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Dan'l Danehy-Oakes wrote:
We know with reasonable certainty who Severian's maternal
grandparents are. For the paternal line, well, Wolfe
deliberately keeps that mysterious and, though many
speculations have been offered, none has really proven
satisfactory. I suggest that the mystery is deliberate,
and intended to reflect the orthodox Christian belief
that Jesus had no human father.
Um, I think this is reversed. New Sun makes it fairly clear that Dorcas and the elderly boatman in the Botanic Garden are the parents of Severian's father Ouen. It's Severian's mother and her parentage that we know little about, save that she was an ex-Pelerine (only implied, actually--she had "run off from some order of monials") named Catherine.
-- Dan Rabin