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<DIV style="font-color: black"><B>From:</B> <A title=severiansola@hotmail.com
href="mailto:severiansola@hotmail.com">Lee Berman</A> </DIV></DIV></DIV>
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style="FONT-STYLE: normal; DISPLAY: inline; FONT-FAMILY: 'Calibri'; COLOR: #000000; FONT-SIZE: small; FONT-WEIGHT: normal; TEXT-DECORATION: none"><BR>>
Ryan, we've discussed the issue of whether Severian is actively lying or is
truly ignorant<BR>> about some issues that we readers can discern about him
and his life. I think there is one<BR>> thing Severian is in true self-denial
about, so much so that it becomes almost equally <BR>> difficult for us as
readers to believe it. That thing is: SEVERIAN IS IMMORTAL. <BR>> (and
yes, that implies he is a god).</DIV>
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<DIV>He certainly becomes effectively immortal - or at least he regenerates,
like Doctor Who. He becomes the Conciliator – I wouldn’t call the
Conciliator a god as such, but he certainly has godlike aspects.</DIV>
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<DIV>I wouldn’t say immortality necessarily makes one a god. If it did,
wouldn’t amoebae be gods? That Severian is in denial about his nature may
be tenable but I don’t think we are forced in that direction. He tells us
about his hypothesis that he is the first Severian, and after that he doesn’t
talk much about his nature. Like all such Wolfe heroes, he takes his cue
from Jesus Christ and says things like “So you say” or some other such studious
ambiguity when questioned about the matter. (He is trying to be a
Christian figure!)<BR></DIV>
<DIV><BR>> Someone recently asked about the significance of Severian
pondering his own skull after Urth <BR>> has been flooded to Ushas. I
think it is a Hamlet-Yorick reference of course as Severian<BR>> ponders his
own mortality. But it might also signify that he was able to live after the
flood<BR>> and breathe underwater because he was another eidolon and that
power was within himself, not <BR>> because he finally allowed himself to be
seduced by the mermaid/undine kiss which grants the<BR>> power to breathe
underwater (as Baldanders experienced). </DIV>
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<DIV>If he had lived a life underwater, his skull would have moved, instead of
staying where he drowned!</DIV>
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<DIV>Also, Baldanders needed no mermaid’s kiss. When Severian shares a
room with him, he notices the strange scars on his neck. Baldanders knows
he will have to move to the water at some point in the near future (even now he
can only get about on land with the aid of an antigravity belt), and has already
equipped himself with gills.</DIV>
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<DIV>- Gerry Quinn</DIV>
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