{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/1364", "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": 1364, "subject": "Stephanides, Questor", "messages": 2, "voices": 2, "first": "1999-02-09T19:30:00+00:00", "last": "1999-02-11T09:51:07+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "m.driussi", "address": "m.driussi at genie.com" }, "date": "1999-02-09T19:30:00+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Stephanides, Questor", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I've finally gotten around to answering the questions of Adam\nStephanides, briefly and lamely. Since I had promised to post them,\nhere, before I attempted to answer them, I might as well give you the\nwhole thing now, after the fact (more fun for you, that way, I\nsuppose!):\n\nAdam said:\n\n\"I'd like to see you expand on the cryptic remark . . . that the real\ntime of the books is always a decade or so ahead of the apparent time\"\n\nQuestion 1: \"You say `Severian must not have a heir, as evidenced by\ndialog on Yesod regarding his immediate predecessor's unsexing'\n(AE&3, p. 14). But, at least in the passage I found, the reason the\nold Autarch was `unmanned' was so that Severian, who was intended all\nalong to be the New Sun, will succeed him (V, ch. 21). This\nconsideration doesn't apply in regards to possible heirs of Severian,\nsince Severian's successor, if he were to have one, would be\nirrelevant to the Hierogrammates' cosmic plan, which stops with\nSeverian.\"\n\nQuestion 2: \"I remain an agnostic about the existence of Severian1,\nas I said on the Urth list. But if he did exist, and did go to\nYesod, take the test and fail, why did he fail? We are told that\nSeverian's `examination' consisted of Tzadkiel's examining the future\nand determining that Severian had a good chance of bringing the New\nSun. Why would Sev1 have been less likely than Sev2 to succeed in\nbringing the New Sun? Sev2's `optimizing' made him more\ncompassionate, but I don't see why that would have made him more\nlikely to bring the New Sun; if anything, it would be the reverse.\nThe only possibility that comes to mind is that Sev1's eidolons\nrefused to defend him in the battle royal and so he lost, or that\nTzadkiel saw this would happen. This in turn would imply that our\nSeverian's battle royal could indeed have stopped the New Sun, and\nwas not just another torment those lovable Hierogrammates cooked up\nfor Severian.\"\n\n///////\nTo which I said:\n\n You ask about how I divined this notion that the \"real time\nof the books is always a decade or so ahead of the apparent\ntime.\" Very briefly: it seems to me that in studying TBOTNS as a\ntime-travel story, we first sense that the past (in general) is\noperating on the situation in a passive way via myths/legends,\nand the far-future is operating in an active way via the two time\ntravelers Green and Ash; but then there is the very active\nmeddling by O, B, & F, who come from the near-future--from\nSeverian's court.\n\n It seems like there is a \"horizon\" in time, a line beyond\nwhich all meddling is impossible--otherwise, it seems to me, we\nwould have a situation where either the issue is forever\ncontested and never resolved, or the timeline splinters into a\nseparate universe for each and every case (so there is an Ash\nuniverse and a Green Man universe and a universe where Baldanders\nbecomes autarch . . . and so on, the parallel universe deal).\n[Which goes against the grain of my] Defining Abaddon/Briah/Yesod as\nsubspace/normal space/hyperspace, rather than a Moorcockian\nmultiverse of alternate Earths [which is closer to the parallel\nuniverse model].\n\n The horizon, where is it, what is it? Obviously the key\nevent is the arrival of the white fountain. But before that, the\nwhite fountain has to decelerate, or begin deceleration. And\nbefore =that= it has to accelerate; and before =that= it has to\nbe born.\n\n This line of thinking gets very wooly very quickly.\n\n At a more human-scale, one possible horizon seems to be the\ntenth year of Severian's reign, when Severian gets on the Ship\nand literally goes over the horizon with regard to the Briatic\nuniverse. This is also roughly the period that O, B, & F come\nfrom, since they are on the Ship coming to investigate Severian\nafter (or during, or before?) his Trial. Again, that whole loop-\nthe-loop deal: time travel creates an inversion of causality\nwhich in turn causes weird predestination echoes. But things on\nthe Ship can only effect the near-past by way of O, B, & F, it\nseems to me. Because the Ship is, in effect, its own contained\nuniverse, it forms a horizon between Briah and Yesod.\n\n And at some point in URTH Severian is more independent and\nless acted upon by others; at some point Severian is triggering\nevents rather than being raised up by the ripples of events\ntriggered by others/other selves. This gives me a sense that\nthe zero point, the \"real now\" has passed beyond the horizon. Or\nsomething like that. And when he runs up to Ushas, that's where\nhe stops--the real now.\n\n In short, there's no real reason why I think what I do!\n\n As for your \"real\" questions regarding Severian's heir, and\nthe existence of Sev1--have you read Peter Wright's essays in\n\"Foundation\" no. 66? Whether you agree with them or not, they\nmight help you solidify your own opinions.\n\n Otherwise and even if, it is another two cans of worms. In\nthe first case, it may be that Severian cannot have an heir\nbecause, deep down, while he is capable of destroying the world\nin a rage over his \"faithless\" wife, he would fail to destroy the\nworld if he had a child alive in it. That is, a \"paternal\ninstinct\" in Severian might trump his \"misogynistic impulse.\"\n\n In the second case, who is the Severian in Yesod, who takes\nthe test and triggers the mission of O, B, & F? If you want to\nsay, \"the same Severian, just in the near future,\" that is fine.\nBut we know, as \"our\" Severian knows, that he has been\nguided/manipulated/instructed by time-travelers--that he is not a\n\"natural\" Severian; and thus, or so it seems to me, before \"our\"\nSeverian there was a natural Severian (not guided/not manipulat-\ned/not instructed), who is \"now\" in the future and has a hand in\nguiding/manipulating/instructing \"our\" Severian up-to-\nbut-not-beyond the \"line of division\" event of the New Sun.\n\n I agree with your hypothesis that the battle royal (in\nYesod) is real rather than a sham--but in this I part company\nwith the mega-conspiracy theory of Peter Wright, which sees all\nas a sham (not unlike the religion in Herbert's DUNE).\n\n=mantis=" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Tony Ellis", "address": "tony.ellis at futurenet.co.uk" }, "date": "1999-02-11T09:51:07+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Stephanides, Questor", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Mantis wrote:\nAdam said:" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "..." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Question 2: \"I remain an agnostic about the existence of Severian1,\nas I said on the Urth list. But if he did exist, and did go to\nYesod, take the test and fail, why did he fail?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Why assume that Severian1 failed the test?\n\nWhat \"our\" Severian tells us is that the first Severian went to Yesod, but did not\nreturn, becoming instead a traveller of the corridors of time. Since \"our\" Severian\nonly gained this power as a consequence of becoming the New Sun, doesn't that\nsuggest that Severian1 became the New Sun too? That's how I've always read it.\n\nOr am I missing something (again)?" } ] } ] }