{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/1103", "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": 1103, "subject": "Sev and Thecla in childhood", "messages": 3, "voices": 3, "first": "1998-09-21T19:35:55+00:00", "last": "1998-09-28T09:10:18+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Jon Camfield", "address": "griffjon at mail.utexas.edu" }, "date": "1998-09-21T19:35:55+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Sev and Thecla in childhood", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "mantis, you've already seen this, but as I don't have my books nearby and\nthe list is as quiet as a convent, I figured I'd post it:\n\nLast time I reread TBotNS, this passage in Claw struck me as very odd.\nStory-line wise, this is right after the troupe's performance in the House\nAbsolute, when Severian has become separated, walks to exhaustion, and has\nmemory-mixed dreams of himself and Thecla.\n\n\"...I played again with pebbles in the courtyard beside the fallen curtain\nwall, as Thecla dodged the hooves of my father's mounted guard\" \n(II, XXV, 204)\n\nThe first part, up to 'curtain wall', is Severian, that's easy, he said at\nsome point that the pebbles memory is his earliest (until he recalls his\nmother before the meeting with the undine the next night).\n\n\"as Thecla dodged the hooves\" could also be Sev, having syncronized his and\nThecla's memories; Sev was piling pebbles in the Citadel, while, at the\nsame time, Thecla was dodging hooves.\n\n\"of my father's mounted guard\" is really troublesome. It's not Thecla,\nbecause Sev is (presumably, no hints to the contrary) still talking in the\nfirst person, and describing Thecla in the third. This implies it is\nSeverian's father. Going out somewhat on a limb, I propose this: Dorcas is\nSeverian's paternal grandmother, mother of Ouen, as you say. The mother of\nSeverian is or is not Katherine, but _is_ the mother of Thecla as well\n(Thecla then becomes the half-sister of Sev, with a smidgin more of\nevidence only than Merryn). Ouen seems to have had an affair with en\nexultant, who already had a daughter (Thecla). Sev was given to the\ntorturers (being somewhat of a bastard) (possibly the exultant had, since\ngiving birth to Thecla, gone to be one of the bride's of the Autarch?).\nOuen and Sev were shipped off to the citadel, Sev to be given to the\nTorturer's, Ouen to be delivered back to Nessus, maybe even tortured (hence\nthe mounted guard) before being set free. This would explain the origin of\nthe memory, as well as Sev's bastard-exultant lineage, and the\nmissing-sister problem.\n\n\nFire at will.\n\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------\nJon Camfield \"GriffJon\" \t|Webmaster, Plan II Honors Program:\nGriffJon at mail.utexas.edu \t| www.dla.utexas.edu/~plan2\nHomepage, Gallery, Resume:\t|Channel Manager, Undernet #Poetry\n ccwf.cc.utexas.edu/~griffjon \t| www.tripod.com/~ircpoetry\n------------------------------------------------------------------\n\"The most incomprehensible fact about nature is that it is comprehensible\"\n-- Albert Einstein" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Tony Ellis", "address": "tony.ellis at futurenet.co.uk" }, "date": "1998-09-22T15:42:12+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Sev and Thecla in childhood", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Jon Camfield wrote:\n\"...I played again with pebbles in the courtyard beside the fallen curtain\nwall, as Thecla dodged the hooves of my father's mounted guard\" \n(II, XXV, 204)" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "\t" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "\"of my father's mounted guard\" is really troublesome. It's not Thecla,\nbecause Sev is (presumably, no hints to the contrary) still talking in the\nfirst person, and describing Thecla in the third. This implies it is\nSeverian's father..." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I really think you're seeing complications that aren't there with this\none. TBOTNS is full of moments where Thecla's personality surfaces and\nspeaks, or rather writes, in the first person. All that's happening here\nis that it's happening within the confines of one sentence for effect.\nThe transition presumably takes place after \"wall\", but anywhere before\n\"my father's mounted guard\" would do." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Matthew Malthouse", "address": "matthew.malthouse at guardian.co.uk" }, "date": "1998-09-28T09:10:18+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Sev and Thecla in childhood", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Tony Ellis wrote:\n\nJon Camfield wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "\"...I played again with pebbles in the courtyard beside the fallen curtain\nwall, as Thecla dodged the hooves of my father's mounted guard\"\n(II, XXV, 204)" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": " \n\"of my father's mounted guard\" is really troublesome. It's not Thecla,\nbecause Sev is (presumably, no hints to the contrary) still talking in the\nfirst person, and describing Thecla in the third. This implies it is\nSeverian's father...\n\nI really think you're seeing complications that aren't there with this\none. TBOTNS is full of moments where Thecla's personality surfaces and\nspeaks, or rather writes, in the first person. All that's happening here\nis that it's happening within the confines of one sentence for effect.\nThe transition presumably takes place after \"wall\", but anywhere before\n\"my father's mounted guard\" would do." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I'm inclines to agree. Making the sentence ...the fallen curtain wall, and as\nThecla... would have remove the ambiguity but it isn't actually necessary to\nadd the \"and\" for it to be read as a change of view point from Sev. to Thecla.\n\nMatthew" } ] } ] }