Following the Flood
The Urth list — 1 messages, 1 voices, 12 Mar 1998
https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/417

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Charles Dye — 12 Mar 1998, 10:08

C R Culver <CRCulver at aol.com> writes:

> Said Peter S:

> > The part where he goes through Thrax holding the Claw aloft recalls `I am
> > the light of the world'

> This section is hard for me to interpret religiously, because Severian does
> release the floodgates, killing the prisoners in the jacal [gaol?]. That is,
> IMHO, not in any way Christlike.

Er, killing them?  Where do you get this?

That chapter is titled "Following the Flood" and I've always seen it as a
kind of play on the phrase "born again."  Severian is being reborn from the
torturers' guild -- literally exiting from confinement, head down through a
tunnel, following a flood of water.  His second birth should lead to a
better life than the first; we get a specific mention of the water's
cleansing effects.  *Definitely* in the Christian tradition, for my money.

> One interesting thing I did notice is Severian's reviving of Miles. The word
> Miles is Latin for soldier (actually, it is nominative or accusative plural),
> but it also can mean "thousand." How many people are in a Roman legion? A
> thousand, or some variation of it? 

Of course, it's also a measure of distance; see Severian's own explanation for
the name.  And note that even Christ wasn't above the occasional name pun!

raster at highfiber.com

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