(urth) Five Severians - Severian-as-Clone

[David Stockhoff]

On 12/19/2013 2:17 AM, Jeffery Wilson wrote:
> On 12/18/2013 9:58 PM, David Stockhoff wrote:
>> Yes, I definitely meant that in terms of timestreams/iterations, but it
>> would depend on how you construct the five timelines: Are they
>> simultaneous, sequential, or concurrent? Are they separated by only a
>> few seconds, enough so they are dislocated from one another? Or is that
>> a meaningless question because they are utterly cut off from one another
>> (Severian seems to doubt it)? Yet we know the five coffins are "here,"
>> all at once, all together. There seems nothing magical or technological
>> about the mausoleum; it is merely old and, for Severian, haunted.
>
>  I recall we are told that metal has become rather more precious in 
> Sev's time. The mausoleum may be signified as out of that time by the 
> unstolen funeral bronzes, perhaps similar to Valeria's metal trimmed 
> dress.

Interesting point, and another connection between the two. 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.

>
> > And is our Severian #4 or #5? I am not even sure the Severian of UNS is
> > the same Severian as BNS, or that Severian really did pass the test in
> > UNS. If there was a #5 (and there must be!), he may be only a hair
> > better than #4, so that we as readers of UNS would never know the
> > difference if he replaced #4.
>
> Indeed, that may be the case. Sev completes his BOTNS memoir, departs 
> for Yesod, does not return, and is presumed dead ( and does in fact 
> die) filling coffin #4. The final Sev emerges *from the past* via the 
> Corridors of Time, and instead it is Urth who dies at last, washing 
> away the coffins or sealing them inside, in either case removing them 
> from play.
>
>

Thus, leaving a symbolic open tomb. Excellent.

I could have sworn Severian died in BNS too, but not so definitively as 
when Sidero (I think) kills him. I can't recall the event and I'll have 
to look for it.

At any rate, it always made me wonder if that was really supposed to 
tell us our Severian was never a simple flesh-and-blood, born-of-woman 
person anyway---that he was an eidolon or time-copy all along. Just a 
thought.

Who built the mausoleum? Severian? Typhon? Ymar? Inire? Gene Wolfe? Was 
there ever a family who had those arms---one with actual women and children?