{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/143", "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": 143, "subject": "Tracking dust", "messages": 2, "voices": 2, "first": "1997-08-10T17:12:00+00:00", "last": "1997-08-10T22:43:26+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "m.driussi", "address": "m.driussi at genie.com" }, "date": "1997-08-10T17:12:00+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Tracking dust", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Reply: Item #0925298 from URTH at LISTS.BEST.COM@INET03#\n\nalga,\n\nRe: dreams, I got what you got, maybe less.\n\nRe: Sleigh vs. Cave, as Nutria pointed out (and maybe you did too),\nCutthroat first feels closer to the Sleigh deep in the cave.\nInteresting. So at what point does his feeling change?\n\nAt first he seems to think that the buildings have no walls because\nthe climate is so uniform and comfortable, then he realizes the walls\nhave been stripped (like the outer layers of the Egyptian pyramids)\nto make a new, smaller scale structure (pyramid salvage was used to\nbuild the modern city). Is this the point, or is it later, during\nthe interview or the test?\n\nThe Evil Staff. Again, it reminds me of the avern, the way it comes\nto life and actively tries to kill. But now I notice that Terminus\nEst also acts alive, shifting when lifted, leaning when lowered. I\nwas going to contrast them as two artifacts, the one the magic boon,\nthe other a cursed thing . . . but at the moment I'm caught by how very\nsimilar they are.\n\nLikewise the \"coldness\" and \"life-power drawing away\" quality of the\nevil staff finds an unexpected analog in the Claw of the Conciliator,\nwhich, after all, causes Severian to feel cold whenever it performs\nits little tricks because it is feeding off his bodily essence in a\nmost vampiric way (like Stormbringer, to touch back on the Moorcock\nthread). So maybe the duel is more properly a vril-o-meter; like two\nboys with lit cigarettes, say, each holding the ember of his cigarette\ninto his own arm--the loser being he who pulls back first.\n\nIn the case of Severian, he loaths the avern yet cherishes Terminus\nEst, mourning its loss (that whole \"stripping of the hero\" thing);\nand he never considers the Claw to be an evil artifact to be thrown\naway (though it is true he tries to give it back and ends up sneaking\nit back). Then there is the analeptic alzabo--first seen as a\nshameful perversion, in the end a nearly sacred communion of autarchy\n(while even more grisly and horrifying).\n\nWith Cutthroat, again I see the Lindsay mode where each new region\noffers new organs, new weapons, new passions, which are used in the\nregion and then abandoned or atrophied by the time the hero gets to\nthe next region. The only artifact that Cutthroat keeps is the tape\nrecorder--good thing! But he fails to find the note left by\nCim--something that Latro might not have done.\n\nThe evil staff gives Cutthroat impulses and dreams of domination, a\nperception that distinguishes between ruler and subject (apparently\nsomewhat akin to seeing a difference between human and animal; close\nto \"human and subhuman\"). So he chucks it, seeing as how he's bent on\nestablishing a vegetarian democracy where the lion lies down with the\nlamb (and the farmer sleeps in the cornfield ). (And the corn swears\noff eating fish .) (And the fish acknowledges that plankton are\nanimals, too .)\n\nIn contrast the Claw gives Severian visions of all sorts of sky blue\nnice and happy things, helping him cure a cute kid here, an animal\nthere, glossing over the fact that the New Sun =will= destroy Urth in\na non-metaphorical way (he--llooo, Elric! ) involving unprecedented\nmegadeath, not unlike the extinction of the dinosaurs by the killer\nmeteor.\n\n=mantis=" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Jim Jordan", "address": "jbjordan at gnt.net" }, "date": "1997-08-10T22:43:26+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Tracking dust", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Mantis writes:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "The Evil Staff. Again, it reminds me of the avern, the way it comes\nto life and actively tries to kill. But now I notice that Terminus\nEst also acts alive, shifting when lifted, leaning when lowered. I\nwas going to contrast them as two artifacts, the one the magic boon,\nthe other a cursed thing . . . but at the moment I'm caught by how very\nsimilar they are." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "\tIsn't the explanation for Terminus Est that it contains a liquid metal\n(mercury?) that causes it to be lighter when raised, and to come down hard?\nPerhaps it is analogous to being alive, but alive? Correct me if I'm wrong." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Likewise the \"coldness\" and \"life-power drawing away\" quality of the\nevil staff finds an unexpected analog in the Claw of the Conciliator,\nwhich, after all, causes Severian to feel cold whenever it performs\nits little tricks because it is feeding off his bodily essence in a\nmost vampiric way ...." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "\tWell, perhaps better is Mark 5:30, where Jesus fells power leave Him when\nthe unclean woman touches the wing of His garment.\n\n\nNutria" } ] } ] }