{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/1950", "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": 1950, "subject": "Foila's Choice", "messages": 2, "voices": 2, "first": "1999-11-10T20:04:09+00:00", "last": "1999-11-11T22:03:41+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Michael Andre-Driussi", "address": "mantis at sirius.com" }, "date": "1999-11-10T20:04:09+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Foila's Choice", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Hey there, raster.\n\nRaster write:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Is the fight rigged? Foila's story obviously reflects her situation and\ntells us a great deal about her character. But I think it's noteworthy\nthat the maid in Foila's tale does not \"choose to keep herself for herself.\"" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Right. I didn't mean to suggest that she was going to chose this option.\nMy money is on bachelor number three." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Shortly before Foila tells her story, the Pelerines' slave Winnoc informs\nus that \"There's only three ways a man can be a slave.... Though for a\nwoman it's different, what with marriage and the like.\" I don't think\nthat Foila's story necessarily tells us *who* she intends to marry.\nRather, she's letting her suitors (and us) know just *how* the marriage\nis going to work. The armiger's daughter is the brains of the partnership;\nshe knows how to give orders by requesting a decision. Foila is a combat\nveteran, and she wants it understood that she is not going to be a chattel\nof her future husband -- whoever he turns out to be." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Well, okay. I mean, I agree with you, but I push it a little further. I\nmean, look, we are shown in the text about how the teller puts himself and\nhis situation into the tale--but we do not get a blow-by-blow analysis of\nthe woman's tale.\n\nNote how, in the tale the armiger's daughter is physically wounded by the\nfirst two clods. And Foila is in the lazaret, presumably because she has\nbeen wounded. Note how in the tale the third suitor is the one who\nrecognizes her as the =superior= being (\"an angel\" or \"a shape-shifting\nvixen\" ) that she is. Interesting thing, that: since you might think\nthat a gal fighting in the trenches would be interested in =equality=\nrather than her own superiority, that is, the partner who fights beside you\nand sheds blood, etc., the military model of gender-bias free equality.\n\nPutting these odd pieces together, it almost seems as if Foila is blaming\nher first two suitors/fellow soldiers for her own real wounding--not\nnecessarily \"friendly fire,\" but just their own ineptness as soldiers!\nAfter all, one is a seal hunter, the other is a farmer boy--whereas she!\nShe is an armigette (she is at least a cavalry officer)!" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On the other hand, it's entirely possible that Foila has already decided\nwho will win the contest, and intends to nudge Severian in the correct\ndirection if she sees that he's about to get it wrong. One obvious way\nwould be to clarify the word \"best.\"" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Exactly my point. Here, let's wind it back a bit: who sets up the contest?\nFoila. Why on Urth would she do such a thing? Because she has no\nintention of marrying either of the two initial contestants (or she's just\na ditz). She wants the stranger in a strange land; she wants the other\nofficer; she wants the one who needs her like an infant needs his mother,\nthe one who sees in her not an equal (a soldier) but a superior being.\n\nShe introduces this surprise contestant, \"just as a lark\" (heh-heh,\nremembering the bird of the Armiger's Daughter). Then she =translates= his\nstory. Hmm, now that's a bit suspicious. Finally, to burn all bridges just\nin case Severian is really dense, she tells her own story, which lays out\nthe contest, its correct and logical result, and the future she has planned\nfor her husband.\n\nMy sense: Foila is not some ditzy \"Private Benjamin\" type of female who\njust fell into the cavalry by accident and now has to chose between two\nreally swell footsoldiers; she is a warrior princess. She gets what she\nwants, and she wants a war trophy/trophy husband/war bridegroom!\n\nIn part, no doubt, because such an object defines her class (armiger or\narmiger-wannabe) and profession (hussar); it proves her virility, her\nmartial puissance, etc. Of course, hopeless romantics, we continue to hope\nthat she is genuinely =fond= of the object . . .\n\nFurther datapoint: she obviously wants to be discharged from the military,\nusing the past-tense in describing their roles to Severian, but that kook\nMelito insists that they are still soldiers--duh-uh! Wake up, lover boy!\nShe wants to cash out, get her trophies and get back to civilian life; a\nlife that, if she is indeed an armigette, was richer by far than anything\nher two lower class countrymen could possibly offer her.\n\n=mantis=" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Alice Turner", "address": "akt at attglobal.net" }, "date": "1999-11-11T22:03:41+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Foila's Choice", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "May I offer an entirely non-PC thoroughly female take? (We're not supposed\nto take gender-based positions.) Mantis is right. Foila is taken with Sev.\nFoila is flirting with Sev. Foila wants Sev to make a move. Definitely.\n\n-alga" } ] } ] }