Subject: (urth) More on Juturna

From: Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net>
Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2006 06:21:30 +0000

Pursuant to what I posted earlier this month: In the last paragraph of
chapter 30 of CITADEL, the aquastor Malrubius said, ""No, we do not take you
to the paramours of Abaia, those who spared and succored you because you had
been a torturer and would be Autarch."

This reinforces what I said earlier, that the undines knew all along that
Severian would be autarch. They knew it the same way the aquastor and the
Hierodules knew it -- they had seen the future. There is no logical reason
why the undines' (and therefore Abaia's) future knowledge should have
stopped at that day in the throne room, and we know it went that far because
Juturna was there that day. And we know she was still there after the Flood.

The quote suggests not only that Juturna saved his life (would save, from
her perspective), but "spared" also suggests that she (or other undines)
had/would have Severian in a position to kill him, but chose not to. That
may or may not pertain to the drowning incident in the Gyoll. But "succored"
implies that they actually *helped* to further his career. Now, when would
that have been (or would be)?

Among other things, all this suggests to me that Baldanders was never a
contender for the throne. Both the Hierodules and the undines knew all along
who would be autarch. Baldanders was nothing more than a curiosity. He also
knew, when the Hierodules knelt to Severian at the castle, who would be
autarch.

-Roy

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From: Chris <rasputin_ at hotmail.com>
Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2006 08:06:25 +0000

If, as you say, there is no reason the undines' future knowledge doesn't 
extend to the flood, then it implies that Severian gave them what they 
wanted - otherwise if they knew he'd fail to deliver, they wouldn't have 
bothered to spare him.

So are you saying that Abaia really won in the end?

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From: b sharp <bsharporflat at hotmail.com>
Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2006 11:34:04 +0000

I think it is a mistake to assume the desires of Juturna are (in all times) 
the same as those of Abaia.  Abaia is not interested in the physical 
domination of Urth but rather the acquisition of slaves.  I suspect Abaia's 
harem of brides/daughters may not be happy with their roles but rather 
forced into compliance in some manner.

Some evidence for this exists in the quasi-Theseus story that Severian tells 
Jonas.  If the naviscaput leviathan in that story is a reference to Abaia 
then could the Corn Maidens, taken against their will, be the analog to the 
undines?

Or perhaps even closer, for Juturna, would be the monster's daughter (can't 
remember her name). She helps the hero defeat the naviscaput because she is 
the product of her father raping her mother. Perhaps some of Juturna's 
actions in helping Severian can be seen in this light.

To me the undines (Juturna, Idas) project a sense of unhappy desperation in 
their direct dealings with Severian until the final scene where Juturna is 
happily munching on fish and seems calmly pleased to help Severian with no 
strings attached.  Perhaps in some unexplained manner the New Sun has freed 
the undines.

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From: David Duffy <david.duffy at qimr.edu.au>
Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2006 13:14:23 +0000

> strings attached.  Perhaps in some unexplained manner the New Sun has freed

This reminds one of the various female Aelf in Wizard-Knight.

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From: Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net>
Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2006 18:20:47 +0000

>wanted - otherwise if they knew he'd fail to deliver, they wouldn't have

Maybe I worded it clumsily. I was saying that there is no reason the
undines' future knowledge doesn't extend *past* the flood, since, based on
the fact that the Gyoll drowning incident had yet to happen (for Juturna) on
the day of the flood, she seemed to be living, or at least operating,
contrary to the normal flow of time.

>So are you saying that Abaia really won in the end?

I don't know about winning, but I'm not so sure he lost, either.
Postdiluvian Juturna, at least, seemed to be getting along just fine. And,
as I think Andrew pointed out, in the end Severian-the-Conciliator found
himself a petty god in a pantheon of petty gods modeled on the autarch's
court. That seems to me quite a come-down.

-Roy

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From: pthwndxrclzp <aquastor at gmail.com>
Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2006 18:24:36 +0000

Don't know if anyone's mentioned this yet...but do Juturna & Co. necessarily
have to possess the power to see the future themselves? What I mean is,
couldn't someone or something else (cacogens, Abaia, etc.) have just *told*
various Undines pieces of the future? Why do we need to assume the undines
have that ability themselves?

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From: mournings glory <mourningsglory at hotmail.com>
Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2006 18:24:48 +0000

>forced into compliance in some manner.

I've another theory yet -- could the undines be the equivalent of alien Mata 
Haris and therefore be agents of the Hierodules?

1) Their names (Juturna, Idas) seem closer in affinity to the friendlier 
extrasolarians of New Sun (Barbatus, Famulimus, Ossipago) than the 
teratonymic Megatherians (Abaia, Arioch, Erebus).

2) Juturna, in Roman Mythology, is the goddess of springs, wells, and 
especially *fountains* -- ergo, she's a symbol of rebirth as well as the 
White Fountain that will renew the old sun. (Note as well the common linkage 
with Roman mythology -- B, F, & O all being named after minor Roman 
deities.)

3) Either the undines experience time in "widdershins" fashion or they know 
how to access the Corridors of Time (depending on your preference) -- yet 
another link that posits a connection more between the Hierodules than the 
Megatherians. (Indeed, I see no evidence that the Megatherians -- being 
creatures of Briah and not Yesod -- can negotiate or undercut time in the 
same fashion. But if the undines know how, why wouldn't their alleged 
masters?)

4) Juturna consistently helps -- rather than hinders -- Sev in every 
encounter. (The attempted seduction scene at Cephissus appears designed to 
give our hero the ability to breathe underwater, which he'll need in the 
future.) Idas, on the hand, may have been turned by her father (if, that is, 
he's Baldanders -- we're still awaiting the paternity results  <gr>).

5) The notion of sea-deep monsters needing brides, consorts, or sexual 
playthings implies one of the seven deadly sins -- lust --and opportunizes 
their vulnerability to the placement of covert operatives by the opposition 
--a catching of the Catodon, if you will.

em-as-in-merfrow (go Ariel!)

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From: Chris <rasputin_ at hotmail.com>
Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2006 20:07:01 +0000

>court. That seems to me quite a come-down.

Well, one could also take the approach - which is part of my interpretation 
of the books, but on other grounds - that the undines are actually more 
primordial than Abaia and the other Megatherians. The undines are always 
going to be there no matter what happens; Abaia & co., while of the same 
general order of beings, are the more complex product of accumulated human 
history that is all washed away with the flood.

By this light the mistake would be in assuming that the undines necessarily 
serve the interests of Abaia in all things, just because they are generally 
subordinate to him.

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From: Jeff Wilson <jwilson at io.com>
Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2006 05:23:16 +0000

pthwndxrclzp wrote:

> Don't know if anyone's mentioned this yet...but do Juturna & Co. 
> necessarily have to possess the power to see the future themselves? What 
> I mean is, couldn't someone or something else (cacogens, Abaia, etc.) 
> have just *told* various Undines pieces of the future? Why do we need to 
> assume the undines have that ability themselves?

Because the undines *demonstrate* it, via

1) Juturna's non-linear personal experiences

2) Juturna's pointing out the time-ward directions of travel to Severian

3) Idas' presence on the time-travelling Ship.

-- 
Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com
< http://www.io.com/~jwilson >

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From: Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net>
Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2006 06:17:14 +0000

> assume the undines have that ability themselves?

Jeff answered your question, so, just because those flood waters had to have
been muddy anyway, I should point out that Juturna is inconsistent. That is,
though her stint as lifeguard in Severian's past was in her future that day
in the throne room, when he next met her *after* the flood, when she was
eating fish in the Citadel, he remarked, "You lived", referring to her
having survived the throne room scene. She answered, "You did not." (URTH,
341) She meant, of course, that he had managed to get himself killed (yet
again!) on that day, whether it was by the knife blade, the poison on it, or
drowning.

My point here is that that day in the throne room was in the past for both
of them.

-Roy

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From: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <danldo at gmail.com>
Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2006 06:46:00 +0000

On 4/28/06, pthwndxrclzp <aquastor at gmail.com> wrote:

.... oh, heck, this has nothing to do with what you
wrote.

I just have to ask, pthwndrxrclzp: are you any relation
to Mr Mxyzptlk?

--Dan'l
--
I do not fear Satan half so much as I fear those who fear him.
                        -- St Teresa of Avila
http://www.livejournal.com/users/sturgeonslawyer

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From: pthwndxrclzp <aquastor at gmail.com>
Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2006 07:33:15 +0000

Ha! Well, first of all, my apologies for not having read the books in too
long a time, and my thanks to Jeff for the clarification(s) on the undines'
temporal posture. As for your question, Dan'l, while I have the fondest of
memories of the imp's mischief going as far back as comics read to me in the
early 1960s, Alan Moore put paid to any deep affection for the character
back in 1996. The reference is actually to Finnegans
Wake<http://www.trentu.ca/jjoyce/fw-284.htm><sheepish,
self-consciously pretentious grin>.

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