# A Wooden Leg Named Smith

*The Urth list — 1 messages, 1 voices, 18 Nov 2002*

<https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/3589>

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### Dan'l Danehy-Oakes
*18 Nov 2002, 20:29*

Roy quoting me:

>>> Perhaps the Claw (or Severian) cannot heal artificial persons,
>>> but only natural persons ...,<<

> ... What I was addressing, 
> however, was the contention that the Claw worked by reaching 
> back in time to a point before the pending problem. If the 
> Claw's power was a function of time, why should the presence 
> of prosthetics present a problem? Would it not work for a man 
> with a wooden leg who was wounded woefully by a weapon?

Per se I do not think it would represent a problem (though I
suspect that if it was the wooden leg that was woefully wounded
the Claw would either fail or make it take root). 

But in the cases of Jonas and Jolenta we don't have "the presence 
of prosthetics" -- Jonas actually came into existence as, and 
Jolenta has become, in a different way, an _entirely_ artificial 
person, and I suspect that the Claw fails/refuses to work with 
such.

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