Reply: Item #9589850 from URTH at LISTS.BEST.COM@INET02#
newt,
Right, like that. <g> Me, I like to see the Destiny balanced on a razor's edge with Free Will. Peter Wright sees it more as Total Manipulation ("Destiny by Overlord Design" 100%).
Christopher,
Apu-Punchau, in light of the events in URTH, was either:
(1) originally just a legend (i.e., no physical body) until Severian stepped into the role; or
(2) was always the post-deluge Severian.
The same can be said of the Conciliator, of course.
This amounts to the situation in Moorcock's BEHOLD THE MAN, but
without the time traveller seeing an obviously incapable model (a retarded child) before being thrust into the role himself. (Unless . . . say, you don't suppose that Ceryx the Necromancer of URTH was in any way, shape, or form the original "historical" Conciliator? After all, he could raise the dead! Whoo, this would make the Sorcerers at the foot of Mount Typhon the =real= heirs of the original Conciliator!)
vizcacha,
Of course you don't have to believe me, but if the first Severian
=didn't= bring the New Sun, then what is powering the Claw and why does Severian only have his super powers when line-of-sight to the White Fountain is unobstructed? <g>
If you want to answer, "The White Fountain, which powers all of Severian's magic, is in transit because the second Severian has (for reasons that remain utterly arbitrary or obscure) become predestined to bring it" then I will agree with you if you also say that "The first Severian is being as radically rewritten (if by nothing else than the actions of the second Severian in response to new obstacles being thrown up) as the second Severian is, until that magical moment in the text (maybe when second Severian triggers Juturna, the one and always undine, to save apprentice Severian) where the distinction between the two Severians collapses and there is only Severian."
Meanwhile we've got two probability wave futures hanging in suspension, the Ushas future and the Ragnarok future, with time travellers from both coming back to further complicate matters! Yet there is an Absolute Time which is progressing--there is a point of Now which will determine which future comes and which future goes (time does not "stand still" for the time travellers). That point would seem to be the actual arrival of the White Fountain. And yet--and yet . . . !
When dealing with these hairy time traveling deals, maybe it would be best to reduce everything to "Back to the Future" props and sensibilities?
=mantis=