(urth) Pike/Oreb

[Jerry Friedman]

> From: James Wynn <crushtv at gmail.com>
> On 11/1/2011 5:47 PM, Jerry Friedman wrote:
>> For instance, is it connected with Severian's mistaking the astral Silk 
> for Master Malrubius?  We can take Severian to be a son or clone of Patera P., 
> but such a relationship with Master M. is a bit much for me.
> 
> For me, it is difficult to get around the explanation that Silk and Pike are 
> brother clones.
> The clincher for me is Silk's two-page struggle with why he called Blood 
> "son" even though THAT WAS WHAT HE WAS TRAINED TO DO.

I read that passage quite differently from you.  What's your evidence for a
"struggle"?

I'd think it more accurate to say that he thing that Silk tries to explain to
himself is why he said "sir", not why he said "my son".  In fact, he seems to
have been trained or to have worked out ways to address older or higher-status
men more respectfully than "my son".  The reason he comes up with for his
switch makes sense.  If we think he's hiding another reason from himself, one
possibility is that he switched from "sir" to "my son" after he went from begging
to doing an augur's job of explaining something about the Outsider to a layperson.
He might hide this from himself because it might feel like sinful pride to him.  I
don't see any hint that he unconsciously sees Blood as something like his son
in a physical sense or that Wolfe is inventing this to give us such a clue.

And what about Severian's mistaking Silk's astral appearance for Master
Malrubius's ghost?  There's no doubt about that, I take it.  I'd think that gets
priority as something needing explanation, and that the explanation for it
might shed some light on Silk's mistaking his future astral self for Patera
Pike.

Incidentally, there's a possible discrepancy in the theory that Pike's ghost is
Silk's future astral self.  The only description of Oreb's astral appearance I
could find is as a fat bird up to Silkhorn's belt (RttW, Ch. 17).  The young Silk
would hardly call that "Oreb" without further comment.  I suppose one could
say that Oreb was big to contain the version of Scylla, and that after she was
removed from him, he would have looked like his normal self.  However, Hoof
goes along on that expedition, when Cilinia is separate from Oreb, and doesn't
comment on any change in Silk, unless I'm missing something.

Jerry Friedman