(urth) Thea's Identity

DAVID STOCKHOFF dstockhoff at verizon.net
Fri Apr 19 08:21:04 PDT 2013






>________________________________
> From: Lee Berman <severiansola at hotmail.com>
>To: "urth at urth.net" <urth at urth.net> 
>Sent: Friday, April 19, 2013 8:45 AM
>Subject: (urth) Thea's Identity
> 
>
>
>>Thomas Bitterman: but is there a passage indicating the servants are derived from 
>>royals? 
>
>In discussing his extinguishing of some exultant families, Master Gurloes suggests 
>that they are the newest of families on Urth. So I don't think so. There may be 
>certain conclusions we can draw from their height, which is stressed so heavily.
>Body size is so important across the whole 12 book Sun series.
>
>
>---I'm not sure the meaning of "newest" is so clear. On Urth, 1000 years could be "new," and probably is. Even 300 or 500. 
>
>
>
>>As another bonus, the Autarch is the "self-ruled", or, more colloquially, "the boss of 
>>himself".  Who actually does what the Autarch tells them?  The servants of the House 
>>Absolute, and the army.  If both the servants and the soldiers are (pretty much) clones, 
>>then he is literally just the boss of himself. It's the type of joke that feels unfunny 
>>in just the right way for Wolfe to have made it.
>
>Yes, as Dan'l suggests is so likely in SF, a metaphor that is literally real. Ultimately
>though, I think we may conclude that the Commonwealth is ruled by Father Inire. His
>letter to Severian starts with flowery flattery of the Autarch's position and self-
>identification as a humble servant. But the letter then goes on to reveal that Inire
>is pretty much running everything and will continue to do so.
>
>
>---Inire rules others, the autarch rules his selves.
>
>
>
>>David Stockhoff: However, I suspect that the autarch is under strict control in 
>>some ways we don't know about.
>
>Agreed, in the same sense that Severian seems to be under special observation
>throughout BotNS, by Malrubius/Triskele, B, F and O, Hethor or monkey-like figures 
>or other mysterious sources. Of course by "monkey-like figures" I am implying 
>Father Inire, and the thread that ties all of those observers together is that they 
>are all cacogens (or at least have a space-faring history). Master Gurloes also
>speaks to myterious sources at the top of their tower, and we must suspect Severian 
>was often a topic. 
>
>Appian hints that he, himself, had a Malrubius figure watching over him when he was 
>younger. Also, Appian knows Severian is to be his successor from their first meeting
>and he even mistakenly thinks the time for succession has come when Severian asks to
>be taken to "the garden".
>
>(Damn, just thought of something- on that request for the garden, Severian is shown a 
>giant winged being in the Autarch's mirror book. The Garden Of Eden was guarded by a 
>cherubim (plural being) angel. Perhaps that's what Wolfe originally had in mind and later 
>in UotNS amended the angel to be the archangel Tzadkiel. Given the Genesis-Edenic imagery
>we are given in Talos' play in the next section, I wonder if we were supposed to make 
>that "Garden" connection. Maybe others did and I missed it?)
>
>
>---I agree that Tzadkiel = cherubim, whenever he wants to be.
>
>We can surmise that the autarchs themselves knew better than to have a child (i.e., they know from past-life experience), but this still only leaves us wondering (1) why the Yesodi test punishment? (2) what about before they become autarch? Is each autarch chosen so carefully that they must be childless? What if an autarch is wounded far from the House, as Appian was, or in some sub-basement with only an unvetted old janitor nearby? Did Severian's puppetmasters take visible steps to ensure he didn't get anyone pregnant? (They certainly didn't stop him from conjugating.) These contradictions don't argue for or against the central-cloning theory, but I wish I could resolve them.
>
>
>
>
>>If we assume that no offspring could do the deed with the knife due to 
>>an inability to obey, maybe the picture changes. But still I'd think no 
>>autarch would want a child.
>
>Good point.
>
>
>>..in fact, it seems that every autarch must have been "unmanned" or else never tried 
>>the test, so Appian's castration might not be an anomaly but part of the system. Are 
>>they not allowed to breed?  *Severian himself did not.*
>
>The text has someone (Tzadkiel maybe?) say that Appian had been the first to brave the
>test since Ymar who was the first autarch. So three taking the test over 1000 years
>seems pretty anomolous. Yet, (IIRC) we don't hear about any dynasties of Autarchs and
>we have the suggestion that succession normally occurs via the suicidal choice of the 
>next "servant of the throne".
>
>
>---True. Nor do we hear about historical sibling rivalries or civil wars, though they may simply be uninteresting. The fact that unmanning the autarch does not break the line or seem to make any difference at all indicates the system is solidly based on non-direct-heredity, as we know. If  Byzantine emperor were unmanned, his family might survive on the throne but would be dealt a severe blow; it's a strange weakness of the Yesodi test system that unmanning an autarch doesn't change anything at all. Again, this is not a feature of the cloning-as-central-to-BNS but of the story itself, so we could set it aside as one of those not-quite-solved mysteries. 
>
>I submit that no autarch ever had any offspring.
>
>However, there could be a way of disposing of autarchial offspring such as hiding them in the House, where servants would keep them safe and ignorant, or dumping them as orphans on a Guild (this was my own theory of Severian's origin before the Internet, at least through the first books), or killing them. Whatever it is should be obvious enough, or have a plain enough Byzantine precedent, that it need not be explained.
>
>
>My guess is that Severian himself not having offspring serves a literary purpose. Some
>of the ancient Greek heroes/demi-gods had children but they weren't very important or
>frequently mentioned in the myths. But since Severian's story is told in first-person
>it might come across as distracting if he had the normal, caring thoughts of a father
>(or callous on his part if he didn't).
>
>I think Silk is left childless for the same reason, but interestingly, SilkHorn does
>end up having children (some actual offspring, others being Inhumi surrogates). And
>these characters do confuse and distract the sense of purpose in Horn's story making 
>him more human than Severian and Silk, which was surely intended.                           
>
>
>---I agree that at some point one must drop the mechanical analysis and let the story be a story. Still, the Byzantines and Ottomans had all sorts of problems with rivals for the throne, despite the brutal methods they used to suppress them. Why not on Urth?
>
>
>
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