# Wolfe; it hurts!

*The Urth list — 3 messages, 3 voices, 11 Jul 2003*

<https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/4086>

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### Seth Lombardi
*11 Jul 2003, 04:35*

Two questions that might be sort of remedial:

First, if I'm not mistaken, Severian makes reference to having _thousands_ 
of personalities to draw from after becoming Autarch. Now, seeing as how my 
Lexicon Urthus tells me there are have been far less than a thousand known 
Autarchs, where does this legion come from? Are they somehow the result of 
Thecla's previous meals, and I just missed it?

Second, and I KNOW this has been debated before so just feel free to ignore 
it if it's redundant, what the HECK is going on with Merryn at the end of 
the Book of the Short Sun? Even ignoring the reference to her being other 
than human, why does Severian seemingly deny knowledge of a sister when 
confronted with the fact that he has the name of a twin in BOTNS, but 
acknowledges to SilkHorn that she is his sister at the end of BOSS? Could it 
be that the lil' Severian that SilkHorn meets is actually one of the 
alternate unsuccessful versions? Or perhaps a further refinement?
*****************************
Seth Lombardi
sethlombardi at hotmail.com
sethopopotropolis: http://pages.prodigy.net/nlom/blogg.html
AIM: melombardi
"Two faces are alike; neither is funny by itself, but side by side their 
likeness makes us laugh" -Pascal

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### Andrew Bollen
*11 Jul 2003, 05:10 · follows Seth Lombardi*

Seth writes:

> Second, and I KNOW this has been debated before so just feel free to
> ignore
> it if it's redundant, what the HECK is going on with Merryn at the end of
> the Book of the Short Sun? Even ignoring the reference to her being other
> than human, why does Severian seemingly deny knowledge of a sister when
> confronted with the fact that he has the name of a twin in BOTNS, but
> acknowledges to SilkHorn that she is his sister at the end of BOSS?

Unless I've missed it, I don't think Sev makes this claim. It's Merryn who
says: "He's my brother ... We're brothers & sisters, we witches & torturers"
(Ch 13). I don't think there's any claim of real kinship in that, just some
smart-ass irony.

What's the reference to her being other than human?

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### matthew.malthouse
*11 Jul 2003, 07:07 · follows Andrew Bollen*

> On 11/07/2003 05:35:15 Seth Lombardi wrote:
> Two questions that might be sort of remedial:
> 
> First, if I'm not mistaken, Severian makes reference to having 
> _thousands_
> of personalities to draw from after becoming Autarch. Now, seeing as how 
> my
> Lexicon Urthus tells me there are have been far less than a thousand 
> known
> Autarchs, where does this legion come from? 

Assumes you believe LU.   :-)


Matthew

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