{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/1004", "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it. Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.", "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'" }, "archive": "urth", "thread": { "id": 1004, "subject": "unsuscribe Digest urth.v017.n002", "messages": 1, "voices": 1, "first": "1998-07-17T16:19:06+00:00", "last": "1998-07-17T16:19:06+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Internet Megantic", "address": "support at megantic.net" }, "date": "1998-07-17T16:19:06+00:00", "subject": "(urth) unsuscribe Digest urth.v017.n002", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "At 15:10 15-07-98 -0700, you wrote:\n\n-------------- BEGIN urth.v017.n002 --------------\n\n 001 - raster at highfiber.com (Cha - Digest Urth, or brains thereof\n 002 - Dan Parmenter explicates:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "raster argued that, as long as Severian was still alive or if he'd been\nlost at sea, nobody could be a legitimate Autarch. It's not clear to me\nwhether this is because a legitimate Autarch must eat his predecessor's\nbrains ..." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Such an ugly phrase, that. Can't we come up with some polite euphemism?\n\"Breakfast for your head\" ... no, wait, I like \"eating brains\" better.\nNever mind. Yes, that was my point: you need a body for succession to\nproceed." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "... or simply that a legitimate Autarch must be chosen by his\npredecessor. If the former, it would seem that the Autarchy runs a\ngrave risk of being permanently lost, either through the Autarch being\ncaptured by the enemy, or killed in battle or by assassination with\nthe designated successor unable to arrive in time. " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "But note that ol' Appian has been captured by the enemy! It's made\npretty clear that Severian is the \"designated successor,\" but I'm not\ncertain that there always is one. Alls ya needs is a corpse, a knife,\nand the drug -- all provided by Appian -- and instructions, which\npresumably Inire would have provided had A been unable to. The next-\nin-line may be a randomly chosen bystander, if you don't have a\ndesignated successor handy.\n\n(You'll notice that after Appian's injury and capture, Inire can be\nseen skulking about. Severian thinks he's trying to carry out a\nrescue. Fat chance -- Appian's as good as dead. I believe Inire is\nthere to ensure the continued dynasty.)\n\nThat said, yes, the regime does have some problems. It also has a\nfew advantages. Fr'instance, it's easy to decide whether or not an\nindividual claiming the Autarchy is the real McCoy. He knows the\nwords!\n\nm.driussi at genie.com writes:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Actually I believe raster's primary concern re: authentic autarchs is\nthe same as my own--the brain eating bit. It seems to define\n\"autarch\" as distinct from \"monarch,\" \"suzerain,\" \"dictator of the\nproletariate,\" etc.; it also seems to figure into the equation of\n\"how one person can represent many\" in a concrete way rather than\njust the lip-service paid by representative democracy. The autarch\n=is= legion--it isn't just a metaphor." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "And also provides a slick justification for the royal plural." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "So yes, yes, very rickety. I imagine Inire stepping out of the\nshadows to help along a situation that requires a deus ex\nmachina to deliver a brain-eater--that is, Inire won't allow the\nsystem to fail; the autarch breaks his neck, a scullary maid becomes\nAutarch. " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Or a honey steward, of course.\n\nmary whalen -- well, okay, prion -- notes:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Has anyone noticed that the Autarch Appian's name is a homophone for\napian (bee-like)? Any connection with the Honey Steward?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Bingo! Name pun -- Wolfe loves 'em. Also, of course, another Claudian\nreference.\n\nraster at highfiber.com\n\n\n\n--------------- MESSAGE urth.v017.n002.2 ---------------\n\nFrom: Dan Parmenter \nSubject: Hethor's robot love-doll\nDate: Tue, 14 Jul 1998 15:08:21 -0700 (PDT)\n\nFrom: m.driussi at genie.com" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Or as Ranjit put it (and I paraphrase): Hethor lusts after Agia\nbecause she's so Korean. :)" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I thought he just missed his paracoita :-)\n\nCan Jolenta love anyone? Didn't we once assume that there was\nsomething of Norma Jean Desmond (Marilyn Monroe) in her too?\n\nD\n\n\n\n--------------- MESSAGE urth.v017.n002.3 ---------------\n\nFrom: Michael Straight \nSubject: Re: (urth) Digest Urth, or brains thereof\nDate: Wed, 15 Jul 1998 11:17:07 -0400 (EDT)\nMIME-Version: 1.0\nContent-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII\nIn-Reply-To: <199807142159.OAA23796 at lists1.best.com>\n\nOn Tue, 14 Jul 1998, Charles Dye wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "That said, yes, the regime does have some problems. It also has a\nfew advantages. Fr'instance, it's easy to decide whether or not an\nindividual claiming the Autarchy is the real McCoy. He knows the\nwords!" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I have to admit some confusion on that point. Wouldn't anyone judging the\nAutarch also have to know the words in order to recognize them? Shouldn't\nany such person be able to speak \"the words\" and pose as the Autarch?\n\nAre they perhaps some sort of hypnotic triggers that people recognize but\nare unable to remember?\n\n-Rostrum\n\n\n\n--------------- MESSAGE urth.v017.n002.4 ---------------\n\nFrom: \"Mark Millman\" \nSubject: Re: (urth) Digest Urth, or brains thereof\nDate: Wed, 15 Jul 1998 12:04:38 -0400\nMIME-Version: 1.0\nContent-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii\nContent-Disposition: inline\n\nOn Wednesday 15 July 1998, Rostrum wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "On Tue, 14 Jul 1998, Charles Dye wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "That said, yes, the regime does have\nsome problems. It also has a few ad-\nvantages. Fr'instance, it's easy to de-\ncide whether or not an individual claim-\ning the Autarchy is the real McCoy. He\nknows the words!" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "I have to admit some confusion on that point.\nWouldn't anyone judging the Autarch also\nhave to know the words in order to recognize\nthem? Shouldn't any such person be able to\nspeak \"the words\" and pose as the Autarch?\n\nAre they perhaps some sort of hypnotic\ntriggers that people recognize but are unable\nto remember?\n\n-Rostrum" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "This seems entirely possible, though if I recall (and you've\nall just had a taste of how bad my memory can be) we're\nreally given no evidence of how the castellan of the Citadel\nreacts to Severian's word of command--whether, that is, he\njumps to an implanted compulsion or simply recognizes\nthe password, as it were (ignoring the possibility you raise,\nRostrum, that he recognizes a word that deliberately has\nbeen made unavailable to his conscious mind, which I'd\ncall a special case of the latter situation).\n\nHowever, I don't think this is an insuperable obstacle. For\none thing, many of the words command mechanical contri-\nvances, so all a putative Autarch would have to do, for ex-\nample, would be to open the door behind the throne and\nmaybe operate a couple of other devices to prove his or\nher legitimacy. Or the words of command for three or four\nsubordinates could be employed; even if the officers are\nconsciously aware of their passwords, they may only be\ninherited, so to speak, in the line of succession for each\noffice. The person who knows several must therefore be\nthe Autarch.\n\nOr (and to me this seems most likely) Inire, who seems to\nbe as ubiquitous as flan in Spanish restaurants, could\nassert the legitimacy of each successor based either on\nhis having witnessed the essential act of succession or on\na test of the individual in question. It seems as though he\nmust know a great many, if not all, of the words of power;\nand one would think him, in this context at least, to be for all\npractical purposes incorruptible.\n\nMark Millman\n\n\n\n\n--------------- MESSAGE urth.v017.n002.5 ---------------\n\nFrom: mary whalen \nSubject: (urth) French Wolfe sites\nDate: Wed, 15 Jul 1998 12:03:05 -0700 (PDT)\nMIME-Version: 1.0\nContent-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii\n\nThis is Sean Whalen (prion).\n\nThanks, Dan. I also found a large site at\nwww.mygale.org/~lemonon/Teur/teur.html, if anyone's interested in\nseeing it.\n\nprion\n_________________________________________________________\nDO YOU YAHOO!?\nGet your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com\n\n\n\n--------------- MESSAGE urth.v017.n002.6 ---------------\n\nFrom: Michael Straight \nSubject: Re: (urth) Hues, HORARS: II\nDate: Wed, 15 Jul 1998 17:15:54 -0400 (EDT)\nMIME-Version: 1.0\nContent-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII\nIn-Reply-To: <199807142008.NAA20369 at lists1.best.com>\n\nOn Tue, 14 Jul 1998, Robert Borski wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "HORARS is an updated Golem story (which basically Mary Shelley's\nFRANKENSTEIN also is). As God has done with us, so have we humans done with\nthe Homolog ORganisms (Army Replacement Simulations). But whereas God has\ncreated us in His image out of love, we create the HORARS for less noble\nreasons. We certainly don't love them; in fact there's evidence most\nordinary humans revile them. But if it's a choice between us dying in\ncombat with the Enemy or the HORARS, hey, we'll gladly let them be our our\ncorporal stand-ins, i.e., the HORARS are bodies only (whores), fit only for\nacting out our vile needs. (We're their puppeteers, as we are Pinocchios,\nthe robot tank.) " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "[...]" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "In fact, both stories seem to be cautionary tales about the ill-advisedness\nof tampering with nature, especially in regards to eugenics and attempting\nto improve on God's greatest creation, you, me and all the rest of our\nfellow Homo sapiens--hardly surprising caveats from a writer of Gene\nWolfe's Catholicity. " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "HORARS seems to me to be more fundamentally yet another example of one of\nWolfe's favorite themes, the narrator who doesn't know who or what he is,\nand who is ignorant of his true role in the world. I suppose this is also\na pretty Christian theme--that fallen humans don't know who they are,\ndon't know the story the are a part of.\n\nI think the irony of the narrator's pretending to be something he already\nis (does the text leave open the possibility that he really is human after\nall?) is more central to the story than a warning about not tampering with\nnature. The moral seems not so much that the HORARS shouldn't have been\ncreated in the first place (lest they rise up against us), but that we\nshouldn't treat as sub-human creatures that seems so human (\"For all you\nknow, you might be one too!\").\n\nHues is one of the few Wolfe stories I neither like nor get (probably some\nrelation there), so I'm not going to try discussing it. \n\nAnyone up for making a list of Wolfe stories where the narrator is\nmistaken about his own identity? Off the top of my head: \n\n\"HORARS\"\n\"The Other Dead Man\"\n\"Checking Out\"\n\"The Changeling\"\n\"Tracking Song\"\n\"Forlesen\"\n\nLatro\nBoth Severian and Silk to some extent\nMaybe Weer in PEACE\n\n-Rostrum\n\n\n\n--------------- END urth.v017.n002 ---------------" } ] } ] }