(urth) Sev's family tree/gender bender

[Son of Witz]

On Jan 31, 2011, at 8:04 PM, Lee Berman <severiansola at hotmail.com> wrote:

> 
>> Gerry Quinn- Lucky the alzabo didn't get him.  It would have become the terror 
>> of the countryside, wandering around telling stories about Fechin for hours to its 
>> victims, until in despair they threw themselves into its jaws...
> 
> Heh, that's pretty funny!
> 

LOL


> Was just rereading that Casdoe section. An interesting quote supporting my Agia=assassin 
> guess, requiring mistaken gender:
> 
>> "Women and tailors hold the blade beneath the hand, according to the proverb, but 
>> Agia stabbed up to open the tripes and catch the heart from below, like an accomplished 
>> assassin."
> 


It provides a possible link to your Agia= Assasin of Valeria theory,  By linking her to the term assasin.  For me, it doesn't overcome the idea that he would have to not recognize her when she is in drag, but it does strenghten your idea.

> 
> Also regarding gender misidentification- the old person starts his/her Fechin story with:
> 
>> "His face wasn't a monkey's face at all [apparently someone thought it was]. Fechin was
>> handsome--the handsomest around. he could always get food or money froma  woman. He could
>> get anything from women....
> 
>> I had a piece of paper the schoolmaster had given me. Real paper....
> 
>> But Fechin loved to draw, and while we walked I thought about that, and how his face would
>> look if he had paper to make a picture he could keep....Fechin didn't know I had it, but I
>> took it out and showed it to him, and tore it in two....
> 
> ..and the light of it [the sun] on Fechin's face was more than I could stand. It made my eyes
> water"
> 
> 
> The attraction the old person has for Fechin's face doesn't seem very masculine to me, unless 
> in a homosexual way. But Fechin can get anything from women, even a precious piece of real paper.
> The old person being a woman explains a lot of this for me.


I don't see attraction. admiration, sure.
Any boy in a group ought to know who is the handsomest around without being attracted to him.  He will be the one getting all the play.  Maybe "the light of the sun" on his face, nearly making him cry is the crux, but isn't there an excised section that talks about how the light that day seemed like the New Sun's?  That would be enough to sensitize him on it's own, I think.
I'm not denying that it is possible he has some attraction, but it is not the only way to read this passage.  There seems to be nothing here to shift the old man to an old woman.  

Again, there is lots of androgeny in the book, but I see nothing to suggest Severian has discernment issues.  He describes the Autarch as androgynous. I think it's only once he uses "Androgyn" and it is in the context of an admittedly wrong first impression.
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