Subject: (urth) Eyes of Thecla

From: b sharp <bsharporflat at hotmail.com>
Date: Tue, 02 May 2006 01:33:58 +0000

Wolfe seems to use physical descriptions of his characters in somewhat 
mysterious ways.  I have a few issues I'd like to discuss regarding this.  
First, in BotNS, Thecla is first described as having "great violet eyes, 
lids shaded with blue". Her large, violet eyes are noted numerous times 
later in the text (though they are once called "deep blue" when comparing 
them to Master Ash's eyes; perhaps this is more evidence of Severian's 
unreliablity?)

In Sword, in a mushroom induced dream, it is implied that Thecla's (and 
other exultant women's)eyes have been made to grow bigger by "the 
application of minute amounts of certain poisons in childhood".  Now there 
is another quasi-character who is described as having eyes with great pupils 
as dark as wells, irises purple as summer flowers.  It is Hethor's 
paracoita.

I don't know of any other characters who are described as having very large 
violet or purple eyes, so it is difficult to call the similarity a 
coincidence, especially since both descriptions first appear in Shadow. But 
what connection can there be between these two?  I have some vague thoughts 
involving the kaibit process but I'm interested in any ideas others might 
have.

---

From: Adam Thornton <adam at io.com>
Date: Tue, 02 May 2006 01:41:00 +0000

On May 1, 2006, at 8:33 PM, b sharp wrote:
>  But
> what connection can there be between these two?

I have no idea.

I just want to sing,

"The Eyes of Thecla are Upon You."

Adam

---

From: Jeff Wilson <jwilson at io.com>
Date: Tue, 02 May 2006 02:33:05 +0000

> involving the kaibit process but I'm interested in any ideas others might 

As Mantiss has it, each exultant child has a clone (the khaibit, 
egpytian word for shadow) from which certain items are harvested, 
notably growth factors. Given the Exultants' natural height, this 
results in a towering Exultant and a Khaibit of roughly normal height. 
Givne this precedent, doubltess any number of other cosmetic adjustments 
could be made to the Exultants, and the khaibits possibly serve as 
sources of spare vital organs as well.

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

---

From: mournings glory <mourningsglory at hotmail.com>
Date: Tue, 02 May 2006 02:56:49 +0000

>mysterious ways... in BotNS, Thecla is first described as having "great 
>violet eyes,
>later in the text.

Much of the early violet imagery in Shadow is associated with flowers in the 
necropolis. I.e., "The necropolis has never seemed a city of death to me; I 
know its purple roses  (which other people think so hideous) shelter 
hundreds of small animals and birds." "Spring came, and with it the 
purple-striped and white-dotted lilies of the necropolis." "The lilies faded 
as lilies do, and the dark death roses came into bloom. I cut them and 
carried them to Thecla, nigrescent purple flecked with scarlet." Hence the 
chief use of violet/purple may be to foreshadow Thecla's imminent death.

>application of minute amounts of certain poisons in childhood".

Belladonna will do this and was often used by Venetian courtesans to enhance 
their desirability. Interestingly the first six letters in scopolagna -- 
which is how at one time Hethor refers to his lost love -- can also refer to 
a class of compounds extracted from belladona.

>Now there

Isn't it implicit in URTH that Gunnie is actually Hethor's imaginary 
girlfriend? Her eyes are described "as large, as dark and as soft as any 
cow's," which doesn't necessarily rule out a darker shade of violet. Ditto 
for her real name -- Burgundafora -- I've always associated burgundy with a 
sort of wine-dark red shading into purple.

>involving the kaibit process but I'm interested in any ideas others might

Then again maybe you're onto something. So let's have it, mr "c" note.

mourning's glory (whose namesake, of course, also comes in violet and 
purple-blue)

---

From: Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net>
Date: Tue, 02 May 2006 05:47:38 +0000

>sort of wine-dark red shading into purple.

That's very interesting. I've never heard that before, and it never occurred
to me. Or are you equating Hethor with Purn? Care to elaborate?

-Roy

---

From: David Duffy <david.duffy at qimr.edu.au>
Date: Tue, 02 May 2006 06:46:27 +0000

> to me. Or are you equating Hethor with Purn? Care to elaborate?

For one terrible moment, I thought you said Pern.

David Duffy.

---

From: don doggett <kingwukong at yahoo.com>
Date: Tue, 02 May 2006 07:22:36 +0000

--- b sharp <bsharporflat at hotmail.com> wrote:

> coincidence, especially since both descriptions
> first appear in Shadow.  

I don't have my books with me, but Noctua, who is the
naviscaput's daughter, has violet eyes, as does
Valeria. There are more that I can't recall, but I
think you are right that they're related in some way.

Don

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
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---

From: don doggett <kingwukong at yahoo.com>
Date: Tue, 02 May 2006 07:24:30 +0000

Ah, yes, Katharine, Severian's mother, also has violet
eyes.

Don

--- don doggett <kingwukong at yahoo.com> wrote:

> _______________________________________________
> Urth Mailing List
> To post, write urth at urth.net
> Subscription/information: http://www.urth.net
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---

From: mournings glory <mourningsglory at hotmail.com>
Date: Tue, 02 May 2006 17:52:22 +0000

> > violet or purple eyes

>Ah, yes, Katharine, Severian's mother, also has violet

Mr. Doggett:

Either you're misremembering, have a variant text, or I'm looking in all the 
wrong places.

Noctua is "luminous of eye" "and the light that is in them is not of Urth" 
-- "she, whose eyes held starlight."

Katharine, meanwhile, is "dark of complexion, dark of eye" -- like her son, 
who has brown eyes. (Genetically, there is no way a violet-eyed mother and a 
blue-eyed Ouen could have a child with brown eyes.)

As for Valeria, "She had dark, curling hair, like Thecla's, but her eyes 
were dark too. Thecla's were violet." Here Severian deliberately contrasts 
the two women's eye color. (Perhaps, in Valeria's paraphrase of "I am all 
the daughters of my father's house, And all the brothers too," you are 
confusing her with Twelfth Night's Viola -- whose name indeed suggests 
violet.)

Two others, however, come a little closer to violet, if not all the way 
there.

Apheta's eyes are "large and luminous and of the deep, deep blue of her sea, 
unfaded by age." While the little girl Sev encounters in the antechamber of 
the House Absolute has "sparkling midnight eyes."

So it seems b sharp's original assertion is still correct.

em

---

From: don doggett <kingwukong at yahoo.com>
Date: Tue, 02 May 2006 18:30:17 +0000

Well, as I said, I don't have my books, so it's quite
possible I'm misremembering. Thanks for the
correction.

Don

--- mournings glory <mourningsglory at hotmail.com>

---

From: Andy Robertson <andywrobertson at clara.co.uk>
Date: Tue, 02 May 2006 19:43:44 +0000

> involving the kaibit process but I'm interested in any ideas others might 

"Violet eyes" is just a poetic way of saying dark blue eyes. 

Blue eyes are not found among animals, only among humans. 

But "blue-eyed" also has poetic connotations of outdoorsy, healthy, 
sunburned, blonde, natural, happy, which Wolfe does not want to bring up in 
connection with the paramours of the Autarch, who should be surpassingly 
beautiful but sick, like the dying Urth. 

This isn't complex, but in this case I **think** it's the whole story. 

Wolfe has a wonderful way of implying much in a few words, and if you pick 
those words apart you won't always find a conscious construction under them.

---

From: JWillard <aldenweer at charter.net>
Date: Tue, 02 May 2006 20:03:36 +0000

>those words apart you won't always find a conscious construction under them. 
Pg. 5 of Peace has this line:  "Violet-eyed and black-haired, my aunt 
Olivia..."  This is one of those lines I've been hung up on for a while, 
cursing my lack of eternity to make notes on such things as hair and eye 
color in the Lupiverse.

Which brings me to a more serious question I've been entertaining for a 
while as well.  Does someone out there know how to set up a wiki?  Is 
there any reason we couldn't have a wiki-Wolfe, to start referencing 
answers to questions like this?  (If there's a Battlestar wiki, why not 
a wiki-Wolfe?)   Is this a terrible idea?  Is it a copyright problem?  
I'm only semi-literate when it comes to computer things, so please, 
someone, make the case for or against.

---

From: Adrian Robert <arobert at cogsci.ucsd.edu>
Date: Tue, 02 May 2006 20:06:27 +0000

> Blue eyes are not found among animals, only among humans.

Excepting Siamese cats, at least..

---

From: Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net>
Date: Tue, 02 May 2006 20:16:52 +0000

>blue-eyed Ouen could have a child with brown eyes.)

I'm thinking of a different dog fight in the Sun Cycle, but I'm so glad
someone who isn't me pointed this out. <g>

-Roy

---

From: mournings glory <mourningsglory at hotmail.com>
Date: Tue, 02 May 2006 20:33:18 +0000

>Excepting Siamese cats, at least..

...and Persian cats, plus Samoyed and Siberian Husky dogs, blue-eyed lemurs, 
blue-eyed shags (an antarctic bird), and Siegfried and Roy's famous white 
tigers, one of whom, Manticore, tried to eat Herr Horn for a snack.

em-of-the-cornflower-blues

---

From: mournings glory <mourningsglory at hotmail.com>
Date: Wed, 03 May 2006 03:34:29 +0000

>to me. Or are you equating Hethor with Purn? Care to elaborate?

I believe it was Mr. Andre-Driussi who argued earlier that Hethor and Purn 
might be younger and older versions of the same individual. (I've given up 
ever trying to find anything in the archives.)

1) Purn wonders if Lune is "big and white" -- which may mean he crewed 
aboard the Quasar before the moon was forested, possibly making him a 
contemporary of Jonas.

2) Purn is present when Severian compares the beast-summoning sails of the 
Quasar to mirrors and notes the parallel with Hethor, perhaps planting the 
suggestion in Purn.

3) Purn utters at least one Wellerism ("That's what makes the ship go, as 
the skipper said when they asked about the wench") --something Hethor does 
with even more frequency.

4) When asked why he's attempted to kill him, Purn, in talking about his 
would-be relationship with Gunnie, tells Severian that "I'd been hoping 
she'd kiss me." If Burgundafora's eyes are indeed violet or dark blue, this 
might link her to Hethor's paracoita.

5) The name 'Purn' itself is a bit of a mystery -- it's neither saintly nor 
mythic, but I suspect it may be either anglicized Korean or Chinese (I've 
queried a number of people and forums, but have yet to receive confirmation 
or rejection) --which may link him to the pan-Asian spacefarers of the First 
Empire.

6) A much younger, saner version of Hethor might be more difficult for 
Severian to recognize, who's not particularly adept at these sorts of things 
anyway.

Em Ess Gee

---

From: maru dubshinki <marudubshinki at gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 03 May 2006 05:25:21 +0000

> someone, make the case for or against.

*cue the lurking Wikipedia administrator*

Certainly you could set up a wiki. Since all of Wolfe's work is
unfreely licensed (so far as I know), editor would need to be a little
careful to keep quotes within fair-use bounds, but that hasn't been a
problem for this ML or for wikis on fictional universes- Wookieepedia
(http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page) and Memory Alpha
(http://www.memory-alpha.org/en/index.php/Main_Page) have been going
swimingly.

I understand that setting up a wiki on Wikia (formerly Wikicities;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikia) is fairly easy and free; if you
don't like the GFDL, other licenses can be chosen. My personal
preference would be simply going with public domain (hasn't hurt
InfoAnarchy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/InfoAnarchy)), but I imagine
other can differ.

In short, it is perfectly possible, and probably a good idea. Just
mining the archives alone could create a respectable size wiki, and I
know I would greatly prefer a wiki for discussions (it would make
things much easier to have arguments and trivia consolidated, and
linking to them would improve arguments. How often have we seen things
discussed to death rise up again just because no one really remembers
them?)

~maru

---

From: maru dubshinki <marudubshinki at gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 03 May 2006 05:40:30 +0000

Some more links:
http://www.wikia.com/wiki/Start_a_new_Wikia
http://www.wikia.com/wiki/Wikia_creation_policy

Looking at the reject wikia is instructive:
http://www.wikia.com/wiki/Rejected_wiki_requests

And of course, casually scanning through the list of wikia, I see
wikia for the Well of Souls, Star Wars, Star Trek, Age of Empires, Xenosaga,
Wheel of Time etc.:
http://www.wikia.com/wiki/Template:List_of_Wikia

~maru
suggested reading

---

From: Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net>
Date: Wed, 03 May 2006 08:51:04 +0000

>with even more frequency.

Did you mean Jonas? I don't recall Hethor ever using a Wellerism. Miles, of
course, did. So did Gunnie. (18) As did the old moonraker captain near the
end of CITADEL, so that type of speech was still used in Severian's day, and
I see no reason to believe that Maxellindis' uncle had ever served aboard
the Ship or been a contemporary of Jonas.

Purn (and Idas) had boarded the same ship on Urth that took Severian to the
Ship. (84, 107) Purn was lying about not knowing about green Lune.

Of course, with time travel all sorts of improbable things can happen, but
the last time Severian saw Hethor he was a little gray-haired man of more
than middle years. Purn was one of those big, blond, sunny-disposition guys
that Severian associated with men from the south of the Commonwealth, much
like Hallvard.

-Roy

---

From: Ranjit Bhatnagar <ranjit at moonmilk.com>
Date: Wed, 03 May 2006 14:43:49 +0000

> InfoAnarchy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/InfoAnarchy)), but I imagine

I can also set one up quite easily on urth.net - my hosting company
gives me a big red button that says "WIKI" on it, which I need simply
push.  I'd be glad to do that if people are interested.  However, I
won't have time to administer it at all - setting up the initial
structure, editing, monitoring for spam and vandalism - so I'd have to
ask that others commit to take care of the thing!  What do you think?

- ranit

---

From: maru dubshinki <marudubshinki at gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 03 May 2006 15:03:52 +0000

> ask that others commit to take care of the thing! What do you think?

I'd be glad to handle that, but I couldn't right now- after May I'll
have enough spare time I could run that. Of course, if no one else is
interested, there's no point. Good wikis are always community-based
efforts.

Incidentally, what engine do they provide? Mediawiki, oddmuse, or some
engine I've never heard of?

~maru

---

From: JWillard <aldenweer at charter.net>
Date: Wed, 03 May 2006 18:03:55 +0000

>engine I've never heard of?
Well, I very much want to see this happen.  I imagine others will take 
an interest if we get it up and running.  We could have sections for 
everything - characters, critters, genetic traits, theories, whatever.  
Thanks for the links!

Jason

---

From: maru dubshinki <marudubshinki at gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 03 May 2006 20:33:24 +0000

> everything - characters, critters, genetic traits, theories, whatever.

OK, so that makes me, Jason Willard, Kieran Mullen, and Ranjit
Bhatnagar who've expressed interest. Anyone else?

~maru

---

From: Allan Anderson <rubel at goosemoon.org>
Date: Wed, 03 May 2006 20:34:55 +0000

I will happily futz with entries.

---

From: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <danldo at gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 03 May 2006 21:10:14 +0000

Definite interest, though I question my ability to commit time to it.

On 5/3/06, Matthew King <automatthew at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On May 3, 2006, at 1:33 PM, maru dubshinki wrote:
>
> >
> I will gladly use a wiki to take notes as I re-read everything.

--
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

---

From: Matthew King <automatthew at gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 03 May 2006 22:57:28 +0000

---

From: Rex Racer <rex.racerx at gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 04 May 2006 00:01:38 +0000

Though new to contributing to the list, I would be happy to help where I
can.

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From: Jordan Dennis <jordanden at gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 04 May 2006 00:55:25 +0000

I think it would be a most helpful tool. I've written several college papers
Wolfe's workk, and a wiki would have been a most helpful resource for me at
the time.

Of course, I would spend way too much time reading it and not enough time
writing the papers, but that wouldn't hurt my feelings too much.

--
Jordan D. Dennis

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or
prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech,
or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to
petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

Under the First Amendment, there is no such thing as a false idea. However
pernicious as an opinion may seem, we depend for its correction not on the
conscience of judges and juries, but on the competition of other ideas. (US
1974:339)
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From: Iorwerth Thomas <iorweththomas at hotmail.com>
Date: Thu, 04 May 2006 09:57:20 +0000

Ditto.

>From: "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes" <danldo at gmail.com>
>Reply-To: The Urth Mailing List <urth at lists.urth.net>
>To: "The Urth Mailing List" <urth at lists.urth.net>
>Subject: Re: (urth) wikiWolfe
>Date: Wed, 3 May 2006 14:10:14 -0700
>

---

From: b sharp <bsharporflat at hotmail.com>
Date: Fri, 05 May 2006 13:57:24 +0000

Okay, my last thoughts on this.  So it looks like the only two characters 
with explicitly described violet/purple eyes are Thecla and the paracoita.  
Hethor blames his "shipmates" and "not shipmates" (or was it "crewmates"?) 
for stealing her.  Perhaps "not shipmate" means passenger?  There is one 
character who was both a passenger on the Quasar ship and is associated with 
Thecla, which is the old Autarch, Appian.

In Solar Labyrinth(and perhaps briefly in the Archives) Robert Borsky makes 
an elaborate argument that Appian is Thecla's father.  Most of the evidence 
he uses stems from clues that Appian was involved in her upbringing. There 
seems very little to suggest he has a genetic connection to her.

I can imagine Appian on his return to Urth, recently unmanned, forever to be 
childless, deciding to steal the living paracoita (Thecla's mother?) from 
the disgusting ship's cook, and taking her back with to Urth with him. Young 
women seem to be of interest to him, considering  his later profession as 
pimp madame/daddy for the House Azure and his excessive interest in 
discussing Dorcas with Severian.  Thecla's memories of her mother suggest 
something strange, like cloning was going on.

And what would Hethor then do when the theft was discovered?  Perhaps use 
the dying pets he fed to help stage a mutiny, become captain, try flying the 
ship to Urth to retrieve his paracoita.

Well, just some thoughts

Bsharp

---

From: Matthew King <automatthew at gmail.com>
Date: Fri, 05 May 2006 16:17:13 +0000

> Thecla, which is the old Autarch, Appian.

"What kind of men could do as they have done - thieves, false  
friends, betrayers, bad
shipmates, no shipmates, murderers and kidnappers."

This appears to be a string of epithets, not an enumeration of those  
involved.  I read "no shipmates" as a reply and extension to "bad  
shipmates".

I.e. "Bad shipmates? They are not my mates at all!"

---

From: mournings glory <mourningsglory at hotmail.com>
Date: Sat, 06 May 2006 01:17:45 +0000

>seems very little to suggest he has a genetic connection to her.

I came across what is either an interesting clue in this regard, a typo, or 
sloppy copy-editing, depending on your druthers.

In Chapter VI of _Shadow_ Severian is reading a note from Master Gurloes:

"'By the will of a court we have in our keeping the exulted person of the 
Chatelaine Thecla; and by its further will we would furnish to the 
Chatelaine Thecla in her confinement such comforts as lie not beyond reason 
and prudence. That she may while away the moments until her time with us is 
come - or rather, as she has instructed me to say, until the heart of the 
Autarch, whose forebearance knows not walls nor seas, is softened toward 
her, as she prays she asks that you, consonant with your office, provide her 
with certain books...'"

Now what is the oddest word in all of the above paragraph? It's 
"forebearance" with an -e, which relates to *ancestral* forebearers, not to 
"the action or habit of forbearing." In the other four books of the Urth 
cycle, Wolfe also always uses the e- version of 'forebears' to mean 
ancestors and the non-e version 'forbear' to mean, "to bear with, have 
patience with, put up with, tolerate."

So is this indeed a secret clue as to Thecla's paternity? Or simply a 
typo/copyediting mistake? (Speaking of which, has the Garsec/Garvaon mistake 
been corrected in the trade paperback edition of _Wizard Knight_? Sad to 
say, but the very nice SFBC edition of _Book of the Short Sun_, despite 
being printed on much higher quality paper, perpetuates all the typos of the 
original edition, which is surely the most error-ridden of any Wolfe book, 
primary or secondary.)

Also, if not a typo, however would such wordplay survive translation into 
another language?

Me sSe eg

---

From: Rex Racer <rex.racerx at gmail.com>
Date: Sat, 06 May 2006 02:32:45 +0000

Actually, forebearance with an e is an acceptable variant of forbearance, so
it is not even a typo or editorial error. I actually would use it a lot in a
former life writing letters that required such serious precise verbiage

Just as "grey" seems darker to me than "gray," forebearance just seems more
"serious"

On 5/5/06, mournings glory <mourningsglory at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> >From: "b sharp" <bsharporflat at hotmail.com>
>
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From: mournings glory <mourningsglory at hotmail.com>
Date: Sat, 06 May 2006 03:39:32 +0000

>From: "Rex Racer" <rex.racerx at gmail.com>
>

But you will allow that forebearance can also mean pertaining to one's 
forebears, right? And while you may be correct about the usage of 
forebearance for forbearance in the personal correspondence of yesteryear, 
you will not find the variant spelling listed anywhere at all in Wolfe's 
beloved dictionary of choice, the O.E.D. -- which seems curious to me since 
it generally lists all known variants, even when obsolete or rare. 
Forbearance, on the other hand, appears 27 times and as early as 1593, in 
Shakespeare's Henry VI. Might you therefor (a pertinent OED variant, no?) 
have an alternate reputable source for your claim?

M

---

From: Rex Racer <rex.racerx at gmail.com>
Date: Sat, 06 May 2006 13:02:13 +0000

I have common usage, and a couple of dictionaries at hand here that have
forebearance listed as a variant of forbearance and make no reference to it
having to do with parentage. I have seen it with an e and without, and have
used it with an e or with out. I think too much is being read into the use
of a variant spelling. It isn't something from the the personal
correspondence of yesteryear, either, as I am not yet 40 and used it in a
business context. :-)

On 5/5/06, mournings glory <mourningsglory at hotmail.com> wrote:
> >it is not even a typo or editorial error. I actually would use it a lot
> in
> >a
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From: Russell Wodell <wrustle at telus.net>
Date: Wed, 10 May 2006 00:21:28 +0000

I wonder if it might make sense to begin by building the wiki section on the Latro novels, since (a) they are relatively self-contained and (b) "Soldier of Sidon" is due this fall and many readers will be re-familiarizing themselves with the first two books.

On a totally separate note: Has anyone else wondered why Wolfe has never referred to the two most famous vulpine authors: Thomas Wolfe and Virginia Woolf?

Russell Wodell
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From: maru dubshinki <marudubshinki at gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 10 May 2006 01:41:38 +0000

In 5/9/06, Russell Wodell <wrustle at telus.net> wrote:
>
> I wonder if it might make sense to begin by building the wiki section on the
> Latro novels, since (a) they are relatively self-contained and (b) "Soldier
> of Sidon" is due this fall and many readers will be re-familiarizing
> themselves with the first two books.
>
> On a totally separate note: Has anyone else wondered why Wolfe has never
> referred to the two most famous vulpine authors: Thomas Wolfe and Virginia
> Woolf?
>
>
> Russell Wodell

It would be a good idea, but as many people have discovered to their
rue on many different wikis, it's hard to force volunteers to do a
particular subset of the ToDo list.  I know I don't have any of the
Soldier series, so it would be fairly difficult for me, at least.

~maru