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Oooh. I think I'm being pranked. I feel like an idiot. I'm hip now.…
07 Jul 2010, 22:12
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What's the subtext here? Why would taking the AUTHOR's reading as AUTHORitive make one a pagan? u+16b9…
07 Jul 2010, 22:09
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I think his point was "Inire is repeatedly compared to a monkey. This comes up several times with other characters. Are these flags that Inire is or has been in other guises. If …
07 Jul 2010, 21:54
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Okay. What's the speculative advantage to Dorcas being Severian's grandmother? I remember when the grandmother theory was posed. There was no more textual evidence for it than t…
07 Jul 2010, 21:42
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What's the narrative advantage of Dorcas being Severian's grandmother?…
07 Jul 2010, 21:13
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Or Rose!…
07 Jul 2010, 21:11
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This is the way Tolkien described it. See "The Letters of JRR Tolkien" Well, to the extent that 1) what I say is the way Tolkien described the creation of his world in very stra…
07 Jul 2010, 21:03
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I'll put it this way. Tolkien was interested in languages. He invented his own language in his 20s which he called a "Fairy language". But a true language must occur over time. I…
07 Jul 2010, 20:41
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Typhon: "Piaton was one of my slaves...." "Sword of the Lictor" chap 25 Typhon's daughter: "We slaves. Pas own." "Return to the Whorl" I'm just sayin'. It could happen. u+16b9…
07 Jul 2010, 20:34
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Only if they made the Time Machine themselves. But, look. If Rudesind and Inire were actually boys together, that means Rudesind is ALSO old enough to have been a councilor to al…
07 Jul 2010, 20:26
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Severian was there at the construction of Apu Punchau's temple. How old is he?…
07 Jul 2010, 20:12
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I'm a bit lost. Have we actually established WHEN Rudesind was a child? We're dealing with Time Travelers here. I think it is problematic that Rudesind is Inire. But is it imposs…
07 Jul 2010, 20:07
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I'm just sayin'. Imagine if Wolfe had written Superman. There's no way we'd know for certain Kent and Superman were the same guy. If Wolfe had written Murder On the Orient Expres…
07 Jul 2010, 19:49
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Superman is a Dick website: http://superdickery.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=28&Itemid=45…
07 Jul 2010, 19:40
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Why is that necessary? What if --as seems likely to me-- Severian drowned in the Gyoll at the beginning of SotT? That would mean that for almost every event in which Severian tak…
07 Jul 2010, 19:30
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What's your definition of "robot"? We do know he's artificial, right? u+16b9…
07 Jul 2010, 19:15
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Not "factitious". Facetious…
07 Jul 2010, 18:54
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I was being factitious in order to make a point. If Inire were also variously Rudesind and a monkey, it would affect the story if only that it would mean Inire might be a Hierogr…
07 Jul 2010, 18:49
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We call that a competing theory. u+16b9…
07 Jul 2010, 18:32
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Well....if there are reddish furry and monkey signifiers connected to Inire and lots of random human and non-human characters appearing with those signifiers, and Inire is never …
07 Jul 2010, 18:25
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Hmmm...would you say The Silmarillion was an unnecessary book? u+169b…
07 Jul 2010, 16:43
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Able's speculation qualifies as evidence, I think. And since Garsecg/Setr is Aelf in Aelfrice and a dragon in Muspel, it seems to me that you are rejecting the obvious. When Able…
04 Jul 2010, 03:11
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He's a figure. Everyone in the story is within his realm IIRC. I thought it was clear that Arnthor, his sister, and Garsecg/Setr were actually dragons in the lower world, Muspel.…
03 Jul 2010, 21:31
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The picture had become so dingy that Urth had become obscured in the picture. u+16b9…
02 Jul 2010, 19:55
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An illuminating reading. And since the amendment addresses "the right of the People", we get a deeper understanding of this text: "Congress shall make no law [snip] abridging…
02 Jul 2010, 17:51
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Yeah, but wonder, if he were asked, would Wolfe shed some light on that dancer with wings like leeches? u+16b9…
02 Jul 2010, 17:35
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And what would one say if Wolfe wrote a novel about a heroic CIA agent? Or a heroic FBI agent hunting the hippie minions of the Storm King? That he's a big Nanny Statist?…
02 Jul 2010, 17:06
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I did to. I even know exactly where I thought I'd seen it: It was in the book "We Came in Peace: The Story of Man in Space". I had that volume as a child. But googling for the i…
02 Jul 2010, 16:58
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I have a friend whose in-laws believe the moon landing was faked. He said once, "The thing that gets me is...why do they think anyone would do that?" My answer: "Because it's fu…
02 Jul 2010, 16:41
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Not an outlier, I think. "The Devil in a Forest" is fine unflattering deconstruction of Robin Hood as a hero who "robs the rich to give to the poor". For the most part, however,…
02 Jul 2010, 16:35
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I take it to mean that the visor looked like it was made of gold. That works for the picture.The black could readily be scene as part of the reflection on the visor. Eh...I can …
02 Jul 2010, 16:16
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This is an ingenious method to kill a zombie thread ("Appearance of Inire"): reintroduce an old zombie thread that has already resurrected itself 3 times previously to flush it a…
02 Jul 2010, 15:24
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_Maybe_ visor color since it is not "entirely gold". But there's no requirement for Urth size is there?…
02 Jul 2010, 14:51
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The uncropped version of this picture works fine I think. It would show the flag on it's pole. One of the arguments from the conspiracists that the moon landings were faked is t…
02 Jul 2010, 06:39
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At risk of seeming pedantic, Lewis' cosmology is a little different from the Gnostic version. In the Gnostic version, the demiurge (or just as often, the demiurges) is the genuin…
01 Jul 2010, 23:12
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I think that was the point. Human degeneracy had caused them to be enslaved by their lowest instincts. Humanity ought to have been seeking to serve the ideals of Valfather and th…
01 Jul 2010, 20:33
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It seems to me that Apheta said the Hierogrammates were made by the Hieros, the humans of a previous mantanvara. u+16b9…
01 Jul 2010, 17:40
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I don't know *how* to take this discourse at all. I had no idea that "pedant" was an insult around here. I thought that was what we were all striving for. u+16b9…
01 Jul 2010, 16:44
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There's a picture, maybe an illustration --a famous one-- that I remember from my childhood. An astronaut on the moon. The Earth over his shoulder. The American flag behind him o…
01 Jul 2010, 04:56
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Are you referring to William Blake's mythology? I don't think so. I don't think Severian and Cassie are in the same literary universe. The Storm God is described as an ancient al…
30 Jun 2010, 21:55
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Another interpretation is that "Heirodules" is a grandiose term for "robots created by the Heiro race". That the Heirogrammates made and used robots is not necessarily sinful. Ki…
30 Jun 2010, 19:44
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Not that I'm bothered _much_, but --for the record-- it was Antonio who said the bit about only God being the creator. Antonio might mind. :-) J u+16b9…
30 Jun 2010, 19:34
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Corrective lenses? I presumed Palaemon is blind.…
30 Jun 2010, 17:01
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One can make robots out of flesh as well as tin, or cover the tin with a fleshy facade. The ways such creatures can be different from humans are varied, extreme, subtle, and irre…
30 Jun 2010, 15:21
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Another word meaning "slave" is "robot". Ossipago is obviously a robot, but I suppose that the "race" created by the Hierogrammates were originally all robots/androids. Personall…
30 Jun 2010, 14:24
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"We've a Fechin here that shows three girls dressing another one with flowers that's so real you expect the bees to come out of it." ~ Shadow of the Torturer Nicolai Ivanovich Fe…
28 Jun 2010, 20:25
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I say David is the "control" because N5 is actually the subject of the experiment. David and Jeanine represent "all the other people on the planet". Maitre is uninterested in the…
28 Jun 2010, 01:19
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The purpose of their education was to observe the differences in intelligence and adaptability between the clone (N5) and the "control" (David). This experiment could not be perf…
27 Jun 2010, 12:46
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When I say "acting as though she owned the house" I mean when she relinquished her duties running the family business to search for the fabled hoard. We know this only occurred, …
26 Jun 2010, 22:23
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Another hint is Number 5's dream. The dead man steering the ship has Mr Million's face. Obviously it is his own face too. But Number 5 specifically connected it with Mr. Million.…
25 Jun 2010, 14:40
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