(urth) Urth-Earth links

[Gerry Quinn]

From: Lee Berman 


>Gerry QUinn: 
> > Also, Baldanders needed no mermaid’s kiss.  When Severian 
> >shares a room with him, he notices the strange scars on his neck.  Baldanders 
> >knows he will have to move to the water at some point in the near future (even 
> >now he can only get about on land with the aid of an antigravity belt), and has 
> >already equipped himself with gills.

 
> What dreams does sleeping next to Baldanders inspire in Severian? What is the 
> name of the lake Baldanders lives next to? WHat is the name of the town of the 
> lakemen who are subservient to Baldanders?

He dreams of the undines, and they show him his future, in which he fights Baldanders.  The lake is called after Juturna, certainly, and I can’t remember the name of the village.  But I do recall, I think, Juturna saying elsewhere that they watch Baldanders, because he has something in common wirth them.  He is, of course, doing by his own technological means the equivalent of what the undersea monsters have done by unknown means.  There should be no surprises that certain linkages are made.

As for the mermaid’s kiss, the fact remains that Baldanders doesn’t need it.  How the kiss would have worked, I don’t know – perhaps Juturna’s saliva contains nanomachines that would have restructured Severian’s body for underwater living, or perhaps Wolfe would have been content to leave the matter unexplained.   But Baldanders already has his gills, hidden in plain sight by Wolfe as he likes to do.

 
> I think the text gives us plenty of hints that Baldanders' association with undines
> (and Abaia) starts before the time we and Severian meet him. Moreover his dependence
> on B, F and O for technology should make us question how capable he is of equipping
> himself with gills. (the "kelpie" watery origin of B and F should also give us pause 
> for thought)      

If I am correct and the undines are “watching” Baldanders, then he has no real direct association with them.  Instead, he gets technology from other sources – including the Hieros - and from his own research.  The Hieros would not engage in technology transfer to the ignorant.  He has already apparently created Dr. Talos, as well as a monstrous child to slake his lust or provide spare parts, or both - so a set of gills would not seem too much of a stretch.

- Gerry Quinn
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