{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/1449",
    "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'"
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  "archive": "urth",
  "thread": {
    "id": 1449,
    "subject": "17",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "1999-03-25T00:48:31+00:00",
    "last": "1999-03-25T00:48:31+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0024-0090@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Robert Borski",
        "address": "rborski at coredcs.com"
      },
      "date": "1999-03-25T00:48:31+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) 17",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "From SWIMMING WITH THE UNDINES, Excerpt #3:\n\nThe number seventeen comes up a number of different times in the narrative\nof the New Sun, and each time it does it appears to carry a sinister\nvalence.\n\nThe first time we encounter it is in the library of Master Ultan. One of\nthe books shelved next to The Book of the Wonders of Urth and Sky is\nentitled Lives of the Seventeen Megatherians, and Blaithmaic is credited as\nits author. We're not privy to any of the book's passages, but given that\nat a later point Abaia, one of Urth's principal monsters and an enemy of\nthe New Sun, is described as the \"great beast Abaia,\" and knowing that\nmegatherian means \"great beast\" in Greek, it seems safe to postulate the\nbook concerns Abaia, Erebus, Arioch, and Scylla, along with their lesser\ncounterparts. And how many of these malign alien beings have crossed the\ngulfs of space and taken up residence in the Urth's oceans or beneath its\ncrust? Seventeen, I postulate. Hence one possible context on its use as a\nnumber of charged sinisterness. \n\nThe second time we encounter seventeen is on the Field of Sanguinary\nConflict. To announce their presence, the various combatants customarily\nshout out their names, and one such combatant identifies himself as \"Cadroe\nof the Seventeen Stones.\" Seventeen Stones seems to refer to a place or a\nlocale here, but we're given no further reference to any such place, so its\nuse remains somewhat enigmatic, although I do note that the second syllable\nof Cadroe is \"roe\"--i.e., fish eggs--and that many of the Seventeen\nMegatherians appear to be aquatic. So perhaps Wolfe is merely seeking,\nhowever obliquely, to expand on this aspect of their nature.\n\nThe third time we encounter the number seventeen is in CLAW, when Severian\nreveals there are seventeen cells per wing in the Matachin Tower. If you're\na prisoner here, obviously you're in dire circumstances, and the\nretrofitter of the tower (in actuality, a rocket ship) may have picked\nseventeen to convey exactly this notion. \n\nLastly, in CITADEL, we hear of the Group of Seventeen, the ruling polity of\nthe Ascians. The Ascians are the longtime enemy of the Commonwealth and\nhave aligned themselves with Abaia, Erebus, Arioch, et al--in other words,\nthe Seventeen Megatherians. Their use of seventeen in both title and\nmembership thus seems designed as an honorific to commemorate this\nalliance. But as Michael Andre-Driussi also points out in his fine LEXICON\nURTHUS, typical membership in the former Soviet politburo comprised\nseventeen, so there's this additional likely resonance, especially since\nthe Ascians, lacking shadows/souls, come very close to the ideal godless\npractitioners of Communism.\n\nBut how is it that Wolfe the author has chosen seventeen to take on these\nvarious sinister shades? Why not some other number? Is it meant strictly to\nreflect the politburo connection? Wolfe, after all, as a man of deep\nreligious convictions, might well have a particular horror of political\nsystems that preach atheism.  \n\nThe answer, I believe, can be found in Genesis 7:11:\n\n\"In the year when Noah was six hundred years old, on the seventeenth day of\nthe second month, on that very day, all the springs of the great abyss\nbroke through, the windows of the sky were opened, and rain fell on the\nearth for forty days and forty nights.\" \n\nIn other words it's meant to signify the coming of the Megatherians,\nmonstrous creatures of the abyss, Wolfe's posthistoric equivalent of\nLucifer and the other Infernals. [1] And not only, it seems, have the skies\nopened up figuratively, but literally, just as Genesis notes. Because there\nare several references to a great flood that may have taken place in Urth's\npast. Severian, in describing the fourth and lowest level of the Citadel,\nmentions how \"mud had seeped into the corridors until it lay to the\nthickness of one hand.\" Two sentences later he tells us, \"Yet the water had\nnever been high here.\" Water, of course, always seeks the lowest level, so\nbad plumbing and a great leak (though never mentioned) might account for\nit, but how about mud several inches high four floors beneath the surface?\n[2]\n\nAdditionally, when Jonas and Severian are riding atop the baluchither bound\nfor Vodalus's forest stronghold, Severian describes their jostling motion\nthusly: \"I feel now that I'm traveling through the Citadel in a flood,\nsolemnly rowed.\" Look, however, at the reaction this produces in Jonas: \"At\nthat Jonas looked so grave that I burst out laughing at the sight of his\nface.\" But why does Jonas appear so disturbed? Sev's remark hardly seems\nanything but casual. And yet, as we recall, Jonas seems to know quite a bit\nabout the Megatherians; notably, about how, because of their behemoth-like\nnature, they've confined to pelagic waters. He's also attempted to explain\nwhy the Great Wall has been built with his tale of the black beans, which\nunfortunately for us he never concludes. But do the black beans, besides\ncalling to mind the beans of Jack and the Beanstalk, also refer to black\nbeings--i.e., the Megatherians? (Keep in mind the punning nature of these\nvarious little embedded tales; monitor for minotaur and thesis for Theseus,\nfor example, in \"The Tale of the Student and his Son.\") Are the black beans\nmeant to be sown like Aeëtes' dragon teeth and produce warriors to combat\nTyphon? Since all of the Brown Book's tales are conflational, combining a\nnumber of different myths and archetypes, Cadroe's stones might also\nrepresent not only the missile David slew Goliath with, but the stones\nDeucalion threw after the flood that Zeus sent, although in the latter\n\"great beasts\" may have come forth from the waves, not men. Jonas, having\nbeen a servitor of the Hierodules, knows full well the facts behind his\nlittle tale, even if he doesn't share them, and this is why he reacts so\ngravely--if the creatures brought by the flood triumph, it means that he\nand his masters will have labored in vain, and that the New Sun will be\nguttered like a candle dropped into the sea.       \n\n[1] Notice how in part the Genesis quote is echoed by Maxellindis' uncle,\nthe boat captain. Though he does not know it, the night before, he has\nheard undines and possibly Abaia moving upriver, but in describing the\nstrange activities that have taken place--sort of a Second Coming of the\nMegatherians--he says, \"Sometimes I felt like I wasn't on old Gyoll at all,\nbut on some other river, one that run up into the sky, or under the\nground.\" (CITADEL, Chapt. XXXVII)\n\n[2] It's possible the zoetic transport ship mentioned in URTH, being the\nfuture equivalent of Noah's ark, plays to the flood myth, but I feel it's\nmore likely that the ship will be used to transport live animals to the\nmountainous Cursed Town--or possibly later to the Whorl.\n\nRobert Borski"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}