<table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" border="0" ><tr><td valign="top" style="font: inherit;">Plausible. <div><br></div><div>Has anyone else thought that the word Wolfe is thinking of when Severian writes about the serpent and sword (some strong allusion right there) "----st" is the word "Christ"?<br><br>--- On <b>Tue, 12/14/10, Jerry Friedman <i><jerry_friedman@yahoo.com></i></b> wrote:<br><blockquote style="border-left: 2px solid rgb(16, 16, 255); margin-left: 5px; padding-left: 5px;"><br>From: Jerry Friedman <jerry_friedman@yahoo.com><br>Subject: Re: (urth) Father Inire: teratoid<br>To: "The Urth Mailing List" <urth@lists.urth.net><br>Date: Tuesday, December 14, 2010, 12:13 PM<br><br><div id="yiv712246150"><style type="text/css"><!--#yiv712246150 DIV {margin:0px;}--></style><div style="font-family:times new roman, new york, times, serif;font-size:12pt;"><div> </div>
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<blockquote style="BORDER-LEFT:rgb(16,16,255) 2px solid;PADDING-LEFT:5px;MARGIN-LEFT:5px;"><br>From: Lee Berman <a rel="nofollow" ymailto="mailto:severiansola@hotmail.com" target="_blank" href="/mc/compose?to=severiansola@hotmail.com">severiansola@hotmail.com</a><br>
<div class="yiv712246150plainMail"><br>...<br>Perhaps I'm being too literal here and should join in with David on the Wolfean joke. But for me, the glyph is in <br>an alien "language". Who is it supposed to warn of danger? Barbatus getting lost in the Secret House? <br>For some reason David continues to dance away from what I see as the clear association here: If mirrors connect to <br>monsters then Father Inire connects to Hethor.<br><br><br>>Son o' Witz- So, of course I'm trying to figure out what this teratoid symbol LOOKS like.<br><br>Heh, me too.</div></blockquote></td></tr></tbody></table></div>
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<div style="FONT-FAMILY:times new roman, new york, times, serif;FONT-SIZE:12pt;">I'd never noticed the irony that when Severian tells us the appearance of the glyph but doesn't know its meaning, and when we wonder what</div>
<div style="FONT-FAMILY:times new roman, new york, times, serif;FONT-SIZE:12pt;">the glyph looks like exactly, "We are like children who look at print and see a serpent in the last letter but one, and a sword in the last."</div>
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<div style="FONT-FAMILY:times new roman, new york, times, serif;FONT-SIZE:12pt;">My theory is that it's the word in Father Inire's native language for "mirrors". As people are saying, since the mirrors can call monsters, it's</div>
<div style="FONT-FAMILY:times new roman, new york, times, serif;FONT-SIZE:12pt;">appropriate that whatever is written there looks monster-like to Severian.</div>
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<div style="FONT-FAMILY:times new roman, new york, times, serif;FONT-SIZE:12pt;">(Sorry if this message is messed up. Yahoo seems to be misbehaving.)</div>
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<div style="FONT-FAMILY:times new roman, new york, times, serif;FONT-SIZE:12pt;">Jerry Friedman</div></div></div><br>
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