{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/258", "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": 258, "subject": "Dr. Talos' Pl", "messages": 2, "voices": 2, "first": "1997-11-20T15:01:01+00:00", "last": "1997-11-20T15:19:53+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Tony Ellis", "address": "tellis at futurenet.co.uk" }, "date": "1997-11-20T15:19:53+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Re: Dr. Talos' Pl", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " 20/11/97\n 15:28\n RE>(urth) Re: Dr. Talos' Play" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Mantis wrote:\n1) I say the play has seven acts and they probably describe a divine\nweek, with the final act coming on (New) Sunday. The Autarch is\nSaturn (Saturday); Jahi is Venus (Friday); and so on." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Nice idea, but I don't see anything in the books to support such\nan elaborate scheme. More importantly, it actually contradicts\nwhat Severian tells us. He never suggests that the play is divided\ninto acts at all, and the script given in Claw of the Conciliator\ncertainly doesn't begin \"Act I Scene i\" or anything." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "We never see\nthe last act of the play, which is too bad, " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Again, I have to disagree. There are a number of passages in\nthe books which strongly suggest that what we see of the play\nis all there is. In Chapter XXXII of Shadow, Severian says that\n\"In the final part\" he holds court as inquisitor over the rest of\nthe cast, while Baldanders slowly frees himself. This is \nprecisely the final part of the play as given in the Claw of the\nConciliator script.\n\nAfter Baldanders frees himself in the performance in Shadow,\nDr Talos tells the audience \"at the conclusion of our play \nyou will see what occurs now that the monster is free at last\"\nagain suggesting that the really isn't much more to come.\n\nFinally, in Claw, Severian prefaces the play at the end of\nChapter XXIII, saying that he wants to give an \"approximation\nof the text\". That doesn't sound like someone who's going\nto break off part way through for no readily apparent reason.\n\nWhat makes us feel that the play is incomplete is that it\ninvariably ends with Baldanders leaping into the audience\nand everyone still in peril on stage! But I think this is still\npart of the play, and still part of the play's curious mirroring\nof the Book of the New Sun story. Here I agree with Mantis:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I think it is constantly being acted out in the course of all\nfive books." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "When Baldanders breaks his bonds, Severian, in character,\nfights him. This fight recurs all through the books, from\nSeverian's dream to the actual fight at the end of Lictor. I\nsuspect it also symbolises Severian's overall fight against\nDarkness as the New Sun: he fights Baldanders with\na torch.\n\nIt's significant, too, that he is playing a torturer at the time:\nwe are told later that humanity can only be saved through\npain. (Wolfe also says this, in Castle of the Otter.)\n\nThe fight to save humanity is millenial, perhaps never-\nending. How else can the play end but on a knife-edge, with\nthe New Sun battling Darkness and everything still in\ndoubt?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "3) I think the play is quite gnostic at the mythic level; I think it\nshows a lot of the dynamic between Severian and women (especially\nAgia and Dorcas, who really are Lilith and Eve) at the psychological\nlevel;" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Interesting point. (Although I take it \"Agia\" is a typo for Jolenta!) \nSeverian is protective of Meschiane, but tempted by Jahi, etc etc." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Michael Straight", "address": "straight at email.unc.edu" }, "date": "1997-11-20T15:01:01+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Re: Dr. Talos' Pl", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 20 Nov 1997, Tony Ellis wrote:\nWhat makes us feel that the play is incomplete is that it\ninvariably ends with Baldanders leaping into the audience\nand everyone still in peril on stage! But I think this is still\npart of the play, and still part of the play's curious mirroring\nof the Book of the New Sun story. Here I agree with Mantis:" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Also, isn't there some mention when Severian first meets Talos and the\nrest of the acting troup that ALL of Dr. Talos's plays end with Baldanders\nleaping out and frightening the audience so that they will run away and,\nideally, drop some of their valuables for the troupe to scarf up? \n\nPerhaps Mantis's speculations about the play are more appropriately\nthought of as concerning the Urthian works of literature and/or drama from\nwhich Dr. Talos's play undoubtably descends. \n\n-Rostrum" } ] } ] }