(urth) Five Severians - Severian-as-Clone

DAVID STOCKHOFF dstockhoff at verizon.net
Mon Dec 23 12:49:17 PST 2013


"I was thinking rather along the lines that the mausoleum be somehow 
displaced from normal space/time, hence accessible only to one able to go 
such places."


Good point. These questions come to mind: Was Severian able to do this as a child, before the Gyoll incident for example, or the Claw? Is he able to go sideways as well as forward/backward? Do such time-places exist in BNS?

"My impression is that it serves some thematic or decorative, rather than 
plot, purpose."

I agree. We just need to be able to figure out what is meant by it, which suggests its meaning should be pretty clear or else the symbol is wasted. It doesn't, by itself, demand five Severians, or predestination, or time travel, but in the light of 5HC and later clues, those things become definite and ought to be sufficient to solve the puzzle. 





On Monday, December 23, 2013 2:43 PM, António Pedro Marques <entonio at gmail.com> wrote:
 
David Stockhoff wrote (20-12-2013 13:19):
>>
>> On 12/19/2013 11:39 PM, António Pedro Marques wrote:
>>> No dia 19/12/2013, às 13:47, David Stockhoff<dstockhoff at verizon.net>  escreveu:
>>>
>>>> But where the Atrium is reached by traveling through an underworld, increasing the sense of temporal isolation, the mausoleum is a place Severian visits almost daily that seems well connected to the world by seasons and wildlife. It has a mood of sleepy stasis to it, but then it's Severian's "spirit home" in a way, where he has nothing to do but watch and wait. And of course he remembers everything he ever saw there.
>>>>
>>>> The necropolis is after all guarded, though we see how poorly against a determined attack.
>>> Yet, am I mistaken or no one else, besides Sev, ever drops by the mausoleum? Does any other character show any sign of knowing that the place even exists?
>>>
>>>
>>
>> I don't think so, but that is after all part of the attraction. There is
>> certainly a subtext going on, but it's already been identified, more or less.
>>
>> Since he uses no special "key" (i.e., no secret passage or spell or trick)
>> to get in, if only he has access then he himself is the key, which would
>> make Severian himself as magical as the hidden mausoleum. It's possible that
>> only he can see it, but
>> (a) there's no indication of or ready explanation for this, nor does
>> anything like it ever happen again (though he is often visited by people no
>> one else sees, but then he is always alone when this happens)
>> (b) the wildlife find it easily enough
>> (c) the Necropolis is a vast, ruined place where no one goes except
>> apprentices, grave robbers, and funeral parties.
>> Finally, there would be no purpose to it. The *plot *doesn't need Severian
>> there alive, nor does it need the mausoleum to be a secret. We don't know
>> how dead Severians get there anyway (or live clones get in or out) and this
>> theory doesn't explain that.
>
>I was thinking rather along the lines that the mausoleum be somehow 
>displaced from normal space/time, hence accessible only to one able to go 
>such places.
>
>> Again, all Severians could be eidolons with no real physical limitations.
>> But then the mausoleum itself becomes merely the dream of a ghost, and
>> doesn't need time dislocation to rationalize its minor features.
>>
>> Another point that just occurred to me. We do need to follow Occam's Razor.
>
>Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha!
>
>> Therefore,
>> ---Any theory that proposes something as complicated as, say, a laboratory
>> hidden in time that has cloning and mind-control technology and that grows
>> and programs cloned puppets to insert them into manipulated time streams is
>> just too complicated.
>> ---A coffin-corpse mausoleum theory only needs to explain how corpses get
>> in. A clone-storage mausoleum theory needs to explain not only how they got
>> in, but how they will get out. And besides, any mechanism that could do both
>> probably would not need clone storage in the first place.
>
>Bingo.
>
>My impression is that it serves some thematic or decorative, rather than 
>plot, purpose.
>
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