{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/4612", "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": 4612, "subject": "The Witches function", "messages": 4, "voices": 2, "first": "2006-05-24T04:41:45+00:00", "last": "2006-05-30T11:10:43+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "b sharp", "address": "bsharporflat at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2006-05-24T04:41:45+00:00", "subject": "(urth) The Witches function", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Macronaut asks:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "What is the Cumean doing for humanity? How does her\ninteraction with the obscure Witches' guild or her\nequally obscure presence in a disused part of the\nBotanical Gardens help redeem humanity? Or is she\naround for some entirely different reason?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I don't think there is a clear answer but here is my take: First, in the \nClaw appendix, Wolfe idenfies all the inhabitants (except Ultan) of the \nCitadel as belonging to the class known as \"servants of the throne\". So in \ntrying to discern purpose of the witches we should keep the needs of the \nautarch in mind.\n\nThe Cumaean is described as \"The Mother\" by Merryn the witch and is probably \ntheir leader. The witches are described in various vague ways which tend to \nconfuse them with our medieval concept of witch. Maybe there is some \noverlap. To understand them I look for the Wolfe pattern of giving one \nexplicit, direct clue, out of context, then a lot of vague hints scattered \nhere and there.\n\nI think we get the explicit clue when we are told that witches raise the \ndead. Taking this literally I will say there are five ways on Urth to raise \nthe dead. One is direct re-animation which only Severian (with one \nexception), as the head of his race and savior, can do. Another way is to \ncreate an eidolon from a dead person's memory. Only Tzadkiel and his agents \nappear able to do this.\n\nSo that leaves three ways for the witches to raise the dead and perhaps they \nare involved in all of them. We directly observe them sort of spiritually \nraising Apu-Punchau from an alien's memory in the seance scene, during a \nthunderstorm. Severian has a memory of the witches dancing wildly on nights \nof rain. I think this dancing is the same thing as the seance. Perhaps \nseances work best in the rain or perhaps it is the seance which causes the \nrain.\n\nAnother way to raise the dead is to use a pharmicon such as alzabo juice or \nthe one in the old Autarch's phial to bring back their memories in another \nperson's brain. We aren't told who procures these potions but the witches \nare associated both with Vodaulus (through Hildegrin), and the Autarch as \nservants of the throne. The Cumaean herself, when seen in four dimensions, \nshows hundreds of faces. It is also noted that those who come to see the \nCumaean often don't come back. This could mean the Cumaean is mining \nhumanity for memories though we would hope a hierodule would show better \nbehavior than that.\n\nAnother means of raising the dead would be cloning. Regarding cloning we \nare told only that kaibits are, \"grown from the body cells of exultant women \nso an exchange of blood will prolong the exultants' youth\". Who performs \nthese cloning and leeching procedures? Are there any clues that the witches \nare involved in cloning?\n\nWhen Severian is a boy he gets a tour of the witches tower. It is archaic \nand in disrepair. He sees gnostic designs, a lack of furniture, notes a \ncolder temperature than outside. He sees The Cumaean \"staring through a \nglass tabletop at what appeared to be an artificial landscape inhabited by \nhairless, crippled animals\".\n\nThis mysterious table is never explained. The only clue I can find comes \nwhen Severian sees Hethor thrown into the antechamber. He compares Hethor \nto- \"one of the Chatelaine Lelia's hairless rats, rats that ran in circles \nand bit their own tails when one clapped one's hands.\" To me these hairless \ncreatures seem similar to those in the Cumaean's terrarium. It also reminds \nme of #5 in Fifth Head of Cerberus though for him it was usually mice that \nwere used for his experiments in cloning, nerve splicing, limb grafting etc.\n\nMaster Gurloes tells that he received his introduction to sex from the \nwitches but hints that it isn't such a pleasant experience and sends \nSeverian instead to the House Azure. Severian later notes that the \ntorturers try to send only pre-pubescent boys to visit the witches and the \nolder apprentices tell terrible stories and even the bravest boys are afraid \nto go. The unpleasant aspect is not explained but perhaps they are treated \nlike sample donors. Perhaps forced to perform again and again and \nagain...ouch.\n\nSeverian also notes that screaming can be heard from the top of the witches \ntower, screams different than those of lunacy or agony that the torturers \nhear from their clients. Are these sexual screams? Severians notes it \ncan't be their clients screaming, \"for in the sense we used that word, they \nhad none\". Perhaps it is autoeroticism or Bacchanal lesbianism? I don't \nsee how that adds to the story at all. But there is another part of \nreproduction during which women might scream, and clones do need a place to \ngrow. Or perhaps the witches treat themselves as sample donors. Egg \nharvesting is supposed to hurt.\n\nOn Urth, it is the cacogens/hierodules who provide all the advanced \ntechnology. There seems to be numerous examples of advanced biotechnology \ngoing on but for some reason it is always veiled from the reader. Perhaps \nthere is some convention that such things aren't to be discussed. \nBaldanders is clearly doing human biotech, but as to the process we are only \ntold about: machines standing in impenetrable relation to one another with \nuses beyond conjecture, a \"homunculus\" or two and an eviscerated woman. We \ndo see his monstrous results.\n\nTyphon had his head grafted onto another body and probably had some cloning \ndone too (mandragora). In his round room we also find many impenetrable \ndevices and structures though Severian's descriptions here are thorough \nenough that we might suspect microscope lab cubicles and maybe morgue type \nshelves. The old leech who treats Severian in the ziggurat is similarly \nsecretive about his knowledge though his technique suggests something \nsimilar to the exultant-kaibit relationship that the old Autarch divulvged. \nNote that Gurloes is unaware of where the kaibits might come from or their \ntrue function.\n\nSo, I propose the reason the witches are so veiled and mysterious is because \nmost of their activities involve biotechnology. I know this evidence is \nnot conclusive but this the best I can come up with using the clues I was \nable to find.\n\nOne last speculative note: We know that the one of the autarch's primary \ngoals is to keep society stagnant and in stasis until the New Sun comes. We \nlearned in Fifth Head of Cerberus that cloning is a path to stagnation and \nstasis. And witches are servants of the throne.\n\n-bsharp" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "b sharp", "address": "bsharporflat at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2006-05-24T18:43:52+00:00", "subject": "(urth) The Witches function", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "p.s. more biotech: I forgot to mention the Cumaean's Talos-like human body \ntransformation abilities, as touted by Merryn. I also forgot the apostrophe.\n\n-bsharp" } ] }, { "message_id": "<20060529181908.53830.qmail@web51105.mail.yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "Macronaut", "address": "macronaut at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2006-05-29T18:19:08+00:00", "subject": "(urth) The Witches function", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "b sharp wrote:\n\n\n", "from": { "name": "b sharp", "address": "bsharporflat at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2006-05-30T11:10:43+00:00", "subject": "(urth) The Witches Function", "in_reply_to": "<20060529181908.53830.qmail@web51105.mail.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Hey Macronaut, one more thing....your post:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I don't think I am the first to suggest this, but to me this suggests an \nelectron microscope" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "reminded me that I thought Severian's description of Typhon's round room and \nthe equipment there made it sound like a microscope lab and morgue. What do \nyou think?\n\n-bsharp" } ] } ] }