Subject: (urth) The Green Man and Agia

From: Nicholas Gevers <potto at webmail.co.za>
Date: Tue, 01 Jun 1999 16:26:53 +0000

I was a little surprised to read of people stumped by the precise (or
deeper) meaning of the green man's prophecy of Severian finding Agia
above ground. I've thought all along that there is a typical Wolfean
ambiguity here: soon after the scene in the showman's tent, Severian
searches for Thecla underground; as a genuine prophet, the green man
is a) warning Severian that the woman he will in fact be searching for
is not the dead Thecla, but Agia (the true author of "Thecla's
letter"), who is still alive (unburied, above ground) and will be
waiting in ambush for Severian outside the caverns (above ground); and
b) that the woman he will believe he is searching for, Thecla, after
proving not to be in the caverns (below ground) will be resurrected
through the alzabo ritual as part of Severian (again, alive, above
ground).
//--------------------------------------
Nicholas Gevers
potto at webmail.co.za
_______________________________________________________________
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From: Peter Stephenson <pws at ibmth.df.unipi.it>
Date: Wed, 02 Jun 1999 07:46:29 +0000

Nicholas Gevers wrote:
> is ...

I don't want to drag this out into a pointless argument over points of view
(viewless argument over views of points?) [I was arguing the green man,
although he comes from the future, is a fraud when it comes to `predicting'
people's personal histories], but... are there really genuine prophets in
the Book?  There are people who've seen the future, and can report on their
own experience there; there are even beings who live backward in time;
there are people with magic mirrors who can see things which may or not be
there.  But it doesn't seem to me there is anyone with supernatural sight.
It would seem to violate the `no magic' rule.  I'd be fascinated to hear a
counterexample.

corncrake

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From: Peter Westlake <peter at harlequin.co.uk>
Date: Wed, 02 Jun 1999 10:50:56 +0000

At 09:46 1999-06-02 +0200, you wrote:
...
>It would seem to violate the `no magic' rule.  I'd be fascinated to hear a

Not a person, but what about the Vatic Fountain? It shows Severian all sorts
of things from his future. How does it work? Does it just show lots of things
and let you interpret them after the fact, or can it really prophesy? Would
it work for anyone else? If not, how does it know who's looking at it? Or is
Severian projecting his own foreknowledge of the future (if any) onto it?

SBear.