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<pre wrap="">And to pick up another thread, I think it's helpful to view TBotNS's cosmology from a faerie or Greek perspective. Severian need not be related to the undines, but that's one way of explaining why he does indeed seem to have a water-sprite connection.
My assumption has always been that the undines, Abaia, Baldanders, and Idas were all the same race but different ages, and Abaia is merely an ancient, huge, undersea humanoid. Which is the same as saying he is Poseidon and the undines are his nymphs---but with a rational explanation.
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Message: 5
Date: Mon, 08 Dec 2008 23:13:15 -0600
From: Jeff Wilson <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E"
href="mailto:jwilson@io.com"><jwilson@io.com></a>
Subject: Re: (urth) Abaia and the undines
To: The Urth Mailing List <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E"
href="mailto:urth@lists.urth.net"><urth@lists.urth.net></a>
Message-ID: <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E"
href="mailto:493DFE6B.6040800@io.com"><493DFE6B.6040800@io.com></a>
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Thomas Bitterman wrote:
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap=""><span class="moz-txt-citetags">> </span>On Fri, Dec 5, 2008 at 6:12 PM, David Stockhoff <<a
class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:dstockhoff@verizon.net">dstockhoff@verizon.net</a>
<span class="moz-txt-citetags">> </span><a
class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:dstockhoff@verizon.net"><mailto:dstockhoff@verizon.net></a>> wrote:
<span class="moz-txt-citetags">> </span>
<span class="moz-txt-citetags">> </span> I don't recall reading anything about the origin of Abaia and the
<span class="moz-txt-citetags">> </span> undines. Does anyone "know" or care to guess?
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap=""><!---->
Abaia could be an enormous, ageless leviathan grown from some earlier
epoch's premiere thaumaturgist, like Baldanders begins to be during
Severian's reign, or it could be something else but still seems to
include gigantified beings descended of human stock among its "undine"
henchmen.
My pet theory is that Ouen's side of the family has undines in the
driftwoodpile; this explains several mysteries of the book: Dorcas'
awakening when buried underwater, where Severian's sister is (she's
Jolenta), Severian's unfailing ability to survive water when his other
powers are hit and miss, the ambiguous agression of the undines against
the New Sun (they want to turn Severian instead of "wasting" an
irreplaceable double agent, they "save" him from Gyoll instead of
letting him stay tangled long enough to make it obvious he's an
undine-bred), and so forth.
<div class="moz-txt-sig">--
Jeff Wilson - <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated"
href="mailto:jwilson@io.com">jwilson@io.com</a>
<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="http://www.io.com/%7Ejwilson">< http://www.io.com/~jwilson ></a>
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