(urth) Five Severians - Severian-as-clone

[Jeffery Wilson]

On 12/20/2013 11:32 AM, Paul Watson wrote:
> The other theory is that - since mausolea were typically tombs for
> deceased leaders of importance, then the mausoleum is built for the
> bodies of those brave autarchs who chose to face the test on Yesod. Two
> coffins are open and unoccupied (Severian's and the current Autarch)
> because those two are still alive. Ymar was the last autarch before the
> current one to be tested, so his body is in one of the closed coffins,
> leaving two other Autarchs prior to Ymar who were tested and failed in
> the other 2 closed coffins.

I'd always presumed that Ymar was the first autarch, since he was 
present at the end of Typhon's reign, but I just went over all mentions 
of his name in volumes I-V and it's not specified that he's the first 
autarch, just the first one given by name. In fact, Sev claims there are 
mental predecessors extending back into the Age of Myth, leading me to 
wonder what that could possibly mean since it's before the likely advent 
of the alzabo.


But while the mausoleum might have been inserted to symbolize the 
succession (which does definitely end with Sev in the same flood that 
slams the mausoleum door closed), I don't think anyone in the 
Commonwealth would have literally built it with respect for the persons 
of deceased Autarchs in mind, considering it's kind of chintzy for the 
numerous untried ones to get their own Rushmores just the same.

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