{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/3879",
    "note": "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.",
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  "archive": "urth",
  "thread": {
    "id": 3879,
    "subject": "The Book of Typhon part one, revised: Severian's true kingship",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "2003-03-07T04:51:36+00:00",
    "last": "2003-03-07T04:51:36+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0303-3022@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Lisa Schaffer-Doggett",
        "address": "harlekin at earthlink.net"
      },
      "date": "2003-03-07T04:51:36+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) The Book of Typhon part one, revised: Severian's true kingship",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
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          "text": "Hi everyone, Don here again (not Lisa though I suppose that's \nappropriate to the gender bending discussions of late :))  Below is \nwhat I've been contemplating in my abscence.  Enjoy!\n\n\nThe Book of Typhon, Part One Revised:  Severian as True King\n\nNote:  Please delete the body of this essay in any replies, as it is \nfairly long.\n\n\t“But it is only fair to warn readers that this remains a very \ndifficult book, as well as a very queer one, to be avoided by anyone \nwith a distracted, tired or rigidly scientific mind.”\n\tThe preceding quote is from the Foreward of Robert Graves’ “The White \nGoddess” (p. 9) and I have included it because it seems equally to \napply to Gene Wolfe’s “Sun” series.  The two works have a great deal in \ncommon and I would venture to say that it is much more difficult, if \nnot impossible, to get a deeper understanding of Wolfe’s work without \nsome familiarity with “The White Goddess”.  But that is another \nargument and my chief interest in Graves with relation to this work of \nWolfe’s is in the hiding of things.  Things such as Severian’s and \nSilk’s true identities, and the role of Typhon in the grand scheme of \nthe work.  And though Graves is my inspiration and guide, I have found \nit is possible to discover these and other mysteries using for the most \npart only Wolfe.  I don’t expect that I will convince the unwilling, \nbut I am confident that I have come up with an interpretation of the \ntext that is internally consistent and compelling in the aggregate of \ncircumstantial evidence.  But let me get to my argument.  It is this; \nthat the “Sun” series, among it’s other functions, is a complex \ndynastic novel which Typhon, far from being a secondary character, \npermeates in his role as the father of Ymar (and thus Severian) and in \nhis role as Silk, who is Typhon’s clone.  This part of the essay will \ndeal with Severian’s ancestry.\n\tThe main stumbling block to my theory is that Severian’s parentage is \npretty well agreed upon.  His mother is Katherine and his father is \nOuen, whose mother is Dorcas, making her Severian’s grandmother.  But \nis this correct?  I believe it isn’t.  The only certainty is that \nDorcas is Ouen’s mother.  Ouen denies ever impregnating Katherine, and \nthe only evidence that Ouen could be Severian’s father is that they \nlook strikingly similar in profile. (Sword and Citadel, p 402).  This \nis hardly compelling.  In addition, it is thematically weak.  If Dorcas \nis Severian’s grandmother then he is committing incest in a manner that \nmakes no sense mythopoeicly.  The incest only makes sense if she is his \nsister or his mother.   Equally, the archetypes clinging to Severian’s \ncharacter point in a different direction.  Ouen makes a much stronger \nadoptive father in the vein of Joseph the carpenter, or Sir Hector, as \nSeverian obviously parallels to an extent both Jesus and Arthur.  But \nthe truth is much stranger than this and I will approach it later.\n\tIf you accept that Wolfe is using the “King Jesus” model for Severian, \nwhich I do, considering the marks of sacred kingship that they both \nshare, the lameness and the facial scar, then the previous are two \nmodels for a hidden king.  A third involves Vodalus, the liege of \nleaves, a regular Robin Hood with Hildegrin as his Little John, trying \nto bring a return to the monarchy, waiting for Richard to return.  \nWhich he does, in disguise of course.  Severian is a perfect Richard; \nwitness his grand entrance into Vodalus’ lair, and I’m reasonably \ncertain that Vodalus is on to him, much as Robin knows Richard before \nhe is revealed.   And, without taking too much liberty, I can carry \nthese thematic parallels a degree deeper:  Jesus (at least in King \nJesus) is descended from Herod, who Graves takes pains to tie to the \ngod Typhon,  Arthur is the son of Uther, another good Typhonic (Urth’s \nTyphon)  model, and Richard is the son of Henry who, if you’ve seen The \nLion in Winter or given a cursory study to medieval history, you will \nrecognize as Typhon’s near twin.  And isn’t Echidna (wife of Pas/Typhon \nin LS and wife of Typhon in myth)  Eleanor of Aquitaine in simulacrum?\n\nTo bolster this thematic argument of a “return of the king” I give you \nthe Autarchs themselves:\n\t‘“. . . the minds he brought to us, which we touch only faintly even \nnow, are not, with one or two exceptions, those of genius.  Most are \nonly common men and women, sailors and artisans, farmwives and wantons. \n  Most of the rest are eccentric second-rate scholars of the sort Thecla \nused to laugh at.”’ (Sword, p 380)  The Autarchs sound very much like \nstewards to me, placeholders.\n\nThe eidolon Malrubius hints at Severian’s bloodline as well:\n\t‘”The animal that rests beside you now would die for you.  Of what \nkind is his attachment to  you?”\n\t“The first?”’ (Shadow, p. 198) by which he is saying “Attachment to \nthe person of the Monarch.”  In the interest of length I have left out \nmost of the passage (Shadow, pp. 197-8) but it has always seemed \ncryptic to me and it has occured to me that it can be read \nanaleptically  to hint that “First is the monarchy (Typhon) and you are \nalso the Monarch.”\n\t\n\tNow admittedly, this is hardly convincing on its own.  But the real \nmeat is in the various clues, many of them “pied” (to use Graves term) \nand all of them out of order in the text of TBotNS.\n\tThe first clue is The Tale of the Boy Called Frog .  For economy’s \nsake I’ll assume everyone’s read it.  On the surface it seems to be a \nstory told around Little Severian.  Frog is raised by woodcutters and \nthen orphaned and sheltered by the Black Killer (Severian) and the \nnaked one (Apu Punchau).  In a very real sense this is the case, but \nthere is more to this.  Spring Wind, the father of Frog and Fish, is \nTyphon, aka Typhoon, which is a spring storm.  Wolfe hides this \ncleverly in two ways:  First, the story occurs before Typhon is \nintroduced and second, the name Spring Wind seems Asian in origin and \nmakes the story seem as if it comes from the First Empire.  The Black \nKiller who shelters Frog, is the Torturers Guild, and the Naked One, \nwho has “never had a son of Meschia to teach,” is none other than \nFather Inire who according to the Lexicon Urthus is the “vizier to \ncountless Autarchs since Ymar”.  He occurs as the Naked One in Sword \nand Citadel as the bent and masked guide (pp. 350-1).  And here we have \nthe answer:  Ymar is the bastard son of Typhon, Frog, sheltered by the \nBlack Killer and taught by the Naked One, who rules by the red flower.\n\tGreat, so where does Severian fit into this?  Jonas tells us.  He \nknows who Severian is, hence the story of the “black beans” (Shadow p. \n209)  The “beans” I’m sure we can agree, are embryos and black is used \nas a description almost exclusively to signify something to do with \nSeverian or the Torturers.  Black Sun (a name of the Conciliator) Black \nKiller are two examples.  I posit that the “handful of black beans” are \nthe embryonic clones of Ymar, brought from the stars where Ymar left to \ntry to bring the New Sun and right his father’s wrong.  I have found \nfive of these black beans.  They are:\nThe Mandragora\nLittle Severian\nSeverian\nOuen\nMaster Palaemon\nNote the age progression, the life stages of man.  Hardly proof you \nsay.  But there’s more.  Listen to Dr. Talos:\n‘”The castle?  The monster?  The man of learning?  I only just thought \nof it.  Surely you know that just as the momentous events of the past \ncast their shadows down the ages, so now, when the sun is drawing \ntoward the dark, our own shadows race into the past to trouble mankinds \ndreams.”’ (Sword p. 186)  He is saying that the past and present \ninfluence and echo each other.  The resonance between Severian and the \nMandragora needs no explanation.  Little Severian is raised by \nwoodcutters and orphaned, and again there is the name.  (This brings up \nthe sinister implication, reinforced by Graves, that Little Severian \nmight not have died accidentally but was a surrogate sacrifice for Big \nSev. but that’s another topic.)  Severian was born of a monial, raised \nby torturers, and there’s the incident with Triskele which is \nparalleled by the only anecdote given about Ymar:  his chasing of the \ndog.  Palaemon is exiled to Thrax as a Journeyman with Terminus Est for \nsome unknown offence, most likely showing mercy to a client.  And Ouen. \n  The two look identical for one thing.  The other parallel is tricky \nand somewhat circular.  Severian has a relationship with Dorcas who is \nOuen’s “mother”.  Ouen has a relationship with Katherine, Severian’s \n“mother” but, since they are both genetically the same person they are \nboth also Oedipus.  Now Severian’s relationship with Dorcas makes \nperfect thematic sense, as does her comments to Severian prior to sex \nof “Won’t I be too small?”  She isn’t speaking of going in but of \ncoming out, a reflection of her death during childbirth.  This also is \nher instant connection with Severian. She loves him because he is her \nson (as Ouen) but in her ignorance of her previous living life confuses \nthese feelings with romantic love.\n\tSo, who is Severian’s sister?  The answer is that Severian’s sister is \nYmar’s sister, Fish, who was buried beneath the walls of the city, or \nmore accurately, lives in a place that must be reached by travelling \nunderground.  The Atrium of Time.  Valeria is Severian’s sister and his \nwife, Pharaonic style.  This is why they don’t have sex.  “I am all \nsisters we breed, and all the sons.” she too is a clone.  The brother \nsun, sister moon theme is also reinforced in Graves.  (This however, \ndoes not preclude Merryn from also being Severian’s sister.)  If you \nanalyze Valeria’s words to Severian they are quite ambiguous and could \neasily be words of sisterly love.\n\tI’ve said this before and I’ll reiterate:  Ymar is the other Severian \nthat Sev speaks of (Sword pp. 405-6).  “He too was reared by torturers, \nI think. . . and so, even as I, he (who in the final sense is and was \nmyself) became Autarch in turn and sailed beyond the candles of night. \n. . He was not returned to his own time but became himself a walker of \nthe corridors. . . I know too in whose mausoleum I tarried as a child, \nthat little building of stone with its rose, its fountain, and its \nflying ship all graven.  I have disturbed my own tomb, and now I go to \nlie in it.”  Ymar has done all of these things  and he ruled (according \nto the tale of Frog) by the red flower, the rose.  The other Severian \nis not named Severian.  Again Graves reinforces this thematically on \npage 321 of The White Goddess, but I really think this essay won’t bear \nmuch more exposition and have a place on this list.  The evidence of \nSeverian’s lineage, while circumstantial and riddling, is compelling \nand, I think, correct.\n\nAddendum:  I looked up the name Ymar on the net and it means Ox in \nHebrew.  This is from King Jesus p.219:  '\"How do you say \"ox\" in \nHebrew?\"  \"We say Aleph.\"'"
        }
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}