Subject: (urth) Re: Digest urth.v019.n012

From: Jon Camfield <griffjon at mail.utexas.edu>
Date: Wed, 07 Oct 1998 20:28:29 +0000

>Yes, and we are told that torturers never go there.

They never go there to be healed, but it doesn't necesarily follow that
they wouldn't drop off a child (though it seems more likely that they'd
hand it over to the witches.  Maybe the witches passed it off, though this
gets more and more complex.  We assume Catherine gave birth to Sev and
Sev's sister while in the Obuilette (why else would Sev remember nursing in
the prison cell, otherwise?)

But... (Sorry, I don't have my books here) don't the torturers not accept
babies that young?  Don't they have to be able to stand, but shorter than a
man's leg?

Perhaps Catherine gave birth to Sev and Sis while in the obuilette, then
after her excrutiation, was let free.  Being the daughter of at best an
optimate family, and having committed a crime worthy of torture, she
probably didn't have much money.  She scrapes by, but eventually returns to
the Seekers for help.  She gives them her son and earns extra wages by
being Katherine of the Wheel once a year.

...But what about the daughter?  Knowing the Seekers wouldn't take her, the
daughter wouldn't be given to them and probably not to the witches either.
Perhaps with only one child Catherine could afford to care for her
(barely?)?  Perhaps she gave the child to the Healers, or even to the
Pelerines.  Or perhaps the child grew up and became a whore at the
Echopraxia.... (since the khaibit theory is back to being in question)

>Of course Severian is a healer too.  He is praised as a "leech", and
>patches up Triskele (after first raising him from the dead :-)

And the healers are known for acts of cruelty to torturers-- nice
mirroring, I think

>By Gurloes "dropping hints", do you mean hints about Severian's true
>nature?  Or hints about his own ghastly life?  I'm thinking of the
>"metal phallus" scene here.

I meant the metal phallus / "viagra" powder scene, yes.

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