(urth) So Where DID the Guard go?

Andrew Mason andrew.mason53 at googlemail.com
Tue May 6 08:06:31 PDT 2014


David Stockhoff wrote:

>
> After looking at the chapter again . . . my assumption has always been
> that the guard was paid off.
>

I suppose that's actually compatible with the _Short Sun_ explanation; if
Vodalus had paid the guard to leave his post, he might have treated the
arrival of the Rajan and party as a good excuse to do so. (So no actual
change of mind needs to be posited, even though Wolfe wasn't actually
planning _Short Sun_ when he wrote the original scene.)

Gerry Quinn  wrote:

>
> Okay, I'll bite - when and where does it tell us?  I can't think of
> anything
> in _In Green's Jungles_ that references current events on Urth.
>
> There are references in _Return to the Whorl_, and even a visit to the
> Necropolis.  But that must have been later, as Severian already had
> Triskele.
>


IGJ Chapter  21, 'The Red Sun': the Rajan, Fava, Mora, Hide, Rigoglio and
some extras travel to Urth, initially to Rigoglio's old house - from there
they go to the river, and finally end up at the Bear Tower (escorted by a
guard who has left his post), thus setting things up for the Rajan's later
trips to the river and to the Citadel in RTTW. Severian does not appear in
this episode; we have to wait for RTTW to meet him. Some people, though,
when the book first came out, noted the relation of the episode with the
first scene of _New Sun_, and hypothesised that the Rajan has just missed
Severian, a theory confirmed in the next book when they do meet.

>
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