{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/1140", "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": 1140, "subject": "Grandmother Dorcas", "messages": 2, "voices": 2, "first": "1998-10-08T15:38:46+00:00", "last": "1998-10-09T00:32:00+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Robert Borski", "address": "rborski at coredcs.com" }, "date": "1998-10-08T15:38:46+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grandmother Dorcas", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "In LEXICON URTHUS, in the entry under Dorcas, it reads: \"She dies at the\nage of sixteen or seventeen while giving birth to her first child, a son\nnamed Ouen.\"\n\nBut in SWORD, Dorcas relates the following: \"I lived with my husband above\na little shop, and took care of our child.\"\n\nLater, in CITADEL, when Severian recontacts Ouen, he asks of him, \"Your\nfather was a shopkeeper. What of your mother?\" To which Ouen replies: \"I\nnever knew her, sieur. Cas they called her, but she died when I was young.\nIn childbirth, my father said.\"\n\nTo me this implies Ouen was the first-born child and Dorcas survives his\ndelivery, since she remembers taking care of him. When Dorcas becomes\npregnant a second time, however, she dies; Ouen not remembering her means\nhe was probably still a toddler--certainly no older than three. But did\nthis second issue survive--which would mean Severian had a paternal aunt or\nuncle? For all Ouen's father, the old boatman, tells us--i.e., he ran a\nshop that sold cloisonne and garments; he and Cas were together for four\nyears, less a month and a week--he never mentions having *any* offspring,\nso it's certainly possible the second child (the existence of which Ouen\nwould be too young to remember) survived. Dorcas' husband being unable to\nnurse the child, or perhaps grief-stricken because of his wife's death,\neither rejects or abandons his second-born, and so it is raised by others. \n\nIs there anyone in New Sun who might correspond to this lost aunt or uncle\nof Severian's? I'm not sure, but the tendency to produce twins is genetic,\nand so if this person later married and reproduced it's not unreasonable to\nassume twins might be born, just as Severian and Severa are to Catherine\nand Ouen. And if these twins were later to enter the same trade as their\ngrandfather, or more sinisterly know of each other carnally in the same\nfashion as Dorcas and Severian--well, you can probably guess where I'm\ngoing. \n\nSo I ask you? Is it possible--and please note, this is speculation\nonly--that Agia and Agilus are also the grandchildren of Dorcas and that\nSeverian is their first cousin? Could it be the Claw is summoning Agia as\nwell as Severian to the cathedral tent of the Pelerines?\n\nRobert Borski\n\n " } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "m.driussi", "address": "m.driussi at genie.com" }, "date": "1998-10-09T00:32:00+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grandmother Dorcas", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Robert Borski,\n\nNow this is something interesting.\n\nJust to shore up another data point, the estimated age of Dorcas is\nsupplied by Agia when the trio is at the Inn of Lost Loves (I, ch.\n26): he guesses age 18 or 19, she guesses 16 or 17.\n\nSo if we take the low number, age sixteen, then Dorcas was married at\nage twelve.\n\nRe: Dorcas's line, \"I lived with my husband above a little shop, and\ntook care of our child,\" is a few pages into ch. 11.\n\n(What I'm actually more interested in is the big mystery Dorcas has\nbeen sketching before she makes this remark: that is, what is the\nthing that keeps a family rooted to a location long after the\nneighborhood has gone to hell? \"A grave, perhaps,\" says Dorcas.\nOkay, let's go with that--a grave of whom? Dorcas herself? No--she\nwas in the Lake, relatively far to the north. Someone on Dorcas's\nside of the family? =What= is she thinking of?\n\nBack up. She has seen a chair, check. The chair reminds her of her\npast life--it is =from= her past life, check. Presumably the chair is\nfrom her home above the shop, though it might be from the house she\ngrew up in [or both--she might have taken it from her childhood house\nwith her to her own home].\n\n[But how can they have recently busted into a locked house and gotten\nthis chair? Boatman seems to say that he doesn't even have a nail\nleft from the old shop--that doesn't sound like a boarded-up treasure\nhoard waiting for archaelogical salvagers from Thrax to find just\nlast month.]\n\nOr is the entire point of this whole \"family treasure\" thing just\nthis: the rational for the treasure hunters from Thrax who go looking\nfor antique furniture and anything better that they can find?)\n\nDorcas's memories are vague and jumbled, so I'm not sure how much\nweight we can put to her one statement about taking care of the\nchild--that might be true, or it might only be a supposition she\nmakes based upon the images she has dredged up by that point. Her\ndreams in CLAW (ch. 22) are of buying tiny clothes (i.e., baby\nclothes) while a woman makes lace like a Fate, and of being in a\ntiny boat with an old boatman.\n\nThe first dream seems drawn from a pre-labor time (the expectant\nfirst time mother buying clothes); the second seems drawn from a\npost-death time. The death imagery in both cases comes from classical\nmythology, even though we have reason to believe Dorcas was a good\nCatholic girl (re: the crosses they sold). The odd thing is that the\nOld Boatman, her husband, has a similarly haunting memory of seeing\nDorcas's eyes snap open when her body hit the Lake water.\n\nIt seems highly significant to me that both the boatman and the dead\nwoman (yet another dead mother--don't forget SHADOW ch. 1 or\nNIGHTSIDE ch. 1) have memories of their parting. And since in one\nreading ghosts are \"real\" (Miles's early memories; etc.), then it\nmakes perfect sense.\n\nBut still, the death of Dorcas seems mighty mysterious to me. The\nBoatman's memory of her eyes opening comes amid much talk of\nskullduggery--it seems that the dead walk and have to be put down\nfrom time to time, and/or the corollary: maybe live people are\nslipped in with the dead; the graveyard as a perfect place for\nmurder.\n\nWhat if Dorcas was murdered, in a \"Terminator\" style attempt by the\nOther Lords to halt an unacceptable future from evolving? (Like\nevery time-travelling \"stop Hitler in the womb\" story.) On the\nsurface, this quiet assassination would make sense only if Ouen is\nthe one they are trying to snuff out, since with hindsight we know\nthat Ouen is Severian's father, and Severian is the real deal. So\ntrying to eliminate Ouen's hypothetical sibling would be pointless.\n(Unless in some Ur-timeline it was the sibling who then became the\nancestor to some sort of non-Severian New Sun . . .)\n\nOr the murder might be done by the New Sun team, since all the women\nare under tight (protective?) wraps: Catherine in the tower, then\nonly appearing on feast days; Dorcas in the lake; Valeria in the\ncomplex around the Atrium of Time. Three pivotal women who are\nbeyond the reach of the Other Lords.\n\nAnyway, said murder theories are highly speculative and only come\ninto play because they are such cliches in time-travelling tales.\n\nBut it is true: Dorcas could have died in the labor of her second\nchild; this hypothetical child may have lived or died; a second child\ncould come within a year after the first (so she could have Ouen at\nfifteen and baby number two at sixteen--urf!). Text supports that\nmuch, at least.\n\n(P.S. I've been wondering if Casdoe's mother, whom she says lives in\nThrax, could possibly be anybody we meet in the text. Couldn't be\nCyriaca, since she's armigette. How about the woman who runs the\nDuck's Nest inn, where stayed Hethor, Agia, and Dorcas?)\n\n=mantis=" } ] } ] }