Subject: (urth) Iron men

From: Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net>
Date: Fri, 23 Apr 1999 20:23:08 +0000

started out as glorified spacesuits for the sailors, becoming, as more
gadgetry and circuits were added, self-aware entities capable of independent
action. They are hollow because they were originally designed to house human
sailors. Because they are hollow they are lightweight. Sev calls them
androids and realizes that that is what Jonas had once been (chapter VIII).
When he carried Jonas from the Antechamber he was surprised at how
lightweight he was and speculated that it was due to his metal parts being
made of some lightweight alloy. Wrong. He was lightweight because the metal
parts were hollow, and the metal parts were made of iron, if not literally
at least metaphorically.

    In Greek mythology Sidero was female, not male. Sidero has two separate
meanings. One is "starry", the other is a prefix meaning "iron". Sidero
mentions two others of his kind, Hadid and Hierro. Al Hadid, also called
"Iron", is the title of the 57th Surah of the KORAN. Hierro is Spanish for
"iron".

    Jonas means "dove", but whether this was his original name or not is
unknown. Jonas is very secretive about his past. He implies that he was a
crewman of a starship that crashed, the crew then scattering. Maybe so. But
his name invites comparison with his biblical namesake. Jonah disobeyed God
and took ship for Tarshish. God sends a storm in punishment, unnecessary
cargo is thrown overboard (Hethor knows about cargo) and Jonah too, as a
scapegoat, where he is swallowed by the "whale". Thus the origin of the term
"jonah" for someone who is bad luck. Jonas has a lot of bad luck. Was he
banished for some "sin", either by Tzadkiel or other agent of the Increate?
Jonas lost his left hand; Sidero lost his right arm and hand. This has
resonances with Jonah 4:11. "... persons that cannot discern between their
right hand and their left hand ..." It took Sev a while to figure out which
of Jonas's hands was the prosthetic.

    Further, it is Sidero who tells Sev: "We sail in and out of Time, then
back again. There is only one ship, the captain says. [Tzadkiel is the
captain] All the ships we hail between the galaxies or the suns are this
ship." Does this mean just what it says? Are the "Quasar", "Fortunate
Cloud", and Tzadkiel's ship one and the same?

    Is this all coincidence? I doubt it. The androids Sidero and Jonas have
become human, whether by accident or design, in all ways that matter save
the biological. Perhaps All Too Human, in the Nietzschean sense.

Roy

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

---

From: Matthew Malthouse <matthew.malthouse at guardian.co.uk>
Date: Mon, 26 Apr 1999 11:02:49 +0000

"Roy C. Lackey" wrote:
> 
>     In URTH Sidero tells Sev how his (Sidero's) kind came to be. They
>     In Greek mythology Sidero was female, not male. 

Perhaps my mind is too deep in the gutter but my first thought on
reading that was maybe the symbolism of Sev entering a Sidero/Suit that
had female characteristics would have been just too much.

Even as it is, Sev's use of Sidero is very much a violation.

> Sidero has two separate

So we have three men of iron - is there any reference to alternative
names for, or used by Jonas? I can't recall.

If one accepts that the simplest solution suffices then Jonas and Sidero
can be taken to be entities of the same kind - ex-space armour. But the
contrast between Sidero's strenght and Jonas' weakness is marked. That
weaknes I'd ascribe to the failing of the human parts Jonas used to
repair himself which leads me to wonder how such a repair could have
been effected on a hollow body.

Um, hollow men. Is there an allegory there? Sidero's lack of empathy and
Jonas' apparent surprise at a developing emotional need (Jollenta)
suggest to me that constructs might be missing some vital ingredient for
"humanity" (being more that just self-awareness) that Jonas was able to
absorb through long exposure to and mimicry of human behaviour which
Sidero, being in command, has had neither opportunity nor need to
aquire.

Of the several types of beings - hierodules, Baldanders, the ape
guardians of the Saltus treasure cave, Ascians: all seem to display some
empathy, or at least emotion driven reaction. There does however seem to
be gradation. Ascians live in a constructed society and emotive
reactions are, if not supressed then subsumed by the limitations of
their constructed language. It's suggested that the ape guardians are
constructed for their purpose and the emotions displayed are limited to
anger, fear and adoration of the claw. The heirodules are unequivocally
constructs and it seems to me that their ability to sympathise with
humanity is something that they have to consciously cultivate. Siderao
is perhaps the most "mechanical" of the constructed but self-aware
entities that we see and for him there is almost no display of emotion
except loyalty to the ship and captain which could be explained as being
programmed in in the first place.

If there is a hierarchy of construction/humanity one would expect
Severian and Everyman to be at the apex. Yet his obvious failings make
this unlikely. Too often he does not understand others motivaions in his
first travels although he does markedly better in his third pilgramge
after returning from space (counting the voyage on Tad's ship as No 2).
Which brings us back to the question of just how is Sev qualified for
his task. And a subsidiary: is he changed by his Journey? Does his
connection to the new sun give him insights that were denied to him
before? It seems to me that this is the case.

Matthew