Subject: (urth) Back, after the Urth of the New Sun (2nd attepmt)

From: Andrew Kertesz <zsetrek_a at hotmail.com>
Date: Sat, 02 Apr 2005 22:19:51 +0000

Ugh - stupid Hotmail - I'll try this again.

Wow.

I finished it a few hours ago, and I've managed to give myself a monstrous 
headache from reading too much, too quickly, but by God it was worth it. :)

During the first half (the events on the ship and in Yesod), I was worried 
that it would be nothing more than a superfluous add-on to the other books. 
I should have had more faith. It ended up enriching the whole series (and 
also making it that much harder to understand and decypher).

Thanks to everyone who responded to my first post (" Newbie - a theory and 
some questions").

Dan'l - I picked up the Arion reference, but only, I think, because you had 
mentioned that I should be on the look out for it. Is the underground 
creature in the Saltus mines somehow related to these three?

Chris - "Abaia, Erebus & co. were described as aliens, if you believe the 
origin
story of where they came from." - Is the story you're refering to, the one 
Jonas begins to tell at the Piteous Gate (the black beans)? I never really 
understood the significance of that one...

In regards to my Agilus theory - My justification falls apart a little when 
it becomes apparent that Ossipago is in fact, a machine and not a cacogen. 
Also, the idea of anti-cacogens doesn't really fit in with the whole 
"heirogammates created them to help uplift the people of Urth" thing.
So now, I'm back where I started. Possibly, this is one of those Ulyssian 
"details without meaning" devices that Wolfe has (I think) admitted to 
induging in, but it's nagging at me.
My only other ideas are that 1) Agilus was a child of Abia, like Idas, or 2) 
he was a sorceror like Ceryx and the jungle warlocks. The first one is 
pretty shakey, but the second - while much more plausible, and probably true 
- isn't as fun, is it?

The most far-out idea I had, and one that I don't belive for a second is 
true (but it would be neat if it was) is that Agilus is Severian himself, on 
one of his time journeys. The idea of Severian executing himself just seems 
kinda poetic to my twisted brain.

Oh, also re. the long turn-around time between messages - I think that the 
Hotmail.com spam filter is killing URTH messages... meh.

Andrew Kertesz

---

From: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <danldo at gmail.com>
Date: Sat, 02 Apr 2005 22:40:04 +0000

> Ugh - stupid Hotmail - I'll try this again.

Actually, the first one went through. Don't worry about it.

> also making it that much harder to understand and decypher).

Yeah ... My initial reaction when reading it lo these many years ago was,
"He's giving away the stuff I had to work to figure out! No fair!" but then
he added soooo much more...

> creature in the Saltus mines somehow related to these three?

That's an excellent question. My own theory is that the thing in the
mines is either a Balrog or Shudde-M'ell. But I'm mostly joking.

--Dan'l

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