Subject: (urth) Megatherian family tree

From: b sharp <bsharporflat at hotmail.com>
Date: Tue, 15 Aug 2006 18:29:05 +0000

Maybe that's a poor choice of name for this post since it is pretty hard to 
draw a family tree for very vaguely described creatures who can reproduce 
sexually or asexually.  I mention sexual reproduction because the undines 
(in Severian's dream) say they are waiting to grow big enough to mate with 
Abaia.

I mention asexual reproduction because I roundly think Urth of the New Sun 
was meant to flesh out the underdeveloped ideas in BotNS more than introduce 
new ideas. So when Tzadkiel is shown to break off a finger which reshapes 
itself into a human sized being, I think we are meant to understand the same 
thing has happened on Urth with large non-human creatures.  Since we are 
also shown a tinker-bell sized Tzadkiel, I wonder if the giant Tzadkiels 
(male and female) that Severian meets are actually the largest versions.  
How big was the Tzadkiel Severian sees floating in space in the Autarch's 
mirror book?  Mountain sized? Planet sized? Stellar sized?

Anyway, from the skewed Theseus story,  Severian recognizes the Naviscaput, 
with its ship-headed giant, as referring to Abaia.  We do hear that this 
giant ogre raped a female being named Night.  Elsewhere we find that Night 
is represented as pale skinned with a dark sable cloak. Also we are told 
that she later forgave the rape or decided it wasn't such a bad thing.  I 
think Night is considered to be sister to the Naviscaput but I can't find 
that reference again.

We aren't told much about Erebus, the other megatherian most often mentioned 
in the text after Abaia.  Erebus was supposed to have had some sort of tiff 
with Abaia and retreated to the Antarctic ice with a retinue of pale 
warriors.  Later there was a reconciliation and joining of forces of Abaia 
and Erebus. I think this reconcilliation is represented by the the strange 
sight reported by Maxellindis' Uncle:  a huge ship on Gyoll carrying a crew 
of giant pale warriors.

The pale skinned warriors and reconciliation make me think that Erebus 
(despite Erebus being referred to as "he" a couple times) is the Night found 
in the Naviscaput story.  The fact that Erebus is the Greek god of Darkness 
could be seen as supporting evidence.  I think, somehow from these two, 
Erebus and Abaia, other pagan god/monster/megatherian creatures were 
produced on Urth such as Arioch, Scylla, Amphisboena, Ourobouros and also 
the more human proportioned creatures like Juturna and Typhon and (I think) 
Father Inire.

Aside from knowing he is a cacogen, I throw Father Inire in the mix because 
in the Naviscaput story we find a watery labyrinthine entranceway to his 
lair.  Labyrinths always suggest Father Inire to me so I see a connection 
between him and Abaia.  And through Father Inire I see the connection 
between Severian's family tree and the family of these alien, incestuous 
pagan god/megatherian creatures.

That's it for my theory on Severian's family! I hope it was interesting in 
at least some way.

-bsharp