Subject: (urth) Agia/Hypogeon

From: thalassocrat at nym.hush.com <thalassocrat at nym.hush.com>
Date: Sun, 23 Jul 2006 08:12:28 +0000

Besides "Theoanthropos", Agia calls on another entity in Shadow:  
"Well, high Hypogeon help you." (Ch 18)

"Hypogeon" presumably means something like "the one under the 
earth", and this neatly ties in to the man-ape cave scene and the 
being the Claw disturbs there - my guess is that Agia worships this 
being, and knows about the cave because of that.  

A suprising thing about Agia is that she cares about religion. 
She's the one who tutors Sev in the history of the Claw and the 
Pelerines; she understands that the Conciliator is the "master of 
Power" and may transcend time; she knows that a particular building 
is the "mensal of the monachs"; when Sev fils to die in the avern 
combat, she shouts, "Sacrilege!"  This last reminds me of Jonah's 
description of the notules; used on some far distant world for 
ritual murders - perhaps the averns have a similar story, and 
Hethor is Agia's and Agilus' tutor in devil-thing-worship?

---

From: b sharp <bsharporflat at hotmail.com>
Date: Sun, 23 Jul 2006 14:20:35 +0000

Thalassocrat writes:

>"Hypogeon" presumably means something like "the one under the earth", and 
>this neatly ties in to >the man-ape cave scene and the being the Claw 
>disturbs there - my guess is that Agia worships >this being, and knows 
>about the cave because of that.

>A suprising thing about Agia is that she cares about religion. She's the 
>one who tutors Sev in the >history of the Claw and the Pelerines; she 
>understands that the Conciliator is the "master of Power" and may transcend 
>time; she knows that a particular building is the "mensal of the >monachs"; 
>when Sev fils to die in the avern combat, she shouts, "Sacrilege!"  This 
>last reminds me >of Jonah's description of the notules; used on some far 
>distant world for ritual murders - perhaps >the averns have a similar 
>story, and Hethor is Agia's and Agilus' tutor in devil-thing-worship?

I really think you are onto something here.  I've always thought her yelling 
"Sacrilege!" was very meaningful.  As though death by avern was a holy 
(unholy) event. Her coin scratched devil symbol has been mentioned numerous 
times in the past.  Her use of a lucivee weapon, almost identical (I think 
it is in fact, identical and part of a Wolfe literary deception)  to the 
jungle sorcerers' claws, ties her to them.

Agia is familiar with the cave but also very familiar with the Botanic 
Gardens. Who built them and who planted the averns (to keep out 
manatees/undines...hmm..)?  Who put the treasure in the cave and set the 
man-apes to guard it?  Who is having these perversions of human+beasts guard 
the Nessus wall and the gold carriage at Orithyea? Who is this devilish 
leader who has inspired a cult to prevent the coming of the New Sun?

I cannot answer on the grounds that I am accused of obsession ;-).  And 
dammit, as I wrote this I realized Father Inire probably makes another 
appearance I hadn't thought of before.  This SUCKS!

-bsharp

---

From: Jeff Wilson <jwilson at io.com>
Date: Sun, 23 Jul 2006 16:23:02 +0000

> appearance I hadn't thought of before.  This SUCKS!

These last sound more like the doings of the Autarch, who is flat out 
shown doing sneaky things under assumed identities, unlike Inire who is 
only suspected of it.

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

---

From: David Duffy <david.duffy at qimr.edu.au>
Date: Sun, 23 Jul 2006 22:37:37 +0000

On Sun, 23 Jul 2006 thalassocrat at nym.hush.com wrote:

> ...my guess is that Agia worships this

Agia says IIRC that the cave was suggested by her locally recruited
sidekicks, so Sev would have nowhere safe to escape to.

David Duffy.

---

From: Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net>
Date: Mon, 24 Jul 2006 05:04:31 +0000

>shown doing sneaky things under assumed identities, unlike Inire who is

Jeff is right about the man-apes of the treasure mine being the autarch's to
command -- see the first page of chapter XXXI in CITADEL.

Am I reading you right? Are you seriously suggesting that Inire was working
to prevent the coming of the New Sun?

-Roy

---

From: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <danldo at gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2006 02:10:52 +0000

On 7/23/06, b sharp <bsharporflat at hotmail.com> wrote:
> I cannot answer on the grounds that I am accused of obsession ;-).

Good heavens, who _accused_ you? Accusation is for
bad things. Lupine obsessions are just part of the game,
something to be aware of and allow for, not to avoid like
the plague. Clearly Fr. I. is important; your take on just
_how_ important may look to _me_ like an obsession
-- and I use the word in a non-pejorative sense -- but
that doesn't mean you can't find good meat using it as
a tool. I've certainly found plenty using my Christianity
crochet.

-- 
Dan'l Danehy-Oakes, writer, trainer, bon vivant
-----
http://www.livejournal.com/users/sturgeonslawyer
"Shovels are essential to the fantasy genre.
However, they are primarily used by the authors rather than the
characters." -- Stephen R. Donaldson

---

From: Jeff Wilson <jwilson at io.com>
Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2006 03:22:33 +0000

Roy C. Lackey wrote:

>>>man-apes to guard it?  Who is having these perversions of human+beasts
> 
> guard
> 

If Inire is really all those other people and in all those other places, 
he's likely a double agent posing as one of the sun-stoppers, the same 
way the Autarch is also a spy for Vodalus' revolution against the 
Autarchy, and the BFO trio court both black thaumaturgists like 
Baldanders and saintly theurgists like Severian. On which side his true 
loyalties lie would be hazy.

---

From: Matthew King <automatthew at gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2006 15:37:08 +0000

> loyalties lie would be hazy.

Could this be a Lupine elaboration on the double-agency in  
Chesterton's nightmare "The Man who Was Thursday"?

The Autarch would be Sunday, with Severian as Thursday.  I don't  
recall any analogues for Inire, though.

---

From: Adam Thornton <adam at io.com>
Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2006 23:06:01 +0000

So, I have just finished _The Fifth Head of Cerberus_.

SPOILERS BELOW.  Stop here if you haven't read 5HC.

Still with me?

OK.

So, it seems pretty clear that Blue is Ste. Croix, Green is Ste.  
Anne, and that the abos are the inhumu.  What I don't know is which  
of these three hypotheses is right:

a) Wolfe just really likes the idea of shapeshifting creatures  
becoming what they mimic.  So he recycled the central conceit from  
5HC into the Short Sun books, but other than that we aren't supposed  
to see any connection between the stories.
b) Ste.-Anne and Ste.-Croix are Green and Blue from an earlier  
universe-cycle, even farther from the eventual Incarnation and thus  
end of history.  Me, I'm not at all sure I buy the spiral-time  
theory, so I don't really like this one.
c) They're the same planets in the same universe.  But in that case:  
if SS happens after 5HC, then the ruins on Green are explicable, but  
why are there no signs of prior human settlement on Blue?   
Contrariwise, if 5HC postdates SS, then why are there no signs in 5HC  
of prior human settlement on either planet in 5HC?  And who are the  
Visitors anyway?

This also raises a troubling, to me, theological point, that exists  
in SS too:

If the inhumu are merely what they mimic, and before the arrival of  
humanity they are innocent beasts, but after they bite humans they  
can in most essential ways *be* humans....then do they have souls?   
If so, when do these souls come into being?

Adam

---

From: Jeffrey Lefstin <jeff.lefstin at stanfordalumni.org>
Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2006 01:28:27 +0000

I think this has been discussed before, but myself, I favor (a).  Just 
as Wolfe recycled aspects of the ship in "Silhouette" in Tzadkiel's 
ship, or the duel in "Tracking Song" to the combat on the Sanguinary 
Fields.

In general, I think GW doesn't play ridiculously complicated games with 
us re FACTUAL issues (hiding Father Inire behind every bush, making 
everyone a clone of everyone else).  Yes, he makes us hunt for a few 
things but I think there are pretty clear lines between what is 
explicit, slightly hidden, suggested, and insolubly ambigous.  In my 
view, what world we're usually falls in the first two categories.

More to the point, GW writes LITERATURE - in the sense that characters 
and things are very often richly symbolic.  I find it much less 
interesting whether Valeria lives in a time-traveling building (not 
that I think she does)  compared to what she represents in light of 
GW's overarching themes.

So, if Blue = St. Croix and Green = St. Anne, what significance to the 
themes and symbols GW is working with?

Jeff

---

From: b sharp <bsharporflat at hotmail.com>
Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2006 11:46:14 +0000

I agree with Jeffrey Lefstin that the Blue-Green theme found across Wolfe 
works should be seen as symbolic rather than factual.  That Earth is covered 
with water and life?  I dunno.

Gene Wolfe was asked by James Jordan: "Which of the following, if any, are 
physically (not in some merely literary or symbolic sense) the same planets 
as Blue and Green, in the same order?:

Ushas and Lune
Urth and Lune
Lune and Ushas
Lune and Urth
Two Urths
Two Ushases
Two Lunes

Gene Wolfe: "None"

I disagree with Jeffrey Lefstin's definition of "literature" as works in 
which "characters
and things are very often richly symbolic".  What do you call enduring 
classics which don't rely on symbolism and multiple subtext levels to engage 
a reader?  Aren't there many great works of literature which are such 
because they rely on an interesting story, interesting character  
development, witty dialogue or interesting historical context?  Why limit so 
narrowly?

Adam Thornton notes and asks:

>This also raises a troubling, to me, theological point, that exists  in SS 
>too:

>humanity they are innocent >beasts, but after they bite humans they can in 
>most essential ways *be* humans....then do they >have souls?   If so, when 
>do these souls come into being?

Shape-shifting is a physical process.  A shape-shifter may physically 
imitate a human so closely as to allow interbreeding but that is only a  
material resemblance.  A soul is immaterial and must be acquired through 
Special Creation, right? (well, one part of the Bible suggests we don't get 
a soul until after death, but anyway...)

So an interesting question is: What about offspring of human and non-human?  
Is it possible to have a partial soul?  Or perhaps a contaminated soul?  I 
think Wolfe might be addressing this in BotNS.

-bsharp

---

From: Jeffrey Lefstin <jeff.lefstin at stanfordalumni.org>
Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2006 18:59:09 +0000

Sorry b, I wasn't meaning to define or limit "literature."  I guess I 
need a word that means "literature with richly embroidered layers of 
meaning and symbol." if there is one and if that isn't too mixed of a 
metaphor.

Another GW recycling from short story to novel I forgot to mention:  
The "overmonitor" program in the ship in Silhouette is supposedly wiped 
from the mainframe, but survives by distributing itself to little 
computers in appliances and such.  Same as Pas in BotSS.

Jeff