(urth) Father Inire-Hethor

[Jerry Friedman]

> From: Lee Berman <severiansola at hotmail.com>
> Andrew Mason: 
>> I agree that the jungle guide is probably Inire. I don't accept most
>> of the other identifications, because I don't think Inire is a
>> shape-shifter (except, possibly, that he can turn himself into a
>> tiger), so anyone Severian sees full-face can't be him (or, strictly,
>> more than one person can't, see below).
> 
> I can understand this parsimony. An obscured face seems to be one of the
> primary markers of an Inire appearance.
> 
> 
>> Andrew Mason: I do think Isangoma might be Inire.
> 
> Yes, the physical resemblance and the shaman/isangoma names provide a 
> fairly strong connection for me. But doesn't Severian see Isangoma's
> face?
> 
> Anyway, I started out assuming the obscured face was a necessary feature of
> an Inire doppelganger but I had to let it go. I think the various versions
> of this character cannot be identified by one trait but rather by daisy-
> chaining connections of one to the next with no one feature shared by the
> whole.  Thus small, old, bent and House Absolute leads us to the cowled 
> servitor as being Father Inire.  Small, old, bent, obscured face and being 
> a silent guide

(And talking with the Autarch.)

> leads from the cowled servitor to the jungle guide. Dark,
> metallic skin and the shaman/isangoma connection leads us to Isangoma.

To my way of thinking, if "old and bent" is evidence that the servitor and the guide are Inire, it's evidence that Isangoma is not.

> And so on. Where does it end?  I don't know.

I could never resist a challenge.

Severian meets Isangoma, who is naked, in Father Inire's Botanic Gardens.  Same with Severian meeting Dorcas.  She has an attractive slender figure, the female equivalent of Isangoma's "sinewy frame".  Isangoma sees Severian as a tokoloshe, and Dorcas briefly sees him as a vampire.  Isangoma tells a supernatural story that gets interrupted, and Dorcas tells Severian a story of the Conciliator and then can't remember the darker legends.  Isangoma banishes Severian from the hut, and Dorcas banishes him from her life.  Who better to keep an eye on Severian at times and lead him to the right experiences than Dorcas?  And of course, if Severian suspected Dorcas was Inire (or just Isangoma), he'd be reticent about it.

I can also do Isangoma as Severian or Agia, if anyone's interested.

> Regarding shapeshifting, I think it would be more believeable if Father 
> Inire could be identified as being of the same type as Tzadkiel.  I think
> this may be possible.

If he looks like a bent old man and Isangoma, he has to be a shapeshifter (which means he could be Dorcas too).

[Hethor as Tzadkiel-like shapeshifter]
 
> I like this interpretation not only because it invokes a God-Lucifer scenario 
> between  Hethor/Inire and Tzadkiel but also because it jibes
...

Pun on "jiber" intended?

> with the events Severian encounters on the Ship in UotNS.

Jerry Friedman