(urth) [BGSpam]Re: Typhon's nature

[Jeff Wilson]

On 10/14/2011 7:27 PM, David Stockhoff wrote:
> On 10/14/2011 7:55 PM, Jeff Wilson wrote:
>> On Fri, October 14, 2011 18:28, David Stockhoff wrote:
>>> On 10/14/2011 6:11 PM, Gerry Quinn wrote:
>>>>> I propose that the food Typhon feeds Severian is a ham sandwich. Do
>>>> you
>>>>> concur?
>>>> A kolpochoerus sandwich is another example of something that is
>>>> perfectly plausible,,. but for wich we have no evidence one way or the
>>>> other. All we know is he gave Severian food of some sort. (If I had to
>>>> guess, I?d say something like the ready meals eaten by Silk and
>>>> Mamelta on the lander.)
>>> Are you a machine?
>> When does Typhon give him any food? Doesn't he die before he gets around
>> to it?
> Before he makes him kneel.

I see where Severian sees the food in the translucent wall, but Typhon 
puts off opening it:

> I filled my mouth again and swallowed. "This is enough. Yes, I am very
> hungry."
>
> "Good," he said, and turning away from the windows went to the wall at
> one side of the chamber. When I neared it, I saw that it, at least, was
> not (as I had thought) plain stone. Instead, it seemed a kind of
> crystal, or thick, smoky glass; through it I could see loaves and many
> strange dishes, as still and perfect as food in a painting.
>
> "You have a talisman of power," Typhon told me. "Now you must give it to
> me, so that we can open this cupboard."
>
> "I'm afraid I don't understand what you mean. Do you want my sword?"
>
> "I want the thing you wear at your neck," he said, and stretched out a
> hand for it. I stepped back. "There is no power in it."
>
> "Then you lose nothing. Give it to me." As Typhon spoke, Piaton's head
> moved almost imperceptibly from side to side. "It is only a curio," I
> said. "Once I thought it had great power, but when I tried to revive a
> beautiful woman who was dying, it had no effect, and yesterday it could
> not restore the boy who traveled with me. How did you know of it?"
>
> "I was watching you, of course. I climbed high enough to see you well.
> When my ring killed the child and you went to him, I saw the sacred
> fire. You don't have to actually put it in my hand if you don't want
> to—just do what I tell you."
>
> "You could have warned us, then," I said. "Why should I? At that time
> you were nothing to me. Do you want to eat or not?"
>
> I took out the gem. After all, Dorcas and Jonas had seen it, and I had
> heard the Pelerines had displayed it in a monstrance on great occasions.
> It lay on my palm like a bit of blue glass, all fire gone.
>
> Typhon leaned over it curiously. "Hardly impressive. Now kneel."
>
> I knelt.

and in the next chapter it is confirmed that he still hasn't eaten  much 
later:

> I hungered no longer, for hunger is a thing that passes if one does not
> eat. Weakness came instead, bringing with it a pristine clarity of mind.
> Then, in the evening of the second day after I had climbed from the
> pupil of the right eye, I came upon a shepherd's bothy, a sort of
> beehive of stone, and found in it a cooking pot and a quantity of ground
> corn.


-- 
Jeff Wilson - jwilson at clueland.com
Computational Intelligence Laboratory - Texas A&M Texarkana
< http://www.tamut.edu/CIL >