(urth) Wolfe's brilliance or my denseness?

[Sergei SOLOVIEV]

Dear Nathan,

I think, yes, it is valid inference. As far as I remember, something is said
on this subject later, not only by Hierodules - and there is also 
healing of Triskele -
and in the 5-th book Severian travels to the deep past, as Apu-Punchau,
and he is connected there already with his White Fountain -

Sergei

Nathan C. Tresch wrote:
> A question arising from Jerry's post...
>
> Later in the series the Hierodules inform Severian that the claw is 
> actually just a gem with no special powers, so from that I inferred 
> that Severian was already connected to the coming of the new sun and 
> the power he had was not connected to the claw at all.  Does this seem 
> like a valid inference?
>
> On Sun, May 22, 2011 at 5:31 AM, Sergei SOLOVIEV <soloviev at irit.fr 
> <mailto:soloviev at irit.fr>> wrote:
>
>     I noticed that Cas and Dorcas means the same person at the first
>     reading,
>     but of course I didn't guess that she is the grandmother of
>     Severian until
>     the end of the 4-th book.
>
>     - Did you realize what Hildegrin is doing at this lake?
>
>     - At some point I noticed that the Lake of Birds reminds very much
>     the Dante's Inferno
>     filled by water, there is even a hint that something can penetrate
>     into it from the other
>     side of Urth (the Hell in Dante's poem is connected by a channel
>     to the opposite side
>     of the Earth where the mountain of Purgatory stands). There is
>     also the
>     cave of the Cumaean. The space-time in Botanic Gardens is twisted
>     (remember
>     Jungle Garden - there the path is apparently going through time as
>     well).
>
>     best
>
>     Sergei Soloviev
>
>     Jason H wrote:
>
>         Did you know "Cas" was Dorcas right away?
>
>         I didn't. When I read these books the first time, I didn't
>         realize that Dorcas had been one of the lake's dead until it
>         was spelled out in the third book, and didn't realize she was
>         the sought-after Cas until the fourth book. I read these books
>         pretty carefully-- I knew the towers were rockets right away,
>         I picked up on little inconsistencies in the narrative... but
>         I missed this connection completely.
>
>         In retrospect, it's totally obvious! The chapter in Shadow is
>         called "Dorcas", for heaven's sake, and we're told someone is
>         looking for a "Cas", and then a mysterious Dorcas appears. How
>         can I not have immediately realized who she was? Of course,
>         the first time through, we don't even know he has the Claw on
>         him (let alone what it can do), and it's perhaps unintuitive
>         to mentally pair the old man with the young Dorcas.
>
>         So I'm really curious to know whether I was just being dense,
>         or whether Wolfe was being particularly brilliant-- and
>         audacious-- by setting up a connection which he somehow knew
>         people wouldn't make right away, despite its obviousness later on.
>
>         I'm therefore curious to know: Was this obvious to you back in
>         Shadow as soon as Dorcas appeared?
>
>
>         -Jason
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