{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/2333",
    "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": 2333,
    "subject": "The Closing Door",
    "messages": 2,
    "voices": 2,
    "first": "2000-08-06T23:58:24+00:00",
    "last": "2000-08-07T22:10:05+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0029-0136@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Roy C. Lackey",
        "address": "rclackey at stic.net"
      },
      "date": "2000-08-06T23:58:24+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) The Closing Door",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": " Last year, while pointing out some of Severian's inconsistencies as a\nnarrator, I noted the fact that the night before Thecla's death Sev went to\nhis mausoleum to sulk. He said then that it was his last visit there (I,\nXII). That was not true; he went there several months later, after becoming\nautarch, and retrieved the coin Vodalus had given him (IV, XXXVI). Also, the\nlittle verse he said when he retrieved the coin differed slightly from the\nverse given when he hid it, so that \"glass\" became \"grass\". Further, he went\nto the mausoleum again fifty Urth years later, after the flood, though he\ndidn't go in (V, XLVII).\n\n I only recapitulate these facts as background for something else associated\nwith these visits that I had not noticed before, no matter how many times I\nread the books. On the first visit mentioned above, Sev describes the jammed\ndoor of the mausoleum as the \"half-open door\" (which is also half-closed,\ndepending on how you look at it). On the second visit above, it is described\nas \"three-quarters shut\". On the third visit above, \"...I found it's\nlong-jammed door shut, the force of the onrushing sea having completed a\nmotion begun perhaps a century ago.\"\n\n How are we to account for the progressive closing of the 'jammed\" door?\nWhat did Wolfe intend by it? And what of the time frame? Sev was no more\nthan twenty years old when he became autarch, if that. He ruled for ten\nyears, then was gone for forty more on his trip to Yesod. So, \"a century\nago\" would have been about thirty years before he was born. What was going\non then that began the moving of the door?\n\nRoy"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0029-0140@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Peter Stephenson",
        "address": "pws at pwstephenson.fsnet.co.uk"
      },
      "date": "2000-08-07T22:10:05+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Re: The Closing Door",
      "in_reply_to": "<urth-v0029-0136@digest.urth.net>",
      "reply_link": "subject",
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "Roy wrote:\nHow are we to account for the progressive closing of the 'jammed\" door?\nWhat did Wolfe intend by it? And what of the time frame? Sev was no more\nthan twenty years old when he became autarch, if that. He ruled for ten\nyears, then was gone for forty more on his trip to Yesod. So, \"a century\nago\" would have been about thirty years before he was born. What was going\non then that began the moving of the door?"
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "This is a fascinating point.  Here's my guess.\n\nThe mausoleum is the grave of Severian's alter ego.  At one level, this is\na real other Severian.  But the only time Wolfe works at one level is when\nhe's fixing the exhaust pipe under his car.  So it is also the ability of\nSeverian to be someone other than his present self.  (As recently noted,\nSeverian himself says that our real tragedy is that we can't be.)  As he is\nensnared into his role of conciliator, the door gradually becomes shut on\nthe other possibilities, the other Severians.\n\nIt has also been discussed here that the arrival of the New Sun started in\nthe past, before the present Severian was born.  The arrival of the New Sun\nand the shutting of the door nicely tie the Severian we see to his destiny.\nWith the floods brought by the New Sun, his destiny is complete.\n\nMaybe.\n\ncorncrake"
        },
        {
          "kind": "sig",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Peter Stephenson <pws at pwstephenson.fsnet.co.uk>\nWork: pws at csr.com\nWeb: http://www.pwstephenson.fsnet.co.uk"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}