<html><head></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><br><div><div>On Jul 27, 2010, at 12:49 PM, John Watkins wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; font-family: Helvetica; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-size: medium; "><div>Well, at least you're honest. You'd rather accept that multiple characters with no proven weird abilities are eternal than give up a theory.</div><div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="padding-left: 1ex; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0.8ex; border-left-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-left-width: 1px; border-left-style: solid; ">Why would the next likely autarch be another torturer's apprentice with an errand while Rudesind is on that ladder?<br></blockquote><div>Good Lord, you're literal.</div><div> </div><div>"Hey Rudesind, next time a young man like me comes by while you're on the ladder, please send him to Ultan like you did for me."</div><div> </div><div>means</div><div> </div><div>"Ignore the young man if he's not like me, or if you're not on the ladder--we're both time-travellers and I'm setting up an infinite loop"</div><div> </div><div>rather than</div><div> </div><div>"Thank you. I appreciated it. The thanks I ask is that you keep doing what you did."</div></span></blockquote></div><br><div><br></div><div>I still don't know why that specifically is what Severian would ask? Why not, hey clean up the moon guy, i like that picture. Or, hey, if you see that Racho dweeb, give him a kick in the pants. Or hey, bring me a Fechin, he's good.</div><div><br></div><div>Rudesind's master is Inire, and Inire is a time traveler. And Rudesind is unbelievably ancient, and it seem time acts differently upon him.</div><div><br></div><div>Plus, the time loop thing dovetails in with Severian at the end, standing where Severian the apprentice stood in the Atrium of Time, and re-reading to find out the following...</div><div><br></div><div>"There is really no describing the sensation of being watched. I have heard it called a prickling at the back of the neck, and even a consciousness of eyes that seem to float in darkness, but it is neither - at least, not for me. It is something akin to a sourceless embarrassment, coupled with the feeling that I must not turn around, because to turn will be to appear a fool, answering the promptings of baseless intuition. Eventually, of course, one does. I turned with the vague impression that someone had followed me through the hole at the base of the dial."</div><div><br></div><div>My theory is textually founded, not THAT crazy, is it?</div><div><br></div><div>...ryan</div></body></html>