(urth) Father Inire as giant vegetable

[Gerry Quinn]

      From: Marc Aramini 

      > Could be Gerry, in light of Empires of Foliage and Flower where 
      > Father Thyme is like a big time travelling vegetable.  Could be.  
      > You have to watch out for the vegetation, I'm telling you! (I know 
      > you aren't serious but it sneaks up on you and EATS you) 

      That’s included in my theory!  What do you think the Garden of Everlasting Sleep is but the Gardens’ open mouth?  They get so many corpses they don’t mind sharing with the birds and Hildegrin.  And of course the averns also kill manatees.  Manatees (mermaids) are obviously spies and assassins sent by the sea monsters, but the Garden’s averns deal with them easily.

      It’s safe to assume that the Gardens/Inire absorb the memories of those who dissolve in their waters.  And consequently, there’s little doubt that Dorcas, like the boatman, is one of the Gardens’ bud puppets.  There was a real Dorcas once, but the Dorcas Severian meets is a copy.  

      Ah, how wrong I was to discount the vegetable and fish imagery that permeates BotNS, focusing instead on the travails of some pitiful wandering human and his species!  And yet, has Wolfe ever written a single book that does not reference both vegetables and fish?  Even the obvious land and sea references of Blue and Green in Short Sun did not give me a clue, nor the amphibious yet plantlike nature of the inhumi, who are destined finally to unite the two Kingdoms.

      Vegetables versus fish is the key!  All else is just misdirection and playacting.

      - Gerry Quinn



      --- On Tue, 11/8/11, Gerry Quinn <gerry at bindweed.com> wrote:
        Well, since you say I never come up with the sort of ideas you like, here’s the solution to how Father Inire can be lots of people.  Note how there is no actual shapeshifting in the standard sense in BotNS.  Tzadkiel and the sea monsters can bud off small pieces of themselves, but Father Inire is a little guy who certainly couldn’t do that.  So the Father Inire we see must be the bud of some gigantic creature, and once you realise that it’s obvious where he comes from.
        Father Inire is the Botanic Gardens!  We are told repeatedly how he (that is to say the Talos-like ‘bud’ that prowls the corridors of the House Absolute) is associated with them and has placed magics there, arranged the placing of certain parts, grown vicious deadly averns, etc.  And the Botanic Gardens are right in the centre of the Commonwealth, hiding in plain sight.  From there, little humanoid pieces scurry away, becoming artists, spies, and viziers.  Many of the suspicious characters you have noted such as the boatman and Inire himself are associated with the place.  And the Green Man is an obvious clue: this bud for some reason had not completed its disguise when it was captured in Saltus, and deprived of sunlight, it was unable to do so.
        The Gardens battle the sea monsters Abaia, Erebus et al, similarly gigantic creatures living under the sea.  The Wall of Nessus needs no further explanation –  the Gardens ordered its construction for their own protection.
        Needless to say, a flooded but sunny world will be welcomed equally by both vegetables and fish.  So while the Gardens and the sea monsters battle without quarter for the allegiance of mankind, both support Severian in his quest to bring the New Sun.
        I wish I knew something of Gene Wolfe’s food preferences, so I could guess which side he truly supports in the cosmic struggle between vegetables and fish that is at the heart of any sane interpretation of BotNS. 

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