Whoa.
Actually, Merryn had been my first choice, but the
time thing got in my way. Wouldn't she be pushing 90,
as Severian points out in the discourse on the boat
regarding the "real" Severian, as his father?
("Severian the Great would be eighty or more if he
were alive.") Of course she is a witch and all, so
who knows.
For that matter there's a pointed pause at her
introduction on the boat. "And this, ah, female will
not introduce herself..." Perhaps Thais is an
emasculated Severian returned from his mission in
failure. Hell, if we're going to go nuts analyzing
every ellipses and turn of phrase, might as well pull
out all the stops.
I do love all the House Azure, "dearest sister" stuff.
I'll have to reconsider my whole take on the Merryn
theory. However, Thais-Thecla-Thea? Weren't Thecla
and Thea blonde and fair? I don't actually recall.
Also, I believe Mantis pointed out a third de ja vu
encounter like the ones you describe, where Severian
in UTNS sees a dark, weeping woman, surrounded by
Praetorians, as he makes his way back into the House
Absolute. Thais? Katherine? Both?
Severian's genealogy is so completely whacked it's a
difficult knot to unravel. He's his own grandfather,
his mother might be his sister, and so on.
I need an advil.
And now Pega-Pelagia-Agia? Make that three advil.
J
126 quoted lines
Shortly after Severian joins Odilo, Pega, and Thais
on their makeshift raft,
Odilo begins an anecdote about how his father once
encountered Severian in
the secret passageways of the House Absolute.
Severian, dressed in the
fulignin of a carnifex, is thought by Odilo père to
be on his way to a
masque, "of which there are several in one part or
another of the House
Absolute on any given night. Yet," as Odilo fils
continues to explain, his
father "knew none was to take place in our Hypogeum
Apotropaic, neither
Father Inire nor the then Autarchy having much
fondness for those
diversions."
Notice now both Severian's and Thais's reaction:
"I smiled, recalling the House Azure. The dark woman
shot me a significant
glance and ostentatiously covered her lips with her
hand." Severian thinks
Thais wants him to cut Odilo's anecdote short here,
but I believe she's
attempting to enjoin his silence, fearing he's
recognized her. Thus the
significance glance.
There are also clues in the House Azure and Hypogeum
Apotropaic
references--these being the two places Severian and
Thais have encountered
each other previously.
The second of these takes place in CLAW. Severian,
having escaped from the
antechamber where he and Jonas have been imprisoned,
is now looking for
Terminus Est.
"I ascended some distance, reconnoitered the
corridor there until I was
certain I was still lower than the antechamber, then
began to climb again
when I saw a young woman hurrying down the stair
toward me.
"Our eyes met.
"In that moment, I felt sure, she was as conscious
as I that we had
exchanged glances thus before. In memory I heard her
say again, "My dearest
sister," in that cooing voice, and the heartshaped
face sprung into place.
It was not Thea, the consort of Vodalus, but the
woman who looked like her
(and no doubt borrowed her name) whom I had passed
on the stair in the House
Azure--she descending and I climbing, just as we
were now."
Thea/Thais and Severian each continue on their
respective ways. But then who
is the very next person Severian encounters? Odilo
père--who will then pass
on the anecdote of their meeting to Odilo fils, who
will then tell the story
to Severian on the raft fifty years hence.
(Obviously, all the stairs in the
House Absolute are designed by M. C. Escher.)
As for the first encounter in the House Azure, once
again Severian is
ascending a stairs, this time with his
inamorata-of-choice, who asks:
"'Aren't you coming?' She had already reached the
top of the stair, nearly
out of sight. Someone spoke to her, calling her 'my
dearest sister,' and
when I had gone up a few steps more I saw it was a
woman very like the one
who had been with Vodalus, she of the heart-shaped
face and the black hood.
This woman paid no heed to me, and as soon as I gave
her room to do so
hurried down the stairs."
Thus Thais/Thea appears at the very least to be a
khaibit--perhaps assigned
to a Mata Hari role. She is, after all, encountered
in the Hypogeum
Apotropaic, which belongs to Father Inire, and who
better to function as
putative spymaster? And is it khaibit technomagic
that accounts for how
Thea/Thais is able to preserve her youth (there
being at least fifty years
between encounters 2 and 3) or has Father Inire
simply taught her how to
access the Corridors of Time? Both seem possible,
but I like another theory
better still.
Given how Thais is "tall, dark and hollow-cheeked"
like Severian himself,
and recalling that witch-prostitute connection, as
well as the Cumaean's
words about how "there are those who ride the night
air who sometimes choose
to borrow a human seeming," then factor in the
twice-echoed "My dearest
sister"--well, is it possible that Thais is Merryn?
(Not that there may not be still another relative of
Severian's aboard the
raft, but I'll save my Pega-Pelagia-Agia
speculations for elsewhen.)
Robert Borski
--
http://www.urth.net/
To unsubscribe: send "unsubscribe" to
urth-request at urth.net