Subject: (urth)Let'sDoTheTimeWarpAgn!

From: m.driussi <m.driussi at genie.geis.com>
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 1998 23:27:00 +0000

[Posted from URTH, a mailing list about Gene Wolfe's New Sun and other works]

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=

---

From: CRCulver <crculver at aol.com>
Date: Sat, 31 Jan 1998 21:22:11 +0000

Mantis asked:
>[then,] why does Severian only have his super powers when line-of-sight to
the White Fountain is unobstructed?<

     This evening, whilst reading a copy of _Shadow and Claw_ up at the local
bookstore, I was surprised to see a rather interesting and prophetic comment
by the the Cumaean:

Hildegrin (I think): Then what hampers us?

Cumaean: Nothing, the star is in the ascendant.

     Seems to me like the Cumaean knew for sure that the New Sun would come,
and maybe she knew Severian would have powers as it was rising, perhaps
because she knew/assumed that the Apu-Puncahu of the Stone Town was the
post-deluge Severian. As I read deeper and deeper into the Book, I find more
lines of this sort, that are indeed easy to miss.

Christopher R. Culver <crculver at aol.com>
http://members.aol.com/crculver/index.html
------------------------------------------------
"Ignorance, that light of fools steers a wayward path"
-Brendan Perry