(urth) Mystery of Ascia/Agia

[Gerry Quinn]

I don't read Severian's comment that the Ascians all looked similar as indicating that they were a race not seen in the Commonwealth - I think he means the empty eyes again.  

The "Ascian" moniker may possibly include a pun on Asia, which could refer either to the conformity typically observed under totalitarian communist regimes, or the relatively higher value placed on conformity as opposed to individualism in many Asian cultures compared to those of the West.  I don't think it is likely to go any further than that, though.

I would be hesitant to draw a link between the cultures of Severian's Urth and historical cultures, including the cultures which 'abandoned their wildness' , which is probably a legend and symbolic rather than 'historical', and which also strikes me as applying to Urth in general rather than certain races of Urth.

Kim Lee Soong is a Korean name, but 'Fortunate Cloud' is not the name an Ascian captain would choose, and Jonas does not appear to be acculturated (or programmed!) to live within such a culture.  Also note that there are two Koreas, and Wolfe fought with one against the other.

- Gerry Quinn


  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Son of Witz 
  On Jan 20, 2011, at 4:41 PM, "Gerry Quinn" <gerryq at indigo.ie> wrote:

  From: Son of Witz 
      So, if my theory is right, that the culture of Kim Lee Soong was asian, and this culture is the humanity that spread into the universe with war, and that this culture still survives in Ascia, it makes perfect sense to think that "asian" is a much more likely source "soulless.".
    Here's the thing: the only thing Severian notices about him [Seventeen] are his haircut and his empty eyes.  That doesn't sound like Ascians are racially very different from the folks in the Commonwealth.


  "I think I must have cut down half a dozen Ascians before I saw that they all looked the same—not that they all had the same face (as the men in some units of our own army do, who are indeed closer than brothers), but that the differences among them seemed accidental and trivial."


  -seems, to me, to suggest that Severian is encountering an unfamiliar race, as he seems to be having a very common quasi-xenohobic feeling, upon first encounter, that "they all look alike"


  I'm happy to be wrong here, but I'm not convinced by the counter arguments.
  There IS a distinct lack of strangely tilted or elongated eyes.  This makes a connection to Agia really weak indeed.


  Re: north, I'm talking about an asian dominated North America, not the Asian continent.  Even if those North American Ascian's lose the distinctive eyes, they can still be descendants of asians, according to your argument. 


  To me it seems obvious to connect the Kim Lee Soong era with the humanity that traded it's wild side.  This absolutely ties in with what we know about Ascian philosophy.  It seems an obvious connection.  Does anyone deny Kim Lee Soong is an asian name?  Why would Wolfe, who does A LOT of intentional linking of phonetically similar names, use the word Ascian for what are essentially a communist metaphor?  This is a man who was in firefights with asians.  Surely he saw that this association would be made. Maybe he had to get it out of his system but later felt a bit squeamish later when possibly accused of insensitivity.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.urth.net/pipermail/urth-urth.net/attachments/20110121/7274f98e/attachment-0004.htm>