Subject: (urth) the assassin

From: b sharp <bsharporflat at hotmail.com>
Date: Wed, 31 May 2006 17:09:03 +0000

I chanced upon a couple posts from last year about the assassin Severian 
encounters in the Secret House on flood day.  I have a possible (if not very 
specific) solution to his identity.

Once again I think it is tied to a Wolfe deception.  I've noted some of his 
deception techniques, which include  putting a clue far out of context in 
the text, pairing two clues together so you tend to forget the first one, 
characters making misleading, though true statements and Severian 
mis-identifying people.

This is something similar in that Severian, who is constantly making 
comparisons in the text, fails to make an obvious one.  In the sorceror's 
jungle saddle, one of them shows Severian his weapon, a set of blades that 
fit between the fingers attached to a bar held in the palm.  Later, in the 
ziggurat, Agia slaps him in the face and he loses consciousness and awakes 
with a torn cheek.  He then starts talking about her weapon as though it was 
something new. He calls it a "lucivee" which has blades hidden between the 
fingers and a metal bar in the palm.  He also mentions rings to attach the 
thing to two fingers, but surely it is the same weapon as that of the 
sorcerors.

Others have speculated that Agia is associated with the sorcerors because of 
the strange symbols she scratches with a coin before Agilus' execution.  A 
juripari ,being a local S. American demon, might make sense as a totem for 
that group.  But I haven't seen anyone connect her to the sorcerors using 
the lucivee before.  Wolfe's trick worked?  Perhaps weapons are an important 
way of connecting Agia with other characters.  It all starts with the avern 
seed.

Agia also uses a crooked dagger in Casdoe's house.  And at the Saltus mine 
she uses the athame (I think) which (I think the appendix tells us) is the 
"poisoned warlock's sword".

I think the assassin is just a way to tell us that Agia's malice continued, 
in one form or another, all through the time Severian was on his trip.

-bsharp

---

From: b sharp <bsharporflat at hotmail.com>
Date: Wed, 31 May 2006 18:01:04 +0000

Hm. now that I think about it, the assassin was masked, right? Agia would 
have been very old and Severian has been known to make mistakes before. Then 
there is always the Path of Air...

-bsharp

---

From: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <danldo at gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 31 May 2006 18:48:02 +0000

Actually, I took the mask to suggest that the assassin was a
disaffected member of the Order of Seekers for Truth and Penitence
who did not approve of the Autarch Severian's reform of his guild.

On 5/31/06, b sharp <bsharporflat at hotmail.com> wrote:
> _______________________________________________
> Urth Mailing List
> To post, write urth at urth.net
> Subscription/information: http://www.urth.net
>

-- 
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: Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net>
Date: Wed, 31 May 2006 22:43:29 +0000

>there is always the Path of Air...

Uh, no, the assassin didn't have a mask of any kind. And Severian
specifically mentions seeing the guy's face as it reanimated. The assassin
had a batardeau, which is a large knife. (URTH, 291) I can't see that Agia
had anything to do with the assassin.

-Roy

---

From: b sharp <bsharporflat at hotmail.com>
Date: Thu, 01 Jun 2006 04:14:15 +0000

>who did not approve of the Autarch Severian's reform of his guild.

So I checked, Roy is right, no mask.  Still, my point remains that only two 
poisoned weapons appear in the 5 books, that I can think of. One with Agia, 
the athame, and one with the assassin (venom-daubed batardeau).  Agia's 
weapons seem to connect her to others. Or maybe not.

I guess that is the question, to connect the dots or not connect the dots.

Exploring for this post reminded me of another weapon she doesn't actually 
have but she mentions owning previously, "A misericorde with an ivy-root 
handle". I find that a misericorde is a thin bladed dagger used on the 
battlefield to put the mortally wounded out of their misery.  Ivy root, 
hm...

I'm not seeing a strong connection of that weapon to anything else in the 
story. Pelerines maybe?  It seems like a rather elaborate weapon description 
for the reference to be just a toss-away.

-bsharp