{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/1130",
    "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": 1130,
    "subject": "Sev's Sister: II",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "1998-10-05T00:20:11+00:00",
    "last": "1998-10-05T00:20:11+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0019-0049@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Robert Borski",
        "address": "rborski at coredcs.com"
      },
      "date": "1998-10-05T00:20:11+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Sev's Sister: II",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Here's a couple more items in my Barbea-as-Sev's sister thesis, even though\nI don't know what the pomo word for alternative history is, either.\n\nIn CLAW, Severian says, \"I recalled the witches, their madness and their\nwild dancing in the Old Court on nights of rain; the cool, virgininal\nbeauty of the red-robed Pelerines.\"\n\nNote that of the three khaibits presented to Severian and Roche in the\nHouse Azure, only Barbea dances for them. There's also a second link there,\nin that Catherine--the mother of Severian and his sister--is a Pelerine.\n\nI'd also like to mention again the line about Barbea's hair: \"Her hair was\nso near to burnished gold that it might have been a wig of golden wires.\"\n\nCompare this to what Hildegrin calls Dorcas, the paternal grandmother of\nSeverian and Severa: \"'Goldy-hair.'\" To me, with a writer of Wolfe's\ncircumspection, this is more than simple coincidence, but an attempt to\nlink Barbea and Dorcas. \n\nAlong similar lines is Severian's remark about an antipolaric other, which\nSev describes as \"...a bright twin if we are dark\" --possibly another\nreference to the goldenness of Barbea.\n\nAs for Kieran Mullen's contention that \"Why can this not be an invocation\nof his mother *without* meaning that she is related to her?  Or merely a\nreference to Thecla or Thea?\" Why would memories of his mother be triggered\nby someone who is a non-relative? Or Thea/Thecla? This the khaibit of\nChateleine Barbea, after all, not Thea/Thecla. And how do you explain\nSeverian's parenthetical \"I don't remember where\" subclause?\n\nThe one place where Kieran and I do agree, however, is the unlikelihood of\nMerryn being Severa. Other than she's definitely a witch, I see little for\nmaking such a case. On the contrary, Severian believes he's met someone\nlike the already adult Merryn when he was much younger, when he was sent on\nan errand to the Witches Keep. And Merryn for her part does not seem to\nunderstand that Severian's cloak indicates he's a torturer--she, a\nnext-door-neighbor-one-tower-over, has to be told this by the Cumaean, an\nExtrasolarian. And why the name change? Born Severa, how and why has she\nbecome Merryn?\n\nAnd then one last question for Kieran Mullen: while you're quick to dismiss\nboth Barbea and Merryn as candidates for Severa, do you have an original\ntheory of your own? I promise to be much less facetious in discussing your\nideas than you were with mine, so please, if you have something, ante up\nand join the game. The stakes are high, of course, but as always the\nwinnings are paltry. \n\nRobert Borski"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}