(urth) Merger

[Gerry Quinn]

  From: Jordon Flato 
  Isn't there a difference in what happens to the 'memories' or 'identities' in Severian as opposed to everyone else, including the Alzabo?  Sev has the power to restore life.  I've always been fairly certain that for Severian, the people he brings into himself are more alive, in a real way, than for any previous Autarch, or certainly and Vodellarii or ingesters of the alembic.  Perhaps this plays a role in why Severian succeeds when Appian fails.  Severian doesn't just have the memories of past lives in him, I think they are really alive in him in a fundamental way, which is new, unique, and unseen in any other instance of ingestion of the Alembic.
Certainly it's different in this regard, but to say this is why Severian succeeded while previous Autarch's failed involves a bit of a time-loop semi-paradox.  The problem is that Severian's power is also the *result* of him succeeding - he has access to the negentropic power of the White Fountain and can turn back time to heal the sick, resurrect the dead etc.

Had a previous Autarch succeeded, he also (or instead) would have had those powers.

It is a standard problem in the theory of time travel - it tends to create events that have no cause, or have more than one cause, or (as in this case) are their own cause.  Of course this does not rule out time travel per se, it just means (as everyone on this list will be aware anyway) that a world in which time travel exists operates differently with regard to causality than the standard thermodynamic model of the universe.  Universes with a creator, which is certainly the case for all literary universes, and perhaps other universes as well, do of course tend to operate in this way.

I'm not arguing that you are incorrect in suggesting that Severian's powers play a role in his success - just pointing out that if so they are effect as much as cause.

- Gerry Quinn
 
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