Subject: (urth) Severian's family tree

From: b sharp <bsharporflat at hotmail.com>
Date: Sun, 13 Aug 2006 16:26:57 +0000

Don Doggett wrote:
>I am still not convinced that Dorcas is Sev's grandmother. Perhaps I'm just 
>blind and stubborn, but
>it doesn't feel right to me at all. It makes no plot sense, no mythic 
>sense, no moral sense, and it >hinges on such an obvious and ham handed 
>revelation. It's just a dud to me.

Roy C. Lackey writes:
>I don't want to get bogged down in the "Original Sin is carnal knowledge" 
>issue, still less in the >morass of Severian's presumed familial 
>inbreeding......

I'm sympathetic to the view that Dorcas really isn't Severian's grandmother. 
  It is only implied by some "ham handed" clues, but never revealed 
outright.  Ouen's mother (and boatman's wife) is named Cas not Dorcas and 
there are no other nicknames used anywhere else that I know in BotNS (except 
Zak).  In many years of reading I never saw any plot, moral or mythic 
significance in the incest angle either except.."Uh...Oedipus?"

But lately I have seen significances, and finding plot, mythic and moral 
sense in that grandmotherly incest sways me to think it is the proper 
interpretation.  "Cas" is used in the same way as "Zak" and is revealed to 
be a deliberate auctorial misdirection.

Regarding ham-handed clues, I think this follows a pattern of puzzle 
solution I see throughout BotNS.  I liken it to those cryptogram puzzles you 
see in the newspaper.  You are given a jumble of letters and the author 
solves one word for you. You then deduce rules and make intuitive leaps to 
decode the rest.  The Last House as a time travel structure is another 
example of this puzzle solution.  Wolfe tells us all about that one, then we 
are supposed to find the others.  So Wolfe gives us one (or two) incest 
occurrences also.

So, in my recent attempt to map Severian's family tree I tried to assemble 
all the funny little clues I had noted through the years of reading but 
didn't understand.  Added to these was the incidence of incest and twins 
(the Severian-Severa clue).  During the process I became struck with just 
how many incidents of incest seemed to be implied and I wondered why.

Then I realized "Oh, Oedipus!".  Oedipus, like Severian, was a pretty good 
guy.  He had no idea he had killed his father and married his mother (until 
later in life). The reason he was set up to do those things is that he 
belonged to a cursed family.  Even relocation and anonymous adoption in 
infancy couldn't break his family curse.

These Greek family curses were invariable brought on by a transgression 
against the gods.  I don't see anything in BotNS suggesting Sev's family 
transgressed against the pagan gods/cacogens/megatherians whatever they are, 
in such ghastly scope as was done to put the curse on (for example) the 
House of Atreus in mythology.  Maybe, if we ignore timeframe, we could say 
that Severian himself transgressed against them by being the Conciliator, by 
defeating Ceryx, by helping depose Typhon and later killing him and by 
bringing a cleansing Judeo-Christian flood.

However I think we could also say, simply, that these alien beings, 
representing pagan gods, are by nature incestuous and that Severian's family 
tree was infected by the curse simply through a mating with one of them who 
took human form.  This curse takes the form of relentless incestuous sexual 
attraction between all family members, no matter how close and familial or 
how distant and anonymous the family members might be.

I can't get family brackets in here but I'll try to discuss what I think is 
Severian's family tree in a later post.  For now I'll just mention some 
questions regarding the story; some weird things which always bothered me, 
but are answered by an incest curse on Severian's family tree.

What is the plot purpose of Agia and Agilus' presumed incest?

Why are Severian and Juturna sexually drawn to each other?

Why are Dorcas and Jolenta sexually drawn to each other?

Why does Typhon masturbate while talking to Severian?

Why do Vodalus' followers hope they won't be eating another lesbian before 
eating Thecla?

Why does Severian twice deny/decry pedophilia between him and Little 
Severian, without accusation?

Why does Severian tell Ouen he can't tell him who he is or what he will 
become, after putting Dorcas in his care?

Why do  Dorcas' dreams seem to say she commited suicide (drowning in a well) 
because of a crime against her child.

Why do Severian and Valeria have a celibate (or at least childless) 
marriage?

(to be cont.)

-bsharp

---

From: don doggett <kingwukong at yahoo.com>
Date: Mon, 14 Aug 2006 02:07:33 +0000

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

> Severian's family tree in a later post.

Argh! (Stamps feet in frustration) This is why I don't
watch television shows. But you have me, the hook is
firmly in my mouth. : )

  For now
> I'll just mention some 

Well, I for one am intrigued by this line of thought.
I eagerly await your revelations.

Don

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From: b sharp <bsharporflat at hotmail.com>
Date: Mon, 14 Aug 2006 14:49:03 +0000

No, Don I can't leave a cliffhanger!   Especially if the logic for this 
family tree ends up making sense only to me.  Too much build-up.  But I'll 
try to fit the whole thing in one post, leaving out some supporting evidence 
to be provided later if needed.  I think there is some sketchy evidence for 
family ties among the pagan gods/megatherians of BotNS but I'll leave that 
out too, for now and focus on Severian's human family.

I think the central story of the family origin is told by the old guy in 
Casdoe's house regarding Fechin.  Fechin has a tryst with a beautiful girl 
who sits in a window.  Dorcas' earliest memory is of sitting in a window so 
I think the beautiful girl is her, and the family tree starts there.

There are hints that the old guy telling the story is really a woman, quite 
admiring of Fechin.  Fechin, not being one to turn down opportunity, starts 
a side branch of Severian's family here.  Fechin and this old woman had a 
daughter named Herais, she had twins Casdoe and Cadroe (of the 17 Stones) 
and Casdoe had twins, Little Severian and Severa.

Going back to Dorcas and Fechin, I've previously noted clues showing that 
Fechin is also Rudesind (and Father Inire) so that is important to this 
whole train of thinking.  I assume that Dorcas' first child was Ouen.  He 
thinks she died during childbirth when he was young kid.  Rudesind says his 
wife died soon after a second girl child was born.  So Ouen had two younger 
sisters.  If Dorcas' death was actually suicide, it might make sense if (per 
family curse) Dorcas felt weird sexual feelings toward her children. Suicide 
might make further sense if Dorcas realized her husband was a philandering 
cacogen disguised as a human.

Since Ouen was sent off, by his father, at a young age to be a potboy then 
we must assume the two girls were sent off as well.  A likely place to send 
them, in the closed universe of BotNS, would be the Pelerines.  The story 
has two dark haired women, roughly the same age, who both left the Pelerines 
as young women.  These are Catherine (who plays St. Katherine) and Cyriaca.  
If these two sisters spent a lot of time together as postulants then we can 
guess one reason they had to leave the Pelerines, given the family curse.  
Though Cyriaca says it was her interest in men that did it.

Cyriaca mentions an uncle who dealt in rare books.  She spent long hours 
with this uncle, hearing stories about the secrets of the universe which 
nobody else really knows.  This galactic knowledge might be a clue as to who 
this uncle really is.  The incestuous family curse suggests Cyriaca might 
have had a child or two after spending too much time with dear old uncle 
(but before her marriage and her move to Thrax).

When Cyriaca is spared by Severian, she seems quite comfortable about making 
a living in Nessus, as though she was familiar with the place.  Her age and 
the fact that she can sew suggest that she is the mother who bequeathed the 
used clothing store to Agia and Agilus.  Agia mentions owning a misericorde, 
which is a slim blade used for battlefield mercy killings.  This sounds like 
a weapon for a Pelerine.  Agia also uses the crooked blade from Thrax and 
these two weapons both suggest a connection between Agia and Cyriaca.  
Robert Borski has suggested that a golden aureole around the heads of Agia 
and Agilus denote their cousin status to Severian, the New Sun.  If Agilus 
is seen as an Icarus figure, son of a Daedalus figure (Inire), his death 
comes from coming too close to the (new) sun.

Catherine seems to be sequestered somewhere in the Citadel.  She doesn't 
seem to age, year to year, suggesting she has a kaibit close by to help her 
retain youth.  It also suggests she has a powerful, probably exultant, 
husband to provide such a luxury.  I think it is the Castellan.  Her 
kaibit's name is Carina, or some diminutive of Catherine similar to that.  
The family incest curse would make sexual things happen between Catherine 
and Carina.

Catherine ran off at some point, met an attractive guy named Ouen, not 
knowing they were siblings, separated in early childhood nor about her 
family incest curse.  She was forced to return to the marriage and the 
Castellan did not, at first, suspect her subsequent pregnancy belonged to 
another man.  Her twins, Severian and Severa, were raised in the Citadel 
until the adultery was discovered a few years later.  After that they were 
sent to be raised with the Torturers and Witches.

Catherine was not killed by the Torturers for her transgression but her 
look-alike kaibit, Carina, was, though much later, when Severian is a youth. 
  Severian sees a dark haired woman (Contessa Carina in the Play) in a pale 
gown, with that face that always haunts him, being escorted along the Path 
of Air on Flood Day (returning her to her proper time and place).  This same 
dark haired woman in a pale gown is seen by Severian in the grave dug up by 
Hildegrin and Vodalus in the opening scene of the story.  Her livid face 
suggests the means of her death was Allowin's Necklace the torture device 
which is described in such detail. (or perhaps it was Catherine who was 
killed and Carina later took her place playing St. Katherine; hard to tell 
with clones).

Either way, it was this dark haired woman in a pale gown who was eaten by 
Vodalus' followers the time before Thecla.  Apparently she had lesbian 
tendencies and the Vodelerii hope Thecla is not also a "tribade" (a vain 
hope I think, given her "half sister" Thea).

Thecla talks about her time  up at the northern villa before she became a 
concubine.  Now a villa is the secondary, country estate of a noble family.  
Her primary estate is never mentioned, but twice, after Severian shares her 
memories, it is hinted she had an early childhood being raised in the 
Citadel.  So maybe the Citadel is the primary estate and her parents are 
Catherine and the Castellan.  For a while I thought this meant Thecla was 
really Severa.   But I couldn't find any evidence to explain the name change 
or why she wasn't raised by the witches.  So I have come to assume Thecla 
was the product of a birth separate from Severian.

Thecla's choices of books tie her to Severian's family.  The enamel 
paintings on one evoke the cloisonne of Dorcas' family.  The Wonders of Urth 
and Sky (is that the title? sorry my books are not here) is reminiscent of 
Cyriaca and her uncle.  Devotionals could show a link to the Concilliator. A 
geneology book suggests her ties to the Castellan.

One thing though.  Severian sees the face of the dead woman in the grave 
(Carina) in the face of Ultan.  Maybe Catherine met Ultan in her travels 
around the Citadel.  He is a curator, like Rudesind and so, like all 
curators, associated with Father Inire. An Ultan connection could be the 
reason Thecla is so knowledgable about books.  The fact that a bull and a 
swan are part of a dream sequence involving Thecla's father makes me think 
Father Inire (Zeus-like in his pursuit of human women) is involved in her 
siring and that perhaps the Castellan was once again cuckolded, never 
discovering this one.

I'm ambivalent regarding how Thea fits in.  Since twins run in this family 
she could be a twin to Thecla.  But then why call her "half-sister"? Thea's 
name is a diminutive of Thecla so she could be a kaibit.  Either way, Thea 
was given her own kaibit whom we see in the House Azure and in the House 
Absolute.  Thea is too short a name to diminuate so I think her kaibit's 
name was, at first, "Thea's", evolving into Thais.  Somehow Thais escaped 
through the Path of Air and ended up on the raft with Pega and Odilo after 
the flood.

Valeria is sequestered in the Citadel like Catherine.  Valeria's clothes and 
Catherine's name are both described as old fashioned.  Both Catherine's and 
Valeria's face tear at Severian's heart. We never see Valeria's family, only 
a servant, so her mother might be Catherine and perhaps her father is, this 
time, the Castellan.  Severian marries Valeria but they don't have any 
children in 10 years of marriage.  Assuming they aren't using birth control 
I think it argues for a celibate marriage.  Severian's newly acquired 
Autarchial knowledge seems to have made him wise enough to start realizing 
who his family members are.  And incest seems to be under an even stronger 
taboo on Urth than on Earth.  Despite all the allusions to incest it is 
never openly mentioned.  Not by Severian to his trusted anonymous readers 
and not even by corrupt, criminal and soon to die Agilus.

So the last empty slot in the family tree is for Severa, Severian's twin 
sister.  Merryn, as a dark haired witch, is one candidate but there doesn't 
seem to be any mutual sexual attraction noted.  Wolfe could have corrected 
this in the Short Sun encounter if needed but he didn't.  Moreover I think 
Merryn's stretched facial skin suggests she is a recipient of beauty 
treatments and is much older than Severian.

So in some ways by default, we are left with Jolenta as Severa.  Jolenta is 
probably a stage name, she is from Nessus and she's only been a waitress for 
a month so she could have been raised by the witches.  She doesn't seem much 
like a former witch, though.  And I don't like that she is so stupid.  All 
of Severian's other family members seem at least a little bit intelligent, 
able to talk at length about topics other than their own immediate wishes.  
Also, I think at some point, even a dumb girl would say,  "Hey, Severian, 
funny coincidence, my real name is Severa".

But Jolenta does have sex with Severian, and sexual play with Dorcas.  She 
does have some gold in her hair like Dorcas and Agia and Agilus.  And 
eventually Severian decides he loves her (though she has to remain 
unconscious before he starts to feel that way ;-) ) So, grudgingly, I'll 
have to go with Jolenta as Severa.

-bsharp

---

From: Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net>
Date: Thu, 17 Aug 2006 04:02:45 +0000

At the root of this family tree is the transformation of an old man into an
old woman. I can see no textual justification for such a change of gender.

In any event, a review of the brief first appendix to CLAW, which deals with
social classes, puts a severe strain on some of these presumed
relationships. There we are told that the caste of exultants is a closed
group, meaning that one must be born to it. The sisters Thea and Thecla are
there specified to be exultants, which means that they must be the products
of exultant parents. There is no indication in the text that either
Catherine or the Castellan were exultants. Little Inire absolutely was *not*
an exultant; he is specified to be a cacogen. The likelihood of some
combination of these three as parents of the half-sisters is dubious.

The Citadel is the historical seat of power for the autarchs, and remains in
Severian's day largely their private bailiwick. The Castellan is the
military commander of the fortress. Appian told Severian, just before they
boarded the doomed flier, that there were none among the exultants he could
trust. An exultant would not have occupied such a position.

Valeria is specified in the appendix to be an armiger, which means that her
family were armigers. They were poor, so poor that they drank the same cheap
tea that the torturers gave to their prisoners, and their towers were in
ruins. At her first meeting with Sev she said that her family had "given
many castellans to the Citadel, but the last had died generations ago". She
goes on to say that, "No one of my blood carries a sword now against the
enemies of the Commonwealth". The Castellan who acknowledged Sev as autarch
near the end of CITADEL was an old soldier and very much alive. It is
impossible that he was Valeria's father.

-Roy

---

From: b sharp <bsharporflat at hotmail.com>
Date: Fri, 18 Aug 2006 02:34:06 +0000

Roy, thanks for the good feedback.  I had considered all but one of your 
objections previously and I'll try to address each of them.

>old woman. I can see no >textual justification for such a change of gender.

Well, not the root, but more a side branch.  Considering the old person in 
Casdoe's house as female is based on two things. One is Severian's general 
unreliability as a narrator.  Others in the past have documented his 
numerous mistakes in identification so I won't list them here.  I think this 
is an example of Severian misperception in part because this old person 
talks about Fechin the way a woman might, admiring, attracted, forgiving of 
imperfections and even major faults.  The other misperception clue is Gene 
Wolfe's descriptive writing in this section.  The other people in Casdoe's 
house never show any acknowledgement that the old person exists.  The 
exception is one brief inaudible comment to him/her made by Casdoe. If not 
for that I was willing to consider this old person as an eidolon/aquastor- 
visible only to Severian- it is that extreme.  So I take that refusal of  
other characters acknowledging this character as a puzzle clue.  Doing that 
removes the use of identifying pronouns for the old person and it just 
seems...weird (to me).  A Wolfe pointer saying "here, look here for a 
clue!".

Next regarding the Castellan:
>Appian told Severian, just before they boarded the doomed flier, that there 
>were none among >the exultants he could trust. An exultant would not have 
>occupied such a position.

Well, yes and no.  The Autarch cannot trust the exultants, which is why he 
keeps their daughters hostage in ceremonial concubinage.  So he has some 
measure of trust and control over them in this manner.  Obviously the 
exulants hold positions of power in the Commonwealth.  I would think the 
Castellan of the Citadel would be powerful enough for the Autarch to want 
his daugher(s?) to serve in the capacity of concubine.  Moreover in the Claw 
appendix on Commonwealth social classes, the Armiger section says,

>"The armigers seem much like the exultants, though on a lesser scale.  
>Their name indicates a >fighting class, but they do not appear to have 
>monopolized the major fighting roles in the army"

The Castellan's height is not given, so I submit the possibility he is an 
exultant.

I base my assessment of the Castellan as stepfather to Severian based on 
this memory of Severian's:

>"I played again with pebbles in the courtyard beside the fallen curtain 
>wall, as Thecla dodged the >hooves of my father's mounted guard".

I take this to mean that Severian and Thecla shared a childhood in the 
Citadel.  Only the Castellan would have a mounted guard there, I think.  If 
Severian and Thecla are family related, as other clues suggest, I decided 
they must share a mother and perhaps a father/step father.  I admit I'm not 
happy with such convolutions but when you are making a family tree, you have 
to fill in the empty spaces with your best guess. Perhaps others can explain 
these clues in a better way.

I still wonder about Severian seeing that face of the woman in the grave in 
Ultan's face.  Ultan is another exultant, though he has obscured eyes as do 
certain other suspicious characters in the book.

Roy notes:
>Little Inire absolutely was *not*an exultant; he is specified to be a 
>cacogen.

True but I consider many cacogens to be capable of shape shifting.  
Tzadkiel's example makes me think that shapeshifting may not be a matter of 
an individual rearranging his face and body into different shapes.  We never 
see the various incarnations of Zak actually transform from one shape/size 
to another.  We do see a portion of giant Tzadkiel break off to become a 
human sized version.  Perhaps each incarnation of Zak is formed in this way- 
  a new piece of Tzadkiel broken off to become a new shape.  The same thing 
could be happening on Urth with Megatherians (remembering that "therian" 
means shapeshifter).  Multiple versions of the same greater being might be 
appearing, here, there....everywhere, in different sizes and appearances.

I agree most with Roy's objection to Valeria's place in the family tree. I 
appreciate him reminding me about some things:

>family were armigers. >They were poor, so poor that they drank the same 
>cheap tea that the torturers gave to their >prisoners, and their towers 
>were in ruins. At her first meeting with Sev she said that her family >had 
>"given many castellans to the Citadel, but the last had died generations 
>ago".

I agree that Valeria is of armiger status and so is Catherine, based on her 
height as Severian describes it.  But the description above  doesn't jibe 
with Catherine as her mother nor especially with the Castellan as her 
father.  So I am forced (thanks to Roy ;-) ) to go with Plan B for Valeria.  
That she is not a family member of Severian's.  So regarding the celibate 
marriage hypothesis, Plan B says Severian can only become sexually 
interested in a family member.

Which would mean Pia is a family member...and Severian does compare her to 
Dorcas.  And Daria should be a family member...she has red hair...a possible 
clue?  Burgundofora also a family member?...no clues there that I can see.  
Apheta....I don't even want to try with that "insect" :)).  Well, pretty 
weak but that's why it was Plan B.  Perhaps others will have better luck 
with certain portions of the family tree.

-bsharp

---

From: Mark Millman <millman at heimdallr.dyndns.org>
Date: Fri, 18 Aug 2006 02:51:32 +0000

Dear bsharp:

I believe that the memory of Severian that
you quote (copied below) exemplifies his
habit of slipping into Thecla's personali-
ty without warning.  This happens through-
out BotNS, though less, I think, in _Urth_.

I read it this way:

[Severian] I played again with pebbles
   in the courtyard beside the fallen
   curtain wall, as Thecla dodged
[Thecla overcomes Severian] dodged the
   hooves of my father's mounted guard.

That is, the "mounted guard" is that of
Thecla's father, and not Severian's.  The
doubling of "dodged" above is deliberate,
as it's not clear where the shift of per-
sonalities occurs.  A memory of Severian's
that echoes with one of Thecla's prompts
her personality to appear and briefly to
overtake Severian's.

Best,

Mark Millman

On Thu, 17 Aug 2006, b sharp wrote:

> [snip]
>
> I base my assessment of the Cas-
> tellan as stepfather to Severian
> based on this memory of
> Severian's:
>
> > "I played again with pebbles
> > in the courtyard beside the
> > fallen curtain wall, as
> > Thecla dodged the hooves of
> > my father's mounted guard".
>
> I take this to mean that Severian
> and Thecla shared a childhood in
> the Citadel. . . .
>
> [snip]

---

From: Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net>
Date: Tue, 22 Aug 2006 05:47:58 +0000

My old _Webster's_ defines "chatelaine" this way: "1. the lady of a castle;
mistress of a chateau." "Chateau" is defined as: "1. a French feudal castle.
2. a large country house, especially one in France."

b sharp wrote:
>Catherine and the Castellan.

In chapter VIII of SHADOW, the Chatelaine Thecla spoke to Severian about
Gurloes having allegedly sent some people to the House Absolute to fetch her
some more clothes:

"I already have, and he says he sent some people to the House Absolute to
fetch them for me, but they were unable to find it, which means that the
House Absolute is trying to pretend I don't exist. Anyway, it's possible all
my clothes have been sent to our chateau in the north, or one of the villas.
He's going to have his secretary write them for me."

This statement makes several things clear. One is that Thecla's "primary
estate" is not there in the Citadel. Her family had more than one villa, and
their primary estate seems to be a northern chateau.

Thecla's family apparently had a villa in the area of Thrax. Severian
confirmed something Cyriaca had said near the end of their conversation
together (SWORD, chapter XII) by calling up a memory of Thecla's dealing
with a "country villa -- half manor and half fort". Forts -- to say nothing
of castles -- usually have defenders.

The memory "as Thecla dodged the hooves of my father's mounted guard" could
easily apply to mounted guards at a family villa or at the chateau.

But this is all secondary. The one insurmountable problem of the Castellan
being Thecla's father is the fact that the Castellan was alive and Thecla's
father was dead. One of Thecla's surfaced memories: "my father had given a
ball for me each year until his death". (CITADEL, chapter XXIII, last
paragraph)

-Roy

---

From: Matthew DeLuca <straylightrise at gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 22 Aug 2006 06:08:33 +0000

Was it ever established that Catherine was Thecla's mother? I'm not  
saying your wrong but I'm just trying to catch up on established  
theories and the archive system is so confusing and unwieldy to use.

On Aug 22, 2006, at 1:47 AM, Roy C. Lackey wrote:

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From: b sharp <bsharporflat at hotmail.com>
Date: Wed, 23 Aug 2006 15:05:24 +0000

Matthew DeLuca asks:

>Was it ever established that Catherine was Thecla's mother?

Unfortunately for those interested in Severian's family tree, it can't even 
be said that  Dorcas is Severian's grandmother.

I made my guess that Catherine is Thecla's mother based largely on that one 
cryptic passage:

"I played again with pebbles in the courtyard beside the fallen curtain 
wall, as Thecla dodged the hooves of my father's mounted guard."

Mark Millman interprets it this way:

[Severian] I played again with pebbles in the courtyard beside the fallen 
curtain wall, as Thecla dodged[Thecla overcomes Severian] dodged the hooves 
of my father's mounted guard."

Robert Borsky also thinks this is Thecla taking over in mid-sentence.  For 
years I reluctantly had the same interpretation.  Reluctantly because 
elsewhere in the text, Severian and Thecla's memories tend to get their own 
paragraphs.  In this passage, Severian and Thecla trade memories, sentence 
by sentence, each one set apart with the word "Again".  Midsentence 
switching seemed contrary to the mood I felt Wolfe was trying to set and too 
confusing.  If the sentence had to be split why not word it:  ".....as 
Thecla, I dodged the hooves of my father's mounted guard".

My mind was set to the opposite in a re-reading of Urth where I found 
Severian saying something about, "my childhoods in the Citadel".  Plural 
childhoods?  The other childhood wasn't Appian's was it?  It could be other 
memories but combined with the cryptic passage.....  Perhaps that very 
important passage above should be read just as it was written:  that 
Severian, in his first memory as a child, remembers Thecla in the Citadel.  
(I spent an hour last night trying to re-find that plural childhood 
statement in Urth but couldn't. Am I delusional? Help!)

So if Thecla was a child in the Citadel then perhaps her mother was 
Catherine, sequestered in the Citadel.

Roy makes some good objections against the Castellan being Thecla's father, 
including that her father is said to be dead (now Roy, that is told in a 
dream sequence, and those are not to be trusted, right? ;-)).  There are 
some small hints that Ultan could be involved here (books, obscured eyes, a 
family resemblance).  Perhaps he is a better candidate for true father and 
assume the owner of the northern chateau and villas remains an unnamed 
stepfather.

Roy also raises the good question of Thecla's exultant status and height.  
Catherine is clearly of armiger height and thus makes a good mother figure 
for Severian.  Could she have produced a child as tall as Thecla with an 
exultant father?

All this isn't very satisfying, but neither is just resigning, ignoring many 
clues and saying, "okay, Thecla is just a chance acquainance of Severian's.  
No family connection, no incest, nothing important here."  Maybe "my 
childhoods in the Citadel" includes Severian's and Reechy's (Ymar's) 
memories?  I dunno.

Perhaps someone, someday, can come up with a truly cohesive family tree for 
Severian.  Or maybe some people's hope will come true and Gene Wolfe will 
reveal his notes.  Please Gene! It will stay right here in the 
archive...nobody else will ever know....

-bsharp

---

From: Matthew DeLuca <straylightrise at gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 23 Aug 2006 16:30:23 +0000

See I interpret the "childhoods in the Citadel" as a reference to the  
theory of multiple Severians, It also could be the memory of Ymar  
(UOTNS) and other Autarchs who are now part of Severian.

We have to take into the fact that Severian and Thecla consistently  
crossed each other's planes of consciousness. Then after the infusion  
of the Autarchs we have multiple people writing through one man who  
is "cursed with memory"

---

From: Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net>
Date: Wed, 23 Aug 2006 17:38:31 +0000

>statement in Urth but couldn't. Am I delusional? Help!)

The passage you refer to is on page 284, chapter XL, of URTH. It is one of
those that can be, evidently, interpreted more than one way.

"When I spoke to Tzadkiel beside the brook, I strove to be
as brief as I could; but she would not allow it, urging me
down this byway and that one until I had told her of the
small angel (of whom I had read in my brown book) who
had met Gabriel, and of my childhoods in the Citadel, at
my father's villa, and in the village called Famulorum near
the House Absolute."

I  read it this way: "Childhoods" refers to the set of memories Severian
retains. They are, respectively, his own in the Citadel, Thecla's at the
villa, and Appian's in the village.

-Roy

---

From: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <danldo at gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 23 Aug 2006 19:22:46 +0000

B,

I have always taken "my childhoods in the Citadel" to refer to the many
lives he remembers as heir to the line of Autarchial memories.

The business about changing personality in mid sentence? I think this
is indication that Sev's personality/memories are getting more confused
with the passage of time -- ultimately one hopes he will merge them
all into a single persona, but he's got trouble in the meanwhile.

--
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: Daniel D Jones <ddjones at riddlemaster.org>
Date: Wed, 23 Aug 2006 21:56:03 +0000

> of my father's mounted guard."

I recently moved and my books are still packed, so I can't research this 
myself at the moment, but what's the reason for assuming that Thecla takes 
over mid sentence?  Why can't the entire sentence be read as Thecla's memory:

"I [Thecla] played again with pebbles in the courtyard beside the fallen
curtain wall, as Thecla dodged the hooves of my father's mounted guard."

---

From: don doggett <kingwukong at yahoo.com>
Date: Thu, 24 Aug 2006 01:42:45 +0000

Even if b sharp is correct in his interpretation, Ymar is a more likely  candidate for the shared memory  than Thecla, as his childhood is  definitively established in the citadel.
  
  Don

-Roy

 		
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From: Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net>
Date: Thu, 24 Aug 2006 05:23:31 +0000

Don Doggett wrote:
>Even if b sharp is correct in his interpretation, Ymar is a more likely
candidate for the shared memory  than Thecla, as his childhood is
definitively established in the citadel.<<

Severian doesn't have Ymar's memories. The only more-or-less intact memories
he acquired came from the directly-ingested flesh (plus analeptic) of Thecla
and Appian. The chain of autarchic memories inherited from Appian grows
weaker and weaker the further removed the memory of a particular autarch is
from the present.

Severian, interrupting his narrative to directly address the reader at the
time he was writing, wrote:

"Ymar is dead, and such memories of his as lived for a time in the blood of
his successors are long faded.
    "So mine in time shall fade too." (SHADOW, chapter XVII)

That's why he "spent weary days in reading the histories of my
predecessors". (ibid., previous page) That's where he got the anecdote about
Ymar and the dog. Such accounts were stark and very unsatisfying to him.

-Roy

---

From: don doggett <kingwukong at yahoo.com>
Date: Thu, 24 Aug 2006 06:19:56 +0000

>     "So mine in time shall fade too." (SHADOW,

This assumes that Severian is a reliable narrator, but
there have been serious signs that his identity is
severely (no pun intended) compromised. I don't
believe he knows which memories are his or whose they
are either. And this is not grasping on my part; the
easiest way for an author (Wolfe) to hide things is to
have the narrator say things that he thinks are true
but aren't and then belie them with what the reader
observes. This happens constantly in SS and LS and I
think it happens often in NS as well. IMO (flawed as
it may well be) direct statements of belief by any of
Wolfe's protagonists are completely unreliable.
Besides, if Sev is like any of Wolfe's other multiple
personality characters, there are certainly more than
just Thecla and Appian in his head. But, I'm not
saying that Sev's memories of his "childhoods in the
citadel" are shared with Ymar, just that that's a more
likely scenario than he and Thecla sharing such a
memory. I actually think that your interpretation is
the correct one, "childhoods" describing three
separate places.

argumentatively yours

Don

---

From: b sharp <bsharporflat at hotmail.com>
Date: Thu, 24 Aug 2006 11:18:21 +0000

Daniel D. Jones asks:

>but what's the reason for assuming that Thecla takes  over mid sentence?  
>Why can't the entire >sentence be read as Thecla's memory:  "I [Thecla] 
>played again with pebbles in the courtyard >beside the fallen curtain wall, 
>as Thecla dodged the hooves of my father's mounted guard."

The reason is, in the beginning of Shadow, Severian says his earliest memory 
is of stacking pebbles by the curtain wall.  Fallen curtain wall definitely 
suggests the crumbling Citadel.  So adding Thecla definitely added something 
to Severian's memory. But was it Thecla's memory or a memory of Thecla?

Thecla taking over in midsentence seems to be the majority view of those 
weighing in but it still seems wrong to me.  That breaks the established 
structure of the paragraph.  Also, why is the the word "Thecla" used?  Why 
wouldn't it be:

...I played again with pebbles, I dodged the hooves....

Regarding this passage in Urth- "and of my childhoods in the Citadel, at my 
father's villa, and in the village called Famulorum near the House 
Absolute."

Roy says:

Don says:

>candidate for the shared >memory  than Thecla, as his childhood is  
>definitively established in the citadel.

I have to agree with both Roy and Don, which definitely takes a large bite 
out of the theory that Thecla had a childhood in the Citadel, leaving only 
the passage above from Claw, which only I interpret that way.

It does add a little to my vague idea that the "first" Severian might not 
have been a version of himself in another iteration of Urth but instead, 
Ymar.  I think Dan'l once hinted that he considers the possibility that Ymar 
was an ancestor to Severian.

Which brings to mind the important question of why Wolfe chooses to both 
start and end BotNS with Severian mentioning his lifelong presentiment of 
his future.  Is it because the memories of a previous iteration echo through 
time?  Is it because Severian was/will be a time traveller?  Is it because 
when Severian was born, his white fountain star (which is an aspect of 
himself, related to Bethlehem's star?) was already in existence and hurtling 
toward Urth?

-bsharp

---

From: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <danldo at gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 24 Aug 2006 17:41:56 +0000

Why do people keep referring to Severian's immediate predecessor
as Appian? Is there some reference I've missed? I thought Appian was
rather further back in the history of the Commonwealth, and that  Sev's
predecessor was (deliberately?) left unnamed.

--Dan'l

---

From: Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net>
Date: Fri, 25 Aug 2006 04:32:39 +0000

>predecessor was (deliberately?) left unnamed.

Appian isn't mentioned by name in NEW SUN. The name is used in the related
short story "The Cat", in ENDANGERED SPECIES. (p.-215, paperback)

-Roy

---

From: Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net>
Date: Fri, 25 Aug 2006 05:46:20 +0000

>...I played again with pebbles, I dodged the hooves....

I agree that the passage, as it appears in print, is clumsy. It bothered
Borski, as it bothered you. It bothers me. I don't know if the fault is
Wolfe's or the printer's or even that it is a mistake at all.

Nevertheless, it isn't enough to put Thecla in the Citadel as a child. In
addition to the evidence I've presented so far, there is this.

We know that Thecla was born in the House Absolute. (Vatic Fountain
prophesy) We know she was living in a wing of the House Absolute at age 13.
(Domnina episode) (Not incidentally, Thecla seemed to be living there with
her mother at that time. At least, it was her "mother's servitrix" who
answered the door for poor Domnina.)

I mentioned before that Thecla's family had a villa near Thrax. That is
where she spent at least part of her early childhood, probably up to the
time of puberty. The proof is in the very first memories inherited from her
that came to Severian after eating her flesh. From the penultimate paragraph
of chapter XI in CLAW:

"Just when I despaired--she was there, filling me as a melody fills a
cottage. I was with her, running beside the Acis when we were a child. I
knew the ancient villa moated by a dark lake, the view through the dusty
windows of the belvedere, and the secret space in the odd angle between two
rooms where we sat at noon to read by candlelight."

-Roy

---

From: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <danldo at gmail.com>
Date: Fri, 25 Aug 2006 16:38:09 +0000

> short story "The Cat", in ENDANGERED SPECIES. (p.-215, paperback)

That story establishes, if I'm not mistaken, the following:

1. Odilo the Steward tells the story in the fifth year of Severian's reign.
2. Odilo is not a young man (he has known Inire for "many years").
3. Odilo's father Odilo served the Autarch Appian.

This implies to me that Appian reigned sometime within the past
sixty or seventy years. He thus _might_ have been Severian's
immediate predecessor, but against this I set Severian's mentions
of Appian in _New Sun_ proper; Severian never says anything that
can absolutely date Appian, but he speaks of him as in the past
tense, as one speaks of an honored monarch of the past.

---

From: Rex Lycanthrosaurus <lycanthrosaurus at fastmail.fm>
Date: Fri, 25 Aug 2006 18:08:09 +0000

On Fri, 25 Aug 2006 09:38:09 -0700, "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes"
> tense, as one speaks of an honored monarch of the past.

The old autarch was honey steward before his elevation to the Phoenix
Throne. ("Paeon, who trained me, who was honey-steward fifty years gone
by.")

The Latin word for bee is "apis."

The dots seem connectable.

And while ostensibly a similar case could be made for at least one other
saintly exemplar (Melito), when Severian, after being rescued on the
battlefield of Orithyia by the mammoth-riding androgyne, sees "a man
with the horns and muzzled face of a bull," this may be (as Borski
notes) an attempt by Wolfe to further link the old autarch with the
Egyptian ox-god, Apis. 

-- 
  Rex Lycanthrosaurus
  lycanthrosaurus at fastmail.fm

-- 
http://www.fastmail.fm - A no graphics, no pop-ups email service

---

From: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <danldo at gmail.com>
Date: Fri, 25 Aug 2006 19:24:43 +0000

---

From: Jeff Wilson <jwilson at io.com>
Date: Fri, 25 Aug 2006 19:59:57 +0000

> appearing, here, there....everywhere, in different sizes and appearances.

I think you're going way too far here. We see *one* ET who shapeshifts, 
and that only in the afterthought book, URTH, while others demonstrate 
their reliance on mechanical disguises.

  Greek therion (??????) means wild animal or beast, while the Latinised 
megatherium has been used to as the name for prehistoric mamals whose 
fossils indicate much larger stature than their historical counterparts, 
including a giant sloth that doubtless serves as the inspiration for 
that seen at the Well. The other existing connation of megatherian would 
be "great beast" as Aleister Crowley styled himself. Thus, _Lives of the 
Seventeen Megatherians_ would make sense only as a compilation of 
biographies of those most notoriously presented as black magicians, as 
perhaps including those who went on to use medical science in the guise 
of thaumaturgy to give themselves superior capacities, like Baldanders 
and perhaps Abaia or Erebus.