{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/4090",
    "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": 4090,
    "subject": "\"pristine\" first chapter",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "2003-07-12T06:15:24+00:00",
    "last": "2003-07-12T06:15:24+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0307-3661@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "maa32",
        "address": "maa32 at dana.ucc.nau.edu"
      },
      "date": "2003-07-12T06:15:24+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) \"pristine\" first chapter",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Just an offhand comment that many here will already know:\n\nThe mistake in identification between Drotte and Roche, coming early in the \nnarrative, seems unlikely to be a mistake by Wolfe because of its prevalence \nas the opening scene.  However (as someone who just completed a novel with a \nlackluster beginning that I'm still changing) sometimes the beginning is the \neasiest part to change.  Indeed, we know that Wolfe switched the first chapter \nwith the second chapter in his narrative.  Which means that orginally \n\"Severian\" would have been the first chapter, and we would have seen the \ndrowning before the saving of Vodalus.  There is so much in that first chapter \nthat it is hard to believe that it might be a last minute revision, but the \npossibility does exist that it is the last thing Wolfe touched in his rewrite \nof Shadow of the Torturer.\n\n\nMy question is this: assuming that all of these mistakes in memory are valid, \ndo they all point to something?  Are any of them related to his use of the \nclaw?  Does anything connect them?  What does it matter if Severian has an \nalmost perfect memory as opposed to a perfect one?  I like the idea that the \nprevious iterations of Severian survive in his memories: he's lived the same \nstuff so many times that he remembers multiple timelines and only thinks that \nhe actually remembers what happened to him.  My favorite example is his \nrecital of the poem of hiding: he changes from \"Like glass grow to any eye\" to \n\"Like grass grow to any eye\" from SotT to CotA.  A typo?  A fruedian slip?  \nAnd then, if the Severian that comes to retreive the coin is a different eye, \nchanged through time and manipulation, does the coin simply appear to be \ncounterfeit to his eyes?  Could it be genuine all along, while Severian's \nprimitive magic actually deceives his future self?  Some odd stuff.\n\nDo the changes make him look better?  Not really.  It justs lets us know that \nhis memory is fishy and may not be utterly accurate because his life has been \nextensively meddled with.\n\nAlso, on the topic of Silk confused as Malrubius: yes, Gurloe's fear in \nChapter 19 of RttW was the primary area, but I also thought that Brother \nPorter saw Silk and thought he was Malrubius as well.  I thought there were \ntwo occurences of this. I'll look again.\n\nMarc Aramini"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}