Subject: (urth) Sev and Thecla in childhood

From: Jon Camfield <griffjon at mail.utexas.edu>
Date: Mon, 21 Sep 1998 19:35:55 +0000

mantis, you've already seen this, but as I don't have my books nearby and
the list is as quiet as a convent, I figured I'd post it:

Last time I reread TBotNS, this passage in Claw struck me as very odd.
Story-line wise, this is right after the troupe's performance in the House
Absolute, when Severian has become separated, walks to exhaustion, and has
memory-mixed dreams of himself and Thecla.

"...I played again with pebbles in the courtyard beside the fallen curtain
wall, as Thecla dodged the hooves of my father's mounted guard" 
(II, XXV, 204)

The first part, up to 'curtain wall', is Severian, that's easy, he said at
some point that the pebbles memory is his earliest (until he recalls his
mother before the meeting with the undine the next night).

"as Thecla dodged the hooves" could also be Sev, having syncronized his and
Thecla's memories; Sev was piling pebbles in the Citadel, while, at the
same time, Thecla was dodging hooves.

"of my father's mounted guard"  is really troublesome.  It's not Thecla,
because Sev is (presumably, no hints to the contrary) still talking in the
first person, and describing Thecla in the third.  This implies it is
Severian's father.  Going out somewhat on a limb, I propose this: Dorcas is
Severian's paternal grandmother, mother of Ouen, as you say.  The mother of
Severian is or is not Katherine, but _is_ the mother of Thecla as well
(Thecla then becomes the half-sister of Sev, with a smidgin more of
evidence only than Merryn).  Ouen seems to have had an affair with en
exultant, who already had a daughter (Thecla).  Sev was given to the
torturers (being somewhat of a bastard) (possibly the exultant had, since
giving birth to Thecla, gone to be one of the bride's of the Autarch?).
Ouen and Sev were shipped off to the citadel, Sev to be given to the
Torturer's, Ouen to be delivered back to Nessus, maybe even tortured (hence
the mounted guard) before being set free.  This would explain the origin of
the memory, as well as Sev's bastard-exultant lineage, and the
missing-sister problem.

Fire at will.

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From: Tony Ellis <tony.ellis at futurenet.co.uk>
Date: Tue, 22 Sep 1998 15:42:12 +0000

> wall, as Thecla dodged the hooves of my father's mounted guard" 
	<snip>
> Severian's father...

I really think you're seeing complications that aren't there with this
one. TBOTNS is full of moments where Thecla's personality surfaces and
speaks, or rather writes, in the first person. All that's happening here
is that it's happening within the confines of one sentence for effect.
The transition presumably takes place after "wall", but anywhere before
"my father's mounted guard" would do.

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From: Matthew Malthouse <matthew.malthouse at guardian.co.uk>
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 1998 09:10:18 +0000

> "my father's mounted guard" would do.

I'm inclines to agree. Making the sentence ...the fallen curtain wall, and as
Thecla... would have remove the ambiguity but it isn't actually necessary to
add the "and" for it to be read as a change of view point from Sev. to Thecla.

Matthew