# Typhon sleeping or dead? *The Urth list — 4 messages, 4 voices, 16 Jul 2002* > 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. --- ### Michael Andre-Driussi *16 Jul 2002, 00:31* > 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. 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= --- ### Roy C. Lackey *16 Jul 2002, 09:56 · follows Michael Andre-Driussi* > mantis quoted Blattid and wrote: > 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. 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 --- ### James Jordan *16 Jul 2002, 16:03 · follows Roy C. Lackey* > At 04:56 AM 7/16/2002 -0500, Roy wrote: > 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): 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 --- ### Adam Stephanides *16 Jul 2002, 16:31 · follows James Jordan* > on 7/16/02 4:56 AM, Roy C. Lackey at rclackey at stic.net wrote: > 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.'" 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 ---