finally - a mechanism

Here is a mechanism that we may want to look at for time travel: Remember that when Fava and Inclito's mother tell their stories, the narrator has the ability to enter their story. In other words, he can alter events that he hears about and use his "power" to enter the story. He actually appears in Inclito's mother's story as a figure from her past, while he changes Fava's story. I argue that his astral travel can be based off of something that he hears about - and that one of Typhon's big concerns when he scanned himself into mainframe was the conciliator, so that when Silk's spirit is reunited with his body from Pig at the very end of the flashback scenes of return to the whorl, it brings with it Pas' preoccupation with the figure of the Conciliator - and it also programs him with Typhon's obsession to meet and possibly influence the conciliator, sending Silk's spirit across time to find that man at his true birth - his baptism in the river. If you want to argue that Severian was not dead at the exact first time that Silk appears, you have to factor in the very significant drowning in Gyoll that must be taking place EXACTLY as Silk appears in that time - the true birth (or death) of the Severian we know - and therefore the logical focal point for his vivimancer-hood. There are several other options: that when the vanished people made Horn undergo the cleansing of the sewer, they were telling the cultural story of Severian : a man cleansed the detritus from this sewer of Urth and allowed a cleansing flush - which Silk could later use to travel to Urth and influence the story of that cultural, mythological icon - there are whole sections in the book about the formation of myth, etc. SILK HAS THE POWER TO INFLUENCE OTHER PEOPLE'S STORIES - AND THIS IS WHY LONG SUN IS ACCURATE - AND THIS IS WHY HE CAN SHOW UP AT AN IMPORTANT TIME FOR SEVERIAN IN THE PAST. He knows the important features of the tale of the conciliator - either through mainframe, through the ceremony of cleansing the sewers, or perhaps Rigolio has been imprinted with the task of killing the conciliator if he finds him. I'll look again. Marc Aramini

Marc writes:

I believe that this forces us to grant as a "least hypothesis" that the Narr's astral travel ability includes the ability to travel in time to a space-and-time location* where at least one member of the travelling party has been before. (I perceive fairly strong evidence that he has such limits in the "place" dimensions; not to limit "time" similarly would require an additional hypothetical.) ----- * Actually, I find myself increasingly nervous about the terminology for this whole thing because of the discussion of relativity going on in parallel, but that's a whole nother kettle of fish ... ----- Given this, if you can establish that someone in the Rigoglio group has been in Nessus at the time of Severian's childhood, we will have a plausible mechanism. However, the rest of your post does not establish this ... or even try to.

An unnecessary hypothesis in both cases, since both Fava and Inclito's mother were present at the placetimes in question.

... what this does, it seems to me, is establish that the Narrator can travel to loci where-when Typhon had been, at least prior to his scanning-into-Mainframe, and thus adds weight to the idea that if time travel were involved in the Narr's trips to Urth it should bring him to the time of the Tyrant, not the end of the Autarchial era. In other words, your evidence, though good, so far seems to indicate that the trips to Urth do not involve travelling along the "time" dimension but take place in "simultaneity" with the back-on-Blue storyline.

Certainly an interesting idea. Only ... Where would Typhon have heard of Severian's "baptism"/resurrection?

Certainly it appears that the group's first arrival in Nessus takes place at approximately the time of the drowning; "EXACTLY" would take some serious establishing. I accept it as likely, though; it seems to suit the situation.

Okay. Now. Why would Severian summon this Narrator he's never heard of? This only leads to further complications. (Actually, I'm quite interested in this idea as far as it goes; Severian-as-vivimancer seems to suit Wolfe's "hiding in plain sight" tactics. But it doesn't require time travel or Blue = Ushas to work.)

I have kind of wondered about that. Has anyone come up with any reason why the VP wanted that sewer cleaned? Did they do it just to give him a sword? Seems kind of unlikely.

Granting a sort of amusing parallel here, which Wolfe may have intended, from there to "Blue = Urth" seems quite a leap.

You don't need to shout, you know. 1) The Narrator's ability to "influence other people's stories" does not automagically make LS (which Horn would have written before the Narrator was formed from bits of Silk, Horn, and Typhon (and, by some folks' hypothesis, Severian also). 2) His ability to "influence other people's stories" also does not relieve you of the necessity to show why, when in every identifiable case of astral "time" travel the Narrator winds up at a "time" when someone in the party has previously been present, in this one case he does not.

I very much doubt that he knows such details of the Conciliator's tale as his "baptism" in Gyoll. Where would Typhon, Rigoglio, or Mainframe -- all of which left Urth a thousand years before the birth (let alone the rebirth) of Severian have learned of this?

I'm sure I'm forgetting something relevant, but the ability to enter a story while it is told and alter it's telling does not seem to imply time travel but something like telepathy. The story is changed. Is there any indication that the history behind the story has been changed? Nutria

Dan'l quoted:

"EXACTLY" would take some serious establishing. I accept it as likely, though; it seems to suit the situation.<< I would add that Sev's "drowning" in the Gyoll obviously took place during the summer, during warm weather. Sev was cleaning out a "frozen drain" when he found Triskele, in the winter. -Roy

Oh, aye. Actually, it seems fairly clear that the first showing of the Narrator & party in Nessus does take place the same day as the drowning/baptism/whatever: as someone pointed out when the book first appeared, we now know why the barbican wasn't guarded that evening. (Barbican? Maybe I have the wrong word...?)