{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/1935", "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": 1935, "subject": "Sev's parents", "messages": 3, "voices": 3, "first": "1999-11-08T01:02:35+00:00", "last": "1999-12-01T23:09:18+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Roy C. Lackey", "address": "rclackey at stic.net" }, "date": "1999-11-08T01:02:35+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Sev's parents", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "In defense of Jeremy Crampton's argument that Sev lied about \"I have never\nknown my father or mother\", I offer this: In CLAW, third page of chapter\nXXVII, Sev does remember his mother, remembers being breast fed in a gray\ncell. Whether that constitutes \"knowing\" her or not is problematic. He can't\nraise his eyes to look into her face, yet can see the gray of her cell wall.\nHe never spells out whether he ever equated \"Katharine\" with \"Catherine\" or\nnot. Sometimes having a perfect memory has its drawbacks, so that you have\nto lie to yourself to keep your sanity. It wouldn't be pleasant to see your\nmother's face once a year, particularly when a child too young to\ndistinguish between ritual and reality, on a bloody severed head.\n\nAlso, he met Ouen twice and on the second occasion, in CITADEL, figured out\nthat Ouen was his father. If he didn't get to know Ouen any better after\nthat, it was his own fault." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Jim Henley also wrote:\nIs there anything to demonstrate that Sev knows the complete truth about\nthe mausoleum before the events of URTH? This is a genuine rather than\nrhetorical question.<<" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Chapter XXXVIII of CITADEL: \"I know too in whose mausoleum I tarried as a\nchild, that little building of stone with its rose, its fountain, and its\nflying ship all graven. I have disturbed my own tomb, and now I go to lie in\nit.\"\n\nRoy" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Jim Henley", "address": "jlhenley at erols.com" }, "date": "1999-11-11T22:37:59+00:00", "subject": "RE: (urth) Sev's parents", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "-----Original Message-----\nFrom: urth-errors at lists.best.com [mailto:urth-errors at lists.best.com]On\nBehalf Of Roy C. Lackey\n\n\nAlso, he met Ouen twice and on the second occasion, in CITADEL,\nfigured out\nthat Ouen was his father. If he didn't get to know Ouen any better after\nthat, it was his own fault." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "So it was his own fault. The question is whether Severian lies, not whether\nhe has character flaws.\n\nThis is another case where someone seems to confuse the specific case (Sev\nlies) with the general (Sev is a Bad Guy). Evidence of the latter does not\nconstitute evidence of the former. When people point this out it is\nsuggested that they are somehow unwilling to see Sev as having flaws." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Jim Henley also wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "Is there anything to demonstrate that Sev knows the complete\ntruth about\nthe mausoleum before the events of URTH? This is a genuine rather than\nrhetorical question.<<" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Chapter XXXVIII of CITADEL: \"I know too in whose mausoleum I tarried as a\nchild, that little building of stone with its rose, its fountain, and its\nflying ship all graven. I have disturbed my own tomb, and now I\ngo to lie in it.\"" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Thank you. It's established. It doesn't make Sev a liar though, just shows\nthat for a novice writer he has an instinctive sense of pacing. I mean,\nthat would be a good book, wouldn't it? Chapter Two: \"So there was this\ntomb I used to play in as a boy. It was my tomb, and I was some kind of\ntime traveller. Not that I knew that right at that moment. See, time isn't\nlike a river, it's like an ocean with ripples. That's what these space guys\ntold me years later. Their names were . . . \"\n\nNote that over the course of the work as a whole, you get the complete\ntruth about the tomb as Sev understands it.\n\nBest,\n\n\nJim\n *****************************************\n\"All God's children got a little bit of soul\n but not that much . . . \"\n -- Graham Parker, \"Obsessed with Aretha\"" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Jon Camfield", "address": "griffjon at austin.rr.com" }, "date": "1999-12-01T23:09:18+00:00", "subject": "RE: (urth) Sev's parents", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "From: \"Roy C. Lackey\" \nSubject: No lie?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "\"Having been reared among the torturers, I have never known my father or my\nmother. No more did my brother apprentices know theirs.\" . . . \"Thus none of\nus knows our decent. Each would be an exultant if he could...\" . . . \"For\nmy part, I had already adopted as my own the device\ngraved in bronze...\"\n\nSev boasts often of having a perfect memory. I have pointed out several\ninstances (and there are more) where he contradicts himself. Either his\nclaim to having a perfect memory is true or it isn't. If true he has, at\ntimes, given false testimony. If not true, then his claim to having a\nperfect memory is itself a lie, and anything he says is suspect." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "May I offer a third possibility? Sev's memory is too perfect. As he\nmeta-commented on a few times, he would oftentimes get lost in memories,\nand find himself crying or laughing in his Autarchial chambers. I propose\nthat as he's churning these books out, he gets lost in his memories to do\nso--lost enough such that after he gets into the flow, he neglects to\ninclude facts which he knows, but does not treat at the time because he,\nfor all he knows as he is writing, is back at the citadel as a boy. If you\nwanted to get really complicated, you could analyze Sev's initial\nmeta-comments (when he speaks as the writer/as the adult) and if they get\nscarce around the times he speak erroneously, though this is a decidedly\nbad case to try that out on ;)\n\n\n______________________________________________________\nJon \"GriffJon\" Camfield www.GriffJon.com\nWeb R&D, Competitive Intelligence; eCertain.com\n\n\"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher\na hog, construct a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance\naccounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give\norders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch\nmanure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, and die\ngallantly. Specialization is for insects.\"\n--Robert A. Heinlein, _The Notebooks of Lazarus Long_" } ] } ] }