{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/2376",
    "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": 2376,
    "subject": "Of Guloes' Elevation, Severian's age, Drotte's captaincy, and so forth",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "2000-08-26T14:24:14+00:00",
    "last": "2000-08-26T14:24:14+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0029-0194@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Talarican",
        "address": "exultnttalarican at mindspring.com"
      },
      "date": "2000-08-26T14:24:14+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Of Guloes' Elevation, Severian's age, Drotte's captaincy, and so forth",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Roy Lackey,\n\nThank you for your yeoman's work on the chronology. Our copy of _Claw_ has\nunaccountably disappeared and I did so want to find and check the very\nincident you mention, but your previous missive gave me a sense of urgency\nabout publishing my findings so far. So whenever the \"iron phallus\" incident\ntook place, Gurloes was elevated twenty years prior to it.\n\nOne difficulty does present itself when one endeavors to make Severian much\nyounger than nineteen or twenty at the time of his masking. Since he\nundeniably ascended to Autarch within two years, he was, at most, twenty-one\nat the time he ascended. A nineteen or twenty year old Autarch strains\ncredulity somewhat. Truth be told, an eighteen or nineteen year old\nfreelance carnifex, or Lictor of Thrax, strains credulity even more.\n\nBut, back to the \"iron phallus\" incident. It had to have\noccurred prior to the near-drowning incident, after which the narrative\ntracks Severian almost day-by-day.\n\nIn the previous discussion of the various divisions and offices of the\nguild, perhaps the post of captain of apprentices should have been dealt\nwith. The impression with which we are left is that the most senior (and/or\nstrongest and quickest) apprentice at any given\ntime is the captain, and remains so until that age arrives at which he is\nmasked or leaves the guild. When Severian was left in that situation, the\nmasters did not say to him \"Now you are captain\", nor was he elected (except\narguably through a process of duress). He was the most senior apprentice,\nand he asserted his right to that position. Severian was senior apprentice\nfor only one year, therefore he spent only one year as captain. Possibly, as\nyou imply, there had been a dry spell in the creation of new journeymen\nprior to Drottes' and Roche's time; Drotte probably had been captain a few\nyears with Roche as his second.  Unfortunately, I find no particular clue as\nto how long this period might have been, but it does leave open the\npossibility Severian could have been about fifteen or sixteen at the time of\nthe \"iron phallus\" incident. As to the puberty argument, it is well known\nthat children in undernourished, unhealthy (e.g. medieval) circumstances\nreach it later, so c. 5 p.s. for the \"iron phallus\" incident seems\nreasonable. So actually, it tends to confirm my near-wild guess of c. 25\np.s. for Gurloes' elevation.\n\nAnd you say \"If Palaemon was still \"...a wanderer, then, perhaps ten tears\nbefore I was born. And yet he had returned to the Citadel to become a master\nof the guild.\", as Sev believes, then _both_ Palaemon and Gurloes became\nmasters during the decade before Sev's birth. Unless someone is lying,\nthere's no way around that fact.\"\n\nOr, unless someone unfamiliar with the facts was merely speculating. It\ncannot be established from the narrative as a matter of 'fact' that Palaemon\nwas only elevated after his return from exile. That's the intrigue of\nwriting from a\ncharacter's viewpoint, especially when Wolfe is doing it; the reader must\nallow for what the character could actually know, or otherwise deduces from\nevidence which might be incomplete or deceptive, or merely guesses, or even\nplays fast and loose with the truth. This statement comes from Severian, and\nSeverian didn't even KNOW about Palaemon's exile until he met Winnoc (though\nthere was that intriguing digression as P. started to tell Sev he was to go\nDOWN Gyoll, and Sev wondered how P. \"knew so much of travel\"(Shadow XIII)).\nWolfe seems to be \"engineering\" in BNS. An engineer is a professional who\nattempts to apply mathematical ideals and pure physical laws to achieve\nobjectives in the real world subject to its errors and tolerances, and so, I\nsuppose, it must be with a first-person narrative. Errors, misjudgements,\nself-serving distortions, and even outright lies have to be allowed for as\npossibilities.\nI don't see that Sev could rule out Palaemon being exiled as a master\nincognito, having already taught Gurloes; he probably merely jumped to a\nconclusion without considering other possibilities. I sometimes have to\nwonder if  the story of Palaemon's exile wasn't one of the things Autarch\nSev and P discussed in their reunion, and why Sev did not deign to share it\nwith us.(because it gives us something to speculate and argue about...)\n\nMantis:\nPalaemon was the \"silent man with the staff\"? Now THAT is intriguing! I\nsuppose this is based partly on a conjecture that the precious \"staff\" the\nman insisted on sleeping with was actually you-know-what with her hilt\nremoved, a disguise Sev also used in his turn. There are of course some\nramifications of this idea with which we have to deal, one being the fact\nthat P could not have returned to the guild afterwards until after Sev's\nbirth (therefore P. taught Gurloes BEFORE his exile). Another is that it\nfollows that P obtained Terminus Est prior to this time. Another is that\n\"the silent man\" travelled as he did in response to the summons of the\nvivimancer Apu-Punchau, therefore we have to wonder what transpired at their\nmeeting. The silent traveler evidently didn't need glasses, or the woman\nmight have mentioned that fact as well; did the presumed subsequent\nencounter with Apu-Punchao, an avatar of Severian the timewalker, damage\nPalaemon's eyes?\n\n\n Revised chronology of the 3 guild masters (Shannon Wilde's preferred\nversion?)\n\nc. 90? p.s. birth of Palaemon ( & Malrubius?)\n\nc. 70? p.s. Palaemon (and Malrubius?) masked.\n\nc. 70? p.s. Autarch Maruthas closes the roads \"that was when  I [Palaemon]\nwas your [Severian's, in 1 p.s., about 19 or 20] age\"\n\nc. 60 p.s. earliest probable date of Gurloes' birth\n\nc.40? p.s.  Scholarly Palaemon is elevated to master, accepts teaching post\n(perhaps master of apprentices?) Master Palaemon teaches senior apprentice\nGurloes.\n\nc. 42 p.s. as Gurloes remembers, \"things were harder, much harder, forty\nyears ago\"; he is a senior apprentice at this time ( as Severian is at the\ntime Gurloes says this to him, about 1 p.s.) They have Gurloes cranking the\ngenerator.\n\nc.40 p.s.  Gurloes rises to journeyman, having been Palaemon's star pupil\n\nc.35? p.s.  Malrubius elevated to master\n\nc. 32? p.s. Palaemon exiled for unspecified offences against the guild. He\neither was demoted or, as an incognito and/or out of a sense of remorse,\nchose voluntarily not to proclaim himself as more than a journeyman.\nMalrubius takes Palaemon's place as master of apprentices?\n\nc. 30 p.s. \"Journeyman\" Palaemon flogs Winnoc, tells him he is exiled from\nthe guild for an unspecified offense.\n\nc. 25 p.s. spring  All masters except Malrubius are dying. They decide to\nrisk\ndesperate unorthodox promotions to mastership to save the guild from\nextinction. Gurloes elevated to mastership twenty years prior to the\n\"iron phallus\" incident (Claw VII). He is in his mid to late thirties, has\nbeen a journeyman for roughly fifteen years. He becomes possibly the\nyoungest master torturer in the guild's history. This may have been brought\nto pass by the deaths of  all masters other than the (still exiled?)\nPalaemon and\nthe ill Malrubius.\n\nc. 20 p.s. Severian born.\n\n(c. 19 p.s. the visit of the silent stranger to the stone town. About this\ntime is the latest Palaemon could have returned to the Matachin Tower\nwithout the fact being remembered by toddler Severian.)\n\nc. 11 p.s. Malrubius dies, after being bedridden with a long illness.\nPalaemon becomes master of apprentices (again?).\n\nc. 5 p.s, winter the \"iron phallus\" incident with Master Gurloes. Drotte is\ncaptain of apprentices by this time.\n\n2 p.s., summer and fall  Severian nearly drowns, saves Vodalus in the\nnecropolis, encounters Triskele, Valeria, Thecla, Rundesind, Ultan, etc\n\n2 p.s. spring  Drotte and Roche masked. Severian becomes captain of\napprentices.\n\n1 p.s.   Severian masked, proceeds to screw up royally"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}