{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/4067", "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.", "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'" }, "archive": "urth", "thread": { "id": 4067, "subject": "sev's skull", "messages": 5, "voices": 5, "first": "2003-07-08T19:47:19+00:00", "last": "2003-07-09T16:42:52+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "maa32", "address": "maa32 at dana.ucc.nau.edu" }, "date": "2003-07-08T19:47:19+00:00", "subject": "(urth) sev's skull", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "So there is some disagreement over the skull. I tried to emphasize that \nperhaps the Severian we knew was just a copy, as the Apu-Punchau who rises \nover his body is just a copy. The original Severian has long since died, and \nhas always been dead, as he says while underground with Master Ultan: I felt \nas if we were both dead and buried, or something like that. Why should the \nchapter entitled \"resurrection and death\" be any different than the later, \nheirodule maintained Severian? If he's not the first Severian (and we meet \nYmar in Urth, and Severian says little about being identical to him - \nsomething one would certainly note: \"he looked just like me as a kid! Go \nfigure!\") I think that when Severian speaks of not being the first Severian, \nhe means that there was a boy raised among the torturers who died and was then \naltered and artifically maintained by the Hierodules, who have the ability to \ntamper with time itself - and remember that the conciliator is the master of \ntime. If the Severian of the narrative of The Book of the New Sun is simply \nanother eidolon, then surely that could be Severian's skull.\nMarc Aramini" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes", "address": "katbarx at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2003-07-08T19:57:54+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) sev's skull", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "perhaps the Severian we knew was just a copy," }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "What do you mean \"just\" a copy? If the original drowned and the Sev\nwe knew is a copy ... isn't he still the important one?" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Chris", "address": "rasputin_ at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2003-07-08T20:29:48+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) sev's skull", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I always felt the reason Severian - at the time of his writing the BotNS - \nfelt as if there had been another one before him was actually quite \nstraightforward, and I am surprised not to have heard the same explanation \nfrom anyone else here.\n\nWe know that Severian's subjective timeline jumps all around in comparison \nto everyone else. We also know that at least one of these incarnations is an \nautarch at some point before Severian the boy torturer was born. The \nautarchs seem to have a tradition, going back quite a long time, of using \nthe alzabo to pass on the memories of the previous autarchs to the new \nautarch.\n\nNow, with normal people who don't have Sev's perfect memory, these memories \naren't passed on completely - there is considerable loss. And you can expect \nthat, through many generations, these memories would be faint indeed. So, \nwhen Severian became autarch, he in fact picked up faint traces of his *own \nmemories*, including some he hadn't even had yet. At the time he was writing \nit is only natural that he would have a vague feeling that somehow he had \nbeen through all this before, and would make inferences (correct or not) \nabout why this might be.\n\nAnd this is assuming that the loss of \"resolution\" by the time of BotNS is \nfairly severe. If you assume less loss (fewer generations, or less loss per \ngeneration), the situation becomes even more perverse and difficult to \ninterpret - how would Severian be affected by having picked up memories of \nthings he hadn't done yet? However, given that Severian seems unaware (or \nclaims to be unaware) of his future success, I think that whatever he picked \nup must have been very vague. He assumes that he must have failed, based on \nthe general feeling of having done it all twice; he can't think of any \nreason why he'd be doing it twice, unless he had somehow failed and was \nbeing sent back to get it right.\n\nOn a more abstract and unrelated note, I suspect it's probably misleading to \nthink of \"copies of Severian\". If the \"real\" Conciliator is more or less \nangelic/archetypal, then Severian and all the rest are sort of \nimprints/copies of him, rather than of each other." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "over his body is just a copy. The original Severian has long since died, \nand\nhas always been dead, as he says while underground with Master Ultan: I \nfelt\nas if we were both dead and buried, or something like that. Why should the" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "figure!\") I think that when Severian speaks of not being the first \nSeverian,\nhe means that there was a boy raised among the torturers who died and was \nthen\naltered and artifically maintained by the Hierodules, who have the ability \nto\ntamper with time itself - and remember that the conciliator is the master \nof" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lisa Schaffer-Doggett", "address": "harlekin at earthlink.net" }, "date": "2003-07-09T07:56:07+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) sev's skull", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Tuesday, July 8, 2003, at 12:47 PM, maa32 wrote:\n If he's not the first Severian (and we meet\nYmar in Urth, and Severian says little about being identical to him -\nsomething one would certainly note: \"he looked just like me as a kid! \nGo\nfigure!\")" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Don believes that the skull might or might not be Severian's. Don \nhowever is certain that Severian leaves out many things when it suits \nhim as both the Book of the New Sun and the Urth of the New Sun are \nApologies and somewhat self serving autobiographies. Don would also \nventure to guess that if a person fully grown ran into someone who \nlooked exactly like him as a child he might not recognize it, a \nperson's current self image being the dominant one in his thoughts. \nYmar is the first Severian. He is the Aleph. He is also the only \nother one who was raised by torturers and went in a ship to attempt a \nreconciliation with the Hieros. The original \"Severian\" has a tomb on \nUrth. His timeline is not negated by our Severian who, though he may \nhave died many times, has no mausoleum. I have no doubts about this \nand only a direct negation by Gene Wolfe himself will change my mind.\n\nDon is through ranting now." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Don Palumbo", "address": "enpalumb at earthlink.net" }, "date": "2003-07-09T16:42:52+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) sev's skull", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "\nSomewhere in BNS (it's at the end of Torturer), Sevarian talks\nabout the writing process, comparing it to being a torturer, and says\namong other things that one of the tasks a writer must perform is to\nfollow the prescribed models. Wolfe, in writing this story, is following\nthe prescribed model of the monomyth very consciously, and all of the\nreferences to death and rebirth throughout the text--as well as\nreferences to a whole lot of other things, such as ogre/father-figures,\nwomen of all sorts, initiations, threshold crossings, talismans, etc,\netc.--should be understood in this light.  Campbell asserts that\ndeath and rebirth is a metaphor for transitions that occur to everyone in\nthe course of life, and Severian certainly undergoes enough changes of\nthis sort so that this invites the reader to see his death-and-rebirth\nexperiences as symbolic of his own transcendence of past selves.\n\nAs the demands of the monomyth model, and a symbolic reading in any case,\nis enough to explain the reason for all the death and rebirth stuff in\nthe story, I see no reason to believe that Severian ever literally dies\nfor good and is replaced by some other version of himself unless what\nhappen cannot be explained in any more plausible way, which I don't think\nis the case in BNS inself.\n\nMind-boggling as reading BNS is in itself, this effect is truly\ncompounded if you read it while keeping the monomyth in mind every\nsentence of the way.  This adds whole new dimensions to the\nstory.\n\n--Don Palumbo\n\nAt 12:47 PM 7/8/03 -0700, maa32 wrote:\nSo there is some disagreement over the\nskull.  I tried to emphasize that \nperhaps the Severian we knew was just a copy, as the Apu-Punchau who\nrises \nover his body is just a copy.  The original Severian has long since\ndied, and \nhas always been dead, as he says while underground with Master Ultan: I\nfelt \nas if we were both dead and buried, or something like that.  Why\nshould the \nchapter entitled \"resurrection and death\" be any different than\nthe later, \nheirodule maintained Severian?  If he's not the first Severian (and\nwe meet \nYmar in Urth, and Severian says little about being identical to him -\n\nsomething one would certainly note: \"he looked just like me as a\nkid! Go \nfigure!\")  I think that when Severian speaks of not being the\nfirst Severian, \nhe means that there was a boy raised among the torturers who died and was\nthen \naltered and artifically maintained by the Hierodules, who have the\nability to \ntamper with time itself - and remember that the conciliator is the master\nof \ntime.   If the Severian of the narrative of The Book of the New\nSun is simply \nanother eidolon, then surely that could be Severian's skull.\nMarc Aramini" }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "http://www.urth.net/\nTo unsubscribe: send \"unsubscribe\" to urth-request at urth.net\n\n\n\n-- " } ] } ] }