{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/4558", "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": 4558, "subject": "Sev as the avatar of Abaia", "messages": 8, "voices": 6, "first": "2006-04-05T04:05:20+00:00", "last": "2006-04-06T07:06:23+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "<20060405040524.05641DA825@mailserver6.hushmail.com>", "from": { "name": "thalassocrat at nym.hush.com", "address": "thalassocrat at nym.hush.com" }, "date": "2006-04-05T04:05:20+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Sev as the avatar of Abaia", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Well, not really. But I continue to obsess about the apparent \nreconciliation with the pelagic foe at the end of UOTNS.\n\nDon't have the book handy but most of this occurs in the last few \npages. \n\nWith the arrival of the New Sun, Sev loses his connection to it, \nfeeling like a man who has lost a leg. No more stellar power for \nhim. But nevertheless, he is able to swim for most of a day and a \nnight, survive underwater, explore the ancient sunken city etc etc. \n\nIn fact, pretty much all the stuff Juturna had promised him at the \nsand-bar, back when he was travelling to Thrax with Dorcas after \nleaving the House Absolute. \n\nI'm pretty sure that this is a gift from Abaia etc. Not long after, \n\nhe encounters Juturna, who gives him the power to travel through \ntime and space again. Another pelagic gift.\n\nWhen he returns from being Apu Panchu, he finds he has become the \n\"Oannes\" of his people. Not a solar deity, as you might expect, but \n\na sea god. He indicates earlier in the book that he is still able \nnow, at the time of writing, to travel through time (musing on \nreturning to Os, for example), so I assume that pelagic powers' \ngifts are permanent. One of he first things he does on meeting his \n\"priest\" is to make an offering to her.\n\nIf he is a minor-deity at the end of the book, it seems to by grace \n\nof Abaia et al, at least to some degree.\n\nCoupled with this, you have the switch in perspective over Abaia's \nmotivation. Rather than being an agent of unalloyed evil, it \nbecomes apparent that intentions for the existing inhabitants of \nUrth were to a large extent *benign*, at least by comaprison to the \n\nintentions of the Hierogrammates. They were bent on almost total \ngenocide; he wished for preservation. \n\nThe telling scenes are Juturna's appearance before Severia just \nbefore the flood, but perhaps more significantly, Sev's realization \n\nwhen he meets her eating fish after the Flood: \"It was because I \ncould not bear to watch Thecla in her death agony, wasn't it?\" - or \n\nwords to that effect. That is: You saved me from drowning, because \nyou believed I'd wimp out on destroying Urth at the end. \n\nAll along, we had been half-led to believe that Abaia welcomed the \nidea of a torturer as autarch and epitome. In fact, the reverse is \ntrue: the Hierogrammates are the ones who needed somebody ruthless \nenough to countenance the death of millions (to clear a path for \nthe coming of the Hieros). Abaia wanted somebody with a softer \nheart." } ] }, { "message_id": "<44334DCC.8030606@io.com>", "from": { "name": "Jeff Wilson", "address": "jwilson at io.com" }, "date": "2006-04-05T04:55:40+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Sev as the avatar of Abaia", "in_reply_to": "<20060405040524.05641DA825@mailserver6.hushmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "thalassocrat at nym.hush.com wrote:\nWell, not really. But I continue to obsess about the apparent \nreconciliation with the pelagic foe at the end of UOTNS.\n\nDon't have the book handy but most of this occurs in the last few \npages. \n\nWith the arrival of the New Sun, Sev loses his connection to it, \nfeeling like a man who has lost a leg. No more stellar power for \nhim. But nevertheless, he is able to swim for most of a day and a \nnight, survive underwater, explore the ancient sunken city etc etc. " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "An aquastor wouldn't need to rest or breathe either, of course." }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com\n< http://www.io.com/~jwilson >" } ] }, { "message_id": "<200604050947.k359lu84094665@mailserver3.hushmail.com>", "from": { "name": "thalassocrat at nym.hush.com", "address": "thalassocrat at nym.hush.com" }, "date": "2006-04-05T09:47:53+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Sev as the avatar of Abaia", "in_reply_to": "<44334DCC.8030606@io.com>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Wed, 05 Apr 2006 14:55:40 +1000 Jeff Wilson \nwrote:\nthalassocrat at nym.hush.com wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Well, not really. But I continue to obsess about the apparent \nreconciliation with the pelagic foe at the end of UOTNS.\n\nDon't have the book handy but most of this occurs in the last \nfew \npages. \n\nWith the arrival of the New Sun, Sev loses his connection to it, " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "feeling like a man who has lost a leg. No more stellar power for " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "him. But nevertheless, he is able to swim for most of a day and \na \nnight, survive underwater, explore the ancient sunken city etc \netc. " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "An aquastor wouldn't need to rest or breathe either, of course." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I don't think that's it. Recall the scene with the Hierodules in \nthe Stone Town. Sev says: \"When I spoke with Master Malrubius \nbeside the sea, he dissolved into a glittering dust.\" Barbatus \nresponds: \"That eidolon ... had been existence only briefly. I \ndon't know what energies Tzadkiel called upon to support you [as \neidolon] on the ship ... But even if it was a source you left \nbehind when you came here, you had lived a long time before that \n[ie, in non-Hierodule terms, Sev lived a long time after that] ... \nDuring all that time you breathed, ate and drank matter that was \nnot unstable, converting it to your body's use. Thus it became a \nsubstantial body.\"\n\nI think the point is that an ediolon becomes a real human, given \nenough time. But anyway, it seems that an eidolon eats, sleeps etc, \nsince Sev-eidolon did these things on the ship, and I imagine it \nmust normally also breathe.\n\nBeyond that, I have a big hypothesis. I think Roy, in particular, \nhas pointed out the fundamental distastefulness of New Sun's \ncosmology. Hieros and humans breed each other, with the \nHierogrammates as some kind of mid-wife species, in cycles of \nrather repulsive pain and suffering. Why is it a good thing for the \nHieros to come into being? Why should the Increate regard it as \nworthwhile? Perhaps he/she doesn't.\n\nThe Increate is very much the Outsider in New Sun. He is, I \nbelieve, beyond the ken of even the Hierogrammates. (I think, for \nexample, of Gabriel's comments in Melito's story of the hubristic \ncock ...) Nobody seems to stand in his direct presence. When Sev \nprays at the altar of the Pelerines before its destruction by \nAscian artillery, he does have a divine encounter - but with \nhimself. Apart from being creepy, I believe it's the closest we get \nto a numinous meeting in all of the four volumes. \n\nBut in Short Sun and Long Sun, the Outsider comes inside. Silk and \nSilkHorn encounter him, unambiguously. \n\nIs it possible that we have here the real reason for SilkHorn and \nSev meeting in Long Sun? Perhaps the meeting spawns a new, \nfundamentally changed iteration of the Sev time-line. Most people \nchange after meeting SilkHorn; is it unlikely that Sev does also?\n\nThere are a few little disconnects between New Sun and the \nSilkHorn/Sev meeting in Long Sun. Some of these might be put down \nto Wolfe nodding, or not caring to balance things like a \nbookkeeper. Eg: Triskele is with Sev for much longer in Long Sun.\n\nBut there is one glaring difference which I find very difficult to \nignore: Merryn. When Sev meets her & the Cumaean in Stone Town, \nthey don't recognize each other. But in Long Sun, Sev fetches \nMerryn to meet with Jahlee; after that, at any rate, they *must* \nknow each other. Something has definitely changed. \n\nAnd perhaps the Triskele factor shouldn't be discounted: Sev meets \nSilkHorn, Sev becomes a better person and a better Triskele-carer, \nTriskele stays longer with him ... And longer term, perhaps Sev \nbecomes less of the torturer the Hierogrammates require. \n\nI don't know what his future history would be, on this hypothesis, \nor the future history of Urth. Whatever, the Increate has \nmanifested himself directly to SilkHorn, and with that I think it \nvery likely that Sev will no longer be required in the ersatz-deity \nrole.\n\nBTW, I find it easy to discount Sev's statement in Long Sun that he \nwon't write about SilkHorn, because nobody would believe him. Such \na jarringly inept piece of story-stitching, taken at face value; \nmuch easier to believe it's a sly, backhand Wolfean clue." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Adam Thornton", "address": "adam at io.com" }, "date": "2006-04-05T15:42:08+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Sev as the avatar of Abaia", "in_reply_to": "<200604050947.k359lu84094665@mailserver3.hushmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Apr 5, 2006, at 4:47 AM, \n wrote:\nI think the point is that an ediolon becomes a real human, given\nenough time. But anyway, it seems that an eidolon eats, sleeps etc,\nsince Sev-eidolon did these things on the ship, and I imagine it\nmust normally also breathe." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "This is like a particularly creepy variant of the Velveteen Rabbit.\n\nOr maybe Pinocchio.\n\nAdam" } ] }, { "message_id": "<1f7617370604050852vc8aef86hd23b1ded7a6dd9ca@mail.gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes", "address": "danldo at gmail.com" }, "date": "2006-04-05T15:52:17+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Sev as the avatar of Abaia", "in_reply_to": "<200604050947.k359lu84094665@mailserver3.hushmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "On 4/5/06, thalassocrat at nym.hush.com wrote:\n\n... well, some interesting theory-spinning. I find some of it compelling,\nsome not.\n\nBut it prompts me to observe that there's been a load of auld shite\ntalked on this list lately about the idea that maybe Abaia & co. are\nthe good guys because they want to prevent the massive destruction\nthat Severian will cause.\n\nUm, no.\n\nIf you haven't, lately, go have a butcher's at the Book of Revelations.\nIt's in the nearest Christian Bible. Go ahead, I'll wait here.\n\n(Dum, dum, dee... biddle, biddle, bum... Heard any good jokes\nlately? Ah, okay, they're back.)\n\nYou see my point? When the Messiah returns, it is not going to\nbe a happyland. Mass destruction. Megadeaths. Sea turned to\nblood, fire, famine, flood, fear, foes, flatulence, the whole nine\nmeters. That's the way the renewal thing _works_ in Christianity.\nThere's a huge sacrificial price to be paid. Always. Tanstaafl.\n\nMeanwhile, some nits and bits." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I think the point is that an ediolon becomes a real human, given\nenough time." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Cue Pinocchio, Astro Boy, and Data... No, seriously, all we get\nfrom this is that they develop real physical bodies, not necessarily\nthat those bodies are \"real humans.\"" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "The Increate is very much the Outsider in New Sun." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Oh yeah." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Is it possible that we have here the real reason for SilkHorn and\nSev meeting in Long Sun? Perhaps the meeting spawns a new,\nfundamentally changed iteration of the Sev time-line. Most people\nchange after meeting SilkHorn; is it unlikely that Sev does also?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I think you've hit on something big here. We are explicitly shown\nthat by his manifestations, the Narrator can not only change a\nperson, but even change that person's _past_. It is entirely\npossible that a \"better\" Severian than the one we know from\ntBotNS will come from this encounter.\n\nContrariwise, it is also possible that this meeting was why\nSeverian became the person we know from tBotNS, why he\nwas able to be the Epitome that could bring the New Sun. I\nsee no explicit reason in the text to prefer either interpretation." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Triskele is with Sev for much longer in Long Sun." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Is he? There's a mention in tBotNS that some time has passed\nbetween when Sev adopts Triskele and when Triskele wanders\noff, but we're not given a too-explicit idea of just how long.\n\n(One of the ways in which Wolfe is the Anti-Tolkien: Tolkien\nobsessed about maps and dates and such, rewriting whole\nsections of tLotR to make the moon phases match up. Wolfe\nseems to deliberately keep both chronology and geography\nfairly vague.)" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "But there is one glaring difference which I find very difficult to\nignore: Merryn. When Sev meets her & the Cumaean in Stone Town,\nthey don't recognize each other. But in Long Sun, Sev fetches\nMerryn to meet with Jahlee; after that, at any rate, they *must*\nknow each other. Something has definitely changed." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Not clear. Granted Severian's trick memory, some years pass\nbetween this and the Stone Town. How much has Merryn changed\nin that time? And we've seen that, while Sev doesn't \"forget\" (except\nwhen he does), things can slip his mind. For him not to recognize\nsomeone he hasn't seen in several years (during which time both\nhave grown from preadolescence to adulthood) doesn't seem too\nimprobable." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "BTW, I find it easy to discount Sev's statement in Long Sun that he\nwon't write about SilkHorn, because nobody would believe him. Such\na jarringly inept piece of story-stitching, taken at face value;\nmuch easier to believe it's a sly, backhand Wolfean clue." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "There's clearly _something_ going on there, since Sev at this time\nwould have no reason to believe that he would ever have cause to\nwrite an autobiography. He expects to be an ordinary, pretty much\nanonymous, member of his Order.\n\n--Dan'l" }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "I do not fear Satan half so much as I fear those who fear him.\n -- St Teresa of Avila\nhttp://www.livejournal.com/users/sturgeonslawyer" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "mournings glory", "address": "mourningsglory at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2006-04-05T17:15:10+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Sev as the avatar of Abaia", "in_reply_to": "<1f7617370604050852vc8aef86hd23b1ded7a6dd9ca@mail.gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "thalassocrat first:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "But there is one glaring difference which I find very difficult to\nignore: Merryn. When Sev meets her & the Cumaean in Stone Town,\nthey don't recognize each other. But in Long Sun, Sev fetches\nMerryn to meet with Jahlee; after that, at any rate, they *must*\nknow each other. Something has definitely changed." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I'm not sure that the first half of this is altogether true, since Sev \nclearly does remember meeting Merryn when he was much younger and details \nthe reminiscence in Chapter XXX of _Claw_. It's Merryn, on the other hand, \nwho must ask the Cumaean, \"Who is...this man in fuligin then, Mother?\"\n\nnow blattid:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Not clear. Granted Severian's trick memory, some years pass\nbetween this and the Stone Town. How much has Merryn changed\nin that time? For him not to recognize\nsomeone he hasn't seen in several years (during which time both\nhave grown from preadolescence to adulthood) doesn't seem too\nimprobable." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "The thing is Merryn has *not* changed at all from the time Sev first meet \nher as a boy in the tower of the witches to his encounter with her in the \nstone town. In his called-up memory of Merryn, \"The witch to whom [the face] \nbelonged seemed old to me and must actually have been about twenty or a \nlittle less.\" Back in real-time, however: \"I mention all this now because it \nseemed to me...that the women who crouched over it were the same. It was \nimpossible; the old woman to whom I had handed the my letter was almost \ncertainly dead, and the young one (if she were still living) would be \nchanged beyond recognition. Yet the faces that turned toward me were the \nfaces I recalled.\"\n\nIn _Return to the Whorl_ Merryn is described in very similar terms as the \none in _Claw_. If there's a physiological difference it is slight. I believe \nit's also important to note that Sev never tells us or Horn that the witch's \nname is Merryn. We learn this only from Horn, who sources the information as \noriginating with Jahlee.\n\nback to thalassocrat:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "But in Long Sun, Sev fetches\nMerryn to meet with Jahlee; after that, at any rate, they *must*\nknow each other. Something has definitely changed." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Again, Sev *does* recognize Merryn from the first time he encountered here, \njust as obviously he cannot retroactively remember her from a book that has \nyet to be written. Merryn may not be as gifted in the memory department -- \nhence, given the passage of years, her failure to recognize Severian as the \nboy apprentice who once delivered a message to the witches' tower.\n\nSo really nothing has changed -- including Merryn's appearance over the \ncourse of both the New and Short Sun series. This, to me, is the mysterious \npart of the bargain.\n\nm." } ] }, { "message_id": "<20060406020343.358D7DA838@mailserver6.hushmail.com>", "from": { "name": "thalassocrat at nym.hush.com", "address": "thalassocrat at nym.hush.com" }, "date": "2006-04-06T02:03:42+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Sev as the avatar of Abaia", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "On Thu, 06 Apr 2006 01:52:17 +1000 Dan'l Danehy-Oakes \n wrote:\nIs it possible that we have here the real reason for SilkHorn \nand\nSev meeting in Long Sun? Perhaps the meeting spawns a new,\nfundamentally changed iteration of the Sev time-line. Most \npeople\nchange after meeting SilkHorn; is it unlikely that Sev does \nalso?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I think you've hit on something big here. We are explicitly shown\nthat by his manifestations, the Narrator can not only change a\nperson, but even change that person's _past_. It is entirely\npossible that a \"better\" Severian than the one we know from\ntBotNS will come from this encounter.\n\nContrariwise, it is also possible that this meeting was why\nSeverian became the person we know from tBotNS, why he\nwas able to be the Epitome that could bring the New Sun. I\nsee no explicit reason in the text to prefer either \ninterpretation." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "That is the other main possibility, of course. But I think that if \nthere's some reasonably concrete evidence that Sev's story has \nchanged at all because of the meetings with SilkHorn (ie Merryn, \nTriskele), then it launches you down a slippery slope of thinking \nabout whether the story has now changed in a *big* way. " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "ignore: Merryn. When Sev meets her & the Cumaean in Stone Town,\nthey don't recognize each other. But in Long Sun, Sev fetches\nMerryn to meet with Jahlee; after that, at any rate, they *must*\nknow each other. Something has definitely changed." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Not clear. Granted Severian's trick memory, some years pass\nbetween this and the Stone Town. How much has Merryn changed\nin that time? And we've seen that, while Sev doesn't \"forget\" \n(except\nwhen he does), things can slip his mind. For him not to recognize\nsomeone he hasn't seen in several years (during which time both\nhave grown from preadolescence to adulthood) doesn't seem too\nimprobable." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I don't buy that. As Roy points out, the time between the two \nmeetings would have to be quite short, and in Long Sun they meet \nunder very unusual circumstances, which would surely tend to \nreinforce the memory, if that were needed. " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "BTW, I find it easy to discount Sev's statement in Long Sun that " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "he\nwon't write about SilkHorn, because nobody would believe him. \nSuch\na jarringly inept piece of story-stitching, taken at face value;" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "much easier to believe it's a sly, backhand Wolfean clue." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "There's clearly _something_ going on there, since Sev at this time\nwould have no reason to believe that he would ever have cause to\nwrite an autobiography. He expects to be an ordinary, pretty much\nanonymous, member of his Order." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Actually, i think that part's covered - remember that SilkHorn has \nspent a long time talking to him about writing, and Sev says that \nhe will write down his story when he has something to say (or \nsomething like that)." } ] }, { "message_id": "<002a01c65948$9fed8a60$1a3ec6d8@rclackey.stic.net>", "from": { "name": "Roy C. Lackey", "address": "rclackey at stic.net" }, "date": "2006-04-06T07:06:23+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Sev as the avatar of Abaia", "in_reply_to": "<20060406020343.358D7DA838@mailserver6.hushmail.com>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Andrew stated his case in his original post, so I won't bother to quote it\nall; just lend him some support. Btw, it is nowhere indicated in the books\nthat the ability to breath underwater is acquired upon the occasion of\nbecoming an eidolon. As for such an eidolon becoming a \"real human\",\nBarbatus said:\n\n \"You speak of what is real, Severian; thus do you hold to\nwhat is real still. A moment since we spoke of him who\nmakes. Among your folk the simple call him God, and you,\nthe lettered, name him Increate. What were you ever but\nhis eidolon?\" (V, 355)\n\nThe parallels of the destruction visited upon Urth by the coming of the New\nSun with the Book of Revelations doesn't really address the issue Andrew\nraised. He didn't claim that Abaia & co. are the good guys, just that they\nhad a different agenda that didn't involve destroying Urth's population.\n\nWhen Juturna, at great peril to herself, came to the throne room, Nessus had\nbeen drowned two days earlier, millions of its people were already dead and\nthe New Sun was no more than a few hours, if not minutes, from its\nrendezvous with the Old Sun. The damage had already been done to Urth, and\nthere was no way for anyone to stop it, even if they tried. But she came\nanyway, to make one last pitch on behalf of Abaia. Why?\n\nAs she told Valeria, Abaia could have crushed the Commonwealth in short\norder, long ago. But that wasn't what he wanted. He wanted people to serve\nhim and to do his bidding, whether willingly or not.\n\nAnyway, we don't know what happened between chapters, between the scene\nwhere Sev was stabbed with a poison knife and when he next wrote of coming\nto himself floating _facedown_ in deep water. (309) Even if we attribute, as\nSev did, his healing from the wound and/or revival from drowning to the\npower of the New Sun, that power was now gone from him. (310) It doesn't\naccount for his new ability to breathe water, which he most certainly did.\nIf the powers he once took from the white fountain were gone, where did this\nnew ability come from if not Juturna? She said she had come to save him --\nto save all who still lived. Sev wrote:\n\n Perhaps because she was a woman, her voice was not so\ndeep as I anticipated, though it was deeper even than\nBaldander's [sic]. Yet there was a lilt to it, as though she who\nstruggled to pass the doorway even as she spoke and was so\nclearly dying had yet some vast joy that owed nothing to\nher own life or the sun's. She said, \"Because I would save\nyou...\" (305)\n\nAnd next page:\n*********************************************\n I was reminded then of what Famulimus had asked me\nwhen I met her first: \"Is all the world a war of good and\nbad? Have you not thought it might be something more?\"\nAnd I felt myself upon the marches of a nobler world,\nwhere I should know what it might be. Master Malrubius\nhad led me from the jungles of the north to Ocean speaking\nof hammer and anvil, and it seemed to me also that I\nsensed an anvil here. He had been an aquastor, like those\nwho had fought for me in Yesod, created from my mind;\nthus he had believed, as I had, that the undine had saved\nme because I would be a torturer and an Autarch. It might\nbe that neither he nor the undine were wholly wrong.\n********************************************\n\nAs Andrew indicated, Sev later had second thoughts about a being created\nfrom his own mind agreeing with himself about the reason why the undine had\nsaved him from drowning as a boy.\n\n \"It was because I couldn't watch Thecla in torment,\nwasn't it? Now I've seen Urth die like that, and I was\nUrth's killer.\"\n \"Who were you,\" she asked me, \"when you stood before\nthe Hierogrammate's Seat of Justice?\"\n \"A man who had not yet destroyed everything he ever loved.\"\n \"You were Urth, and thus Urth lives.\"\n I shouted, \"This is Ushas!\"\n \"If you say it. But Urth lives in Ushas and in you.\" (341-42)\n\nThen Juturna pointed out \"directions I had not seen until she indicated\nthem\", the Corridors of Time and, apparently, of Space.\n\nBack in the throne room, Sev had asked her if she remembered saving him when\nhe was a boy: \"No. It hasn't yet occurred. It will, because you spoke.\"\n(306) Very curious. Sev's pronouncement thus became a prophesy. The New Sun\nand the flood were established facts as she spoke before the throne, she\nknew for a fact that Sev would succeed in bringing the New Sun, yet she came\nthere to save him anyway that day if she could *and* she would see to it\nthat she saved him from drowning in *her* future, which was *his* past. It\nseems to me that she succeeded on both counts.\n\nSomething funny about beings whose time sense is all screwed up, and it\nmakes Sev look like a figure on the stage of a toy theater.\n\n-Roy" } ] } ] }