Subject: (urth) Death, Memory, Ghosts, Resurrection

From: Michael Andre-Driussi <mantis at sirius.com>
Date: Wed, 21 Apr 1999 09:23:41 +0000

In several essays and countless conversations, people have wondered "Why
Severian? What qualifies him?" And often, after listing his various
strengths and weaknesses, his first known special talent is hit upon as
being somehow the most significant: "It must be his Memory."

It may be, but I haven't seen anyone pursue that thread--it is usually a
stepping stone to someplace else, or a side attraction.  (Or maybe I'm just
forgetting something.)

So here's a thumbnail sketch:

Let's pretend, for the sake of this experiment, that his memory is the
=only= thing that qualifies Severian. (I.e., it is not that he is a
torturer; nor that he is the person on throne when the timer runs out; nor
anything else.)

Now then...

Throughout the Urth Cycle we see many funeral customs and the way that
memory plays a part in them: from the hut where Hallvard's people maintain
a memorial shield until nobody can remember that person anymore, to the
Antechamber's memory of the navigator's funeral.

We also see how ghosts are raised--Malrubius and Triskele from Severian's
memories; the Vivimancer from the memories of an ancient being living on or
near   Fomalhaut; the legions drawn from Severian to fight on Yesod.

The same rules for raising ghosts =seem= to apply to resurrecting corpses
(which makes sense, of course, since in resurrection one is raising the
ghost and reuniting it with the body). But the various resurrections are
often complicated by other things: who remembered Typhon for his
resurrection (well, I would say the Claw); the Jonas ghost riding in the
Miles body (actually this finds a possible solution in the outline above);
who remembered Dorcas (well, "Charon," obviously); etc.

So Severian's memory is the same sort of lifeboat as we see in Ellison's
"Demon with a Glass Hand" (where the question "Where are all the people?"
is answered "All on a wire in your robotic chest," iirc).  Not only all the
autarchs, however dimly, but also all the other people he has written
about--the text itself (writ by Severian, remember) is the final proof for
Yesod that he has the ability to recreate the world.

Now, does this mean that Severian resurrects everybody from his narrative
immediately after transmitting the last chapter of URTH?  No.  But he is a
living momento mori, a breathing tombstone, for lost Urth: he is, himself,
like a shield of the dead in the hut of Hallvard's people.

=mantis=

*More Wolfe info & archive of this list at http://www.urth.net/urth/

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From: Peter Westlake <peter at harlequin.co.uk>
Date: Wed, 21 Apr 1999 17:39:21 +0000

At 09:23 1999-04-21 -0800, you wrote:
(interesting bit snipped ;-)
...
> who remembered Typhon for his
>resurrection (well, I would say the Claw); 

I don't think anyone did; I think Typhon's suspended animation
machinery restored him exactly as it was meant to, when Severian
and Severian were fiddling with it trying to make it feed them.

Re. the interesing bit snipped above: interesting!
Some questions about Severian as living monument:

1. Who is going to see/read his memories? Perhaps he will pass
   stories on to the survivors. But he has already passed on
   his manuscripts.

2. Can't the Hierodules and their machines remember things?

3. With all that time travel going on, why bother?

I'm much more convinced by Severian's own explanation, that
the torturers are the only people who can be relied upon to
Do What Needs To Be Done.

SBear.

---

From: Peter Stephenson <pws at ibmth.df.unipi.it>
Date: Thu, 22 Apr 1999 09:49:38 +0000

Michael Andre-Driussi wrote:
> Severian? What qualifies him?"

Surely, at least to some extent, Severian is Everyman?  That may seem hard
to accept of a rather dour torturer with a perfect memory, but I think
Wolfe wants us to make the imaginative attempt.  It seems to me to make the
religious resonances stronger if Severian has no a priori claim to being
chosen.  Quite what `a priori' means in this chronological mess is another
matter, and this maybe a major spanner in the works of this theory:  he
can't be Everyman because he's inextricably bound in right from the start
with a very complex and particular web of causality.  So that carefully
cancels out this posting.

Yours in nullity,
corncrake

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From: Tony Ellis <tony.ellis at futurenet.co.uk>
Date: Thu, 22 Apr 1999 12:37:14 +0000

> Severian? What qualifies him?"
Am I the only person who feels that we don't need to ask this one? :-)
For me, any explanation begins and ends with the words of Master
Malrubius, when he tells Severian "In you all the divergent tendencies
of our race may have achieved synthesis." [Citadel, XXXI]. A peculiarly
eloquent, concise, classically Wolfean sentence, and one that has popped
into my mind at the oddest moments over the years.

That being said, I still found mantis's musing on Memory
thought-provoking. I've been waiting for someone to suggest that
Severian's memory qualifies him to bring the New Sun because it was what
tipped the balance in the battle on Yesod, that his superior
recollection led to the creation of superior - or more numerous -
allies, and thus victory. Or has this already been suggested?