{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/32", "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": 32, "subject": "Urth Ending", "messages": 4, "voices": 3, "first": "1997-05-14T15:44:55+00:00", "last": "1997-05-15T05:37:00+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Joel Priddy", "address": "jpriddy at saturn.vcu.edu" }, "date": "1997-05-14T15:44:55+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Urth Ending", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Just finished a second reading of _Urth_of_the_New_Sun_. I feel\nlike I slept-walked through it the first time. Especially those\nlast two chapters. I guess you know you're starting to get\nsomewhere with a Wolfe book when the ending actually feels like\nan ending, not like particularly rude coitus interruptus. So\nlet's talk about that ending... Maybe this has been well-sewn up\nin the Lexicon, but I haven't gotten around to ordering a copy\nyet (my girlfriend, the credit card in the family, has said\nshe'll be placing a big order at Amazon.com in a while). But\nFirst...\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n---SPOILERS----real big SPOILERS----\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nLet me just make sure I have the ending right...\n After returning to Ushas from the earliest days of man's\nhabitation of Urth, Severian finds it seeded by the sailors who'd\nfought against him on Yesod (either past versions of the sailors,\nor memory-wiped sailors, or the children of the sailors...?). The\nseed-humans descendants worship the four survivors we know of\nfrom the flooding of the House Absolute, including Severian, the\nSleeper, who wasn't among them when they landed, but not\nincluding Eata, who may have been (unless he died during\nSeverian's story, instead of just falling asleep). The people\nhave built bowers for their gods, and Severian apparently takes\nup residence in his bower in order to indulge in his taste for\nwriting memoirs. Severian has regained access to the Corridors of\nTime, and seems to plan on building up his skill at traveling\ntime, stating that he is but an apprentice where the Green Man is\na Master. He earlier stated that he'd like to go back and visit\nthe inn at Os, and he may have done so (or is going to be about\nto do so after writing his Ushas memoirs) many times, because he\nthinks he may have seen several of his face looking in through\nthe door when the dead man chopped it open (it must have been a\nwide hall to contain multiple Severian's, since he wouldn't want\nto merge with any of his other selves by coming too close to\nthem).\n So when we leave second-generation eilodon Severian, it seems\nthat he's a time-traveler who can visit any point during the life\nspan of the White Fountain, which reaches back as far as the\nearliest days of humans on Urth. He can visit the same place and\ntime multiple times, as long as he never gets too close to\nhimself.\n This, by the way, would seem to include the time during which\nthe Whorl was built. Could the White Fountains power reach a\nSeverian across yet further light years and inside an asteroid?\nIt seems to have trouble reaching him when the Urth is between\nhim and it, but not when he's in a totally different level of\nreality (the stream between universe). Might Severian eventually\ncover the past of Urth and the future of Ushas so thoroughly that\nhe hops aboard spaceships to tour new sights? I hope not. I\nreally hope not. As much as I want a stronger link between\nNew_Sun and Long_Sun, I don't want it to be Severian. He belongs\nto the one series, not to the other, IMHO.\n So anyway, before I go back and read the first four books with\nthe assumption that every character that the narrator doesn't\ncome into physical contact with is another Severian, does my\nsummary sound right, or have I missed something important? And\nhow much does this ending reflect at all on the contents of the\noriginal series? _Urth_ was written well after the first 4, and\nwasn't planned when the first 4 were written, right? So would\ntime-duplicate Severians in the first 4 be retro-fitting, or do\nyou think Wolfe intended Severian to be a four-dimensional hero\nfrom the beginning? Other than the obvious example of\nApu-Panchau.\n\nOf course, another possible ending is that Severian is as bound\nby the worship of the people of Ushas as Apu-Panchau was by the\nworship of the autocthons, and never leaves his bower, and he\nonly thought be might have seen his face at the inn. Trapped\nlittle godling Severian spends the rest of his existence being\nworshipped by fisher-folk, occasionally having wine with Odillo's\nghost.\n\nHmm... this post has become a monster, so I won't even start on\nthe eclipse of Apu-Panchau. But I'll get back to it.\n\nJOEL\n(gizzard cum cyphlothorax)" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "m.driussi", "address": "m.driussi at genie.com" }, "date": "1997-05-14T22:01:00+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Urth Ending", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Reply: Item #4900689 from URTH at LISTS.BEST.COM@INET01#\n\nJoel,\n\nYep, that sounds about right. \n\n(But \"earliest days of humans on Urth\" should be \"earliest days of\nWhite Fountain starlight on Urth.\")\n\n(Quick--who's buried in Severian's tomb in the necropolis of the Old\nCitadel; what was his rank and when did he die?) \n\n=mantis=" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Jason Voegele", "address": "voegele.6 at osu.edu" }, "date": "1997-05-14T22:04:47+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Urth Ending", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "(Quick--who's buried in Severian's tomb in the necropolis of the Old\nCitadel; what was his rank and when did he die?) \n\n=mantis=" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Evil! That was evil!!! \n\nI suppose your going to say you've solved all of the \"Mysteries of the New\nSun\" too, aren't you? Just because you wrote the Lexicon doesn't meen you\ncan go around taunting us with all these little tidbits! :)\n\nJason" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "m.driussi", "address": "m.driussi at genie.com" }, "date": "1997-05-15T05:37:00+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Urth Ending", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Reply: Item #9272096 from URTH at LISTS.BEST.COM@INET00#\n\nJason,\n\nWell no, I haven't solved all the mysteries. And as you've probably\nnoticed, the \"solutions\" I do have tend to be provisional and\nwooly--my little nose goblins, if you will. ;^1\n\nBut if I can trick you into coming up with an answer I don't have,\nwell then, that would be a fine thing!\n\n=mantis=" } ] } ] }