to observe somehow, whether he knows it or not?
 
I don't know and perhaps neither does Wolfe. It is pagan gods and the occult that we are dealing with 
and, by definition, we don't know how they work. There are many clues to this but I think the best one 
is Severian's encounter with the Old Leech. He is from Nessus and says he has travelled to the middle of 
the jungle because hopes to learn things that one cannot learn anywhere else. Not even by eating the brain 
of any great scientist in history. We are not told what knowledge he seeks, but SURELY we are meant to 
figure it out.
 
What is it that can be found in that jungle that exists nowhere else on Urth? I say it is Severian. What
makes Severian unique among Urthlings? Healing and resurrection power. 
 
Severian fears the Old Leech's methods of gaining knowledge involve the torture of children (shades of 
Baldanders). I find the Old Leech's pedophillic tendencies to be complementary to Father Inire's fascination 
with young women (not to mention Dionysus/Pan ;- ).