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Rudesind is a special case. Shortly after fluffing his lines he _says_ he was told to say them. There isn't a mystery there as far as I can see. I don't recall any passage where P…
03 Dec 2010, 22:01
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Jerry Friedman wrote|: Perhaps he was an earlier Autarch. Or perhaps he was the Autarch we know, but before his testing.…
03 Dec 2010, 20:25
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Well, if Dionysus is a prefiguring of Christ, then there are similarities between Christ and Dionysus; the imagery does not become inappropriate just because Christ has come. Perh…
03 Dec 2010, 20:07
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Actually, I was not perturbed at all, because I don't think the error is Wolfe's. As I read it, Silk is remembering a story from the Chrasmologic Writings. The authors of the Writi…
03 Dec 2010, 19:44
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That is not clear if Dionysus is seen as a prefiguring of Christ, as he was by C.S. Lewis (as someone commented here recently) - also, by the way, by Wole Soyinka.…
02 Dec 2010, 22:43
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Is it clear that Horn still sees the Outsider as a minor god? Silk stopped seeing him as one; Horn, as a devotee of Silk, is likely to have done the same. Somewhere in _Long Sun_ …
02 Dec 2010, 22:40
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I don't think there is a place in _New Sun_ where the Increate acts _directly_. However, near the end Barbatus claims that Severian's power to recall the dead - in the same body, …
02 Dec 2010, 18:14
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That is a fallacy, without question. However, I remain unconvinced that anyone here is doing it. If someone were to argue 'Wright has such and such motives; therefore he is wrong',…
02 Dec 2010, 14:50
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If I understand this discussion correctly, no one is proposing to analyse an argument by the supposed motives of the arguer. What is happening is that people, having decided, by w…
01 Dec 2010, 22:12
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More from my reading of BOTLS. First just a titbit, showing how nicely Wolfe interweaves things; while Silk is at Blood's house, he hears a band playing 'Brave Guards of the Third…
30 Nov 2010, 20:20
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Lee Berman wrote: > I have heard of this theory, but it seems very hard to believe, given that we know Typhon's doubled body part was artificial. I think Blue is the home planet …
30 Nov 2010, 19:36
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I agree that other things being equal, what the Old Wise One says first - while he is still the collective consciousness of Shadow Children - is more reliable than what he says lat…
30 Nov 2010, 19:30
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I think it's quite reasonable to think the contest was not part of the original plan, but once it was decided to insert it, Wolfe used it for material of thematic importance. For …
30 Nov 2010, 19:10
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OK, so there's a thematic similarity between inhumi and devils, which makes it appropriate that Pike called them that. But if I am reading you rightly, the inhumi as Pike knows the…
30 Nov 2010, 18:52
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I think I'd agree with SonofWitz that the idea, in its original context, is meant simply to point up the contrast between the jungle hut and a cell. It's a bit odd that a theory wh…
28 Nov 2010, 18:27
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'Pas' is the masculine form of 'all'; 'pan' is the neuter form. I believe the name of Pan, the god, has a different origin (it certainly declines differently), but the interpretati…
28 Nov 2010, 18:04
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I would read it as saying that more Nephilim were produced after the flood. - which would be odd if the Nephilim were the cause of the flood. (Thers no doubt, though, that this int…
28 Nov 2010, 17:57
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I had thought Wolfe had said in an interview that the inhumi were late arrivals on the Whorl. Having checked it, I think that strictly speaking he only said that Quetzal was, which…
27 Nov 2010, 23:13
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First, a very happy feast of St Catherine to you all! OK, here are the first of the puzzles I have come up with in my reading of _Long Sun_. First, what exactly are Mucor's powers…
25 Nov 2010, 17:08
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Lee Berman wrote: > Ouen had a noticeable resemblance to Severian while being blond, so I wouldn't rule it out. 'Commander' is a naval rank, but if it's spelt with a small c i'm …
25 Nov 2010, 01:47
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Well, as I understand it, _Long Sun_ wasn't planned at the time, and it was only while he was working on it that Wolfe came to see it as connected with _New Sun_, so the Severian/S…
23 Nov 2010, 22:49
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Lee Berman wrote: Plus there is a persistent character in the Sun series who If I remember rightly, you have to have _Urth_ to deduce that, so as _Urth_ wasn't part of the origi…
23 Nov 2010, 20:23
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I've just finished reading BOTLS, which has given me a lot to think about; I'll shortly be re-reading it, and will no doubt be bringing up various questions and thoughts that stri…
21 Nov 2010, 20:28
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I think it is the Hierogrammates rather than the Hierodules who have this rather high-handed attitude. The two actual Hierodules we see most of, Barbatus and Famulimus, although th…
14 Nov 2010, 17:08
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Well, yes, he says he _likes_ to think that, so we can't be sure it's true. But grant that Severian made other trips to that time; it's still unclear whether he did any conciliatin…
07 Nov 2010, 17:59
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I sympathise with this. Severian, when he comes up with his 'first Severian' theory, believes that the first Severian became Apu-Punchau, as well as the person buried in the mausol…
06 Nov 2010, 21:55
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Lee Berman wrote: . Yes. That I'm not so sure about. The idea of a god taking over a prophet and speaking through them, which seems to be roughly what possession means here, has …
05 Nov 2010, 22:06
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Lee Berman wrote: But if Severian had doppelgangers who continued to Just to clarify: what I had in mind was reappearances at long intervals (thus reconciling the 'thirty thousa…
05 Nov 2010, 22:01
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Um. Jesus is of course not essential to my theory - the Conciliator might be a composite figure whether or not Jesus was one of those who contributed to the composite. Also relev…
05 Nov 2010, 19:05
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Lee Berman wrote: We are explicitly shown that Severian's modest I'm not sure of this. According to Dorcas's account of the Conciliator he used to disappear and reappear, sugges…
05 Nov 2010, 00:30
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Yes, and I do think there are correspondences between 'Frog' and the life of Severian. (I do find it harder to make out with 'The Student and his Son') But on my reading the corres…
30 Sep 2010, 14:36
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Quite so. My point, made less cryptically, is that these matters are debated withing the story, and they seem there to be treated largely as philosophical ones. Personally I have …
30 Sep 2010, 14:16
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It would be interesting to see Merryn's contribution to this discussion.…
29 Sep 2010, 13:27
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OK, I'm beginning to see how your theory fits together now. (Something you said earlier suggests you see shepherds as torturers - is that right?) There is some definite evidence t…
29 Sep 2010, 13:26
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That's another possibility, certainly. It still supports the thought it's a quite a regular thing. anyway. I'd assume they would be taken out fairly quickly, just as those retriev…
29 Sep 2010, 13:07
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That seems equally to fit my reading and yours - the heavens are where planetary travellers come from, but also where gods live. I would take it that in the original version of the…
28 Sep 2010, 14:21
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I'd always assumed that Hildegrin was visiting the Garden of Endless Sleep, while Severian and Agia were there, to look for another such victim, suggesting it was quite a regular t…
28 Sep 2010, 14:03
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As I understand it, 'rule himself' doesn't just mean 'owe fealty to no one else', but 'control, discipline himself', 'not rule only in his own interests', etc. But I'll have to che…
28 Sep 2010, 13:58
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I take it the 'perhaps' means Severian is unsure how far back the earliest memory he can retrieve goes - on the uncertainty of that I totally agree with you - not that he's unsure …
27 Sep 2010, 14:51
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As I understand it, what properly distinguishes an autarch is that he rules himself: that is why Ymar and his successors chose that title. However, most people probably don't know …
27 Sep 2010, 14:44
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Regarding the comparison of Baldanders and Typhon: Baldanders strikes me very much as someone who is trying, by science, to transcend the human, and so someone who has _made himsel…
26 Sep 2010, 19:57
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I think Dorcas's basket is meant to make you _think_ of babies, but if you do the maths, it turns out it can't contain one. (Unless she has already done a time travel act, jumping …
26 Sep 2010, 19:42
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It's not clear to me that Autarchs eat the brains only of Autarchs: the stated aim of the practice is to make the whole Commonwealth present within one person. Though of course thi…
26 Sep 2010, 19:24
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Roy C. Lackey wrtoe: Yes - I don't mean that Typhon established the first empire. But clearly - if there is a even a grain of truth in 'I ruled this planet and many more' - he had…
26 Sep 2010, 19:15
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I has assumed that Typhon created the Empire - that seems to be Cyriaca's view (or that he tried to); that the ruler she's talking about is Typhon is supported by his bringing the …
23 Sep 2010, 20:00
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I think March is quite strongly associated with winds ('March winds, April showers..'). Given the need to find a name for Mars which isn't _too_ obvious, and fits in with 'Early Su…
23 Sep 2010, 19:46
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Well, you certainly can speak of someone making his native city - or in this case planet - his capital. And if you're dubious, as I am, about how many planets he really ruled, you …
23 Sep 2010, 13:44
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I have a quite different reading of Spring Wind. Spring Wind = March, i.e. Mars, father of Romulus and Remus. Early Summer = June, i.e. Juno, mother of Mars. Bird of the Wood = Rh…
23 Sep 2010, 13:16
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Regarding humanity returning to the stars: this theme comes up quite a lot in the _New Sun_ cycle - sometimes in those very terms, though at other times people say 'Men of Urth' or…
22 Sep 2010, 21:24
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Interesting - and it's about the power of the sun.…
19 Sep 2010, 22:38
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