(urth) do the Hierogrammates *care* about the megatherians?

[Jerry Friedman]

> From: James Wynn <crushtv at gmail.com>
> 
> Gerry,
> 
> I think your responses to Lee's points were argumentative without touching on 
>the point he is making.
 
Quite different from my impression.
 
> >> To go with Gerry's scenario I'd have to also accept that the number of the 
>"Group of 17"
> >> is a coincidence. Also that Cadroe of the 17 Stones, the black bean story 
>etc. are
> >> unrelated.
> > 
> > I don't see this as problematic.  We don;t know much about the Group of 
>Seventeen, but we know where they live, or lived:
> > "Where the Group of Seventeen sit, there final justice is done."
> > [trans.]"He went to the capital and complained of the way he had been 
>treated."
> > So, they weren't sea monsters - they lived on land (and presumably were 
>human).  They also make statements, which the sea monsters aren't usually prone 
>to.  And also, IIRC, only one particular sea monster controls Ascia.

My favorite speculation--I forget who came up with it--is that the seventeen 
megatherians are the seventeen beastly people who founded the government of 
Ascia.  The "Group of Seventeen" would refer to them or to the "present" group 
that rules Ascia, maybe having the same number by tradition.  As the Ascians are 
the "slaves of Abaia" (if I remember correctly), maybe they took or were given 
the name "megatherians" because Abaia is a "great beast".  


If we're crediting Wolfe with significance in every detail, then he uses "ther" 
in the names of mammals.  Thus Abaia would be a megather, not a megatherian.  
"Megatherian" could well be an adherent of the Great Beast Abaia, though.

As Gerry pointed out, the idea that Blaithmaic's megatherians are Erebus & Co. 
runs into the question of what kind of lives they have that someone could write 
about and how Blaithmaic could claim to know them.  B.'s title also suggests 
that those lives are over; "Life of So-and-So" is usually about a dead person.  
These points are no problem if the megatherians are the founders of Ascia.

Incidentally, here's a post by Robert Borski mentioning Michael Andre-Driussi 
speculated that Wolfe chose 17 for the Group because the Politburo typically had 
17 members.  (I'm AWB, or I'd just refer to LU.)

http://www.urth.net/urth/archives/v0024/0090.shtml

I suspect you and Lee will agree with much more in it than I do.

> > Cadroe of the 17 Stones is someone who comes to fight at the Sanguinary 
>Fields.  Not a sea monster, obviously. And there seems no reasonable association 
>with the Group of Seventeen.  What kind of relationship do you envisage for 
>Cadroe?
> 
> The point is: Why are there 17? Why did the Ascians choose to have 17 members 
>of their leadership council?

We don't know that they chose that number.  The Romans didn't choose to be ruled 
by triumvirates--groups of three leaders gained power.

> Why 17 stones?

Because of the 17 Houses of the Cycle? :-)

> Lee proposed a unified origin for the number 17 being significant to 
Urthlings.

But not one in which Cadroe's demesne is any kind of evidence for one 
explanation or another.

> >> And that Wolfe labelling Abaia as "Great Beast" has nothing to do with the
> >> literal translation of Megatherian.
> > 
> > Megatherian = a large extinct ground sloth.  Doesn't tell us much IMO.  And 
>surely any gigantic evil-intentioned sea monster might reasonably be called 
>"Great Beast".  While I don't see him being called "Ground Sloth"!
> 
> "megathere" means literally "great [as in giant] beast [especially wild]". It's 
>association with a giant ground sloth is incidental just as "onegar's" relation 
>to horses is incidental.
> http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/megathere

I agree that "megatherian" is supposed to be connected with some kind of great 
beast, but not ground sloths.

When I first read Blaithmaic's title, I thought it was the life histories of 
17 huge animal species--baluchithers, arsinoithers, etc.  That was before people 
here pointed out that they had the same number as the rulers of Ascia.

> >> Moreover, RttW suggests
> >> the sea monsters were well established in Severian's boyhood and I'm 
>inclined to think their
> >> growth required something close to the 1000 year post-Typhon history of 
>Urth.
> > 
> > I agree.  But surely this again suggests that Cadroe and the Group of 
>Seventeen have nothing to do with them?
> > Also: you haven't explained why nobody in the books refers to them as 
>megatherians any more!
> 
> ? You mean no one besides the Ascians, right?

The Ascians call the sea monsters megatherians?

> Who else do you think fits the designation of Giant Beast? It's fine to say 
>that that the term could *not* refer to Abaia and Co. (might refer to some 
>entirely unidentified company), but what reason would you have for actively 
>disbelieving it?

What reason would you have for feeling certain it's true?

I like the speculation that the megatherians are the Ascian Founding Parents, 
but I wouldn't use the word to refer to them as if it were a fact that I 
expected everyone to recognize.  I think the speculation that the megatherians 
are Abaia and the rest is less plausible.

> > So - while it is interesting that the number 17 is used three times, the 
>contexts seem to be quite different (the megatherians *might* have been the 
>Group of Seventeen, but I am inclined to doubt it).

Oh, well.

> > If Wolfe mreant them to be identified, I think he'd have at least made it 
>more plausible that they are the same kinds of people/things.  And he'd have 
>made them ALL fit, whereas it's quite hard to imagine that Cadroe's stones are 
>actually the Group of Seventeen.
> 
> This belies every thing we know about many many vague references in the Book of 
>the New Sun. Why at this point you think Wolfe should be expected to make any 
>particular reference clear, detailed, and enumerated, I can' imagine.

Now this I agree with to some extent, though it ignores Gerry's excellent point 
about Cadroe's stones.

Jerry Friedman