<br>David Said:<br><It's also not clear exactly how the Conciliator myth influences events,
although that's something that can be understood broadly.><br><br>1. Well, for one, Severian would never have been born. His mother was with the Pellerines, who would not have existed if it weren't for Severian becoming the Conciliator. I think it's clear Sev's mother ran away from the Pellerines, and again, they wouldn't exist without a succesfull Severian.<br>
<br>2. The Conciliator and the Guild: Well, the guild was ruled by a woman when Sev met up with them as Concilliator. He killed the woman, and seems to have initiated the time of male only membership in the Guild. His actions led to the destruction of part of the wall of the citadel and the leaning of the witchtower. Maybe that isnt' part of the intractibility, but it shows that Severian BEFORE HE DROWNED THE FIRST TIME, and thus apparently before the first muddling with his timeline, had effected tha past by having the wall blown up and the witchtower leaning, which shows that when he was born, he had already suceeded as the New Sun.<br>
<br>3. If he hadn't already succeeded, then Ymar wouldn't have been Autarch and as such the world Severian would have inhabited if he HADN'T come back as Concliliator wouldn't have existed as it did, or even close.<br>
<br><br>You can argue, I guess, that other events could have happened that would have tangentially made all of these other events occur: Maybe his mother was imprisoned another way, or maybe Ymar would have decided to become ruler after all, and Typhon would have been taken down without the need of a myth of a Concliliator to rally his foes around. Maybe Ymar would have come up with the idea of Autarchy, or taking the throne. Maybe the guild did continue to exist, and was ruled by women, or that women continuted to be a part, but Severians life was similar enough to come into being anyway, or that women left the guild for some other reason. I think you have to come up with a pretty much infinite number of if's in that case though, and the case for an unsuccesful, 'tractable' Severian then becomes waaaaaay more improbable in my mind, based on the facts we know, then an Intractible one.<br>
<br><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Sat, Dec 20, 2008 at 11:57 AM, David Stockhoff <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:dstockhoff@verizon.net">dstockhoff@verizon.net</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
The significance of Apu Punchau is a mystery to me. I find it hard to believe that he's related to the Commonwealth state religion. <br>
It's also not clear exactly how the Conciliator myth influences events, although that's something that can be understood broadly. <br>
But you're right about the Guild, whatever form it took---still, if it already existed, then Severian's presence would not have changed things significantly. Unless we knew exactly what changed---and we don't. Other than the color of their cloaks.<br>
<br>
Does Severian ever hint that the Guild even remembers its role as the Conciliator's "hosts"? (I can't help but think of the Guild as resembling a "sons of the Revolution" type organization that claims descent from the soldier who stabbed Christ in the thigh---that the Guild might be aware of the necessary role it played the way Pontius Pilate had a necessary role: not an glorious one, but a necessary one and therefore in its way honorable.)<br>
<br>
If none of these 3 things was necessary to Severian's passing the test at Yesod, then the time loop can't be intractable.<br>
<br>
However, the loop does seem intended to suggest something important about Ymar and Severian---the first and the last Autarchs, and the first and last to be tested. But what?<br>
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Message: 3<br>
Date: Sat, 20 Dec 2008 19:08:35 +0000<br>
From: "Son of Witz" <<a href="mailto:sonofwitz@butcherbaker.org" target="_blank">sonofwitz@butcherbaker.org</a>><br>
Subject: Re: (urth) Particolored Brocade<br>
To: "The Urth Mailing List" <<a href="mailto:urth@lists.urth.net" target="_blank">urth@lists.urth.net</a>><br>
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<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
>-----Original Message-----<br>
>From: David Stockhoff [mailto:<a href="mailto:dstockhoff@verizon.net" target="_blank">dstockhoff@verizon.net</a>]<br>
>Sent: Saturday, December 20, 2008 09:35 AM<br>
>To: <a href="mailto:urth@lists.urth.net" target="_blank">urth@lists.urth.net</a><br>
>Subject: Re: (urth) Particolored Brocade<br>
</blockquote>
The Guild may have already existed under Typhon, however. At least, an office existed that carried out torture for the monarch. But it uses a "strange uniform" rather than fuligin and may not use the term "journeyman." (Severian is vague on that point.) They are clearly not military but another branch, but are closer to being military than in Severian's time: "another journeyman with a vouge, looking almost like a soldier." So that's several points on which Severian created his own legend.<br>
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The circularity of myth here is what leads me to consider the timeloop paradox as intractable. There can't be a Severian who doesn't become New Sun and then Conciliator, because there most likely wouldn't have been a Guild to nurture him or a Conciliator to inspire him, and perhaps much of Civilization would have been different without Apu Punchau. Who knows though?<br>
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