{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/1937",
    "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": 1937,
    "subject": "Severian's lies",
    "messages": 2,
    "voices": 2,
    "first": "1999-11-08T09:59:38+00:00",
    "last": "1999-11-08T21:59:50+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0028-0424@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Ouroboros",
        "address": "ottofaij at yahoo.com"
      },
      "date": "1999-11-08T09:59:38+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Severian's lies",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "While I'm not totally convinced Severian never lies\n(but I am leaning that way), I will side with the\ndefense on two points."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 5,
          "text": "Jeremy Crampton wrote:\n2) If Sev _thinks_ he has perfect memory, he's"
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "not lying. p. 11-12 incomplete truth about the person\nin the mausaleum and why it looks like him (I would\nsay this is a narrative deception to provide\nforeshadowing and gradual revelation of Severian's\nstory--a \"lie\" by Wolfe then)<<<<<\n\nIncomplete information does *necessarily* constitute a\nlie. No one speaking however frankly and honestly\n*ever* speaks *exhaustive* truth. I don't have Shadow\nwith me, but I believe Severian only says that as a\nyouth he would spend many hours in the mausoleum\ncontemplating the corpse buried there. The fact that\nhe didn't mention YET (or even at all if that HAD been\nthe case) that at the time of his writing he knew more\nthan he knew then does not make what he said a lie.\nI'll also mention that if Severian believes\nincorrectly that his memory is perfect, it is not a\nlie to say so."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 4,
          "text": "Roy C. Lackey wrote:\nAlso, he met Ouen twice and on the second"
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "occasion, in CITADEL, figured out that Ouen was his\nfather. If he didn't get to know Ouen any better after\nthat, it was his own fault.<<<<<\n\nTrue, and if he didn't, that tells us something about\nSeverian. Or even confirms what we suspected -- that\nSeverian is an unreflective autobiographer. But it\ndoesn't make him a liar. To say you \"have never known\"\nsomeone is not the same as saying you \"don't know who\nhe is\". I know who the President of the U.S. is, but I\nwould be a liar to say I \"know him\". How do you like\nmy ironic analogy?\n\n-Ouroboros"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0028-0436@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Ori Kowarsky",
        "address": "orik at sprint.ca"
      },
      "date": "1999-11-08T21:59:50+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Re: Severian's lies",
      "in_reply_to": "<urth-v0028-0424@digest.urth.net>",
      "reply_link": "subject",
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "While these lists of inconsistencies are interesting, they don't seem to\njustfy calling Sev a liar.  The closest I can come to a model where Sev is a\nliar about something important (and I hesitate to bring this up, I really,\nreally do) is whether he is making up or fudging certain\nspiritual/mystical/religious experiences in the text in order to buttress\nhis claims to having supernatural powers associated with the New Sun.\n\n(I should point out my personal leanings towards an interpretation of BOTNS\nwhich says that there is nothing which Severain or \"Increate-assisted\nSeverain\" is capable of doing (raising the dead, altering the Sun) which\nhasn't been shown, through history or experience, to be do-able or\nreplicatable by the Hierodules and their masters, neither of whom are divine\nas I understand that term).\n\nIf Severain is a liar at all, then the lie is a big lie, namely that he is\ndivinely ordained to effect certain changes on the Urth, when he knows that\nthose changes are actually effected and controlled by an alien civilization.\nWhether Sev is a liar under the suppositions outlined above is therefore\ndetermined by whether he is a)  genuinely a believer in his own power or 2)\ncynically manipulating the reader's understanding of events to push her/him\ninto an understanding of those events which works in Sev's favour.\n\nOri"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}