Subject: (urth) pen case and stiff walking fellow

From: maa32 <maa32 at dana.ucc.nau.edu>
Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2002 17:33:14 +0000

Hey Joe.  The pen case has some other odd things about it - the narrator 
claims he picked it up between the time he left Pig and the time he first 
glimpsed Olivine through the window, but in the portion directly narrated by 
Silk he claims he cannot have acquired it that way - yet he did.  Some kind of 
paradox going on, and then the actual finding of the pen case is out of order 
in the otherwise strictly chronological third person sections of Return to the 
Whorl - presented in flashback while he talks to Olivine, I believe.

Also, the stiff walking fellow: I think I have made a pretty good case for the 
narrator's staff being a primitive form of the inhumu, the evil liana branch.  
If you accept that trees are sentient and eating everybody and recombining 
with their DNA, then the staff is the parasitic embryonic inhumu sans animal 
consumption: it can walk in astral travel (remember the words Hoof uses to 
describe an epiphany?  "When you realize a stick was a snake without moving".  
Also, the narrator spends a great deal of time talking about a walking stick 
that is not a walking stick when it leaves it's master, just a stick that 
walks. and Krait is always described as being snakelike, while Jahlee clings 
"liana" like.  The reason that Silk can complete the astral sojourn is because 
he has his staff and it is a primitive inhumu, and that was it's spirit ... or 
so I believe, unless someone wants to make a case for colorless being fuligin 
and bird-like being limping.  (I honestly believe my blue is ushas theory - 
bwa ha ha.)

Actually, the better case for the presence of Severian is that some of his DNA 
was preserved in that immortal four armed dude that comes up from the sea in 
On Blue's Waters.  Perhaps either the claw or Severian himself was exposed to 
the big trees of the island (where all that blue glass was).  Wasn't there 
something about Severian's blood on the claw?  Or was that some episode of 
Star Trek where the Klingon savior was cloned from blood on a blade or 
something?  My memory has finally failed me!

If you want me to clarify any of these points, feel free to ask.
Marc Aramini

Questions or problems: write ranjit at urth.net

---

From: Michael Straight <straight at email.unc.edu>
Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2002 18:37:28 +0000

On Wed, 30 Jan 2002, maa32 wrote:

> Hey Joe.  The pen case has some other odd things about it - the
> narrator claims he picked it up between the time he left Pig and the
> time he first glimpsed Olivine through the window, but in the portion
> directly narrated by Silk he claims he cannot have acquired it that
> way - yet he did.  Some kind of paradox going on, and then the actual
> finding of the pen case is out of order in the otherwise strictly
> chronological third person sections of Return to the Whorl - presented
> in flashback while he talks to Olivine, I believe.

Since the first have of RTW is reconstructed by Hoof, Hide, et. al. from
what Silk told them about what happened on the whorl, it wouldn't be
surprising for them to have a few of the details in the wrong order.

-Rostrum