Subject: (urth) Severian's dream ideas

From: maa32 <maa32 at dana.ucc.nau.edu>
Date: Mon, 18 Mar 2002 17:33:56 +0000

In the second chapter of Shadow of the Torturer, which I happened to glance at 
quickly before I left my book in a temporarily inaccessible place, stated that 
Severian was certain of two ideas (almost dreams): that time itself would stop 
and that the sun would wink out, and that a miraculous candle or flambeau 
would come and restore light.  The immediately following sentence struck me as 
a blow: that bushes would sprout feelers and crawl around, and that underbrush 
would grow eyes.  Does anybody have access to that quote in a hurry?  Does 
that not portend what I have been stating in my Short Sun "theories" in an 
eerily scary way?  I can find the quote tomorrow, but I had to post while it 
was still fresh in my mind. More evidence for a plant to animal theme.

Another point I really think that detractors from my theory need to contend 
with is the obvious importance of the inhumu breeding: they start by gathering 
trees and vines into a hut, pretend to be human, then release their stuff into 
a polyploid system as primitive animals do.  We are all familiar that early 
fetal development mirrors evolution: you start out looking like simple cell 
systems, then in the first month or two your fetus is practically 
indistinguishable from primitive animals like fish with no limbs, then you 
develop more and more into the shape you will take.

I contend that the step of gathering trees and vines is a case of this 
evolutionary process;  someone needs to explain that scene satisfactorily, as 
well as the presence of a wall under the waters of Blue, as well as the claim 
that the Vanished People originated on Green before destroying "[Silk's] 
friends" and moving to Blue, as well as why it is mentioned that Urth is 
saltier than Urth twice, as well as why Babbie treats Hoof differently than he 
treats other characters and points to his Horns -> disprove that Babbie is 
Horn and my Tree theory loses most of its strength - it really relies on the 
presence of a tree at the end of On Blue's Waters and at the beginning of In 
Green's Jungles (notice how Cugino cuts the staff from a huge tree that is 
just like the ones on green that eat other trees).  Also, you need to explain 
the eucharist's significance beside the transformation of one matter to 
another, and you need to say who was watching Silk in his forest eucharist in 
In Green's Jungles when he had his back turned - if you claim it was the 
Vanished People and not the trees, you need to account for his claim in Dorp 
that he had not seen the Vanished People since Horn perished on Green.

You also need to account for why Horn was so scared when he saw that the 
Island of the Pit was made up entirely of huge trees, and why the vanished 
people got so mad at the woodman when he went into the forest to cut down 
trees. You can't ignore these things and seriously threaten my theories, can 
you? Especially by math; math doesn't appear in the books, but hybridization 
and genetics does; in the very first chapter. Also, the previous concept of a 
tree ship makes the transfer from Green to Blue that the inhumu make more 
tenable than purely animal life.  And my Urth/Blue theory simplifies the 
Scylla complications: she is related to the old Scylla, and really can tell 
the narrator how to find Seawrack.  How can Scylla travel between stars; and 
why would the destination of the Whorl happen to have the sister of old Scylla 
unless Typhon and Scylla where in big cahoots? Was there any evidence that 
Typhon was contiguous with Scylla in time? Isn't it easier to believe that 
Typhon wanted to repopulate with his own particular brand of Godhood after any 
forseeable catastrophe, to insure his immortality on the home world? (Seeing 
that we haven't mentioned this too much, I will now propose a theme for the 
Short Sun books:

Theme:

You can't go home again; either you or it has changed beyond recognition.  
Horn is not Horn when he comes home; Silk can never return to Hyacinth; Silk 
going to New Viron is fruitless because the people there are too wicked; Pas 
has become Silk and will not be purely Typhon when he comes down to Blue; no 
one can recognize their homeworld because it has changed so much (flooded, 
animal life transformed, moon terraformed out of control, orbit changed, new 
sun). Babbie meets up with his son Hoof but is not recognized because he is in 
a creature, no one can recognize their home.

Account for all of these things convincingly and I will gladly concede.
Marc Aramini

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From: Jerry Friedman <jerry_friedman at yahoo.com>
Date: Mon, 18 Mar 2002 21:39:53 +0000

> was still fresh in my mind. More evidence for a plant to animal theme.

Very interesting!  I think there's a good chance you're right that
plants and animals are linked in some way that's not obvious (meaning
that it didn't occur to me when I first read the books).

> a polyploid system as primitive animals do.

The hut is much like bowerbirds' bowers, but it may have more
significance.  On the other hand, I don't remember a single trace
of a suggestion of polyploidy anywhere in the Sun books.  (Doubled
limbs and trunks are by no means the same thing.)  I also don't know
of any polyploidy in primitive or advanced animals.  I'll be glad to
be corrected on both points.

As for releasing their gametes into the water, I think you're right
that that's the method of just about every Earth animal that mates in
the water, the only exception I can think of being water birds.

> We are all familiar that early 

Now if an inhumi *embryo* looked like a liana, that would be evidence.
Unfortunately Jahlee doesn't have any of her larva pictures.

[snip some other stuff that I can't or don't want to answer right
now]

> -> disprove that Babbie is 
> Horn and my Tree theory loses most of its strength

I'll do my best.  The narrator is not *really* Horn, but in astral
form he looks similar to Horn.  If Babbie is *really* Horn, shouldn't
he look very much like Horn, enough for Hoof to comment on?

[Another snip]

> Also, you need to explain 
> another,

God reveals the correct way to share His grace (from a Catholic point
of view, and I may not have said it right).

> and you need to say who was watching Silk in his forest
> eucharist in 
> In Green's Jungles when he had his back turned
...

God and all His saints and angels.  Or that's how I read it.

> You can't ignore these things and seriously threaten my theories,
> can 
> and genetics does; in the very first chapter.

I don't think I've seen a mathematical refutation of your theories,
but I think math could be relevant.  Wolfe was trained as an
engineer, not a biologist, and all the celestial mechanics I've been
bringing up has been first-year physics.

> Also, the previous concept of a 
> Typhon was contiguous with Scylla in time?

Yes: he uploaded her into Mainframe as a goddess.
...

> You can't go home again;

(If I remember _Again, Dangerous Visions_ correctly, Wolfe has said
that he may be distantly related to Thomas Wolfe.)

> either you or it has changed beyond recognition.  

Well, I think you're right to point this theme out, even if I'm not
convinced by some of your examples.

__________________________________________________
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From: Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net>
Date: Mon, 18 Mar 2002 22:32:13 +0000

>> as well as the claim
that the Vanished People originated on Green before destroying "[Silk's]
friends" and moving to Blue<<

? When Horn first met the Neighbors, and they formally turned over
possession of Blue to him as representative of all the people, the Neighbor
who called himself Horn said, in the course of asking permission to visit
Blue at will: "From this whorl we sprang." (OBW, 271)

-Roy

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From: Michael Straight <straight at email.unc.edu>
Date: Tue, 19 Mar 2002 01:44:21 +0000

On Mon, 18 Mar 2002, maa32 wrote:

> saltier than Urth twice, 

I think you mean Urth is saltier than Blue?  Isn't that just because the
dying sun means more water is frozen in the polar caps, thus the ocean
salt is more concentrated?

> as well as why Babbie treats Hoof differently than he 

You almost had me wavering on this one, because it's the best explaination
I've seen for Marble's prophesy about riding a beast with three horns --
which is the sort of pun Wolfe likes.

However, when the Rajan records the prophesy, he writes the aside "She
actually said this," as if to answer a skeptic who wouldn't believe she
could have made such an accurate prophecy, which would indicate that the
Rajan knows at that point in the narrative how the prophesy came
true.   But this is written long before the point where you think Horn's
spirit went into Babbie, so it must refer to something that happened
earlier.

Did Horn ride a three-horned beast on Green?  Did the godling that picked
him up outside Blood's house have horns?

> In Green's Jungles when he had his back turned 

Surely the Outsider?

> and genetics does; in the very first chapter. 

But there's a much simpler explaination for the hybridization lecture at
the beginning: it forshadows the Silk/Horn hybrid.  Occam's razor.

> unless Typhon and Scylla where in big cahoots? 

The Mother is an undine, which we know from the Urth books can "swim
between the stars" (maybe that's literally true, maybe it's just a poetic
way of saying they have access to starships). Scylla the daughter of
Typhon rebelled against him by collaborating with one of Typhon's enemies,
the "greater Scylla," also an undine.  Typhon's daughter probably has a
real name (like "Pas" is really Typhon) and she may have taken her Whorl
Divinity name from the "greater Scylla" on Urth.

It's possible that the fact the Whorl ended up in the Blue/Green system is
due to mechanations of the Urth undine, attempting to deliver the ship
into the clutches of her sister the Mother.

-Rostrum

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From: William Ansley <wansley at warwick.net>
Date: Tue, 19 Mar 2002 05:02:21 +0000

>was still fresh in my mind. More evidence for a plant to animal theme.

Marc,

Your recollection is a wee bit faulty. Here is the quote:

-----------------------------------------------
Two thoughts (that were nearly dreams) obsessed me and made them [the 
lives of the animals and plants that Severian watched through the 
window and door of "his" mausoleum in the necropolis] infinitely 
precious. The first was that at some not-distant time, time itself 
would stop ... the colored days that had so long been drawn forth 
like a chain of conjuror's scarves come to an end, the sullen sun 
wink out at last. The second was that there existed somewhere a 
miraculous light - which I sometimes conceived of as a candle, 
sometimes as a flambeau - that engendered life in whatever objects it 
fell upon, so that a leaf plucked from a bush grew slender legs and 
waving feelers, and a rough brown brush opened black eyes and 
scurried up a tree.
-----------------------------------------------

Interestingly enough, there is no hint that the miraculous light is 
going to rekindle the sun in this passage.

The power of the light is to "engender life" not change plants (which 
are already alive) into animals. A leaf plucked from a bush is a dead 
leaf, even though it may take quite a while to look fully dead. So 
Wolfe has it turn into something like an insect to emphasize that the 
leaf is alive again.

And if you really think that when Wolfe refers to "a rough brown 
brush" above he means 'underbrush' and not a scrubbing brush, then we 
have no basis for further discussion.
-- 

William Ansley

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