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As Einstein once said, "Make things as simple as possible, but not simpler." I've made this mistake myself, but Hieros and Hierogrammates are not the same. Hieros were human-cong…
08 Jul 2008, 04:46
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Sev says in Citadel XXXIV: "...they (the Hierogrammates) look both forward and back, and in so looking they have discovered us.... The Hierodules they have found too, and formed mo…
07 Jul 2008, 21:10
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Yes, if Inire is really playing all these roles he must be lying. Likewise he can't be a full-time painting cleaner as Rudesind. He must also know perfectly well where Dorcas is …
05 Jul 2008, 15:46
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Another detail you can work with is that Palaemon trained Master Gurloes. The dates and ages seem to imply that Palaemon was a master of apprentices, then a journeyman exile (dem…
05 Jul 2008, 15:39
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The two rows of aligned nunbers made me think of the "sign of addition" that Silk was always making. Maybe adding the numbers would get something. 5553 8783 4223 9700 34 2221 04…
05 Jul 2008, 12:57
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Hi Paul, thanks for posting. I can see how it works when I write it out symbolically (a, b, a+b, a+2b,...). It looks like Maytera Marble's mistake -- possibly from her aging memo…
04 Jul 2008, 13:20
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I didn't claim the changes Silk made were drastic enough to prevent Sev from being the one to bring the New Sun. That could still happen in this timeline. What could happen is th…
04 Jul 2008, 06:46
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Does he also have a wry neck (torticollis, a condition in which the head is held stiffly to one side)?…
02 Jul 2008, 08:40
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I agree with that simple literal explanation, but I was looking beyond that for a symbolic meaning. They both appear and disappear to each other, which I speculated could refer t…
02 Jul 2008, 08:06
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Roy C. Lackey wrote: Dave takes the mention of the names of two people who are not even in the The extra trip or trips back in time are not extra-textual: "Often I have dreamed o…
01 Jul 2008, 22:58
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There are two different legends for St. Pelagia. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Pelagia) Saint Pelagia is an Antiochene saint, a virgin of fifteen years, who chose death by a…
01 Jul 2008, 18:12
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There is another level of clues in the play that I take as direct hints from Wolfe to the reader. Saint's names with significant history are of this type IMOP. I looked up the na…
01 Jul 2008, 10:34
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Actually, I can have it both ways very easily. We know for a fact that Sev saw a woman in the loggia near the Path of Air, and certain details about her. We also know that the pl…
01 Jul 2008, 06:51
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I think that reference was to the copy he sealed in a lead casket and lauched into space/time. There was another copy, the one he sent to Master Ultan's library. Well-connected peo…
30 Jun 2008, 17:35
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In the Commonwealth, long prison sentences are usually the result of confusion and neglect, as witness the waiting room prison in the House Absolute. Sev says something similar abo…
30 Jun 2008, 17:08
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Andrew says: And if my theory is correct and Sev is the product of a time-traveler he has an even stronger motive for reticence: self-preservation. He doesn't want to give his e…
30 Jun 2008, 12:49
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You're assuming that all corpses that Voldalus took were like Thecla's and used for the same purpose. His grave-robbing was more general than that. The citizen volunteers were co…
30 Jun 2008, 11:57
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Catherine might not have sufficient knowledge of the exact history of the Vodalarii to give Vodalus forewarning about Agia. Vodalus might learn that he didn't become autarch and …
30 Jun 2008, 08:42
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Since UotNS was an afterthought, Wolfe must have expected us to be able to construct the loggia scene from the play alone. What is the Contessa doing in the play? She seems like …
30 Jun 2008, 07:35
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Usually Wolfe tries to provide a family resemblance between related characters. Fechin was "a tall, wild boy with red hair on his hands, his arms." Dorcas is gold-blonde, with no…
29 Jun 2008, 12:56
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I found an additional metaphorical clue in the play to strengthen this theory: Contessa: ... I was to look like a post decked with morning-glories, it would seem. Meschia: Brat!…
29 Jun 2008, 05:24
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I take the original cell donor to be an exultant from the House Absolute. From the play: "The Contessa waits outside, and as she is of exalted blood, and a favorite of our sovere…
28 Jun 2008, 07:17
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We can also look with fresh eyes at the lines in the play that predict the Contessa's fate: Contessa: If my body held a part of yours -- drops of liquescent tissue locked in my …
27 Jun 2008, 13:04
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That's an interesting reference -- until you pointed that out I regarded the grave-robbery corpse as a red herring. There's no reason for that body to be any relation to Sev. If …
26 Jun 2008, 10:08
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I still think there's something funny going on in that scene. Sev says "...I took up the sword. It was vary heavy," A little later he says "I remember that for a moment I feared…
25 Jun 2008, 09:52
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I think this could be one of the guild's secrets. They tell the young apprentices that it will all be faked, but at the last minute the initiate is told to carry it out for real. T…
24 Jun 2008, 21:28
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It might help to revive another Robert Borski theory: that Catherine was Valeria's daughter by her second husband. There's another clue I haven't seen mentioned. In Chapter IX Se…
24 Jun 2008, 08:20
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Are we sure Sev didn't decide to leave well enough alone? He heard from Ouen that a runaway Pelerine named Catherine was very possibly his mother. He was also convinced that his …
21 Jun 2008, 19:40
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Before this line, Nod asks "Have you seen Meschia's son?" I believe the "he" in this line refers to the son, not Meschia himself. It's a reference to the old Biblical puzzle of C…
21 Jun 2008, 11:41
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In Shadow XI, it says, "She was tall and slender, though not so tall nor so slender as Thecla, dark of complexion, dark of eye, raven of hair." I don't see that being shorter tha…
19 Jun 2008, 07:20
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Sev only saw three figures, and Hildegrin was the only one who came out of hiding, but the evidence of the Pelerine cloak suggests someone else was there that night. I don't thin…
19 Jun 2008, 06:49
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All right, I'll accept that Jonas knows what he's talking about. The simplest explanation for the conversation the steersman overheard is that the deep voice was a commander subo…
19 Jun 2008, 06:26
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<mailto:urth%40lists.urth.net?Subject=Re%3A%20%28urth%29%20What%27s%20So%20Great%20About%20Ushas%3F&In-Reply-To=%3C4858906F.1060708%40io.com%3E>Jeff That's a clever work-around, …
18 Jun 2008, 11:55
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We've looked at Dorcas, but we shouldn't skip the next generation. Catherine seems to have considerable powers herself. She appears the same year after year at the Feast of St. K…
18 Jun 2008, 04:57
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I'm not sure Abaia is that much larger than the undines. In Citadel XXXVII, the steersman said he heard the voices of undines coming up the Gyoll, along with a deeper voice that …
18 Jun 2008, 04:07
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I think Dorcas was put into the time-statis water alive (possibly because she fell into a coma and was thought dead). Her dream in Claw XXII seems to be not about her initial buri…
16 Jun 2008, 16:24
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On the other hand, every citizen in the Commonwealth is named for a saint, and the legend of the martyrdom of St. Catherine is essentially the same. I'm convinced it's a post-…
16 Jun 2008, 15:30
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Interesting. This very theory is referred to in "Seven American Nights." The narrator takes it as an established fact in his contemporary physics (about a century in our future).…
15 Jun 2008, 20:10
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This is the core point. I believe many readers do find this cosmology has a certain epic beauty. "We shall not go to the stars again until we go as a divinity" reminds me of the …
15 Jun 2008, 09:24
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I'll accept this as the new thread even though the first theory is a joke. I'll try to propose a self-consistent set of rewrites of Sev's life around the drowning incident. Sev1…
14 Jun 2008, 17:32
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I prefer to call him "SevN" instead of Sev2. It is clear that his life was rewritten multiple times. I think Wolfe tries to avoid time paradoxes. He usually thinks through the wa…
14 Jun 2008, 13:56
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The phrase is in parallel to "He's tried to tame you instead," so I take it as a poetic expansion of the same concept. Abaia wants to rule humanity, and cast out their contation …
14 Jun 2008, 13:08
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The Ushas upheavals probably didn't destroy Abaia. Juturna, speaking as the White Fountain arrives, says he is still planning to "tame" (enslave) the human race (Urth XLIII). The…
13 Jun 2008, 11:07
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All right, how about this explanation? The old man in Casdoe's house (Sword XV) says "That was the brightest day I've ever seen. The sun had new life to him, the way a man will w…
11 Jun 2008, 18:19
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Severian went back several years before the time when the light of the White Fountain would reach Urth. His power was weakened; we know he couldn't time-travel, though he could do …
11 Jun 2008, 17:26
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The sky is cloudy on their arrival, but I notice quite a few descriptions that show a brighter sun: XXVIII: "We had come to Urth through clouds, as I have said: but the tender f…
11 Jun 2008, 09:22
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You make a good point about the sudden ending of the eclipse, which also coincided with exactly when Sev needed it. I was doubtful that the Ship would come that far into the sola…
11 Jun 2008, 00:09
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I have another possible explanation for the eclipse. The exact dimensions of the Ship aren't given, but could it really be large enough to shadow the Sun and let the stars be see…
10 Jun 2008, 11:43
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I have two issues with this idea; one is practical and the other artistic. On the practical side, the Sev who brings about the New Sun is an aquastor. The aquastor Malrubius acts…
09 Jun 2008, 08:24
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I think you present a compelling case that the Hierogrammates are responsible for the black hole. The reasons are not spelled out in detail, but we do have this: "I tried to tell…
08 Jun 2008, 08:40
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