Subject: (urth) Typhon sleeping or dead?

From: Michael Andre-Driussi <mantis at siriusfiction.com>
Date: Tue, 16 Jul 2002 00:31:02 +0000

Blattid wrote:
>I think the question of whether Typhon is dead or in SA might be
>ambiguious ... I had certainly read him as being in SA up to this
>posting: in my reading of the passage, he appears to be hooked up
>to a device which sort of dehydrated him and kept his precious
>bodily fluids in a jar until it was time to reconstitute him,
>orange-juice-like. Perhaps I'm wrong...

I would not deny the planned ambiguity, I would not deny the reading that
says it is suspended animation, after all, and thus the time of Typhon's
revival is purely a fluke, an authorial coincidence to cause a little
picaresque action in an otherwise dull wilderness. <g>

OTOH, I think a strong thread in TBOTNS is about the mystery of the Claw,
and how a lot of dead/live things that seemed to be more mundane (Triskele,
Dorcas, et cetera) ultimately resolve as being supernatural and due to the
Claw.  So initially Triskele wasn't really dead (but yes, he was recently
dead); Dorcas was insane and nearly drowned (no, she was dead for decades);
Severian wounded by the avern (nope, he was killed); and so on.

=mantis=

--

---

From: Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net>
Date: Tue, 16 Jul 2002 09:56:01 +0000

>picaresque action in an otherwise dull wilderness. <g>

Okay, then I will deny it: Typhon was dead, not in SA; the text says so. Sev
prophesied (it was easy, since it came from memory) while on Mt. Typhon
(URTH, Chapter XXXIX):

    "'I'll tell you this. This morning I've been studying this mountain and
the speed with which the work here is going forward. From those things, I
know Typhon has only a short time to live. He'll die on the red couch where
he lies now; and without his word, no one will dare to draw aside the
curtain. One after another will creep away. The machines that dig like men
will return for fresh instructions, but they won't receive them, and in time
the curtain itself will fall to dust.'"

-Roy

--

---

From: James Jordan <jbjordan4 at cox.net>
Date: Tue, 16 Jul 2002 16:03:01 +0000

>prophesied (it was easy, since it came from memory) while on Mt. Typhon

Ah. Well that settles that aspect of it. Maybe. (How dead is dead when the 
Increate has planned to revive you for a short while later on?)  Still 
don't think there's good reason to think of Typhon as Silk's daddy, but my 
original objection has now largely evaporated.

Nutria

--

---

From: Adam Stephanides <adamsteph at earthlink.net>
Date: Tue, 16 Jul 2002 16:31:37 +0000

> the curtain itself will fall to dust.'"

OTOH, this could also be Severian speaking in terms appropriate to the
audience, in line with Catholic views of Biblical language.  That is, it
would be easier for them to understand "he'll die" than "he'll go into
suspended animation for a thousand years, and then be briefly revived, but
then I'll kill him."

--Adam

--