{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/3016",
    "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": 3016,
    "subject": "Unsheathing Long Swords",
    "messages": 3,
    "voices": 3,
    "first": "2002-03-06T17:20:50+00:00",
    "last": "2002-03-06T19:10:40+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0203-298@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Michael Straight",
        "address": "straight at email.unc.edu"
      },
      "date": "2002-03-06T17:48:01+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Unsheathing Long Swords",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "As a little break from our more involved discussions, here's a\ndown-to-earth question that probably has a straightforward answer.\n\nHow does Severian quickly unsheath his sword when it's slung behind his\nback?  I'm imagining it being long enough that he can't simply reach back\nand pull it out (his arm not being long enough to get it all the way out\nof the sheath).   And if its length is comparable to the span of\nSeverian's arms, I'm not sure how he gets it out at all.   Am I wrongly\nimagining Terminus Est as much longer than it really is?\n\n-Rostrum"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0203-299@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Andy Robertson",
        "address": "andywrobertson at clara.co.uk"
      },
      "date": "2002-03-06T17:20:50+00:00",
      "subject": "Re: (urth) Unsheathing Long Swords",
      "in_reply_to": "<urth-v0203-298@digest.urth.net>",
      "reply_link": "subject",
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "----- Original Message -----"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "From: \"Michael Straight\" <straight at email.unc.edu>\n\nHow does Severian quickly unsheath his sword when it's slung behind his\nback?  I'm imagining it being long enough that he can't simply reach back\nand pull it out (his arm not being long enough to get it all the way out\nof the sheath)."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "In the bit in COTC where he is captive and riding on the back of the\nbalachutherium he refers to the correct way of drawing the sword being to\n\"grip the quillions in one hand and the throat of he sheath in the other and\nby opening the arms to left and right to draw the blade clear \" - by which I\nassume he would have had to unsling it first.\n\n\n\n    hartshorn"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0203-300@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Michael Andre-Driussi",
        "address": "mantis at siriusfiction.com"
      },
      "date": "2002-03-06T19:10:40+00:00",
      "subject": "Re: (urth) Unsheathing Long Swords",
      "in_reply_to": "<urth-v0203-299@digest.urth.net>",
      "reply_link": "subject",
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "Rostrum wrote:\nHow does Severian quickly unsheath his sword when it's slung behind his\nback?  I'm imagining it being long enough that he can't simply reach back\nand pull it out (his arm not being long enough to get it all the way out\nof the sheath).   And if its length is comparable to the span of\nSeverian's arms, I'm not sure how he gets it out at all.   Am I wrongly\nimagining Terminus Est as much longer than it really is?"
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Does he ever actually \"draw it\" from that position on his back?  (Offhand I\ndon't recall a case, but I could be forgetting something.) My sense of him\nunsheathing it when it is in front of him is that he is pulling the sheath\nin the opposite direction as he moves the sword: a two-hand operation,\nthough once it is begun the sheath can be flicked off by swinging the\npartially sheathed sword.\n\n=mantis=\n\n\nSirius Fiction\nbooklets on Gene Wolfe, John Crowley\nNow with UPDATES!\nhttp://www.siriusfiction.com/"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}