02/12/97
11:41
RE>Divine Week
2 quoted lines
Mantis wrote:
[A lot of Scene I is pre-echoed by events in the Botanical Gardens of Nessus involving Severian, Dorcas, Agia, Hildegrin;
Blimey, so it is! Even down to the sabre-tooth moggy. Most observant of you.
3 quoted lines
=Scenes as Days of [Divine] Week=
SCENE DAY PLANET
I.....Monday......Moon--Jahi as Moon [now I think Meschiane is Moon] II....Tuesday.....Mars--appearance of soldiers III...Wednesday...Mercury--underworld and prophets IV....Thursday....Jupiter V.....Friday......Venus [this is Jahi, I'm thinking] VI....Saturday....Saturn--autarch usurped [unrecognized in his own palace] VII...Sunday......Sun--arrival of New Sun
My problem with inventive extrapolations like this: if you look for patterns you will always find them.
Unless I'm missing something (it wouldn't be the first time), the associations you make between characters and days seem pretty arbitrary. Why not assign the first scene to Nod, or Meschia, or Gabriel, who also appear in it? Why doesn't the Familiar get to be represented by a planet? Or the Contessa? Why is Thursday Jupiter? Why is Friday Jahi's day, and not another?
You say that Meschiane is Moon, making the first scene Monday,
but you also say that "Valeria is Moon to Severian's New Sun". I think you have something with this latter point, I like the idea of Valerian's lunar reign being eclipsed by the New Sun, but in that case surely Autarch = Moon?
It seems to me that I could just as plausibly prove that the 7 scenes equate to the 7 Deadly Sins (Jahi = Lust, Autarch = Envy, Nod = Sloth etc), or the 7 Dwarfs (Meschiane = Bashful, Statue = Grumpy etc). Or maybe there are ten scenes and they equate to the Ten Commandments? (Jahi + Meschia = adultery, Meschia and Meschiane = honour thy father and mother, etc) <g>